by Lacey Baker
“Parker, please. Someone … might … see us,” she panted. She was talking, her hips were jerking with the thrust of his hand, her breasts puckering with the touch of his tongue and teeth.
“Later,” he whispered against her skin. “Say I can have you later and I’ll stop.”
Drew didn’t think she could say her name, not even if someone stood in front of her holding up flash cards and sounding it out phonetically in her ear. Her eyes rolled in the back of her head, breath coming in heavy gasps. Finally, she couldn’t stand it a moment longer.
“Yes!” she declared. “Yes!” The acclamation was for so many different reasons, but she followed with, “You can have me later.”
His hand slipped slowly from beneath the bottom of her bathing suit, but his mouth lingered seconds longer over her breasts before she lowered her head and he took her mouth. Their tongues dueled madly in a heated promise that neither of them was likely to forget.
Afterward, they’d returned to the room and to Rufus, who was none too pleased at having been left there. A quick shower and a walk around the downtown streets with Rufus, then they were back in the apartment. As much as Drew wanted to continue on, she was dead tired and Parker knew it. He ordered her to bed, then lay beside her with his laptop while she drifted off to sleep.
Now they’d just finished dinner and Drew was feeling ready for bed again. Ready for sleep, that is. Until Parker touched her again.
He slid closer to her in the booth, as if that were even possible. When they’d first been seated, he’d rearranged the place settings so they could sit side by side instead of across from each other. Now, he reached a hand over and touched her thigh. Not a caress, just sort of resting it there, but every nerve ending in Drew’s body went on instant alert.
“You want dessert?” he asked, using his free hand to finish off his glass of wine.
That’s what she needed, some wine to relax her nerves. But that was out of the question, so she’d have to keep her insatiable thoughts to a minimum.
“No, I couldn’t eat another thing.”
“I’m pretty stuffed, too,” he added, then asked, “Having fun?” He put his glass down and looked at her.
“I always wanted to see the city,” she said wistfully.
He nodded. “And now you are. What do you think?”
“I think its pace is a lot faster than Sweetland. I got an adrenaline rush just watching the people on the streets heading to work this morning. And traffic was insane.”
Parker chuckled. “If you think that was something, wait until I take you to New York.”
Drew waved a hand. “Oh no, not just yet. One big city at a time, please.” She laughed and Parker smiled.
“Okay, I can work that out.”
The waitress returned to take away their plates, and Parker requested the check.
“So do you miss it? The city, I mean. Do you miss being here?” she asked, not entirely sure she wanted the answer but willing to take the chance.
He paused, fiddling with the edges of his napkin for a few seconds.
“When I first came back to Sweetland, it was for my grandmother’s funeral. Staying there permanently never crossed my mind. Then the will was read and there were all these new responsibilities. Savannah wanted to bolt immediately. Quinn looked like he was going to explode if one more thing were added to his plate. Preston, he’s the calm one, but he even looked pressured. Raine accepted because that’s what she does. Then everyone looked to me to do what I had no idea.”
He took a deep breath, blew it out slowly.
“They wanted to know how I felt about the inn and the dogs and the town and what I planned to do, but I didn’t have an answer. Then I guess everyone did what they always do where I’m concerned: They assumed.”
“People tend to do that with everyone,” she said with a sigh of her own. She’d lowered one of her hands so that it rested on top of his on her thigh. “I think it’s instinct for them. If they don’t have the whole story, just fill in the blanks. Without even thinking about the consequences of doing such a thing.”
Parker nodded. “You’re right.”
“How did you crash your bike?”
He frowned then, and Drew wished she hadn’t asked. Of course crashing into a tree would be a bad memory, not to mention the damage to his knee. She suspected that might be the reason Parker hadn’t returned to his job yet, but she wasn’t sure. Making him admit that to her might not be such a smart idea, but suddenly, being in this city, in his city and in his space, she wanted to know as much as she could about Parker, to be as close to him as she possibly could, even if it was temporary.
“One minute I was driving, enjoying the wind against my face. The next someone was there and I was swerving and they kept coming and then…” He paused. “Then I crashed.”
Drew couldn’t believe what she’d just heard. “Are you saying someone drove you off the road?” That’s not the way she’d heard about the accident. The story around Sweetland was that the Double Trouble Cantrell had been drinking at Charlie’s and went out on his bike, losing control and then crashing into a tree.
“There was definitely somebody out there on the road with me. When the cops came they were gone and I was unconscious, but I remember. I remember the car.” He stared off as if he remembered more, but Drew was too startled and too frightened to ask.
The waitress returned and Parker paid their check. They left the restaurant and walked hand in hand along Baltimore’s famous Inner Harbor. Huge ships were docked there, and from a distance ahead a trio played music. People mulled about on this early evening, some couples holding hands like them, some families—one with a boy and a girl, the mother holding the girl’s hand and the father walking alongside the boy.
They didn’t talk anymore, just walked, enjoying the company without making it necessary to converse. By the time they arrived at his apartment building once more, Drew was once again feeling extremely tired.
“I have a couple of things to work on. I’ll stay out here and let you go on to bed,” Parker told her.
He’d been distracted since they’d spoken about his accident, and Drew wanted to kick herself for spoiling their wonderful day. Parker had demons of his own to chase. She wondered why she’d never thought that possible before. Some days she felt she was the only one with a past, the only one with problems. It was a naïve thought, of course, but Drew preferred not to think of the other people in the world struggling along in life as she was.
“Hey, Rufus, boy. Come on up here and keep me company while he’s in there,” she told the dog after she’d changed into her nightshirt.
Rufus had indeed returned to the bed with them last night, causing Parker to lose the five-dollar bet. The dog loved to get on the bed, and if Drew really let herself dream, she’d say Rufus loved to cuddle up on the bed with her. For a while she flicked the channels on the television, then she finally gave in to fatigue, still wondering what Parker was working on and if it would eventually bring him back to this big city for good.
Chapter 15
This time Drew wasn’t dreaming. She was wide awake and she was aroused. For the last five to ten minutes, she’d lain on her back wondering what she should do about it.
“I want you, too.”
Drew yelped, covering her mouth quickly to stifle the sound. What was Parker doing awake, and what did he mean by “too”?
He rolled over so that he was partially on top of her this time and slowly moved her hand from her mouth. “You must have the best and hottest dreams,” he said, looking down at her.
Then he kissed her fingers, one by one.
Drew couldn’t move. She wanted to, or at least she thought she did. But his weight was bearing down on the top half of her body, holding her still. The bottom half was tingling, her thighs squeezing tightly together.
“I was asleep and dreaming of touching you,” he whispered to her. “I dreamt of cupping your breasts and kissing your lips.”
Drew swallowed a
nd blinked, trying hard to focus on the outline of his face. It was dark in the room, except for the light that came from the window with the partially open blinds. And that light was from buildings and streetlights that never went out in the city.
“Then I heard you moan. I thought I was dreaming,” he finished.
He hadn’t been dreaming. She had moaned. She’d fallen asleep on her side, Rufus cradled in her arms. At some point Parker had come into the room and most likely put Rufus over by his spot on the floor. Then he’d climbed in beside her and Drew had cuddled against him instead. Her leg had been draped over his, her arm over his stomach, hand flat on his chest, and the feeling had been sensational. She’d moved closer to his body heat, loving the feel of taut muscle beneath her limbs, and she’d begun to dream, only the dream was more real than ever as she found herself panting and needing with urgency. That’s when she’d rolled over onto her back and struggled to pull herself together.
“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I’ll stay on my side of the bed from now on.” That was all she could manage. Embarrassment infused her cheeks just as another heat rushed to her center. She needed him to move away, to move far, far away, so she could get herself together.
But Parker did not oblige.
“I want you right where you are,” was his response as his hands framed her face. “I want you in kissing distance, touching distance, loving distance.”
The last words fell over Drew like a soft veil … white with lace edging. She closed her eyes, took a deep, come-back-to-reality breath, and whispered his name. “Parker.”
“Drew,” he replied, his face so close to hers that their lips touched as he spoke.
Damn reality! Drew thought with one last sigh. She kissed him. She pressed her lips to his, thrust her tongue deep inside his mouth, and closed her eyes to the spikes of heat soaring through her body at their contact. This was what she’d felt that night at the park, the night she’d wished on the summer’s moon without any thought to where that wish might actually take her. This was what she’d felt that night in her apartment when she’d thought she’d been dreaming but she and Parker were actually having sex again.
This time Drew didn’t want to believe the truth was a dream, didn’t want to convince herself that what they were doing was because of opportunity or because of this lust that seemed to pull at them like magnets. She wanted to believe exactly what Parker had told her, that he wanted her, too.
He moved until he was completely over her, his arousal pressing persistently into her center.
“Am I hurting you?” he asked in a breathy whisper when he’d finally managed to pull his mouth away from hers.
Only to the extent she thought she might actually die of this slow torture. “No,” she whispered, spreading her legs slightly so that he could shift and they could be joined.
But that didn’t happen. Instead he came up on his elbows and stared down at her.
“I thought you were beautiful that first night I saw you at Walt’s. You were working and moving all over the place, but every glance I caught of you left me a little more breathless than the first time.”
She didn’t know what to say. She’d noticed him that night and felt waves of nerves attacking her as he’d stayed seated, not ordering anything but not leaving.
“Then I made a point to show up wherever you were, but you never even noticed,” he told her.
She shook her head. “I noticed,” she admitted.
He smiled. “Playing hard to get, huh?”
“No,” she said with a tentative smile of her own. “Playing it safe.”
Parker sobered. “I won’t hurt you, Drew. Despite what you’ve heard about me, I could never hurt you.”
“Why me?” she asked, because that question had plagued her mind for weeks now. Why of all the women in Sweetland had Parker Cantrell set his sights on her? And why, after all these years, had the thought of being intimate with a man not scared her to the point of staying locked in her apartment, as it had so many times before?
He shook his head. “I’ve been asking myself for days now why you would get yourself tangled with a guy like me. Gossip and controversy are the last things I know you want in your life, and those two things follow me around like a dark cloud.”
“And now your dog is following me around,” she said lightly. “We’re some pair, huh?”
“Yeah.” He smiled. “We’re some pair.”
His lips found hers again in a kiss so deep, they were both out of breath when he pulled away, trailing hot, wet kisses down her neck, stopping only when he’d pushed her nightgown up and over her head and his mouth found one puckered nipple. He palmed the other mound while suckling the first, and Drew arched her back to the pleasure. Then he was kissing down her torso to her navel.
Drew was on fire—she was going to explode if release didn’t come fast. Parker, on the other hand, didn’t seem to be in any hurry. He cupped her juncture, holding his hand still there for endless seconds. Drew’s legs spread wider, her breaths coming quicker. When his fingers finally parted her nether lips, touching the warm, moistened folds, she gasped. He touched her there with his hands, with his tongue, and Drew held on to every second in her mind and in her heart.
This was beyond anything she’d ever experienced, any connection she’d ever dreamed of making with a man. Her body trembled and she arched up off the bed as he said her name softly.
In the next moments, Parker was moving. Drew heard a drawer open and close, heard the rip of the wrapper, and knew he was sheathing himself. Her fingers clenched the sheet beneath her as she waited impatiently for him to return to her. When he did, when he lifted her legs, placing an ankle onto each shoulder, and then guided his length into her one torturous inch at a time, she screamed his name.
* * *
The moment he was completely inside her, Parker knew. He knew without any doubts or recriminations that Drew was the one.
The tightness in his chest he’d felt a little each time he saw her was so intense now, for a moment he’d thought he was having a heart attack. But then she’d smile, she’d laugh while playing with Rufus, and the intensity would subside slightly. He watched her as she slept, saw the peaceful look on her face, watched the steady flow of her breathing, and remembered the sound of his baby’s heartbeat as well. His baby that she was carrying. And the clutching in his chest grew intense again.
He moved over her now, looking down into her lust filled eyes, heard the soft sound of her whispering his name. She was giving him a part of her Parker suspected Drew hadn’t willingly given before. That thought held a magnitude Parker could not match. She was giving and he was taking, but what was he offering her in return?
Parker lowered her legs from his shoulders, pulling out of her slowly. She looked up at him in question as he lay down beside her. Before she could speak, he was gathering her in his arms, hugging her so close and so tight that he feared he might crush her. With that thought, he lessened his hold, whispering to her once more, “I won’t hurt you, Drew.”
“I know you won’t, Parker,” she replied. “I know how it feels to have people misjudge you. But you’re not the man they say you are.”
Parker heard her words and cared for her even more deeply because he knew she wouldn’t say them unless she really meant them.
“The thing is, I’ve done some things in my past that I’m not proud of. I played to the reputation because it was easier that way.”
“And I packed up and left Stratford because it was easier for me, too. It seems we both like to take the easy route,” she said with a slight chuckle.
She was rubbing her hands up and down his back as they both lay on their sides, face-to-face.
“Getting involved with me might not be safe,” he admitted, although it pained him to give her the choice. What if she thought he wasn’t worth it? What if, as they’d both done in the past, she decided to take the safe route?
What she did next not only startled Parker, but ef
fectively sealed his fate.
Drew lifted a leg and wrapped it around his waist as she slid closer to him.
“I’m willing to take the chance if you are,” she whispered before her lips touched his.
Parker hesitated only a millisecond before replying, “I’m willing.”
The kiss deepened, and Parker moved until he was once again sheathed by her warmth, held steady by her tightness and her embrace. And when they both reached their release, it was with a feeling Parker had never experienced but was profoundly grateful to have shared with Drew.
* * *
“Do you want a girl or a boy?” he asked her later into the night, or earlier into the morning.
They’d showered and climbed back into bed, bodies still entwined as if they were afraid the mental connection would break without the physical.
Drew thought about his question, loving the feel of his hand over the soft curve of her belly. “I’d love a little boy to run around and play with Rufus,” she replied.
Then, when he would have asked something else, she continued, “Or a little girl Savannah could spoil and spend her time dressing up like a princess.”
To that, Parker chuckled. “And that’s precisely what Savannah would do.”
“Oh, I know, she already told me,” Drew joined in with a smile. “Savannah and Delia are firm on wanting a girl, while Heaven, Michelle, and Raine think a boy, a mini-Parker, would be sweet.”
“A mini-Parker, huh? I don’t think we want to go that far,” he said. “I’d like a daughter so I could spoil her myself and teach her about all the bad guys out there in the world.”
“But she’d be surrounded by so many good guys,” Drew countered, because she didn’t want Parker to feel that his own reputation would somehow hinder his daughter. “You and Preston. Mr. Sylvester and Quinn and Uncle Walt. All of you would protect her and teach her. She’ll probably be forty by the time she gets her first boyfriend.” She patted his chest while laughing to lighten the mood.
“Hey, I’m not going to argue that last point. Besides, I think forty’s a good solid age for her to enter the dating arena.”