Page 82 of Wicked Beautiful (Wicked Games 1)
I whisper, “Anything but that.”
“I know it’s the last thing you want to do. Which is why I need you to do it.”
When I close my eyes to escape him, he warns, “You said you could give me real. Give it.”
Real is how my body is so high just from having him close. Real is how my entire adult life was shaped by this man, by what he did and didn’t do, by all the ways I can’t let him go.
Real is the look of pity in Darcy’s eyes when I told her my story.
“I can’t even imagine how lonely you must be.”
Without opening my eyes I say, “You make me want to believe in happily-ever-afters.”
It comes from the deepest part of me, the darkest part, a silent pit I thought I’d buried a long, long time ago. It’s raw and whispered, and the worst thing of all?
It’s the truth.
Parker says, “Look at me.”
I open my eyes and stare at him. He looks first in one of my eyes and then the other, his gaze intent, deeply searching. After a moment he says, “You never fail to amaze me. When you let down your guard, Victoria, you’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”
There is a moment—a terrible, terrifying moment—when I almost break down and give it all up. I am this close to admitting everything, to purging myself in one epic, truth-telling spew. But then the elevator slides to a stop and the doors to his penthouse open, and the moment is gone.
Parker kisses me softly on the lips. He takes me by the hand. He leads me silently through his house, into the bedroom. He doesn’t turn on the lights. Standing at the foot of the bed, his gaze never leaving mine, he slowly unbuttons his shirt and drops it to the floor.
He takes my hand and places it flat on his bare chest. “Do you feel that?”
Beneath my hand, his heart pounds wildly. Because I don’t trust myself to speak, I nod.
He wraps his arm around me and pulls me close. “That’s what you do to me. Every time I see you, every time I hear your voice. If you can’t trust me, trust that. Hearts can’t lie.”
My eyes squeezed shut, I lower my head to his chest. When I don’t answer him, Parker flattens his own hand over my chest and waits.
And my heart—my broken, withered heart—tells him the truth. With every throb and crazy beat, my own heart betrays me.
With a soft groan, he whispers, “Oh, baby.” He kisses me again, this time with breathless urgency. I kiss him back, my arms around his waist, my breasts pressed against his chest, and feel his heart surge.
His fingers find the zipper on the back of my dress. He pulls it down, exposing my skin to the cool air. I shiver, my nipples hardening, my body enflamed. He slides my dress down over my hips. It pools on the floor around my feet.
When Parker looks down with ravenous hunger at my body, I feel a rush of desire so strong my cheeks go hot.
I push him down to the bed so he’s sitting on the edge of the mattress. He looks up at me, his expression expectant, eyes burning, pulse pounding in his neck.
As he watches, I unhook my bra and let the straps fall slowly down my arms. I toss the bra aside. He reaches for my hips, slips his fingers beneath my panties, tugs them impatiently down my thighs. I step out of them so I’m standing nude before him wearing only my heels.
What I see in his eyes, on his face…it’s intoxicating.
I’ve never felt this powerful.
I already know how this game will end. I know there are no happily-ever-afters to be had, no eleventh-hour reprieves to
spare our fates. In hours or days or weeks, this house of cards I’ve built will come crashing down, and I’ll have my sweet revenge.
That will come. But this moment isn’t for revenge.
It’s for remembering. It’s for savoring. It’s for saying a final good-bye to whatever shred of compunction I may have been harboring.
Because this is the moment Parker fully surrenders himself to me. Even though he has doubts, though I know he knows something about me he isn’t disclosing, I can see in his eyes that his desire for me has trumped his logic, and now he’s lost.
