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Six days later, my stress level was through the roof. I was getting multiple texts a day asking for updates on the site. I lied through my teeth, assuring him that I was working hard on it, all the while Parker was reassuring me that we’d be okay. We had to be patient. Spending every day wrapped up in his arms in the safety of his apartment helped to calm my anxiety and gave me hope that once this was over, we could try to have something together. Something normal and amazing.
The trace had been a dead end. They had their stuff protected pretty well, both the Cash App and the phone in general. It was also a prepaid cell with no name registered and we couldn’t trace the location the texts were sent from.
“I’m getting cabin fever, handsome. Can we go out for a little bit?” I asked Parker as we sat in his office. We were almost done with the app program he’d started on a few weeks ago. I was helping him polish it up.
He looked over at me. “I don’t know, we should probably stay inside until all of this is cleared up.”
I bit my lip and batted my eyelashes at him. “Please? I just need some fresh air and a change of scenery. I’m feeling cooped up here.”
“Okay. Let’s finish this up. Then we’ll go walk around the park.”
Clapping, I squealed and kissed him on the cheek. “Yay.”
God, I was turning into such a chocolate heart around him. What happened to the quiet, broody girl I was just a couple of weeks ago? Oh yeah, she was gone because she fell in love with the pretty boy with the big brain and an even bigger heart. He’d saved me from what was probably sure death, and he hadn’t thought twice about it. I never thought I’d ever fall in love, but it was instantaneous when I met Parker. My soul knew his was its missing half.
We drove to the park, and after parking his bike in the lot, we walked hand-in-hand toward the play structures. I sat down on one of the swings and breathed in the fresh night air. A half-moon illuminated the park. It was quiet, just the two of us.
I squeaked when I felt my body propel forward. I craned my head back to see Parker pushing me on the swings.
“God, I haven’t been on a swing since I was a child,” I said. “Why don’t I go to parks more often?”
He laughed and gave me another shove. “I don’t know, why don’t you? Oh yeah, because you’re too busy on your computer, hacking into stuff.”
I snorted. “Hey, you should talk. You’re no better.”
“Oh, but I am better,” he said with a mischievous tone. He caught me by the waist on the upswing and held me there. After planting a kiss on the side of my neck, he let the swing go and I was propelled forward, my hair flailing in the wind with each swing.
As I swung, I felt so free. It was so nice to not be cooped up in my apartment, hoping for something better to come along. Being afraid to be in public for fear of people staring at me. Parker was helping me to open up and it was such a good feeling. I could literally feel my depression lifting. I no longer felt like I was stuck in my lonely, unhappy life forever.
On the next upswing, he held my waist again and let me go slowly to stop the propulsion. He went around and grabbed my hands, pulling me to a stand. He held my hands and faced me before reaching up with one and lightly swiping some hair from my face. “I didn’t think this was a good idea, but I’m glad you made me leave the clubhouse. I needed to get out, too. I didn’t realize I had cabin fever as well. Thank you.” Parker pulled my hand up to his lips and turned it around. Moving my sleeve out of the way, he gently kissed the slow but steady pulse on my wrist, his eyes never leaving me.
I stared at the action and my heartrate sped up. Was he going to bite me? The mere thought excited me. He threaded his fingers through mine and leaned down and kissed me. I couldn’t explain with words what his touch did to me. The kisses alone caused my head to spin and butterflies to erupt in my stomach. When he made love to me, I felt like I was in another world. I had never experienced anything like it. There was no way I was ever going to let him go.
He broke the kiss and looked around before staring down into my eyes. “I love you.”
I gazed deep into his eyes. “Why?”
Parker’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”
Stroking my fingers along his cheek, I asked, “How can someone so perfect love someone so flawed like me?”
He frowned and pulled me closer to him with a sigh. “Devon, I’ve always been the type of guy who tried to find the little imperfections in the people I met. Then you came into my life, and I realized there were none to be found. You think you’re flawed? You’re not. You’re perfectly imperfect. When are you going to see that? Nobody’s perfect or flawless. Certainly not me. I’ve made my share of mistakes and sins and I’ll be forever paying for them. I’ll pay my penance to the universe by taking care of the other half of my soul—making sure she always knows she’s loved. If you’d see yourself through my eyes, you’d know that you’re the most beautiful woman in the world.”
I looked down as tears I couldn’t stop cascaded down my face in rivulets.
He put his finger under my chin and forced me to face him. He looked alarmed when he saw my tears and used both thumbs to wipe them away as he cradled my face. “Devon, love doesn’t see imperfections. It’s why they say it’s blind. It can be a curse, but the blessing is why we were designed this way.”
I gripped him tighter and buried my head into his chest. “Thank you for seeing through the scars and helping me find the real me. She’s been gone so long I never thought I’d get her back.”
“Let’s take a walk,” he said, pointing to a small lake on the other side of the playground.
He gripped my hand and we walked in silence. I saw him occasionally look around to make sure we were safe. I knew he had a gun tucked into the back of his pants and a knife sheathed on his belt. He’d even given me a pistol to carry with me at all times, but of course I’d left it in his room at the clubhouse because I wasn’t used to carrying it.
“What are we going to do once the deadline passes and I don’t have a website for that jerk? Tomorrow’s one week,” I said as we strolled along the lakefront.
“The way I see it,” Parker replied, “he’s going to come looking for you when you ghost him—and you will be ghosting him. He’s gonna go berserk. As soon as the sun goes down tomorrow night, we’re going to head to your apartment. Viper and I will be inside, the other guys will be outside the building. Eagle’s going to be in the van—our getaway driver.”
“So, you discussed all of this already? Without me?” I felt hurt and left out.
He lifted my hand to his lips and placed a chaste kiss on my knuckles. “It’s club business, beautiful. Usually the old ladies sit it out.”
“But this directly involves me,” I argued.
“If you really think about it, it doesn’t. He’ll never find you. You’re safer in the clubhouse. Once he and whoever else decide to come after you, they’re dead. Period.”
I wasn’t sure I liked that. I felt the need for some kind of vindication since they’d kidnapped and threatened me, but I supposed the fact that three of them were already dead... I should be content with that. “I don’t know...”
“Look,” Parker said, pointing to some geese and swans floating on the lake.
I stared at where he was pointing. “Beautiful creatures for sure.”
“Don’t feed them,” he warned. “They turn into psychos. The geese, I mean.”
Laughing, I said, “How do you know?”
“Lots of goose ponds in California. Do you know they’ll actually hiss at you like a cat if you get too close to them?”
I bit back a smile. “No, I didn’t, you little nature lover, you.”
Parker leaned down and kissed me. “You’re so cute.”
“If you say so,” I replied cheekily.
We kept walking around the lake, and he pulled his phone from his pocket. I watched him type out a text.
“Am I boring you?” I asked with a grin.
He chuckled and re-pocketed the phone. “Not at all. Told Viper I’d do half-hour watch-calls.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Oh, just a check-in to make sure we’re okay. He wasn’t happy when I told him we were going to the park. He doesn’t think we should be in public.”
“The way I see it, these psychos aren’t going to try to kill me until they realize they’re not getting their website. Am I right?”
He nodded. “Yes, but obviously, they’re not above kidnapping. In fact, one more lap around the lake and we should go.”
Sighing, I said, “Fine.”
An hour later, we were back at the clubhouse.
“Where’s Viper?” Parker asked Venom, who was sitting in the breakroom eating a bowl of cereal.
“Cobalt, in his office,” he replied, looking up from his phone. He looked tired and had dark circles under his eyes.
“You all right, man?” Parker asked.
He nodded. “Yeah, fine. It’s easier if I stay here at night and then go back to the house to sleep in the morning. Kalissa’s up with the baby on and off, and since she’s the only one who can feed him, it’s best if I just let her do her thing.”
“Ah, okay,” Parker said, dragging me by the hand toward the walkway.
We found Viper in his office, and he looked stressed. Parker knocked on the doorframe. “Boss?”
He looked up at us and told us to come in.
“Just checking in. Everything set for tomorrow night?” Parker asked.
“Yes.” Viper looked at me. “Any more texts or calls?”
“He texts me a couple times a day to check in, seeing how the website’s going.” I swallowed hard.
“What do you tell him?” Viper asked.
“Mainly bullshit, that I’m working hard on it and that I can’t guarantee it’ll be done by the promised date but that I’ll let him know when it’s finished.”
“Good, that will keep him hanging on.”
“He still insists it has to be done by tomorrow. He’s a bit of a dick, honestly.”
Viper chuckled. “Yeah? Well, so am I. He’s gonna be sorry if he shows at your place.”
“So I’ve been told.” I squeezed Parker’s hand tighter.
“We’ll be in my apartment if you need us. Just text,” my handsome vampire told his boss.
He looked at us with an expression I couldn’t decipher, and then said, “Will do.”
We went up the stairs and locked ourselves in Parker’s apartment.
“I need a shower,” I said.
“Me too,” he replied.
After Parker started the shower, we stripped our clothes off and stepped inside. I plunged my head under the hot, pounding water and groaned at how good it felt. When I opened my eyes, he was standing in front of me, gazing at my body before he lazily looked into my eyes. He grabbed the loofah, put some soap on it from an auto-dispenser attached to the wall, and leaned down. Starting at my ankles, he slowly scrubbed every inch of my legs. When he reached the apex between my thighs, he spread me apart and ran his finger over my clit, then washed me there before moving up the flat of my stomach and onto my breasts. Sliding the loofah across my chest and over my shoulders, he then moved to my arms. Once they were soapy, he kissed me hard before turning me around and working on my back, waist, hips, and then ass. Once my legs were soaped up, I was walked backward, with him staring into my eyes, and rinsed off. He turned me around and rinsed my front while his erection pressed into my tailbone. I heard the shampoo dispenser right before he began massaging my hair with suds. After I rinsed off my hair, I squeezed some shampoo into my hand and lifted my arms to massage it onto his head. The loofah was still soapy, so with slow movements, I washed every inch of his body. Once we were suds-free, Parker reached down to spread my lips apart before massaging my extremely swollen clit with his fingers. I could barely get the conditioner out of the bottle and into my hair before my legs began to shake. I dropped the bottle and it rolled to the other side of the massive shower. My climax was building so fast with what he was doing with his fingers, I thought I was going to slip and fall. When he sealed his hot mouth around my nipple, I exploded, mumbling his name like a curse while I grappled the walls of the shower for something to hold onto.
Parker picked me up under each leg, my head falling back under the water as it cascaded over my hair. I whimpered when his dick thrust into me. I gripped his shoulders for leverage and gazed into his eyes as he fucked me hard and fast, my legs wrapped around his waist. The friction from his thick cock was causing a tidal wave of lust to begin to swirl in my womb. I looked at the vein throbbing slowly on his neck, leaned down, and sank a fang into it.
We both groaned while I sucked hard, his blood flowing down my throat while I rolled my hips in time with his. He picked up speed, grunting as the friction from his thrusts made me shudder when another orgasm tore through my body. I squeezed his cock with my slick walls right as he stilled, shooting his load into me with a growl.
“Fuck...” he breathed.
We stood there like that, breathless and seeing stars, my head dipped into the crease where his shoulder met his neck. Once we caught our breath, he slowly put me down, turned off the now cool water, and helped me out of the shower. After drying off, we fell asleep, exhausted and happy.