Page 35 of Wicked Beautiful (Wicked Games 1)
“Isabel,” I whisper, looking at my shoes.
“Pretty name for a pretty girl,” he says.
When I look up at him sharply, already hurt, I’m shocked to realize he isn’t teasing me, or just trying to be kind to the awkward mousy girl in the thrift store dress. He means it. This boy named Parker has just called me pretty. For real.
No one has ever called me pretty before in my life.
* * *
Gasping, I break the kiss and turn my head sharply, my vision blurred with memories. I try to push Parker away, but he holds me tighter, his muscular arms like a vise.
“Easy,” he says. “Just sit with it for a minute. Don’t run away yet.”
His tone is the one my father used to quiet the horses during a storm. He’d always go out to the barn to be with them when the weather was nasty, to stroke their sleek necks and murmur reassurances in a loving, soft voice, crooning over and over, “Tranquilo, mi amor. Estoy aqui.”
My brother and I were left to cower alone in our beds in the dark.
I keep my eyes squeezed shut because I don’t trust myself to look at Parker. I don’t trust what he might see in my eyes.
He presses the softest of kisses to my cheek. “So I was thinking we’d get a bite to eat first, somewhere quiet, and then see where the evening takes us. Maybe hear some music—I know a great jazz club—or take a walk in the park.” He pauses. “Although those shoes you’re wearing don’t seem like good walk-in-the-park shoes, so maybe we’ll skip that. What do you think? Sound good?”
He’s being light, casual, letting me know he isn’t going to say anything else about my near-meltdown. About how I just disappeared inside that kiss, how I drowned in it, and came back up for air shaking and gasping.
I nod.
“Great. Also, in the spirit of full disclosure, I should probably tell you that this dress of yours, which is really more like visual Viagra than a dress, is going to cause an ocean of drool among all the poor bastards you’ll be passing tonight, so I’m going to have to stick very close to you in order to be ready to lend a gallant hand when you slip on said drool. Which is inevitable, considering the sheer amount of it we’ll be dealing with. So.”
I laugh a little shakily. “So be prepared to have a Parker barnacle?”
He nods seriously, though there’s a gleam of laughter in his eyes. “Yes.”
“Duly noted.”
I take a deep breath, then let it out slowly. Parker eases his arms from around me and takes a step back, eyeing me warily as if I might change my mind and bound away like a deer fleeing a guy in a neon vest who’s toting a loa
ded rifle. But I’m better now. More steady on my feet.
It occurs to me that I need to find a way to deal with kissing this man if I’m going to make him fall in love with me so I can dump him, and then ruin his life. There will probably be a lot of kissing involved. I might even have to sleep with him.
Realization hits me with such force I stop breathing.
I’m probably going to have to sleep with him!
How is this only occurring to you now? The howl of laughter inside my head is Darcy’s.
“You have the most interesting internal conversations,” says Parker, watching my face. “Someday I’d love to be in on one of them.”
I blurt, “I was just thinking about sleeping with you.”
He stares at me. I’ve never seen such a look of hunger. Softly, he says, “Go on.”
“I…cannot believe I just said that out loud.”
Parker hasn’t blinked. His pupils are dilated. I wonder if mine are, too.
“Seriously, let’s just pretend I didn’t say that, OK? Rewind. Erase. Press play again.”
Aware that I’ve begun to babble, I snap my mouth shut. We stand in silence, looking at each other, until Parker lifts his hand and brushes his thumb over my lower lip.
