The room contains a huge tub that is large enough that it could easily fit four people in it. There is a beautiful customized shower made from grey and black river stones. The inside includes three different showerheads.
“Now this is a bathroom.” I mutter to myself and he laughs. His hands are at my waist, his front is pressed tightly to my back and his head rests on my right shoulder, perfect. I feel safe instead of uncomfortable. Having worked at Shine, being close to men in situations I didn’t control made me uneasy, yet with Parker it was the opposite.
Relaxing in Parker’s arms shouldn't feel this way, but it just does. I knew the moment that I walked out of Parker’s home, I’d pick everything apart and compare how I should feel with what I actually feel.. It was going to confuse me. Scare the hell out of me. But at that moment, standing in some hot strangers arms, in the middle of the most beautiful bathroom I had ever been in, I’d never felt as safe as I did. I was going to let myself stay in the happy bubble I was in for as long as I could.
“I should start dinner.” His husky voice close to my ear.
He nuzzles my neck and I swallow hard. Leaving caution aside, I tilt my head slightly and give him space. I hear him groan slightly and my heart’s racing and my skin is warm. My whole body is warm. He’s hot and sexy, and damn it if I didn’t want something, anything. My mind is floating. His skin is soft with a hint of stubble, which only heightens my senses when his face touches mine.
“Park…” I’m not even able to finish talking because the feel of his mouth on my neck makes me weak at the knees. Did I want this?
Hell, yes!
I hadn’t gotten off in who knows how long. Two years without having sex, three before that. It was time. His left hand moves to the outside of my hip, his grip strong but gentle and without thinking I lean my body back into him even closer, and I bump into something that makes me freaking, pleasantly surprised. A hard substantially big bulge at his crotch. I can’t help the whimper that escapes my lips. WHIMPER! God, I wasn’t sure what it was about Parker Stone that brought this out of me.
“You taste good, Angel.” His voice is deep and feels good against the sensitive skin at my neck. I can hardly breathe, much less respond. All I can do is move my head to give him more access to my neck. I feel his tongue lick me and I need more.
“Shit,” he growls as he moves his mouth from my neck, moving his lips closer to the side of my face and grazing the skin right below the side of my forehead, “I’m so sorry, angel.”
“For what?” I ask, trying not to think about how much I enjoy when he calls me angel. Why does he call me that? He stays silent, so I push my hands going over his hands that are still at my hips.
“What are you sorry about?” I ask bravely.
“I shouldn’t have…”
“Was I complaining?” I ask as he takes a visible deep breath after the words escape my mouth interrupting him.
“We should slow it down a little. I don’t want you to feel like this is why I brought you here.” Feeling a tiny bit brazen I lean my body flush against his.
“What if that’s what I came here for?” God I feel like a slut, but his teasing got to me. Finding the courage, I turn to face him, my hands on his chest surprised at the hardness of the solid muscles beneath them. I tilt my face up to really look at him.
“Angel…”
“The teasing and stuff, is this a game? I just want to be clear.” I bravely ask.
“First, I’m sorry about that. You smell so damn good, breathing you in, I couldn’t resist tasting your skin. I’m not playing games here. I promise.” he answers sincerely and I believe him.
“Why me?” I frown, feeling confused and seriously turned on at the same time.
“What do you mean?”
“Why come to the bakery and not approach me before? Why me?”
“Going to the store, honestly I chickened out. I didn’t want to interrupt whatever you were working on. As for why you, I saw you at that wedding and I haven't been able to stop thinking about you.”
“Oh.” I whisper, my heart is beating like a drum. The honest way he answers. No hesitation or doubt. It makes me want to believe him. Believe in him.
He smiles, one of his hands leaving my hip, intertwining with my fingers.
“Let me feed you.”
“Okay.” I agree.
Parker
I’ve lost my ever loving mind.
I don’t know what it is about her, but I have no control over my body with her around me. My dick is so hard it hurts. I hadn’t got that hard that fast since I was sixteen and Mitsy Moreno whispered she wanted to suck my cock, granted it was my first blowjob, but I’m not sixteen anymore. I can’t believe I kissed her neck the way I did. I haven’t even kissed her yet, and there I’d been in the bathroom about to take her clothes off, and I am almost sure that she would have let me.
That surprised me.
She didn’t seem like the type.
Whatever the hell I was feeling, she had to be feeling too.
“Hey, anything I can help with?” She asks and I immediately try to think about baseball statistics to get my body to calm down.
“How about you sit here and talk to me?” I say grinning at her as I start to take stuff out of the fridge.
“Are you sure? I don’t mind helping.” She asks and I shake my head.
“Positive. Want something to drink? Wine, water, soda, or beer?” I ask her
“I’ll have a beer,” she says, surprising me. I would have bet money she’d be a wine girl. I like that she keeps surprising me.
Handing her a Sam Adams, I take in the sight of her. She looks slightly nervous yet comfortable in my kitchen. I enjoy how it felt to have her in my space, in my home. Not being able to resist I walk over to her, leading her to the counter I’m working near. Without a second thought, I lift her up to sit next to me. I hear her gasp of surprise and a giggle escaping her lips. I love the sound.
“So what are you making?” she asks.
“Fajitas sound okay?”
“Awesome.”
“Good. It’s one of my specialties.” I tell her grinning, as I start to set the bright red bell peppers onto the cutting board.
“So you cook?”
“Surprised again, Miss Del Rio?” I ask raising an eyebrow and she smiles shaking her head, then taking a sip of her beer.
“Slightly.”
“My mom taught all of us to cook. I was just the one out of her kids who was actually good at it.”
“You enjoy it.” she states, and I look up from chopping.
“Yeah, I do. After high school I was seriously tempted to head to culinary school.”
“What happened?”
“Life,” I answer trying not to sound bitter. “I went to business school instead. Comes out, I’m a savant at making wise investments. Now I cook for fun.”
“And make awesome kitchen tables.” I laugh at her comment as I chop the bright green pepper.
“And I made the bed in my room.” I say stealing a glance at her, taking in the slight blush in her cheeks. I had noticed the way she had looked at my bed. Remembering it and knowing I have her so close, my body starts to react.
“So what do you do? For a living I mean?” she asks.
“Private investments mostly,” I answer vaguely.
“You said movies.”
“Yeah, I like to mostly work as a silent investor… but lately the guys I’ve been working with want me to be more involved.”
“Cool.”
“Pretty much. So … Jake?” I ask placing the knife down and picking up my own beer.
“Yeah?”
“So you two are old college buddies?” I ask as I go to get a pan from one of the cabinets and set it on top of the stove top. I lean on the center island so that I am standing in front of her.
“No... We were involved,” looking slightly uncomfortable, she takes a long swig of her beer, she looks at me, her eyes wide and a warm.
“I thought we were.” Shit, he had obviously screwed her over too.
Liz
His face serious, but calm I keep talking.
“We were inseparable the first year.” I admitted not knowing why, “Then he got hurt, lost his baseball scholarship, and I lost my funding due to budget cuts. We were so serious. You know in that young and stupid kind of way. I think for me I was desperate to have someone of my own, if that makes any sense? Anyhow, thinking love lasts forever, I offered to help him out. To work to pay for him to finish school and then he’d help me finish mine. We were a team, or at least I thought we were. After that, things got weird and overwhelming.” I glance at him, his back is against the counter, his gorgeous face is serious and completely paying attention as he holds on tightly to the glass beer bottle.
“Anyhow, he got through grad school and was offered the job in London.”
“You didn’t go with him.” His eyebrows bunch slightly. There was something working behind his eyes, but I couldn’t make it out.
“No… I didn’t.” My voice is soft, willing myself not to look away.
“Why not?”
“Oh boy, that’s a long story.”
“I have time.” Obviously he was not about to let the subject go.
“What do you want to know?”
“Everything,” he says quickly, giving me a small smile, seriously, “Anything you want to tell me.”
Anything you want to tell me.
Shit. I liked that answer. I liked it a lot. That overwhelming urge to spill my guts to him comes over me again.
Just get through it quick...like ripping off a Band-Aid.
“Are you sure? It’s not a good story.”
“If it was, you wouldn’t be here.” I nod smiling at his logic.
“Things were hard. Working crazy hours, two - three jobs, and side jobs, anything I could get my hands on. He moved in with me. I thought we were okay. I mean it wasn’t perfect but it worked, or at least I thought it did. Looking back there were signs everywhere that at the moment you don’t see. He was someone stable in my life.
“I clung to him and him to me. Everything was set for us to go, to start this new life. We were sure things would be easier for us there. I had quit my jobs, told the landlord I was moving out everything was set. Literally, I mean it. Airline tickets purchased, goodbyes to friends and coworkers, the whole thing.”
“What happened?”
“Three days before we were supposed to get on a plane, he was supposed to be working his last shift at a bar he worked part-time at. I went shopping for him. I wanted to surprise him with a nice coat.” my voice goes soft at the memory of going into store after store in the summer to find a winter coat. How determined I was. Without realizing I was saying it out loud, “I finally found it. It was way too expensive, but freaking perfect. I got out of the store thinking about how much he was going to love it and I looked up across the way and there he was. I was about to cross the street when I realized he was standing next to a blonde, and they were closer than you normally would stand to someone. He pulled her close and suddenly his tongue was down her throat and his hand was on her ass.”
“What? How long had you two been together?” he asked sounding dumbfounded. His eyes were on me and I looked at the skillet, taking in that he had lowered the heat.
“Three years.”
“Shit.”
“Pretty much.”
“You two broke up?”
“He lied to me. The next day I kept asking him about his night and he kept lying, until I confronted him about it. In between arguing he let it slip that it wasn’t the first time he cheated. That was five years ago. I hadn’t seen him once since then. Well last night he was at Wind and tried to talk to me and he showed up at the store today. I have no idea what he wants now. I haven’t seen him since he left.”
It hits me, I would have met Parker if I had gone to London, and I wonder if my body would have reacted the way it does now. Shaking those thoughts away I kept rambling.
“Luckily, my landlord liked me and hadn’t found a new renter so I got to keep my apartment.” I say trying to lighten the mood.
“So… what was Jake doing at the bakery?” He asks and I shrug.
“I have no idea. But knowing Jake, I’ll be forced to hear about it sooner or later. When he gets a spur up his ass about something, he becomes determined. So … where did you learn to refurbish furniture?” I ask trying to divert the attention from me back to him and by the look he’s giving me, he knows it. He leans over and kisses my cheek.
“My dad.” he tells me.
He walks to the refrigerator pulling out a tray with steak and another with what looks to be sliced onions.
“That’s nice.”
“Yeah. He didn’t grow up like my mom. He didn’t have two pennies to rub together, but they made the most of it. If my mom mentioned she wanted something, he’d figure out a way to make it happen, even if he had to make it with his own two hands. He’s really creative.”
“He sounds great,” I say softly.
“So do you have any siblings?”
“Nope, just the sisters of the heart. You’ve met two of the three.” I tell him smiling.
“Lucy and …”
“Tess, is my business partner.”
“Who's the third?”
“Carrie, she’s a teacher. She’s the blonde that was with me last night”
“You guys close?”
“Extremely.”
“How did you meet?” He asks as he starts to sauté the peppers and onions.
“We used to work together.” Before he can ask more, “So what was it like to grow up in a big family like that? I can’t even imagine five kids.”
“A complete zoo!” He grins looking at me, “I’m the third oldest. My sisters, all three of them are nuts. The youngest one especially.” He chuckles and I smile.
“We all get along. More now than when we were kids. My parents try to have us all together as much as possible, but we are all scattered around in different states.”
“I always wanted a brother or sister, but after my parents died, I was glad I didn’t. Siblings always get separated in foster care…”
“You went to foster care?” he asks, his body stiff as he moves to look at me. I can feel my cheeks heat up at the fact that I shared so easily.
“My parents had no family. My mom did have a sister, but I don’t know her. She didn’t want me. I ended up in the system.” His grey eyes look torn about what to do and I found it intriguing as he decided.
Watching him lower the heat on the sautéing veggies, his body closes the space between us, his hands go to the outside of my thighs and I instinctively opened giving him room to come between them. He holds me close.
“That sucks, Angel.” He whispers, rubbing his hand on my back.
“I’m okay, it was a long time ago, Parker,” I tell him.
Why was I telling him so much? My body froze. Suddenly slightly uncomfortable at how I just seem to blurt things out around him, personal things. He steps away from me and goes back to the skillet on the stove.
As he cooks, my mind is racing. What am I doing? I told him two thirds of the sob story that was my life. There was no way he would want me here. I was broken. No one in their right mind would want me. Not really at least, not for the long haul. He hadn’t even kissed me yet and I told him way too much. I felt too vulnerable and exposed. I hopped off the counter as he cooked and backed away to the end of the island. Leaning on it and pretending not to watch him cook. He was deep in his own thoughts and clearly whatever attraction he’d initially had was dwindling away in the silence.
Nerves and panic crept up my spine in a way that I had only ever once experienced in my life. Keeping completely still watch him, he’s deep in concentration as he finishes cooking the steak. The house smells delicious, but something feels lodged i
n my throat.
It’s funny that I usually thrived on silence. Comfortable in my own thoughts, especially once I started working at Shine for Belle. But standing in a stranger’s kitchen as he cooked for me, the silence was deafening. It was too much for me.
“Should I go?” I blurt out, as he turns to look at me surprised.
“What?”
“I made things weird ...telling you too much, right? I mean, I honestly don’t go telling guys or anyone for that matter everything I told you. I don’t, I’m around you and I either clam up like I can’t find my tongue like I did at the Breast Cancer Gala when you were asking me all those questions, or have diarrhea of the mouth and spew it all out.” And you don’t seem to stop, Liz!
“I’ll call a cab.” I say walking past him into the living room to grab my purse.
“Don’t please. Look I don’t know what I did to make you freak out. I’m sorry.” he starts to say and I shake my head as I walk back, purse in hand, now standing in front of him.
“You didn’t it’s just…”
“He screwed me over, in London,” he blurts out, reaching for my hand, “That’s why we don’t get along. He screwed me over. Huge! I dropped the ball on an account and instead of having my back he stabbed it. We were pretty close, shit I thought we were best friends, but I was wrong. He was calculating and moving his way up, no matter what. I came back home. Thankfully I had been financially smart, and I made fucking great investments that paid off.” He tells me his hands now going to my waist as continues. My heart races from being so close to him.
“I'd been there for three years. He got there and it was nice having not only another American working there but someone from home you know? I knew he had left someone back home, but I swear I didn’t know all that. If I did, I would have told you. I would have never made you repeat all that.” He tells me and he sounds so sincere I know he’s being honest.
“We were roommates. Jake was my best friend there.” They’d been best friends and Jake had screwed him over. It made me sad for Parker to lose that. I knew Jake and what a good friend he could be. It also made me sad to know that the Jake I had loved would do something like that.
“Oh…”
Etched in Stone (Six Degrees Series Book 2) Page 8