Parker’s Price (8 page)

He didn’t look convinced. “Did you go through that phase?”

“Well, no. But I had other priorities at that age.” Before he could probe, she smiled crookedly. “If I did pink and fluffy I’d look like a cupcake. No one in the industry would take me seriously.”

“I’m not so sure,” he drawled, his blue eyes gleaming as they leisurely traveled the length of her. “Depends on the garment.”

The suggestiveness in his husky voice had heat crawling from her neck up to her cheeks.

“You’re looking flushed. Maybe you need to lie down. I can take you to your room and tuck you in.”

Her gaze narrowed, filled with wariness. “Remember our ground rule.”

“How could I forget?” he murmured, unfazed. “And it’s your rule, not ours.”

She blew out a breath. “My life would be so much more peaceful had you picked door number two.”

He rested a shoulder against the stainless steel refrigerator door and crossed his arms over his chest. “I can do peaceful.”

Skepticism crossed her face. “Of course, you can,” she remarked dryly and made to move past him.

He sidestepped, blocking her, and she just managed to stop short of slamming into him. With a startled sound, she jumped back like she expected him to pounce. An admonishment died on her tongue when his wide chest filled her vision as he braced his hands on the granite, one on either side of her, effectively caging her in. She shrank back and drew herself in, as if to make herself smaller so no part of her would brush any part of him.

“I’m not touching you,” he said, his warm breath stirring her hair.

Parker drew a deep breath—and wished she hadn’t when his scent, clean and musky and vitally male, filled her nostrils. It enticed her to bury her face in his chest and pull his body against hers, and wrap herself in his scent and the heat she could feel buffeting her bare skin. She squeezed her eyes shut and rolled her lips inward, hardly daring to breathe.

The air around her stirred and she felt his mouth very close to her ear. Close, but not touching. Her own fingers curled into fists and she had to keep them wedged between her back and the counter to stop herself from reaching for the man so expertly, so effortlessly seducing her. And all without a single physical touch.

“I can do peaceful,” he repeated, each word a hot puff of air skirting the sensitive rim of her ear, “in the aftermath when we’re both too exhausted to move and you’re draped over me like a blanket.”

Her breath caught in her throat as heat pooled low in her body.

Then he was gone, taking the warmth of his body with him, leaving her with only the lingering scent of him and a body embarrassingly weak with desire. She opened her eyes and was transfixed by the sight of him. Blood had darkened his face and tension had hardened every muscle in his body. But it was his eyes, blue and hooded and glinting with a primitive darkness, that didn’t allow her to turn away. Her tongue flicked out to wet her lips.

A soft growl rumbled from his chest, but he didn’t close the distance between them. A disappointment she couldn’t deny stirred in her chest, leaving behind a hollowness. He started to hold out his hand, then, with a tight, humorless half smile, slid it into the front pocket of his shorts. “Let’s make that phone call.”

She didn’t move away from the counter. She
couldn’t
move away from the counter.

That half smile again, still humorless, but tinged with a dark satisfaction. “On second thought, you stay here while I go get it. I’ll be back in a minute.”

One minute stretched into five. After another five, Parker, her legs no longer having the constitution of overcooked pasta, decided to track him down. Maybe he was lost in this mausoleum of a hideaway home.

She did a partial circuit of the main floor and, following the low, deep murmur of his voice, found him in an office. The space made her want to curl in one of the armchairs that flanked a pristine, oversized fireplace. The room was masculine, but not overbearingly so, with its comfortable furniture and earthy fabrics. Light streamed in through tall windows, warming the space. Built-in shelves reached the ceiling and were filled with books of varying sizes and subject matter. She would have to browse the collection for something she could enjoy on the hammock she’d spied on the beach during her morning run.

Dean was seated in the chair behind the desk, a big, weighty receiver, which brought back to mind the handset that used to sit on the side table in her mother’s living room, against his ear. He caught sight of her and waved her into the room. She hesitated.

“Sweetheart, I’ll be back by the end of the week,” he said into the telephone. “I’ll take care of it then.” As he listened to the speaker on the other end, twin lines formed between his eyebrows.

Parker took a half step backward, not wanting to be within hearing distance while he conversed with someone he addressed using a term of endearment, but Dean noticed her retreat and firmly shook his head, gesturing for her to take a seat in the room.

Lips pursed in irritation, Parker stepped over the threshold and crossed the room to determinedly peruse the books where a familiar author had caught her eye.

“I’ll work something out, Candi. I promise.”

Candi?
Parker mentally winced and wondered if she could cover her ears without drawing a smartass comment from Dean about it once he was off the telephone.

“Okay. I love you, too. I’ll see you when I get back.” He sighed. There was silence as she felt his eyes on her stiff back. “You can stop the pretense,” he drawled wryly.

It took effort to force her expression into one of detached amusement. She slowly spun around and ambled over to him, a dark brow arched. “Candi? Does she spell her name with an
i?
”

“No,” he replied, pushing the receiver’s large retractable antenna back into hiding. A reluctant smile lifted his lips. “But if she did, she’d dot it with a little heart.”

“Perhaps we should go back to New York early.” She knew she was bordering on pettiness, but she couldn’t stem the flow of words. “She sounds like she really needs you.”

He got up from the chair and skirted around to the front of the desk. He leaned back against the edge of it and crossed his arms over his chest. “You’re not getting off that easily.” Another quirk of his lips, but, thankfully, he resisted the double entendre. “My niece can wait a few days.”

Parker froze, still a small distance from him, and wondered if she could blame the flush working its way up her neck to spread across her cheeks on the sunlight warming the room. “Your niece?”

He nodded, looking too damned pleased by her poorly veiled discomfiture by far. “My sister’s daughter.”

“Your sister named her daughter Candy?” she asked, embarrassment overshadowed by incredulousness.

“Charlotte, actually. But Candy’s first word was ‘candy’ because she has a sweet tooth that needs to be witnessed to be believed. My sister blames me for that because I was always sneaking Candy chocolate.” A pained look crossed his face. “Of course, I’m paying for it now because all that sugar’s made her hyperactive twenty-four/seven. I estimate the sugar high will wear off when she hits thirty, give or take a couple of years.”

She chuckled. “What was she trying to wheedle out of you?”

Another sigh escaped him as he rubbed his hands over his face. “Candy wants to audition for a Broadway play.”

“Isn’t she a little young for that?”

“That’s what my sister thinks, too.” He straightened up and moved toward her. A masculine hand lifted and she stopped breathing while it hovered inches above her hair. Then, lips thinning, he let it drop back to his side. Parker knew she had no right to a feeling of loss since she instigated the rule, but she felt it just the same.

Her throat muscles constricted as her arms came up and wrapped themselves tightly around her torso. He needed comfort and she couldn’t allow herself to fill that need, no matter how badly her instincts urged her to go to him.

After searching her eyes, he gave her a mocking, humorless smile and stepped around her. He sank into one of the armchairs he’d offered her earlier.

Comfort, however, could be more than just touch.

She settled into the matching armchair and drew one knee to her chest, linking her arms loosely about it. “What are you going to say to your sister to sway her?”

“Vanessa’s not going to appreciate my interference.”

“Other people’s disapproval of your actions doesn’t stop you,” she remarked lightly.

He tipped his head in acknowledgement of the jab. “Point taken,” he said dryly. “That aside, the only time Candy’s not bursting into fits of uncontrollable giggles is when she’s on stage. Acting’s the one thing she takes seriously. She can’t crack open a textbook for longer than ten minutes, but she can rehearse for hours on end for a play.”

“This isn’t the first play, then.”

He shook his head. “No, but this is a bigger role, a bigger commitment. Vanessa’s afraid school’s going to fall to the wayside even more if Candy gets the part. Our parents were both teachers. School played a big part in all our lives. Vanessa can’t imagine her daughter not feeling the same.

“They need to work something out, negotiate a deal.”

“And you’re going to mediate.”

He shrugged. “Sometimes having a third party who’s not involved helps.”

But he was lying. A blind man could see how much involved he really was in his niece’s life.

With a forefinger, Parker absently rubbed at the faint lines formed by her drawn brows. She couldn’t reconcile this Dean Maxwell with the Dean Maxwell who’d wanted no part of a life he’d helped create.

Had he been so different just a few short years ago? Had there been extenuating circumstances? Or…or had Brenda lied to her all these years?

Parker immediately shook the traitorous thought from her head and pressed a hand to her stomach, as if that could calm the roiling wave of guilt churning her insides. If she kept this up, by the time Sunday rolled around she wouldn’t be able to look her sister in the eye.

Parker drowsed, her body cradled in the swaying hammock strung between two palm trees. To keep the ropes from biting into her flesh, Dean had thrown a couple of beach towels over the hammock for her to lie on. After lazily flipping through the first ten pages of a novel she’d found in the library, she’d let the paperback fall to her chest and shut her eyes, allowing herself to be lulled into a tranquility that was even better than the exhaustion after a good workout. She no longer even noticed the thick layer of supposedly unscented, 50 SPF sunscreen Dean had made her slather on over every inch of exposed skin.

“That pale skin of yours’ll burn to a crisp in minutes,” he’d said when he’d tossed her the bottle of sunscreen. “I’d do your back for you, but I’m not allowed to touch you.”

“I’ll be sure to stay on my back,” she’d said pertly.

That definitely wasn’t a problem since she wasn’t sure if she could get her languid muscles to lift a finger, let alone do something as labor intensive as roll onto her front.

She yawned widely, every muscle in her body tensing, then lapsing back into a jelly-like state.

After an entire day of doing nothing but eating, sleeping, running on the beach and floating in either the pool, the ocean, or the lagoon secluded in the middle of the island, she was ready to concede that Dean had been right. She had needed a vacation.

Within minutes, she was asleep again, dreaming of warm sand against her naked back and hot, bare skin against her equally naked front; long male fingers trailing up her arm and neck and getting lost in her hair; and a deep voice murmuring in her ear.

She woke by degrees, sleep slipping away in layers. Her body still warm and heavy, she cracked open her eyes and lazily scanned about. And barely managed to bite back a groan when she saw her feet and beyond.

Looking like he had all the time in the world, Dean was leaning against the tree that anchored one end of the hammock, arms folded across his chest, regarding her with a hooded gaze.

“It’s rude to spy on someone.” The words didn’t come out as she’d intended. In her sleep-roughened voice, it was practically a come on. And the slow smile that curved his mouth told her he took it as such.

“I tried to wake you, but you kept grabbing at me, making these sexy little sounds in your throat. I had to put some distance between us to protect my virtue.”

The sound coming from her throat now was more disgruntled than sexy. “You have no virtue left and I did no such thing.”

“Would you like to see the scratches from your nails on my skin?”

Warmth flooded her. Why was the notion of her marking Dean Maxwell so arousing? It was primitive and barbaric and wrong and she couldn’t seem to convince her body of that fact.

She sat up, suddenly feeling vulnerable in her prone position. The forgotten novel tumbled from its perch on her chest and fell to her side. The slender fingers of one hand raked her escaped hair back from her face while her other hand grabbed onto the swaying hammock.

“Do you want something from me?” she asked, and could’ve bitten her tongue as soon as the question was out between them.

His eyes gleamed wickedly. “For you to tell me what you were dreaming about.”

She groaned silently and wondered if she was the color of a ripe tomato yet. The fire in her cheeks certainly felt like a good indication. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded,” she mumbled into her hands. She blew out a breath and lowered the barrier of threaded fingers. “I meant to ask why did you come to wake me.”

“I wanted to get you inside the house before the sunscreen wore off.”

“I’m mostly in the shade.”

He gave a look that made her feel like a twelve-year-old being disciplined by an adult. “You know better than that.”

She looked at the house, which, with lethargy still weighing her down, suddenly seemed so far away. “I don’t think I have the energy to walk all the way back.”

Dean straightened away from the palm tree and moved closer. “I could carry you,” he suggested, voice all dark and silky.

“No!” Her denial was loud and instant and infused her with unexpected strength. There was no way she was going to allow herself skin to skin contact with the man, no matter how much her unconscious mind teased her with recollections of being in his presence and fantasies of how it could be. She grabbed the novel and swung off the hammock, her bare feet sinking into the sand. Something fluttered to the ground. Dean bent down and picked it up before she could. He rose, studying the long, narrow strip of photo paper in his fingers. Seeing the new rigidness of his muscles hollowed her stomach and set her heart pounding with something close to fear.

Did he see something familiar in the strip of snapshots of her and Savannah taken just last summer at a photo booth on Coney Island? Was there some latent paternal instinct awakening in him as he stared at his flesh and blood? Would he make the connection between her and Brenda?

“Is she yours?” asked Dean, his tone disturbingly neutral.

The tips of her fingers pressing into the novel between her clenched hands blanched. Slowly, carefully, she answered, “No.”

“She looks a lot like you.”

“She’s my niece.” She paused, the silence heavy. Whisky-colored eyes carefully searching his face, she added, “Savannah’s my younger sister’s daughter.”

Her breath was trapped in her lungs as she waited for him to reach the big revelation, for the shock, for the questions, for the slightest hint of emotion to crack that mask. Her own muscles tensed until she felt brittle. Her pulse throbbed and blood rushed loudly in her ears as self-recriminations filled her head.

She should’ve kept the photos of Savannah private, no matter how badly she needed the reminder of all the reasons why she couldn’t give in to Dean Maxwell. Or did she want him to learn about the daughter he hadn’t wanted? Her sister had been adamant about keeping the father—

Dean held out the photos and Parker stared at them vaguely for a moment before taking them from him.

“Let’s go.”

Dean quickened his pace, but it wasn’t enough. He wanted to run. Hard and fast. Hard enough and fast enough to work up a sweat and exhaust himself until he couldn’t think anymore.

When he’d first seen those pictures of Parker and a young girl who looked at him with Parker’s eyes and smiled at him with Parker’s smile, a shaft of unpleasant emotion that was too close to jealousy had gone through him. He didn’t want her to have been involved with another man deeply enough to bear his child. He didn’t want tangible proof that she’d been with men other than him.

Jesus.

His obsession with Parker Quinn was moving beyond all realms of familiarity and comfort and he needed to get away before he did—or, infinitely worse, said—something he’d later regret.

He reached the French doors two strides ahead of her and, his manners too deeply ingrained to ignore, he stopped and held the door open for her. After a single wary glance at him, Parker turned and sidled through the door sideways, taking care to not even so much as let her white, billowy shirt brush him.

More familiar frustration stamped out the uneasy anger at his growing obsession. He wanted to yank her against him and grind his mouth on hers until her unfathomable resistance crumbled. The hand at his side balled into a tight fist.

At the kitchen island, she hesitated long enough to murmur something about needing a quick shower to wash off the sticky residue of sunscreen and hurried from the kitchen.

Feeling like he would burst out of his skin in any second, Dean strode from the room, but headed past the stairs that swept up to the higher floors.

When he reached the former ballroom Jay had converted into a workout room, he toed off his shoes, pulled his shirt off over his head and pitched it on one of the benches that lined the nearest wall. He walked across the bright blue mats and stopped in front of the red punching bag that was patched here and there with short strips of black duct tape. Arms went up to protect his head even though his opponent wouldn’t be returning any kicks or punches. A fist plowed into the bag and sent it swaying on its chain, the squeak of metal on metal loud in the expansive room.

The first contact of bare knuckles on abrasive vinyl had eased the pressure inside him, like opening a valve to release built-up steam, and the muscles in his shoulders lost a measure of rigidness. Another punch, then another, then another until sweat darkened his hair and glistened on his skin and Parker Quinn, while not completely gone, was thrust into a small corner of his mind.

Parker considered backing out of the sun-drenched but air-conditioned room before he took notice of her, but she couldn’t make her feet move. Barefoot and shirtless, he lightly bounced on the balls of his feet as he alternated between strikes and kicks that made the bag swing like it was filled with fluffy balls of cotton instead of heavy sand.

Freshly showered and dressed in a pair of slim-fitting jeans, a T-shirt that bared an inch of midriff, and flat sandals, she’d forced herself to come downstairs because hiding in her room for the remainder of their stay would be cowardly. Most likely wise, but cowardly.

More truthfully, she simply didn’t want to.

She didn’t know how long she stood in the double doorway, watching the powerful yet graceful movements of Dean Maxwell’s body as he danced around the hanging bag and worked out whatever was eating at him from the inside.

Muscles low in her body clenched. It was the same thing that made her toss and turn at night.

She didn’t notice when the sound of flesh hitting faux leather ceased. One moment he was beating the punching bag, the next he was staring back at her, hair damp with sweat, breathing labored, eyes too knowing.

Her first instinct was to whirl around and flee. She wanted to, but she couldn’t. Her feet were rooted to the floor because he wouldn’t let her go.

In the silence that stretched between them, Parker became very aware of her pounding heartbeat and wondered how he could not hear it.

Dean moved and Parker’s lungs stopped.

But he wasn’t headed toward her. Parker managed to look away for a moment. Evian was stacked like wine bottles inside the cooler sitting up against a square pillar in the middle of the room. She watched as he walked silently over to the cooler, pulled open the glass door, and took out a plastic bottle. He twisted off the cap and brought the bottle to his lips.

She caught herself staring at his throat, at the flexing of the muscles, the movement of his Adam’s apple, as he swallowed.

“You don’t want to be here right now.”

She jerked her eyes up to his. They were a little dark, a little wild, a little dangerous. Her head told her to heed his advice, but her feet started forward in his direction. His eyes became hooded as he tracked her movements like a predator stalking prey.

She didn’t stop until he was less than an arm’s length away. She placed a hand in the center of his chest. The heat of his hair-roughened skin seared her palm and she inhaled sharply.

Dean stopped breathing, but his heart pounded heavily beneath her palm. Its beat matched the hammering in her own chest.

He swallowed. “What are you doing?” he asked thickly, the words were low and hoarse, barely intelligible.

Her tone equally low, she replied, “Touching you,” and her fingers curled inward a little, the tips digging into his flesh.

His hand shot up and covered hers. He squeezed, nearly rubbing the fragile bones of her hand together.

“Don’t tease me, Parker.”

A frown tipped down at the corners of her mouth as she struggled against his hold and, after another clench of his fingers, he released her, a grim twist to his own lips. Slowly, hesitantly, her hand flattened against his chest again.

“I don’t tease.”

Her gaze traveled up to the inviting hollow of his throat and stopped. The urge to put her lips there, to dip her tongue there was nearly overwhelming. She closed her eyes and her body swayed toward him.

“You’re on dangerous ground,” he growled, still not reciprocating her movements.

Frustration whipped through her and her eyes leapt to his. “Why are you fighting me? Why are you making this harder than it needs to be?”

His laugh was a short, humorless sound. “You’re right.” A hand, large and callused, cupped the nape of her neck, angled her head back, and she caught a glimpse of glittering eyes before a hard mouth closed over hers.

She didn’t expect gentleness and didn’t receive it. He nipped her lower lip and, eager for the taste of him, she parted her lips, and his tongue thrust heavily inside her mouth. Heat engulfed her and her whimper was lost somewhere in the voracious kiss as her eyes fluttered shut. His hands spread open across her back and swept down, arching her body and molding her to him, letting her feel just how hard he really was. Her muscles liquefied and she let him support all her weight, one hand between her shoulder blades and the other just above the curve of her buttocks.

She clutched at his shoulders, dragging him closer as if she couldn’t already feel his heart beating against her breast. His hand trailed downward, over her buttocks, squeezing once, then along the back of her thigh, hooked the back of her knee and lifted her leg to drape it over his hips. A sandal slid off her foot. Her world tilted, making her head swim, and her arms instinctively tightened around his neck. She felt something hard against her back and realized he’d lowered her to the floor. He broke away from her, she opened her eyes, and her protest melted into a soft, needy sound.

Dean stood over her, all tanned skin and fluid muscles and glittering eyes as he shoved his shorts over his hips and down his legs. He straightened up and kicked them away. He stood, completely naked, his sex hard and thick. Her breath locked in her throat. Somehow, he was on his knees and reaching for her jeans. She got there first and popped the button open. His fingers found the tab of the zipper, wrenched it down, then curled into the waistband of her jeans and thong and peeled off both in one swift, impatient move.

She managed to pant out two words and, after a beat of confusion, Dean withdrew the small foil packet from the front pocket of her jeans before pitching it behind him.