Desert Angel (Family Justice Book 2)

by Suzanne Halliday

  The minute the music started up, everyone followed the Noah Protocol and paired up two-by-two around the dance floor, effectively leaving her to her lonesome, single self. She was content to hover near the back, enjoying the set of old and new rock ‘n’ roll tunes that the band played.

  They pounded out a couple of country songs, an old-school rock anthem, and a send-up of a Katie Perry song that was pure YouTube platinum on the hilarity scale. The lead singer, a goofy guy who looked like he’d be more comfortable in a Secret Service contingent than with a band on stage, yapped on about eighties rock and how that shit ruled the world and then announced they had a request. Next thing she knew, her feet were glued to the floor, and every nerve ending in her body short-circuited at the same time.

  She could name that tune in three notes.

  Oh. My. God. This wasn’t happening. Not that damn song! Had Parker done this? She’d been going out of her way all night to act like he was invisible. Was this his way of taunting her?

  And then he was there. Right behind her. She could feel him. Lord knows how long she held her breath until she let out a huff of air as a tingling danced along her spine from neck to tailbone. She was in trouble.

  He closed in, crowding her until she felt his body heat. Swallowing a lump of unwanted emotion that lodged in her throat, her eyes drifted closed before she dropped her head into her free hand—keeping a half-assed grip on the bottle of beer in the other. She didn’t want to be here with him. In the dark. While that song filled the air.

  His hand reached around and snagged the beer before fingers that no longer seemed steady let it drop to the floor. Angie didn’t care that he stole her drink and was barely aware of what he did with the bottle. Didn’t matter. All she cared about at that moment was keeping a hold on her dignity.

  Parker stepped even closer. She felt his breath on her exposed neck. Damn. Regretting having worn her hair up, she reached for the clip on top of her head and yanked it free. As the waves of brown tumbled across her shoulders, he reached for the clip and took it from her hand as well.

  The song played on, inciting a growing need to take flight and run as far as her feet would carry her. “Do you remember, Angel? This song reminds me of you, little sister.”

  An arm, big and heavy, snaked around her waist, pulling her against him. Though she tried not to, a soft whimper escaped her lips when she felt the unmistakable evidence of a serious erection pressed into the seam of her ass.

  Next thing she knew, Parker walked them several steps backward into the shadows. From the corner of her eye, she saw Alex watching them. His arm was slung across Meghan’s shoulders, and a look of concern was spreading across his face. He whispered something to his fiancée who looked over her shoulder directly at Angie and Parker. Whatever Meghan did kept Alex from interfering. So much for the protective older brother.

  Held firmly against his warm body, Parker gently swayed them back and forth in time to the music. She didn’t realize she was doing it at first, but Angie’s fingers were attempting to pry his hand from about her waist.

  “Stop trying to run,” he growled with his nose buried in her hair.

  Shit. The sensory overload she experienced as his warm breath landed close to her ear was too much. Just too damn much.

  “Let me go, Parker.”

  He stiffened slightly but didn’t release her.

  “Turn around, Angel,” he demanded in a rough voice.

  “No.” Her voice sounded braver than she felt.

  He spun her around so fast that she squeaked and collided with his hard body. Immediately struggling to free herself, Angie pushed against his chest, but he just laughed with a deep grunt and held her tighter.

  When he began singing along with his hand quite audaciously mapping out her ass, she knew she was lost.

  Her brows furrowed with an inner sadness she couldn’t speak out loud. Her heart cried, Why can’t this be real?

  Through the shadowed darkness, she felt his heated gaze on her face.

  “If I thought you really wanted me to let you go, I would.”

  She stopped squirming and clutched at his shirt instead. “I can’t do this with you,” she muttered quietly. Searching his face in the murky shadows, she didn’t know what she expected to see. “Don’t make me remember.” Her words were more plea than demand. Where had her spine gone?

  “But you do. Remember. I can see it in your eyes, Angel.”

  Oh, crap. Why did he have to call her that? Hearing it in his deep, sexy voice did things to her. Things she tried to forget.

  The swaying continued. So did his soft singing—close to her ear. Words that once upon a time had made her laugh and explode with happiness.

  Maybe the memories were a distraction or perhaps she was just a damn fool. It didn’t matter which because, in the end, she stood there, hidden in the shadows, his arms holding her tight with one banded about her torso while the other slowly pulled the hem of her dress up as she did nothing.

  He went straight for her mound, cupping with a firmness that threatened her sanity. Worst part? She involuntarily pressed against his touch, her body reacting on instinct.

  “What color are your panties?” he husked so quietly she wasn’t sure he’d actually asked.

  “P-Parker,” she stammered as his hand ground against her.

  “What color, Angel?”

  Still clutching his shirt, she whimpered quietly into his chest. “White. They’re white.”

  His response was a sexy grunt that tore through her.

  “White for my Angel.”

  Angie laid her forehead on his wide chest and shuddered.

  “I can feel your need, baby girl,” he groaned.

  She feared what was coming next as much as she yearned for it. There was no stopping him when his long, clever fingers slid into her panties and went straight for her femininity.

  Finding her wet and willing, he pushed two fingers inside and went deep. An earthy growl rumbled in his throat that she felt on the cheek still pressed to his chest.

  “Every man in this place has his eyes on you.”

  Why did he sound so angry? Unf. She couldn’t process what was happening. In seconds, she was trembling all over as he massaged her aching depths with those damn, wicked fingers.

  “Don’t even try to pretend this is for anyone else but me.”

  Pretend what exactly, she wondered. That ship sailed the minute she saw him again and her body was rather recklessly proving the point.

  Knowing exactly how to touch her in a way that wiped out any resistance, Angie moaned huskily as his fingers demanded and she not only yielded but drenched his hand with a release of wet heat. Oh, god. She was going to lose control if he kept it up and what exactly would that say about her?

  “P-parker, nooo,” she stammered desperately, fighting to hold it together, but her plea came too late. She however, did not. Come too late, that is.

  A climax burst to life so swiftly and so violently that she nearly collapsed as shock waves ripped through her. Every muscle in her quaking body contracted in a savage release. The arm around her waist tightened until it became hard to take a complete breath. How she didn’t scream when she came was a mystery for the ages.

  As the fierce pulses eased, he stayed absolutely still but didn’t take his fingers from inside her, the devil. Then, sinking deep and rotating, he slowly pulled them out, groaning as the proof of her passion covered his hand.

  Shocked by how quickly she’d fallen apart, Angie struggled to recover and wasn’t thinking when he roughly demanded, “Open your mouth.”

  Reacting on instinct to his command, she did, belatedly realizing what a mistake that was when he put those same fingers, the ones that had been inside her, into her mouth.

  He was breathing heavily. So was she. Tasting her desire coating his fingers was her undoing and without thinking or picking apart why, she eagerly sucked, swirling her tongue and swallowing with a low moan.

  When she had ne
arly scraped the skin from his fingers, he pulled them out and grabbed her chin.

  She had less than a heartbeat to prepare for the ferocious way he kissed her. There was absolutely nothing gentle about his ravishment of her mouth. It was blatant, possessive, demanding, and terrifyingly primitive.

  He pulled back slightly, her chin still in his grip and growled, “I taste how much you want me so don’t fucking pretend otherwise.”

  She started to say something, but he cut her off. “What? What bullshit are you going to throw out?”

  Angie pounded on his chest but no words came.

  “You can’t run from me, Angel. I remember how that virgin pussy tasted. You didn’t just come for some fucking dweeb at the bar. What you sucked off my fingers was for me.”

  Okay. What the hell was going on here? First, he was mad because guys were looking at her. What was she supposed to do? Wear a bag over her head? Now he seemed pissed because she got off. And not only that, she didn’t really think coming as he fingered her in a public place supported his running away argument. There was no pleasing him.

  “All that’s missing is you coming on my tongue and all over my cock. Stop running, Angel. This is going to happen. Your body just proved my point.”

  Angie knew she was being an ass, especially since she’d just behaved like . . . well, she didn’t want to think what her behavior suggested and that might all be true, but there was no way she was giving him the satisfaction of thinking she’d be that easy. Or that gullible. Ever again.

  Hauling off with a mighty swing, she slapped him across the face and snarled, “Are you fucking kidding? Been there, done that, asshole.”

  The blow shocked him and when he reeled, his grip loosened as she spun on her cowgirl boots and fled.

  WELL, HE’D CERTAINLY FUCKED THAT up, Parker thought as he ran his hand across what he knew damn well was going to be a handprint on his cheek.

  Watching with a doleful expression as Angie’s tight little ass ran away from him yet again, he ignored as best he could the dark scowl directed his way from Alex who must have witnessed or at the very least heard the impressive slap.

  He. Was. An . . . idiot. What had made him say what he did? The virgin pussy comment wasn’t going to score him any points yet stupidly, though he argued and talked circles around people for a living, that was precisely what he’d said.

  Picking up the beer he’d taken from her, Parker downed the lukewarm brew in one, long slug. Would he never learn? Saying the wrong goddamn thing to that woman was something he excelled at.

  And then it all came crashing into his memory like it was yesterday.

  Washington. He was at the Department of Justice and Angie? She was a sophomore at George Washington earning a degree in International Business. Without friends and family around to muddy the waters, they’d been hanging out with Parker playing the family connection card to ensure it was a regular thing.

  That night, the one when they’d gotten shitfaced together, even though she was barely twenty and still under the legal drinking age—he’d thrown caution to the wind after an outing to a club to celebrate a big courtroom win. This damn song, the one he and Alex used to play to just fuck with her, had set the mood for everything that came after.

  They’d been their usual flirty selves—dancing, messing around playfully, with Parker singing along while Angie beamed. It was just what they did. What they’d always done.

  And as always, he had his arm around her. Sometimes the arm signaled protective older brother mode. And sometimes the arm was a blatantly possessive move intended to stake a claim. One he wasn’t entitled to but that never stopped him from doing it anyway. At the club, he’d kept an arm around her waist or across her shoulders that clearly said back the fuck off to anyone thinking they might approach her.

  Finding their way to his apartment, the flirting turned very real. He couldn’t remember how or why their conversation turned intimate, but it most certainly had. He’d been teasing her because he liked the shy blushes and the way she fidgeted whenever things got personal. Every time she squirmed, he got harder.

  By the time that night rolled around, he’d been lusting after Angelina Marquez for years—something he only managed to keep in check because of who she was. Who Alex was. And who their families were to each other.

  None of that however had played a part in what had happened. They were engaged in some half-assed truth or dare game when he’d gotten her to admit she’d never sucked a dick. He’d been ferociously pleased to learn that and turned on by her charmingly hesitant use of vulgarity. Taking things a few steps further, he’d found his opening and balls out asked her if she’d ever had her pussy licked. Shit. He could still see her squirming on his sofa, her face a deep red as he’d smirked at her discomfiture.

  “Um, no,” she’d admitted with an adorable shyness that got his dick so hard it could have cut diamonds. “Never.”

  Instead of paying attention to her body language and the way she looked away, he’d barely heard the words. “If only, if only,” he muttered silently at the memory. Jesus, he’d been stupid. For someone who was trained to study nuance from clients, witnesses, and juries—he’d completely missed what was happening right in front of him.

  He’d teased her, barking with laughter, “Are you fucking serious? What’s wrong with today’s college boys? They insane or something?” he’d scoffed.

  “Screw you, Parker.” She giggled. “Don’t embarrass me.”

  “Oh, no fucking way,” he drawled. “There’s virgin pussy in the house and I can’t let that challenge go unanswered!”

  “Stop!” she laughed as he launched himself at her, tickling until she pleaded for him to cut it out before she peed her pants.

  “Oh, Angel baby,” he growled. “On your back, honey. Let me show you how the big boys do it.”

  Her shocked reaction didn’t hide the spark of heat he saw reflected in her eyes. When whatever was left of rational thought had deserted him, Parker had been well pleased when she didn’t exactly try to slow down or stop the dangerous but oh, so sexy path they were on.

  Remembering how he’d pushed her dress up and pulled down her panties to reveal the most delicious looking mound he’d ever lay eyes on with its soft tufts of brown hair and a scent that drove him wild, he groaned aloud in the present.

  Getting her to surrender, to let him part her legs and go to town, had been quite the ordeal. But he wore her down with his fingers and his words, telling her how beautiful her pussy was and how he couldn’t wait to taste her.

  And holy shit, had he ever tasted. Actually, thinking back, a more apt word would be feast. He’d feasted on her untouched flesh—licking, sucking, and nibbling till she shook and whimpered. He’d never forget what that first orgasm tasted like.

  After breaking her down completely that night, it hadn’t taken long to get Angelina Marquez naked and in his bed. Where he’d always wanted her. Where he’d dreamed of being with her.

  But he’d been an ass when it finally happened. Wanting Angel under him while he lost himself in her body had become a way of life. One he’d been living from the moment he realized she’d gone from annoying kid to voluptuous young woman. When the time came to make her his, he’d fucked up royally.

  It wasn’t just orally where she’d been a virgin only he hadn’t been smart enough to figure that out beforehand. Her fist time had been a disaster, plain and simple. Instead of making love to her—as he’d fantasized about doing for so long it was in his damn DNA—he’d fucked her mercilessly, ramming past her maidenhead and losing himself. Totally.

  She hadn’t come. How could she? It was her first time and even after discovering she was completely naïve, he’d been too overcome with arousal to dial back his response.

  It was one of the most horrendous experiences of his life, having at long last gotten her into his bed only to behave like a dickhead college boy with no control over his cock.

  And then he’d made things worse. Instead o
f talking to her, telling her anything at all about how he felt, how much he’d always wanted her, and how special she was—he’d lost his fucking mind and said nothing. Never even acknowledged that he’d taken her virginity.

  Later, he’d been determined to make up for his brutish lovemaking but hadn’t bothered to tell her that, either. Instead, he’d set about instructing his young lover in the bedroom arts. What a fucking shithead he’d been. So much hurt and misunderstanding might have been avoided if he’d simply told her the truth. That he was probably more than a little in love with her and had been for a very long time.

  No. That would have been the sane and reasonable thing to do—but for some inexplicable reason, he’d adopted this weirdly disjointed Professor Orgasm way of dealing with things. Without ever speaking of their feelings, he set about teaching his sweet Angel how to do and most certainly enjoy things that fired up the imagination and lowered the inhibitions.

  They’d fucked like maniacs for six or seven weeks. He’d even taken her on a no-holds-barred erotic adventure when she’d had her period, filling her head with all that your body is a wonderland crap. In short—he’d been an epic tool. Looking back because, after all, hindsight was generally a perfect twenty-twenty, he could see where giving her an endless parade of orgasms meant absolutely nothing because he’d overlooked the part where he also gave her his heart. She’d had no idea and that was his damn fault.

  And then . . . well, and then the shit hit the fan in a really big way. On a break from school, she’d gone home to Arizona for some family time while Parker was embroiled in a sensitive case that required him to make a trip to Guantanamo. He was distracted, on edge, and overworked. The terrorism cases were a big fucking deal and being singled out for the prestigious assignment had made him more irritable than usual.

  Angie had been gone for about ten days and he’d been missing her like hell. As far as he was concerned, she couldn’t get back to Washington soon enough. He needed her in the worst way and not just for sex. He craved her adorable charm and that old-school ladylike way she had. She was a breath of fresh air amidst the stale, stagnant atmosphere in Washington. She was like the warm desert winds he missed—the ones that calmed the endless racket in his head.