Parker's Passion (13 page)

The room eru
pted then as Kristi and Bella tromped in, laughing and chattering and stomping the sand from their shoes. When their gazes fell on Parker, the hubbub evaporated.

They stared at
him as though he were an exhibit at the zoo. He shifted from one foot to the other.

“Everyone,” Kaitlin gusted. “This is Parker.”

“This is Kristi.”

“Hi
, Parker.”

“And her sister, Bella.”

“Hey.”

An uncomfortable silence settled.

“Shall we all sit?” God bless Patrick. Kaitlin smiled at him and he winked.

Oh good. A wink was good. It meant Patrick approved.

Or at least, he didn’t disapprove.

They took their places at the table and Holt brought around more beer, though Parker declined. Once they settled in, all gazes, once more, drifted to him. His
aura pulsed. He seemed like a man awaiting execution.

“So,” Patrick said. “Parker’s a lawyer.”

“Humph.” Bella crossed her arms. “A lawyer?”

Parker nodded. “For Barstow and Rank.”

Kristi frowned. “Barstow and Rank?” She glanced at Cam. “Isn’t that the firm that represented Lane in the divorce?”

“Lane Daniels? Yes.” From the way Parker leapt on that tidbit, Kaitlin suspected he thought that was something, a way to bond with this group.
Not so much.
While the guys all nodded and murmured, the women glowered.

She set her hand on Parker’s. Laced her fingers with his. “Both Lane and
Lucy are our friends,” she said softly.

The divorce had not been amicable.

In the slightest.

Everything had gone in Lane’s favor.

And Kristi was Lucy’s best friend.

“Oh. Ah. I see. It wasn’t my case.” He didn’t say it, but Kaitlin felt his thoughts. Mentally, he added,
Thank God
.

Kristi picked at the label on her beer. “Lawyers aren’t very nice people.”

Parker flinched.

Kaitlin squeezed his hand. “Parker is nice.”

Bella squinted her eyes, as though trying to
see
this juxtaposition.

“He’s representing one of my clients at the shelter.”

Kristi nibbled her lip. “At the shelter?” Kristi had done work at Boudicca as well. She understood. Women in the shelter were there for a reason. Usually a very bad reason. She studied Parker with an assessing eye.

“Yes.” Kaitlin rubbed his arm. “
Pro bono
.” She sent him a smile. He smiled back. Neither of them cared that no one else spoke for a while. Or perhaps they were speaking. They just missed it.

“So what about
his choice in friends?” Bella said. She said it loudly enough to break through their private bubble.

“What?” Kaitlin snapped.

Bella’s eyes widened. Because Kaitlin never snapped. “Ash Bristol? The douche. Devlin Fox?”

Annoyance raged through Kaitlin’s chest. “Emily and Ash have worked things out. You know that Bella. And it’s hardly Parker’s fault that Devlin wrote a bad review of Tara’s bakery—”

Parker started. “Devlin wrote a bad review of Tara’s bakery?”

Kaitlin nodded. “Three burps.”

“Wow. That’s funny.” Parker chuckled. Actually chuckled.

Kristi
leaned in. She looked like she wanted to go on the warpath. “Why is that so funny?”

Parker shrugged. “Because he’s kind of got a crush on her.”

Holt and Bella exchanged a glance, but kept silent. They knew something. Kaitlin made a note to grill them for the goods later. But for now, all she could think about was getting Parker alone. And maybe jumping his bones.

He was still very tense, but she knew a way to relax him.

“I agree with KK,” Patrick said. “You judge a man by his actions. Not on other people’s merits.”

She shot him a triumphant smile. “Exactly. Thank you Patrick.”

“I don’t know,” Drew put in. “I think friends are a measure of the man.” He glared at Parker who, to his credit, didn’t respond. Kaitlin tightened her hold on him. Her fingers were nearly white. “You got one guy who seduces little girls—”

“Emily is hardly a little girl. She’s a grown woman,” Kaitlin lunged to her feet and snapped.

Drew stood as well. His voice rose, as though to drown her out. “One guy who destroys businesses with his bitter diatribes, and the other guy—what’s his name—with the ascot…”

“What about him?” She shouldn’t have roared, but seriously. Drew was pissing her off.

Drew’s lips flapped. “He wears a freaking ascot!” A bellow.

“Andrew Boone. Enough. Let it drop. I told you last night—”

A sudden shift in the energy to her right, an odd cool waft from Parker, stopped her reprimand mid-sentence. She turned to Parker. His eyes were locked on Drew, his face ashen.

“Parker?” she whispered. “What is it?” Though when she touched his sho
ulder, she knew.
Visions of licking flames, sensation of heat and pain. A cloak of fear.

And then, a man appeared, fighting through the mists of terror.

A hero.

Parker swallowed, a jerky undulation of his throat.
“Your name is Andrew Boone?”

“Yeah.” Drew clipped.
“What of it?”

“And you’re a firefighter?” This, he croaked.

“Yeah.”

“Were you-were you named after your father?”

Drew frowned. “Yeah.”

“Was…your father a firefighter too?”

Drew’s gaze narrowed. “Yeah.”

“In Yarrow Point?”

Intensity, in both of them, mounted. “Yes.”

Parker sucked in a deep breath.
Frenetic intensity swirled around him.

Drew’s color rose. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I…ah…” Parker’s lips worked. “Your father saved my life.” A rasp. “When I was a boy. He fought his way into our house and pulled me from the fire.”

A gasp rounded the table. Drew paled. He dropped into his seat with a thud. “No shit?”

“No shit.” Parker’s laugh was harsh, but soul deep. “I never got to thank him.”

The expression on Drew’s face was amusing. He was so clearly torn. He wanted to hate Parker, but the firefighter, and the Boone, in him would not allow it.

“Well,” he said gruffly. “I’m sure he’d be happy to meet you. Sometime.”

“I would appreciate that. What he did…what you do… I can’t imagine it.”

Drew studied him for a moment, his focus zeroing in on the burn scar visible just above the collar of Parker’s long-sleeved tee shirt. “So…you were in a fire?”

“Mmm hmm.”

“What caused it?”

Parker stilled. “It was…arson.”

“Oooh!” Drew perked up. “Arson.” He loved arson.

Kaitlin relaxed. She knew—
knew
—everything would be okay. Now that Parker and Drew had something in common, they would become fast friends. Or at least not pummel each other very often.

Everyone else stifled a sigh. Because they knew. Once Drew started talking fires, there would be no other conversations for a long, long while.

Which was just fine with Kaitlin. She linked her fingers with Parker’s and held his hand as he and Drew got acquainted.

Chapter Thirteen

They talked. They talked and talked.

And as fascinating as everyone found the conversation—or at least, Drew found it fascinating—something else bubbled in Parker’s brain.

Kaitlin’s fingers, twined in his, lit a fire in his belly
. Reminded him, it had been far too long since he’d kissed her properly. Far too long since they’d been together. He shot her a look. Quirked a brow.

Her smile
twitched. A minute twitch, but he caught it.

“Would you like to…” He glanced around the table, taking in the watching eyes. “Um… Go for a walk?”

“Oh yes,” she said. “I would love some…fresh air.”

Silence fell around the table.

“But I was just going to tell you about drafting,” Drew sputtered.

Kaitlin nodded. “I think I’d really to go for a walk
.”

“You just got back from a walk—”

“It’s such a beautiful day.”

“
But drafting is really cool. It’s a system where we can draw water from, say, the ocean, to fight fires in places that don’t have any hydrants— Hey! Where are you going?” he cried as Kaitlin and Parker stood.

“We’ll be back. You can tell us then.”

“But…”Drew leaped to his feet. 

Holt took hold of his shirt and yanked him back down. “Tell
us
. I am enthralled.”

“But…”

“Don’t be gone long,” Patrick warned. And it was a warning. “We’re all going to Darby’s later for dinner. I expect to see you there.”

Kaitlin blew out a sigh, but nodded. “Okay, dad,” she muttered and Parker chuckled.

Because, yeah, he’d been thinking the same thing. And also, he was going to get her on her own.
Finally.

The walk over to Ash’s house didn’t take long at all, because they almost ran. He grabbed her once they were inside the door and tugged her against him and kissed her. “God, Kaitlin,” he growled when they came up for air. “I’ve been needing this.”

She yanked on his ears—he loved when she did that. “Me too.”

Her mouth met his and she consumed him with a fervor that matched his own. His passion rose. With a groan, he pressed her against the wall and cupped her breast. She shivered, arched into his caress.

“Parker.” A whisper.

“This way.” Without disentangling, he walked her the short way down the hall to the one room on the ground floor. Relief flooded him; thank God he’d dropped his stuff in that room. He didn’t think he could make it upstairs. Or downstairs. Or anywhere but here. And the condoms were in his suitcase.

Still kissing her, he sat her on the bed and undid her blouse. Once it was open, he took her breasts into his hands. Her nipples, hard points, burned into his palms. The breath locked in his lungs. “Kaitlin.” He fumbled with the hook of her bra. She pushed him away and did it herself, ripping off her shirt at the same time. When she stood to remove her jeans, he dove for his suitcase, and pulled out a handful of condoms and dropped them on the bedside table, before kicking off his own jeans
and tugging down his briefs. His shirt, he left on, as he always did. And then he joined her on the bed, walking toward her on his knees.

She smiled at him, a glorious invitation, and invocation, and his heart swelled.

God, she was beautiful.

His cock, already plenty swollen, thank you very much, throbbed.

He threaded his fingers through her hair and held her still as he kissed her again. “Baby, I’ve missed this.”

“Me too.” She ran her hands over his chest, his shoulders, his arms, his hips. They skimmed down over his thighs. To his astonishment, she grabbed his butt. Unbidden, a laugh escaped.

“You’re pretty anxious,” he teased.

“I am. It’s been almost three days.”

Three days. Far too long.

He tipped her back onto the pillows and settled over her, devouring her in an impassioned frenzy, nibbling at her cheek, her neck, her earlobe. She tasted wonderful. She smelled glorious.

“Hurry,” she muttered, reaching for his cock and guiding him between her legs.

“You’re not ready,” he protested. “Besides, I want to taste you.”

“Later,” she said, squeezing him. “Taste me later. Right now I want you in.”

A blazing cloud engulfed his sanity. Fortunately, there was a smidgen of sanity left, or he might have plowed into her
, right then and there. “
I’m
not ready.”

“You’re ready.” She licked her lips as she stroked his aching length.

He laughed and pulled away, but only to reach for one of the condoms. He’d made a vow to himself to always use one and he’d never broken it. And he never would. He ripped it open and yanked it on.

She wiggled her hips. “Hurry.”

“I’m hurrying,” he told her and then growled in his throat as the condom ripped at the intensity of his zeal. “Shit.” He whipped it off and tried again, this time being more careful.

“Hurry,” she pouted.

He loved her pout, but he did hurry.

Excitement boiled within him. Excitement and anticipation and perhaps a touch of panic. Need rode him hard.

Still, when he settled down beside her, he took a moment to stroke her, to check. To make sure she was—

Fuck.

She was ready. Ready and wet and…hot.

He groaned when he eased his fingers inside and she bathed them.

“God, Kaitlin.”

“Please,” she
murmured, staring up at him with those doe-like eyes wide, and limned with tears. “Do it. Make love to me now. I need you.”

He couldn’t not.

Easing over her, he spread her legs even more with his knees, and pressed in. She closed around him. Shivers raked his skin. He shuddered. “Oh, baby.”

“Yes,” she groaned.

He felt the rumble to his balls.

“I’ll try to go slow…” he said. “But I have a powerful need.”

She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him down. “I have a powerful need too, Parker,” she whispered. “I need you to…fuck me. Hard.”

Fuck
.
That word, from her lips, undid him.

He went wild. He fucked her. Hard.

She wailed at the first thrust, arching up into him and clenching him in an excruciating grip. He sucked in a breath and withdrew quickly, slamming into her again.

“Yes. Yes.” She looped her legs around his and used him as leverage, lunging up even as he took her
again and again.

He wasn’t going to last. But then, neither was she. He could already see the signs of her coming orgasm. Her parted lips, the glazed look in her eyes, the huffing breaths. The increased frenzy of her lurching hips.

Heat coiled at the base of his balls sending delirious shards up into his belly. His cock tightened. His balls shrank to little nuts. It was coming. He was coming. It was…

She seized.

Threw back her head and opened her mouth and cried out, though it was without sound. Her body dissolved from a taut, hard tension, to a series of agonizing ripples and quakes.

Her manic clasp did him in. Delight and agony warred within him as he exploded, imploded, released in a flood of
hot and blinding joy.

A
great, delicious haze engulfed him. His heart thudded in his chest. His breath came out in ragged pants. He trembled as tremor after tremor walked through him.

Bliss.

Absolute and complete.

The tendrils of pleasure still clung
as he eased out and moved to her side, then pulled her into his arms and kissed her. Her mouth was slack, her body, limp. They recovered together, gazing into each other’s eyes.

“Parker
?” She sighed.

“Yes, Kaitlin?”

“I love you.”

His heart froze.

Nothing had prepared him for this. For this new rising bliss. This raging sear of gratitude. The sense of belonging. A potent…terror. All far too new to him. Too raw.

Nothing prepared him at all.

Other than staring at her, he didn’t respond, but Kaitlin didn’t mind. She didn’t expect him to respond and she didn’t require it.

She’d needed to say it.

And she felt better for it.

They were words she’d never said before, for an emotion she’d never experienced. And somehow, letting the words pass her lips, liberated her. She grinned at him and sprang from the bed, collecting her clothes. “We should probably get ready to go.”

“Go?” He gaped at her as though in a daze.

She smacked him with her bra. “Dinner? At Darby’s? Everyone will be waiting.”

He flinched. “I completely forgot.”

“Understandable,” she said, tugging on her bra, her shirt and her jeans. “You were a little distracted, after all.”

It was a relief to see him smile. See his
colors lighten.

It had been a risk, sharing her feelings with him. It filled her heart with
elation that she did not sense a withdrawal as a result of it. That would have been devastating.

After they dressed, t
hey linked hands and made their way into town along the little path in the woods. Kaitlin loved this time of day, especially in the summer. The sun hung low in the sky and hit the earth at an angle, sending dazzling shafts through the canopy. The air was cool and the scent of pines and loam swirled around them.

“Beautiful,” she whispered, gazing up through the lacy leaves.

“Yes,” he said. And then he tugged her into his arms and kissed her.

It wasn’t a declaration. But in a way, it was.

Happiness cascaded through her in delicious rivulets.

“We should go,” she murmured against his lips.

He lifted his head. “Kaitlin?”

“Yes
, Parker?”

“About what you said…”

She cupped his cheek. Thumbed the dent on his chin. “You don’t have to say anything.”

“I know.
But I just want you to understand—”

“I do.”

“You can’t.”

“I do understand.”

His brow wrinkled. “Kaitlin—”

“Well
hoo-de-doo-dah
. Is this what the kids are calling
walks
nowadays?” Drew’s voice, a little sharp, cut through the moment. Kaitlin sprang from Parker’s arms and whirled to see everyone coming down the path.

She didn’t growl at them for their terrible timing, but just barely. “Well, hey there. We were just heading to the bar ourselves.”

“Were you?” Drew’s brows lowered.

Kaitlin frowned at him. And then, deliberately, she smiled at everyone else, hooked her arm in Parker
’s and together, they resumed the walk to the bar, chatting and laughing. Though she noticed Drew whacked at a couple of ferns as he passed.

Darby’s was busy on a summer evening, so they had to wait for a table for
eight, but not long. Charmaine pulled three tables together, wiped them down and handed them their menus with a smile.

“I don’t know why she doesn’t just bring us our food,” Cam grunted. “We always get the same thing.”

Kristi chuckled. “Maybe we should all order something completely different…just to throw her off.”

“That would be cruel,”
Bella said with a grin. “We totally should.
Charmaine brought them all water and—without asking—a pitcher of beer and a tray full of glasses.

Holt shot her a devastating grin. It seemed to stall her mid-movement. “You must have read my mind, darling,” he purred.

Drew barked a laugh. “She doesn’t have to be psychic to know we like beer. We come here every weekend.”

“Not every weekend.”

“Practically every weekend.”

“Right.” Charmaine wiped her hands on her Darby’s Darlings apron and flipped open a pad. “Are you ready to order?”

Drew tipped his head to the side. “Don’t you
know
what we want?”

Her smile was cheeky. She went around the table pointing at each one of them in turn, saying, “Double bacon cheeseburger with fries, Double bacon cheeseburger with onion rings,
steak medium well no fries, vegan patty, fish and chips, cobb salad with extra avocado and…” She stalled when she came to Parker. “Burger and fries?”

Laughter rounded the table.

“Damn, she is psychic,” Drew crowed.

Charmaine winked at him. “I’ll be right back with your shot of Jack.” And then she flounced away, leaving Drew with his mouth agape.

“How did she know I wanted a shot of Jack?” he sputtered.

Patrick chuckled. “I guess she
really is psychic.”