Parker’s Price
Authors: Ann Bruce
She was sexy, smart…and for sale.
When Parker Quinn is forced to accept an outrageously high bid at a charity auction, she has no choice but to go out with the last man on earth she wants to spend time with. Dean Maxwell may be one of Manhattan’s most eligible bachelors, but he’s also the man who had an affair with her sister and abandoned her when she became pregnant with his child…
Dean doesn’t know why Parker hates him so much, but he’s determined to show Parker the type of man he
really
is. Whisking her away to a private island in the Bahamas for a sensual, sun-drenched week together, Dean leaves Parker’s preconceptions shattered and her desires inflamed.
But even as their passion reaches irresistible heights, Parker has a decision to make. Can she allow herself to fall for the seductive magnate, or will family secrets and a dangerous ex tear them apart?
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Ann Bruce
Standing in a room filled to capacity with the expensively dressed men and women of New York City’s social elite, Dean Maxwell was in the midst of contemplating creative ways to torture the eldest sister who’d wheedled him into attending this event when he saw
her.
Petite, dark-haired, stunning, and looking like she wanted escape as much as he did. Without a second thought, Dean made his excuses to the trio of women who’d cornered him upon his arrival and subsequent desertion by his dear sister.
He made his way across the crowded room. His target turned to talk to someone who drew her attention and Dean stopped completely for a moment, his breath trapped in his chest. The woman wasn’t wearing a bra. The calf-length, silky, black gown wrapped around that slender body plunged dramatically in the rear to the small of her back, exposing nothing but a long expanse of smooth, pale skin that he alternately wanted to touch and to cover from other male eyes at the same time.
The primitive possessiveness startled him, but he didn’t question it. When his heart started beating again, Dean had to force the white-knuckled hand gripping the champagne flute to relax before he snapped the stem in two. Five more feet and he was able to overhear the conversation between her and her apparently unwanted companion.
“No, really, I’m fine right here,” she was saying, her voice low but insistent. Dean could hear the underlying note of frustration in her cool tone.
“Babe, you’re looking flushed,” her companion countered as he snaked a hand down to her hip with ease and familiarity. Anger flickered hotly through Dean. “Let’s just step out onto the balcony for a bit. The fresh air’ll do you good. Clear your head. And we’ll be able to talk privately.”
“Ty—”
“Here’s the champagne you asked for,” Dean interjected firmly, stepping forward. She spun around and he found himself staring into eyes the color of good Scotch whisky. For the second time that night, breathing was forgotten.
Parker Quinn couldn’t look away from the intense blue eyes boring into hers. She couldn’t so much as blink, let alone do something as complicated as properly coordinate her muscles to turn away. The room and the people in it receded, leaving only the man filling her vision. She was very aware of the heavy thudding of her heart against her ribs as she searched those darkened eyes, looking for something to which she couldn’t put a name but knew existed just the same.
“Listen, buddy, this is a private conversation.”
Tyler’s irate voice broke the spell and Parker blinked. Her gaze fell on the champagne flute being held out to her. It took a moment for the gears in her brain to start revolving again. She grasped the flute gratefully and moved a step away from Tyler and a step closer to the man unexpectedly coming to her rescue.
“Thank you,” she murmured. She brought the flute to her lips and sipped, the champagne startlingly cool as it traveled down her esophagus. “I was wondering where you took off to.”
“Sorry, but I was delayed on the way back,” her rescuer murmured in return, splaying a hand across the small of her back and subtly moving her out of Tyler’s reach. Normally, she wouldn’t have allowed a total stranger such familiarity with her person, but the feel of his warm, roughened palm on her bare skin made the gears in her head slow down again as ribbons of delicious heat curled through her. His voice lowered even more, as if they were in a far more intimate setting than a room filled with a couple hundred people. “I’m back now.”
Tyler loudly and deliberately cleared his throat. Parker glanced back at him, honestly unaware that he was still standing there.
“Who’s he?” her ex-lover demanded, sounding and looking like an upset little boy. Why in the world had she gotten involved with him in the first place?
Parker took another sip of champagne as she weighed her options. “My date.”
“What?”
“I told you we were through over a month ago.”
“But you didn’t mean it,” Tyler insisted, a faint and very unbecoming whine in his voice.
Parker quelled the urge to roll her eyes. “Tyler, please.”
“And you can’t seriously want him over me!”
Parker’s response to Tyler’s outburst was smothered on her lips as they were covered by male lips that were softer than they appeared to be. And warmer. A lot warmer. More like hot. Searing, even. They gently rubbed against hers, enticing her to part her lips so the tip of his tongue could trace along the shallow edge inside her bottom lip, and all coherent thoughts dissipated and ceased.
She moaned—oh, so softly—into his mouth, her fingers clenching and unclenching on the champagne flute in her hand. She wanted to clutch at his shoulders, bury her fingers in his hair, press for something deeper, but knew she shouldn’t.
It was a second or two before Parker realized the kiss had ended. Her lashes fluttered open and glittering eyes met hers, promising things that made heat pool low in her body.
Parker sucked in a breath and focused on not allowing her knees to buckle.
“That should answer your question,” said the man still staring at her for Tyler’s benefit.
Still a little senseless from the kiss, she blinked at her former not-so-significant other, not quite sure what she could add. An angry flush stained Tyler’s boyishly handsome face. His mouth opened, then snapped shut again. He looked like he wanted to throw a world-class temper tantrum, at which, she’d learned early in their relationship, he excelled, but he seemed to think better of it and wheeled around and stomped away.
“Thank you.” She managed to sound only a tad breathless as she studied the man before her. The white knight who’d come to rescue her from Tyler wasn’t conventionally good-looking. His bold features were too rough, too unrefined. Dark blond hair, sun-darkened skin, deep-set eyes, broad cheekbones, hawkish nose, hard mouth and strong jaw. He wasn’t handsome like Tyler but, Parker thought as another wave of heat washed over her, he was more sensually appealing than her former lover could ever hope to be. And his sheer physical presence dominated all her senses and made her want to do things that were probably illegal in several states.
“My pleasure,” he murmured, his voice rumbling in her ears, sending a ribbon of heat curling through her.
She should step back now, break physical contact with this man before she gave in to her baser urges and yanked his body hard against hers and rubbed herself against him like a cat in heat. A single step back and he would drop his hand, would stop skimming the rough pad of his thumb over the hollow near the base of her spine. But she enjoyed the scorching tingles of sensation that radiated from his touch too much.
“I have to go,” she said softly, making no move to leave.
The long arm nearly encircling her waist tightened, pulling her infinitesimally closer. “Unless you want your ex to know we just pulled a fast one on him, you should stay by my side for the rest of the night.”
For the first time in a long time, she was feeling a little reckless and enjoying it more than was wise. She suggestively arched a brow. “And just how long would that be?”
His eyes darkened to midnight and the tips of his fingers dug into her back. “My butler makes excellent French toast and bacon.”
Her body temperature went up another degree. Parker took a healthy swallow of champagne, but the chilled liquid did nothing to cool her.
Masculine laughter, low and evocative, caressed her ears. “Maybe we should take a couple of steps back and introduce ourselves.” He moved back a pace, his hand sliding from the middle of her back to cup a hip. “Dean Maxwell.”
That name did what the champagne couldn’t; everything inside Parker froze even as her head cleared. For a long, drawn-out moment, nothing registered except for the heavy weight that settled in her stomach as all her muscles went rigid. Despite herself, a sharp stab of disappointment pierced her more deeply than she cared to admit.
Distance. She desperately needed distance.
With great effort, she swallowed and allowed a chill to frost her words. “Once again, thank you for your assistance with Tyler, Mr. Maxwell,” she said stiffly. “However, there are a few things that require my attention.”
Before she could step away from him, his other hand came up and encircled her upper arm, holding her in place.
“Care to tell me what just happened?” he asked in a dangerous undertone.
Parker tipped her head back and met his gaze. “I don’t get involved with men like you.” Her mouth tightened briefly. “And especially not
you
in particular.”
His hand squeezed as he pulled her in a fraction closer, his head bent down low to hers. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I don’t owe you an explanation.”
His jaw tightened, lips thinning.
“Don’t,” she warned, her voice equally low, equally dangerous. “I just got rid of one man who doesn’t understand the word
no.
I don’t intend to repeat my mistake.”
She discreetly jerked her arm from his hold, backed up two steps, then whirled on her heel and hurried away, somehow feeling very much like she was running from a predator.
She was out of sight by the time Dean recovered from her one-eighty. After fruitlessly searching for fifteen minutes for the woman who filled him with equal parts lust and frustration, Dean decided to regroup. He tracked down his sister at a table situated in front of the low stage set up in the dining area. She was alone and chatting on her cell phone. Noticing him, she ended the conversation and put the device back in her miniscule evening bag.
He pulled out the chair next to hers and sat down. “Vanessa.”
She grinned widely at him. “That was quite a show you and Parker Quinn put on out there. Very unlike your normal reserved, elusive self.” She planted an elbow on the table, rested her chin on a closed fist, and studied him with unabashed amusement dancing in her eyes. “Should I book you for an appointment?”
Parker Quinn.
He now had a name. It was the first step. Parker. He repeated the name several times silently in his head. It was unconventional, like her effect on him, and he decided it suited her. Then the rest of his sister’s words registered and he grimaced. His forty-year-old sister supported herself and her teenage daughter rather comfortably as half owner of one of the most successful event planning agencies in Manhattan. Vanessa mainly handled weddings. Since he’d turned thirty-five three years ago, his dad and sisters constantly bombarded him with the subject of marriage. After the first year, he’d learned that the best tactic was to ignore them.
“What can you tell me about her?”
The grin faltered. “What happened?”
“I introduced myself, the temperature dropped to subzero, and she couldn’t run away from me fast enough,” Dean explained, unable to keep a note of annoyance from his voice. His tone turned wry. “I get the distinct feeling she has a personal grudge against me, but I sure as hell don’t know what I did to her. I don’t remember ever meeting her—and trust me, I wouldn’t forget.”
“Wait.” Vanessa held up a hand, palm out. “You told her your name
after
you kissed her in front of God and a room full of gossipy witnesses?”
The consequences hadn’t even entered his mind. He’d been operating on pure instinct. “It’s complicated.”
“I see,” Vanessa said thoughtfully.
“What do you know about her?”
Vanessa sat back in her seat, her brow furrowed. “Not much. Just that she’s a senior editor for
Femme
and the brains behind the auction tonight.”
The magazine’s fourth annual charity event raised money for several women’s aid organizations in the city by auctioning off dates with various members of the magazine’s staff and the professional models, male and female, who posed within its pages throughout the past year. Needless to say, the event had been a stellar success since year one in terms of both media coverage and dollars raised.
“Is she on the auction block tonight?”
Vanessa shook her head. “She just organizes it. From what I gather, she doesn’t like the spotlight too much. Very much like you.” The corners of his sister’s mouth curled upward, like she was enjoying something thoroughly delicious. “Although, when you two got together, you both seemed to forget that.”
Dean shot her a look that made it clear the observation wasn’t appreciated.
She laughed, sounding a little too gleeful in his opinion, and patted his arm consolingly. “Since Parker organizes this event, every year she makes a brief speech at the end of the auction to thank the contributors. Stick around and you can corner her before she pulls another disappearing act.”
His resolve hardened. Despite what she’d said earlier, Parker Quinn
did
owe him an explanation and he was going to get it out of her one way or another. There was no way in hell he was walking away from her. A primal hunger had ripped through him at the first touch of her lips. He couldn’t imagine what it would feel like to bury himself inside her body, fill her with him—and then push until she came apart in his arms.
Parker’s skin prickled with awareness. Dean Maxwell was watching her, silently challenging her to turn around and meet his eyes. She didn’t dare, didn’t allow her eyes to stray from the auction on stage. She was a coward, but that was better than the reckless fool she’d been earlier. She’d been moments away from repeating her sister’s mistake. Cold rippled over her skin. With the buffer of distance, the full impact of what Dean Maxwell had done to her sister hit her. Parker pressed a fist to her abdomen, trying to massage away the lump lodged there.
The man used women to satisfy his sexual needs, then discarded them like yesterday’s paper. And if there were consequences, well, he always made sure to lay out the grounds rules at the start. Or so she’d heard. She wasn’t planning on giving him a chance to share his ground rules with her personally.
Two tables away, Tyler smirked at her as a tall, slim but amply endowed, platinum blonde known for her ultra-racy lingerie ads cooed God-knows-what in his ear and trailed her crimson-tipped fingers up and down the nape of his neck. Even though she knew he’d bought the woman to make her jealous, Parker fervently wished them the best. The sooner Tyler fixated on another woman, the sooner he’d stop being a nuisance to her. When they’d first met, she’d never thought he would be the obsessive type. Frankly, she hadn’t thought his attention span could last that long.