Page 87 of The Wrong Heart

No.

No, he doesn’t get to do this. He doesn’t get to rip me open, then think he can be the one to stitch me back together again. That’smyjob.

Reining in my growing arousal, I tug my wrists free and move away, watching as his eyebrows dip once more. “Go home, Parker,” I tell him, hating the way my voice sways. “If you’re looking to scratch an itch, I’m sure you have plenty of options.”

“Is that what you think?” His frown deepens, lips pursing together as he studies me. “You think I’m out there chasing tail, and you just happen to be next on my long list ofoptions?”

I shrug, faking my way through indifference. “Maybe. Probably.”

Parker slowly nods, stepping forward and closing the gap between us. His proximity is alarmingly potent as his eyes skim across my face, a green blaze of wildfire. “How about this: I haven’t had sex in eleven years—haven’t thought about it, haven’t wanted it. Haven’t even cared.” He leans down closer, until his lips graze my ear like a whispered kiss, and he breathes out, “Or how about this: I’ve jerked off more times in the last week thinking aboutyou, than I have all goddamn year.”

An electric jolt shoots through me, and my hands lift involuntarily, gripping the hard muscles of his arms to keep myself from teetering.

Parker’s head raises slightly, pivoting until our eyes lock. “So, believe me when I say you’re more than just an itch. You’re a fucking revolution.”

My fingernails claw into his tensing biceps, a little gasp escaping my throat. As my eyelids flutter right along with the colony of butterflies in my stomach, I lean into him, drawn to his words, his scent, his aura.

But just as I’m about to give in to him—again—he pulls away.

He steps back, leaving a chilly emptiness in his absence. My eyes pop open, spitting fire as he keeps trekking backwards through my yard. Leaving. “Good,” I seethe, sick of his mixed signals. Sick of the crumbs he throws me right before he steals them all away. “Go.”

Parker holds my gaze for another moment before spinning on his heels and storming through my backyard.

His dismissal infuriates me.

What was the point of that?

What the hell was the point?

Fists clenched at my sides, I shout at his retreating back, “I hate you. You’renothinglike Charlie. You’re the opposite of him in every way, and it makes me sick that I…” Parker comes to an abrupt stop, his shoulders tautening as his head bows. I swallow. “It makes me sick that I…”

“That you what?” Parker faces me then, twisting in place. “Say it.”

My bottom lip quivers with the words I can’t seem to expel.

“Fucking say it, Melody.” He traipses back over to me with fury on his face. “What makes you sick? That you want me?”

I shake my head as he advances.

“Admit it. You want me.”

“No.”

“No?” Parker comes to a halt when we’re toe-to-toe, his chest swelling with labored breaths, something savage glinting in his eyes. “You’re lying. You’d let me take you right here, right now, in the pouring fucking rain, like a wild animal.”

Shudders rip through me, stopping my breath. His gaze slips to my heaving breasts, my nipples tight, nearly cutting through the thin fabric, and when he glances back up… there’s a shift. Something palpable, visceral. I feel it, he feels it, and I think the sky feels it, too, because just then, lightning cracks above us, an aggressive flash of heat that mimics the look in his eyes.

We pounce on each other.

I go for his mouth, but he dodges me, biting my jaw instead, then trailing his tongue along my neck as he shoves the straps of my tank top off my shoulders and pushes the fabric down past my breasts. Parker groans when my breasts spill free, dipping his head lower until he’s sucking a nipple into his mouth and I’m arching into him, my body crumbling. My moan mingles with his as my hands frantically fumble with his belt buckle, unlatching it and searching for the zipper.

Parker bends further and grasps me right beneath the thighs, lifting me into the air and hooking my legs around his waist. I squeak in surprise, but it dissolves into a needy whimper when his erection presses between my legs and he carries me off somewhere, who knows where—I don’t really care as long as he keeps suckling my nipple like that, his teeth nicking the sensitive flesh and inciting my pelvis to grind against the hard bulge in his jeans.

My back slams into the wooden planks of the backyard shed, and I yelp when Parker starts tugging my shorts down my legs, his mouth all over me, my hands scratching at his scalp and fisting his wet hair.

The storm rages on around us, or maybe wearethe storm. We’re the flashes of lightning, the thunder booming, the dark clouds of destruction hiding the bright moon. The rain pours down and drenches us, a welcoming contrast to the searing heat threatening to detonate.

My spine bows back when Parker’s finger slips inside me, and I grasp at his shoulders, clawing and digging. “Oh, God…”

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