Parker’s Price (12 page)

“Say it,” he demanded, his breath hot against the skin of her neck.

“Yes.”

“More.”

“You,” she gasped breathlessly. “I…I was dreaming of you.”

He wedged an arm underneath her body and curled it around her waist. He skimmed her abdomen, then back up to fondle her breasts again. Her hand found his thigh and ran up and down it. He positioned himself at the entrance to her body, pressed against it. His hands went to her hips and lifted them. He pushed himself inside her from behind, slowly stretching her. It was too slow. She needed faster, harder. When she tried to move, to force him to her will, he only laughed, the sound harsh.

After an eternity, he was finally inside her fully, a searing, throbbing presence that filled her completely. She squeezed her eyes shut, savoring the sensation. Then he moved, working back and forth, pumping so slowly she thought she would be driven insane. She raked her short nails up his thigh. With a rough sound, Dean dropped his head to her shoulder, letting her feel his teeth, and thrust hard.

Parker cried out. He bucked wildly against her, driving up inside her over and over again. She came hard, her flesh exploding as he continued to take from her, each thrust jarring her body. He rammed inside her one last time, called out her name and held her trembling body tightly to his as he peaked, his own body going rigid, then shuddering.

Saturday morning dawned bright and early. Candy was more civil to her, and Parker didn’t know if it was simply because of Dean’s presence or because he took the girl aside while Parker wasn’t looking. Either way, the teenager unbent enough to ask that Parker make herself useful by reading lines with Candy after breakfast.

For two hours, while Dean closeted himself in his home office, Parker witnessed a miraculous transformation. With a script in her hand, Candy was an entirely different person. Dean was right. Candy took her acting career very seriously. She rehearsed the same scene over and over again until she was satisfied every nuance, every facial expression, every vocal note was as close to perfect as she could get. Then she did it again.

After lunch, Dean had Gordon drive Candy home, then take him and Parker back to Jersey. Parker urged Gordon to join them instead of waiting in the car, thinking his presence would keep her mother’s upcoming lecture to a minimum. She knew she was wrong the moment Kelly Quinn pulled open the front door before Parker even rang the bell. Eyes glittering, her mother crossed her arms over her chest and Parker braced herself.

“Parker Amelia Quinn, why have you not answered your cell phone? I have been calling you since yesterday afternoon!”

“Uh, hi, Mom,” Parker said weakly, feeling like she’d gone back in time a couple of decades. “May we come in, please? I’d rather not do this on the porch. I think I saw the curtain in Mrs. Lewandowski’s living room twitch.”

With her expression promising more to come, Kelly stepped back and let them file in. Parker looked down the hall into the kitchen and saw her sister wave at her, then give a helpless shrug. No help coming from that quarter.

“You must be Dean Maxwell,” Kelly said, her tone soft and welcoming, unlike what she’d used on Parker. “Thank you for everything you’ve done for my daughters.”

Daughters,
Parker thought,
plural.
So Brenda had confessed her sins and, apparently, some of Parker’s, as well.

“It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, ma’am. Now I know where Parker got her looks.”

To Parker’s astonishment, her mother blushed. Had she giggled like a schoolgirl, Parker couldn’t have been more surprised.

“How nice of you to say that. And, please, call me Kelly.”

Dean introduced her to Gordon and Kelly, who appeared to be the newest member of the Dean Maxwell fan club, ushered them into the living room.

“I’ll go help Brenda in the kitchen,” Parker announced, and escaped into the other room. Savannah, looking like a confection in her orange, ruffled dress, was sitting on the floor with several Beanie toys scattered around her.

“Hi, pumpkin.” Parker got down on her knees and rubbed noses with her niece, who giggled and stretched out her arms to her aunt. Parker picked her up, straightened up and settled her on one hip.

“I don’t know if she’s being nice to him because she truly likes him or if she wants to punish us,” remarked Parker.

“Hmm.”

Brenda was fiddling with the arrangement of fruit on a tray like a misaligned cantaloupe slice would be a crime punishable by death.

“Are you done stalling?” Parker asked.

Brenda slanted her a glance. “Are you going to use my daughter as a shield?”

“If I can get away with it, yes,” she admitted baldly. Her voice softened. “How did it go yesterday?”

Brenda exhaled and, forgetting about the fruit tray, braced her hands on the edge of the counter. “It wasn’t as bad as I expected.” She bit down on a corner of her lip. “Mom yelled at me for not trusting her enough to tell her the truth at the beginning. I cried. She cried.” She smiled at her daughter. “Savannah heard us and cried along with us.”

Savannah slapped her hand over Parker’s mouth. Parker pressed a kiss into the soft palm, then blew softly into it, sending the little girl into a fit of giggles.

“Therapeutic?” asked Parker.

“Very.”

“And how much did you tell her about me?”

A sheepish expression crossed Brenda’s countenance. “Well, she wanted to know why I decided to fess up after all this time, so I…uh…I had to tell her about you and Dean.”

“You told her everything, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” Brenda admitted, cringing away from Parker a little. “She didn’t stop until she got every detail out of me.”

“Of course.” Parker mentally sighed. “Let’s get out there before Mom comes looking for us.”

“Can I have my daughter back?”

“No. She’s mine until I leave,” said Parker, giving the little girl a squeeze. Savannah, however, started shoving at her chest and Parker set her on her feet. Savannah selected a small toy from the discarded masses, then trailed after her mother into the living room. Parker brought up the rear. Her mother was laughing when they entered the living room and Savannah ran up to her, stumbling when she drew near. Kelly caught her granddaughter before she hit the floor, smoothed down the skirt of her dress, and presented her to the two men.

“She doesn’t say a lot when there are new faces,” Kelly explained with a touch of chagrin when Savannah tried to hide behind her grandmother’s legs, her Beanie toy conveniently stuffed in her mouth. “She’s shy around new people, especially men.”

With all the single seats in the living room occupied, Parker sat down on the sofa next to Dean, who promptly shifted closer until his thigh pressed against hers, crowding her against the arm.

“Amelia?” he murmured in her ear, amusement in his tone.

“Call me Amelia at your own risk,” she warned him genially.

He had the audacity to chuckle, the sound too seductive to be heard in public. Parker caught her mother’s eye, saw the lifted eyebrow and felt heat slide up into her cheeks. Savannah, bless her heart, chose that moment to crash into her knees, climb into her lap and, just in case that wasn’t enough to draw Parker’s attention, bopped her on the head with the Beanie toy.

Parker looked in her mother’s direction. “Have you pried Dean’s life story out of him, yet?”

“Actually, we’ve been talking about you.”

“Have you?”

“Yes,” said Dean, sitting back and stretching his arm along the top of the sofa. “I’ve been telling her about how we met.” His fingers grazed her shoulder. The corners of his lips twitched. “She thinks you should’ve held out for more money.”

On Monday, Parker dressed in borrowed clothes and returned to work. Several people, including her traitorous administrative assistant, aimed knowing looks at her, but she couldn’t be bothered because Sunday had been a lazy affair, with Dean keeping her in bed until noon. Afterward, they’d showered, pulled on casual clothes and sensible shoes, left the apartment and crossed the avenue to stroll through the Central Park Zoo. Parker’s thoughts only strayed to the break-ins once, when Dean’s assistant called him to let him know the cleaning company was finished with Parker’s apartment and the contractors were ready to begin repair work. He’d hustled her back to his place and made love to her until she couldn’t remember her own name. When they came up for air and food, Gordon gave her the keys to her new locks.

As it was, everything still felt like it was happening to someone else and she almost didn’t tell her editor-in-chief. However, recalling her promise to her neighbor, Parker decided it would be prudent to inform her boss, who promptly offered to give her a few more days off. Parker declined, knowing work would help keep her mind occupied. Of course, it was difficult to focus on page layouts when every muscle in her body was pleasantly sore.

While she tried not to think about the ache between her legs, Parker’s telephone rang.

“I almost blew a two-hundred-and-fifty million dollar deal and it’s all your fault,” Dean growled in her ear.

“How is that my fault?”

“Meet me for lunch and I’ll show you.”

A delicious thrill shot through her and the hand wrapped around the receiver tightened. Under her desk, she squeezed her thighs together. “I can’t. I’m already meeting Deidre. I’m letting her go wild in the sample room.”

He cursed. “How long can that take?”

“You met Deidre,” remarked Parker dryly. “What do you think?”

He cursed again, impressing her with his fluency. He wore a suit to work, but it didn’t define or restrain him.

“What about afterward?”

“I still have forty-odd emails in my inbox. I can’t play hooky. And I promised to help Deidre carry her selections home. Remember?”

“What time are you leaving?”

“Early. Four, maybe four-thirty. Deidre’s going to leave and then come back.”

“Damn. I have a meeting until six today.”

“Do you want to eat in tonight?”

“Are you cooking?”

She made an amused sound. “Take out. I want to try that restaurant down the block, but I don’t want to get dressed up.”

“Sounds good. And I’ll send Gordon to your office building. He’ll drive you wherever you need to go after work.”

Gordon had driven her to work that morning, but the change in routine hadn’t made too much of an impression because Dean had been in the vehicle with her. A heaviness settled over her. “They’ve only been break-ins. And I don’t think someone’s going to try anything in broad daylight.”

“So far,” Dean added succinctly. “If Moore escalates, I don’t want you alone.”

“Deidre’ll be with me.”

“Somehow, that doesn’t reassure me.”

“All right, all right. I’ll let Gordon drive me.”

“You make it sound like I was giving you a choice.”

“You’re too used to getting your way.”

His voice lowered. “I’ll let you have your way with me in a few hours. You quite enjoyed being on top this morning.”

She actually shivered and dropped her forehead into her hand because her muscles felt like limp noodles. For a moment, she reconsidered his lunch invitation.

Then the fiend said, “I’ll leave you with that,” and hung up.

After dropping off the four carrier bags of clothes and accessories just inside Deidre’s apartment, Deidre followed Parker, who was armed with a pen and a used envelope, into hers. The place looked and felt bare. Not a lot of her possessions had escaped unscathed. Beating back anger that wouldn’t help her, Parker reminded herself they were just things and could be replaced.

The walls were dotted with patches of dried polyfill. The painters still had work to do. Maybe it was time for a new wall color, she thought as she went into the kitchen.

She still had most of the appliances in that room, but the glass-ceramic cook top on the stove needed to be replaced and her upper cupboards, like her refrigerator, were empty. Most of her cookware and utensils had been cleaned and returned to the drawers and lower cupboards.

She got to admire the honey-colored hardwood floor in her living room because not a single piece of furniture blocked it from view. She hadn’t had that pleasure since the day she’d moved in. It was a good thing she had insurance. Of course, she didn’t look forward to filling out the second round of insurance forms in triplicate, then having to wait weeks for the claim check to arrive in the mail.

Her bathroom was cleaner—and emptier—than she’d seen it in years. As Parker jotted down a note to have a new bathroom mirror installed she noticed her little list was getting long.

The bedroom depressed her the most. Her bed was bare and the mattress removed. The bed frame, box spring and highboy had survived the rampage, but little else. A note was taped to her wrought iron headboard. Parker peeled off the note and read it aloud: “Your clothes were damaged beyond repair and discarded.”

Parker shuddered. She wouldn’t have worn them again, anyway.

“Look at it this way,” said Deidre from behind her, her strong hands massaging Parker’s tense shoulders, “you have a legit excuse for retail therapy. And you can add a little color to your wardrobe.”

Parker dropped her arms to her sides and did a visual sweep of the barren room. “I like black,” she said.

“I know you do,” Deidre murmured soothingly, like she was humoring a child.

“Black never goes out.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

“I’m wearing color now.”

“Your sister’s clothes, I’ll bet.”

Parker looked back over her shoulder. “You’re angling to go shopping with me, aren’t you?”

Deidre beamed at her and batted her fake lashes.

“Okay. Upcoming Saturday. And we’re going to stick to a budget.”

Deidre hooked her arm through Parker’s and steered her from the room. “Do you think that lovely Gordon will drive us?”

“If Dean has anything to say about it, we’ll be lucky if Gordon’s the only one with us.”

“That’s new for you,” remarked Deidre, her serious tone setting off warning bells in Parker’s head.

“What is?” she asked warily.

“Letting a man take charge in a relationship.”

“I let men take charge.”

“Not in the years I’ve known you,” countered Deidre. “I don’t know if you seek them out or if they’re drawn to you, but the men you date let you call the shots.”

“I don’t think I like where this conversation is going.”

“Sweetie, you’re very strong willed and I love you for it, but you date the wrong men. They’re wimps. They always give in to you and let you have your way. And worse, they’re shallow.”

They exited the apartment and Parker withdrew her arm so she could lock the front door.

“I like dating…nice men who don’t make things complicated,” she said as she tested the door.

“
Boring
is the word you’re looking for. Which is why
you
quickly get bored and move on. Sometimes I think you do it deliberately.”

“Are you saying I sabotage all my relationships from the start?” asked Parker, trying to be nonchalant and not quite succeeding because her face suddenly felt very stiff. “Have you been watching
Oprah
with Brenda?”

“Don’t make a joke of it,” Deidre chided, her look pitying. “You always gloss over these things. Makes them easier for you to dismiss, I suppose.”

Parker turned away hastily lest her friend witness the sudden rise of panic in her eyes. “Dean’s only sticking around until whoever’s targeting me is caught.”

“Are you certain?”

“Yes.”

“Did you ask him?”

Her stomach lurched. “No.”

Very softly, Deidre asked, “Why not?”

When Parker remained stubbornly silent, Deidre sighed. She looped her arm through Parker’s. “My place. Hot chocolate. Now.” She tapped a long, jeweled fingernail against her lips. “And we’d better call Gordon to join us. This is going to take a while. You need a lot of work.”

Parker tried to go over the to-do list she’d compiled in the backseat of the Maybach but Deidre’s question kept intruding, stubbornly refusing to be dismissed. She considered asking Gordon to turn on the radio, but she looked outside the window and noticed they were stopped at an intersection one block from Dean’s apartment building, which she could see clearly. A yellow taxi pulled up to the curb in front of the entrance and, after a moment, the back door opened and a familiar figure carrying a briefcase got out.

Even from a distance, Dean managed to look imposing and sexy in his dark suit, making her heart beat a little faster.

As if sensing her regard, he turned and looked around. He saw her and waved away the doorman.

Gordon cursed.

Parker blinked, glanced over at him. “What is it?”

The light must’ve turned green because the sedan shot forward. Parker’s head whipped back to Dean—and her mouth parted in horror. A helmeted daredevil on a sleek motorcycle jumped the curb, bounced onto the sidewalk and didn’t slow down. Parker’s heart lodged in her throat. The rider extended an arm. There were shouts above the noise of the bike. Dean shoved the doorman out of the way and followed him onto the concrete just as the bike whipped past them. There was a
pop,
like a firecracker going off. The bike wobbled, sideswiped a parked vehicle and kept going, disappearing around the block.

Oh God, oh God, oh God.
Onlookers rushed over to the scene, obstructing her view of Dean. Her stomach pitched and rolled. Parker shoved open the back door before the Maybach came to a complete stop and, ignoring Gordon’s startled shout, jumped out. She frantically pushed through the gathered crowd, her vision blurred. She was crying, and in public, no less, but she couldn’t stop herself and didn’t care.

A broad chest checked her progress. She brought her hands up and shoved. It didn’t move. Her frustration mounted and she beat at the chest with her fists. Strong arms went around her and squeezed, forcing her face into the chest. A voice called her name over and over again.

Dean,
she thought, and her knees gave out.

Thirty minutes later, with her tears mopped up and her muscles no longer like gelatin, Parker sat on the sofa next to Dean, her fingers entwined tightly with his. The two detectives sat across from them. Like before, Detective Wade asked the questions and Detective Harris took notes. Dean had recounted his version of events. He had heard the bike, saw the rider pull something from his jacket, and reacted, taking both himself and the doorman out of the line of fire. It had been over in mere seconds. The discharged bullet had gone through one of the glass doors and embedded itself harmlessly into a wall. The door would have to be replaced and the plaster refinished and repainted, but no one had sustained anything more serious than a few scrapes and bruises.

Dean hadn’t noticed too many details, but he didn’t need to because Parker already knew to whom the motorcycle belonged.

“Are you sure, Ms. Quinn?” Detective Wade asked again.

“I’m positive. It’s a black Ducati with purple and red pinstriping. I was with Tyler when he went to buy it.”

The detectives exchanged cryptic looks.

“Do you doubt her?” demanded Dean.

“No, no,” the detective reassured quickly. “There was paint transfer on the vehicle that was sideswiped. Purple paint flecks. With that evidence and Ms. Quinn’s statement, we’ll be able to get a warrant for the bike.

“Do you know where he keeps it?”

“A parking garage two blocks from his apartment,” Parker answered. “I don’t remember the exact address.”

“Don’t worry. We’ll track it down. What about the gun?”

Parker shook her head. “I didn’t even know he had one.”

“How long is this going to take?” asked Dean.

“We won’t be able to get a search warrant signed until tomorrow. However, since the bike’s in a parking garage, we’ll send someone to check on it shortly.”

“What about Moore? What if he decides to run while you’re waiting for a signature?”

“We’ll have someone sit on him. Don’t worry, Mr. Maxwell. This will all be over soon.”

After a few more repetitive questions, as if they wanted to make sure the stories didn’t change, Gordon showed the detectives to the elevator door, leaving Parker and Dean alone.

“Feeling better?”

He’d been nearly run over and shot at, yet he was asking about her welfare. Parker almost laughed, but simply shook her head, too tired and shaky from the after effects of shock to lie. She dropped her face into her hands and massaged her temples. “You were right about Tyler,” she mumbled through her hands. “And this is all my fault. I shouldn’t have used you to get rid of him.”

Dean grabbed her hands and forced them away from her face. “It is not your fault.”

She couldn’t meet his eyes. “Tyler just tried to kill you because of me.”

“Moore tried to kill me; not you. He’s responsible for his actions. You didn’t make him do anything.”

She closed her eyes and considered that, knowing he was right but still unable to make the feelings of guilt go away. And there were still echoes of the aching hollowness when she’d feared the worst.

“You’re very good at taking blame for other people’s actions.”

Her head lifted. “I’m not a martyr.”

“Then stop acting like one,” he said. “You blamed yourself for your sister lying to you. Now you’re blaming yourself for this. You are not responsible for everyone. Sometimes it’s not you, it’s them.”

She covered her face with her hands. “Oh, God. Not you, too.”

“What?” he asked, sounding annoyed.

“Everyone around me has been watching
Oprah.
”

He chuckled. “Nah. I got a similar lecture from my dad after my sister broke our living room window and I took the blame for her because Lisa was aiming for my head when she threw the baseball. She was pissed because I told her she threw like a girl. Both of us ended up getting punished.”