Parker Security Complete Series

by Camilla Blake

  I froze.

  His hands were at my shirt, starting to pull it up.

  “Wait,” I said, pulling back, feeling as stunned as if someone had just flicked the lights on in a pitch-black room. The buzzy, happy feeling didn’t disappear, but it certainly abated as my old insecurities roared in. I couldn’t let him see me, not entirely.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, his eyes searching mine.

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m good. It’s just... I…”

  “Do you want me to stop?”

  “No.” I shook my head. I really didn’t want that at all. “I just... I can’t take my shirt off. I know that probably sounds really weird.”

  “Your shirt? You mean, you don’t want to take it off?”

  How was I supposed to explain this to him? Guys never seemed to have any issues with their bodies, as evidenced by all the pale, overweight, beer-belly shapes you could see at any beach, any given summer. And Cole? What did he have to be self-conscious about? He had one of those bodies—I just knew without even having to see him without clothes—that was picture-perfect. Some people could work out and be healthy and have a decent-looking body, but there were other people, genetically gifted, whose physiques were basically flawless, and they might barely even work out at all. Cole, I knew, was one of those people.

  “Stella, if this isn’t what you want to be doing right now, we can stop. I mean that.”

  There was such kindness in his voice, and his eyes were so full of concern that I actually felt tears start to well up in my eyes. No. No effing way was this happening right now. I sniffed and blinked furiously, trying to keep the tears at bay.

  “Oh, my God,” Cole said. He took my hand and led me over to the bed, where we sat down. “Stella.” He squeezed my hand gently, which he hadn’t let go of. “What is the matter? Please tell me. If you want me to leave, I will. I wasn’t trying to do anything that you didn’t want me to do, I swear. I thought... I thought that you felt the same way I did.”

  “I do!” The first tear slid out, followed in rapid succession by several more. “I’m sorry I’m crying. I can’t believe I’m crying, actually—I never cry.”

  He smiled. “Why does that not surprise me?”

  “I do feel the same way about you. And I want to do this. It’s just... okay, I’m just going to tell you! I had that accident. I’ve got some really bad scars. I haven’t let anyone see them because they’re hideous. I don’t want you to see them.” I wiped at my face with the back of my hand. Oh, God, was there snot running out of my nose?

  Still holding on to my hand, Cole stretched himself to my bedside table and grabbed a tissue, which he handed to me. “I want to see them,” he said.

  I stared at him. “Stop it. You don’t have to say that.”

  “But I mean it. I want to see them. They’re a part of you. I want to see all of you—I think you’re beautiful.”

  With his free hand, he reached up and cupped the side of my face, wiping away a tear with his thumb.

  “You are the most beautiful person I know,” he said. “Come here.” And he gently pulled me toward him and wrapped his arms around me. I leaned my head on his shoulder and he held me like that while I took slow, deep breaths, feeling my self-consciousness and anxiety begin to dissipate. I wanted to believe him.

  I lifted my head and he turned to look at me. “Okay,” I said. “I’m sorry for that brief tearful interlude. I’d like to continue where we left off.”

  “I think we were doing this,” he said, kissing my forehead. “Or maybe this.” He kissed a slow trail from my forehead clockwise down my face until our mouths found each other again, and we kissed for a while, and this time, when I felt his hands go to my shirt, I let him pull it off. I winced inwardly as I felt the first touch of his hands on the scars, but we were still kissing, and if I let myself fall into that, I could forget that the scars even existed.

  He reached around and unhooked my bra. The air was cool on my breasts, my nipples tightening under his hands. I watched him as he looked at my body, but the expression on his face didn’t change—he wanted me. He wore that expression so clearly on his face that there was no doubt in my mind. I put my hand in between his legs and felt how hard he was. He groaned as I fumbled with the button on his shorts, then the fly, and then he lifted his butt up and kicked the shorts off.

  “I don’t wear underwear,” he said. “And I want to take you away to a nudist colony, because you should be naked all the time. I can’t believe you didn’t want me to see you.”

  I took him in my hand as he kissed my neck, his hands cupping my breasts. I still had my underwear and shorts on, but I could feel how wet I was getting; it was like someone had turned on a faucet. It had been a long time since I’d last gotten laid, and I couldn’t actually ever remember wanting someone this badly. Cole pulled his own shirt off, revealing a smoothly chiseled chest, an abdomen as tight as a drum, and upper arms that were defined and supple. He undid the button on my shorts and slid them down over my hips, along with my underwear. I hadn’t done any personal landscaping down there in a while, but my slightly unruly pubic hair did not seem to bother him—he smoothed it down several times before moving his hand lower, and I spread my legs apart.

  He exhaled slowly when he felt how wet I already was. “Yeah,” he whispered, his breath warm on my ear. “You’re ready, aren’t you?”

  He slipped a finger inside of me and my whole body tightened. I squeezed him tighter, moving my hand up and down his shaft. He moved his finger slowly inside of me, and then he slipped another one in. My breath caught in my throat and I leaned my head back and groaned. I was aware of the way he watched me, and I was aware of the way he grew harder and bigger in my hand the more I groaned or cried out.

  “You don’t even know how hot you are,” he said. “I wish you could see yourself the way I see you.”

  And in a way, I could. Not that I could see myself, but I did feel beautiful then, scars and all, as I writhed around his hand, trying to get him deeper inside of me. I rocked my hips and arched my back and he’d periodically slip his fingers out and stroke me. All I wanted right then was for the part of him that I held throbbing in my hand to be inside of me. I lay back on the bed, pulling him with me.

  “Please,” I said, my voice a throaty whisper.

  “Hold on,” he said. “I’ve got a condom in my wallet.”

  He hopped up and retrieved his shorts off the floor, pulling his wallet out of the back pocket. I propped myself up on my elbows and enjoyed the view.

  “I’ll put it on you,” I said as he ripped the packaging off. He came over and stood next to the bed. I got up and sat on my knees and took the condom from him, meeting his gaze for a moment, both of us smiling. But before I put it on him, I took him in my hand again, and then slowly lowered my head and took him into my mouth. He inhaled sharply and he ran one of his hands through my hair. Blow jobs had never been one of my favorite things to do, but right now, it’s exactly what I wanted. I liked the sense of power that I had over him, and I looked up as I moved my head up and down, seeing the way he was looking down at me, his mouth slightly open, a half grimace on his face as his breath came in short little gasps. I circled the tip of him with my tongue before closing my lips around him, taking a deep breath through my nose, and then going as far down as I could. I tried to relax my throat, balling my non-dominant hand into a fist, as I had once read in a magazine article, Cosmopolitan or one of those types, in order to minimize your gag reflex. Did it actually work or was it just a bit of fictitious sex lore? I had no idea but I did it now anyway, because I wanted to give him the best head of his life. His fingers wrapped their way through my hair, pulling at my scalp. It almost hurt but didn’t. Or it did, but in a good way, the sort of way that magnified the pleasure I was feeling, accentuated it, made it more tangible. I paused when I felt him brush against the back of my throat, and he groaned loudly, his fingers entwined in my hair. I stayed like that and then swallowed, once, then twice, felt
his whole body shudder. I slowly pulled back, and he let go of my hair.

  “Whoa,” he breathed. “I was not expecting that.”

  I pinched the tip of the condom lightly and placed it over him, rolling it down slowly until it was almost at the base. Then I lay back on the bed and he crawled over me, lightly running his fingertips from my kneecap all the way up to the base of my throat. He positioned himself above me and looked right into my eyes.

  “I want to make you feel as good as you just made me feel,” he said softly, and then kissed the tip of my nose.

  “You already have,” I said, and the corners of his mouth turned up into a smile; he thought I was just saying that, but it was true—he already had. It was broad daylight and I was completely naked and unselfconscious here, lying with him. That very fact alone was more than I ever thought would happen.

  He shifted his hips back and forth and then he was pushing against me. He moved slowly as he entered me, and I took a deep breath as I felt myself stretch to accommodate him. I bit down on my lower lip, but a little whimper still escaped from my throat. He started to move as I wrapped my arms around him, scratching my fingernails down the smooth plane of his back. I could feel the way his lower back muscles contracted and relaxed as he moved, as I moved with him. He had himself propped up on his forearms, and I reached around and touched his chest, felt the gentle ridges and valleys of his muscles. The feeling was starting to swirl inside of me, right behind my pubic bone; there seemed to be a spot that, if he hit it just right, would send tremors of pleasure spilling through my cells. I closed my eyes and saw brightly colored orbs of light, translucent and beautiful, and they spritzed across my vision, moving in unison with Cole.

  “Yes, baby,” he whispered into my ear. “That’s the spot right there, isn’t it?”

  I couldn’t talk if I’d wanted to; the only sounds I seemed capable of making were little whimpers that seemed to get progressively louder the harder he thrust into me. He brushed the hair back from my face, kissed me on the mouth, the throat, each earlobe. The colors behind my eyes swirled like a kaleidoscope and my fingers dug into Cole’s back. The sensation inside me was building to epic proportion; it felt like I simply wouldn’t be able to contain it, that the only way to keep it from obliterating me was to scream, which I did, but tried to muffle it by clamping my mouth down on his shoulder. It felt as if something deep within me exploded outward; for Cole, it was like the opposite, and we both gripped each other and panted, those deliciously pleasurable feelings pinging from the top of my head to the tips of my toes.

  Cole took a deep, ragged breath and then slowly rolled off of me. He held on to my hand as we lay there next to each other.

  “There you have it,” Cole said, turning his head a little to look at me. “Best day ever.”

  I draped my arm over his torso and snuggled against him. “I think you might be right about that,” I murmured, my eyes heavy. The only thing that could make this day any better would be to slip into a glorious postcoital nap… then maybe wake up and do it all over again.

  Chapter 17

  Cole

  We must’ve fallen asleep, because the next thing I knew, a woman’s voice was shrieking in my ear. It wasn’t a dream—I bolted upright, the sheet sliding down, and it wasn’t that a woman was shrieking right by my ear; she was shrieking so loudly at the foot of the bed, it just sounded as if it were right by my ear.

  My poor, sleep-addled brain felt momentarily scrambled as I tried to deduce what was happening: Vivian was standing at the end of the bed, yelling her head off. I was in the bed. Not just that—I was in the bed next to Stella, and from what I could tell, we were both naked.

  And then of course it all came flooding back. All good memories except for the fact that Stella’s mom was here, still in her tennis outfit. What was she yelling?

  “Get out!”

  Stella sat up, rubbing her eyes. “Oh,” she said. “I didn’t think you’d be back so soon.”

  “Uh... I... um…” I glanced over the side of the bed. My clothes, unfortunately, were in a heap closer to Vivian than to me. There was no way I could retrieve them without her seeing... well... all of me.

  “You better get the hell out of my house right now or I’m going to—”

  “Mom, stop!” Stella shouted. “You’re being completely—”

  “Stella—shut up.”

  “Okay, okay,” I said, holding my hands up. “I’ll leave. I just... I need to get my clothes. And they’re over there. Just... let me get them and then I’ll leave.”

  Vivian’s eyes flashed angrily as she looked at me and then down at the pile of my clothes.

  “You should be ashamed of yourself,” she said, but she was looking at Stella when she said it. She leaned down and picked up my clothes. I expected her to hurl them at me, but instead, she marched over to the window, opened it, and threw them out.

  “Mom!” Stella exclaimed.

  Vivian ignored her as she slammed the window shut. “Now get out!” she screamed. “Or I’m calling the police and telling them you just sexually assaulted my daughter.”

  “Mom! I’ll tell them that you’re lying! This wasn’t Cole’s fault. We both—”

  “I don’t want to hear another word from you. Not another word. We’ll talk later, Stella. As for you…” Her gaze landed back on me. “Get the hell out of my house—now!”

  She wasn’t going to leave, which meant I was going to have to get up in front of her. And now my clothes were outside. She’d thrown them out the front window, so they were on the sidewalk, at least, not in the backyard, but still.

  I glanced down at the sheet. Stella nodded. “Take it,” she said.

  I pulled the sheet as I stood up, wrapping it around me toga-style. I was having a hard time processing everything that was happening—I’d just woken up from perhaps the best nap of my life to this—my clothes thrown out the window, and the only way to get them involving hobbling along wrapped in this sheet.

  “I’m really sorry,” I said to Vivian as I slunk out of the room. I half-expected her to whack me as I went by, but she just gave me this icy, venomous stare. I glanced back at Stella before I left the room, feeling bad for leaving her there, but what other option did I have? I’m sorry, I mouthed to Stella.

  I hurried down the hallway to the staircase, gathering the sheet around me so I wouldn’t trip and fall down the stairs. Halfway down, I saw Gareth, standing there in the foyer, arms crossed. If he was surprised to see someone fleeing down the stairs wearing nothing but a sheet, he hid it well.

  “That’s not the most becoming look on you,” he said.

  “My... my clothes are out there.” I pointed to the front door. “I’m leaving.”

  “You can just leave the sheet inside the gate. We’ll make sure to sanitize it.”

  “Um, okay. Sure.” Gareth’s eyes followed me as I hurried out the door, down the brick steps, and through the wrought-iron gate. Luckily, my clothes were still there, in a sad little heap on the sidewalk. It was something of a juggling act to get back into my shorts without flashing the whole neighborhood a nice view of my ass. I managed, though, and then I pulled my shirt on, followed by socks and shoes. That left me standing there with the sheet, but the gate was locked, so I tossed it over the top. It was only then I realized that my bike was still inside.

  There was no way I was going to get it right now, so I walked. I walked quickly, my head down, trying not to think about anything—but how was I not supposed to think about anything, considering everything that had just happened? I pulled out my phone and texted Stella.

  Are you okay? I’m really sorry.

  I reread the message after I’d sent it. I didn’t want her to think that I meant I was sorry I’d slept with her, so I added: Not about being with you. Not sorry about that at all. Just sorry that it had to end the way it did.

  I slid my phone back into my pocket and kept walking.

  I walked for several hours, but eventually found
my way back to my apartment. At that point, I just didn’t know what else to do. I was closing the door behind me when my phone chimed. I pulled it out of my pocket, hoping beyond hope that it was Stella, though I knew before I looked at the screen that it wasn’t going to be.

  And I was right—it was Drew.

  I’m at the office and I need you to come down here immediately.

  I gulped. This was not going to be good.

  ***

  I had to face the music. This was what I told myself as I rode the elevator up to the office, wiping my sweaty palms on my shorts several times, hoping I didn’t look too nervous. I slunk down the hallway to Drew’s office. Fortunately, I didn’t run into anyone else. Lena was there in her office, but she was on the phone and didn’t even glance up when I went by. Drew’s door was open, but I knocked anyway.

  “Come in,” he said. He was sitting at his desk, a yellow legal pad in front of him. I couldn’t read what he had written, but the page was covered in notes. “Close the door and then have a seat.”

  I did as he said.

  “I just got off the phone with Ed Brookshire,” he said, a frown on his face. “He called me from Turkey. Do you know what I’m talking about?”

  I looked down at my hands. Of course I wanted to deny it, to play dumb, to say that I had no clue what he was talking about, but I knew the expression on my face had already given me away. I had never been very good at lying.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “He isn’t happy.”

  I looked down at my hands. “I wouldn’t expect him to be.”

  “You want to tell me your version? Because he certainly gave me an earful.”