Total pages in book: 18
Estimated words: 16582 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 83(@200wpm)___ 66(@250wpm)___ 55(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 16582 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 83(@200wpm)___ 66(@250wpm)___ 55(@300wpm)
“Paris? What are you doing out here?”
Relief washes over me in waves as I realize it’s just him. I let out a strangled laugh—half relief, half nerves, like my body doesn’t know whether to cry or kiss the ground Parker walks on.
“Jesus,” I breathe, hand to my chest. “You scared the hell out of me.”
His forehead scrunches. “You okay?”
“Yeah, yeah, just give me a minute.” I breathe through my mouth. “No, I don’t know.”
Lightning flashes behind him, painting his face in sharp white light, and I see a streak of dark red, smeared across his sleeve, fresh and wet and jarring in the storm light.
I gasp. “You’re bleeding.”
My hands reach for his arm, searching for the source.
“I’m fine,” he says quickly. “It’s not mine.”
I blink up at him. “What?”
He nods toward the field. “There was a bird. Dead. It must’ve hit the wire. I didn’t see it until I’d already grabbed the fence rail.”
My fingers hover near the dark stain, but I don’t touch him this time.
Because that’s when I realize how close we are. His chest rises just inches from mine, heat radiating off his soaked shirt, that scent of rain and earth and something inherently him curling in my lungs.
I look up, and suddenly everything narrows to his mouth. The hard shape of it. The faint, hairline scar just above his top lip. His lashes are wet, his beard glistening with rain, and all I can think of is how badly I want to feel his mouth on mine.
It’s reckless. It’s impulsive. It’s not me.
I’m the girl who overthinks everything, who maps out the safest route, who never moves until she’s sure the ground won’t collapse beneath her.
But right now, the only thing I’m sure of is him.
Desire licks softly in my belly, and the way he looks at me calls to the baser instincts in me.
My hands move before my brain catches up, curling into the fabric of his shirt, pulling myself up on my toes. When my mouth finds his, the world falls completely silent.
Oh my God.
The kiss is full and hot and breathless, and it steals the air from my lungs. Parker gets over his shock in no time. One arm wraps tight around my waist, and the other pushes up into my hair, tilting my head so he can go deeper into the hot recesses of my mouth.
I let him, and I’m no longer the same person.
3
PARKER
The entire world stops, and when I blink, everything falls back into place, careening into motion. It’s the kiss that melts away the last of my resistance.
Although, to be honest, I’m not sure I had any to begin with.
I knew I was done for the second I saw her.
My brain finally shakes itself into action, and I deepen the kiss, coaxing her mouth to part, and when she does, I shove my tongue, tasting every corner, swallowing every moan.
I grip her waist and drag her flush to me. I hate even an inch between us.
My tongue slides against hers, hungry, filthy, and possessive, and every sound she makes goes straight to my cock, already hard and throbbing beneath the wet denim.
My beard scrapes her skin, but she doesn’t flinch. Instead, she arches into me.
I press her against the porch post, hips grinding once, slow and rough. My entire universe has whittled down to nothing but the primal need to have her, be inside her.
She whimpers, and I lose what little control I had left.
I pull back just enough to see her face. Her eyes are glassy with need, her lips swollen from kissing, hair soaked and wild around her cheeks. God, so fucking beautiful.
“Back inside?” I ask, voice low, ragged.
She shakes her head and sucks her bottom lip between her teeth.
I graze a thumb along her jaw. “No?”
She grabs my shirt and touches the corner of my mouth with the tip of her tongue. “Take me to the field.”
Well, fuck.
The storm is still falling, sheets of rain cutting sideways through the air, soaking us to the bone. Paris doesn’t care, and neither do I. The porch behind her is solid and dry, but she wants the field.
Fine. Her wish is my command.
I carry her off the porch and into the open yard, one arm under her thighs, the other supporting her back as she clings to my neck. The wet grass squelches beneath my boots as we move through the rain, past the mud-slick driveway and toward the edge of the corn. The stalks rise around us, eight feet tall and shivering in the wind, their leaves rustling.
Paris’s breath is hot against my throat, her small frame trembling against my chest.
She presses into me, mouth finding mine again, hotter now, wetter, needier. I slide my hands under the soaked shirt she’s wearing—my shirt—and when I feel bare skin beneath, I groan into her neck. “No bra?”