Page 84 of Wicked Beautiful (Wicked Games 1)
His cock is obviously very impatient with this break in the action.
“It wasn’t a lie. I was tired. I also said it had been a bad night. Both of those things are true.” His voice drops. “Now ask me what made it a bad night.”
My heart begins to flutter. “What made it a bad night?”
He caresses my face, trails his fingers down my jaw. In a conversational tone, he says, “Well, this incredible woman I’ve been seeing—a woman who literally drives me insane in every way—left me alone in bed, didn’t return my calls for days, and then showed up out of the blue and told me an interesting story about how she had to go visit her sick mother in California.” His voice loses the conversational tone and becomes deadly soft. His gaze bores into mine. “When she was actually in Texas.”
Ice water is injected into my veins. Oh God oh God oh God. “Texas?”
Parker slowly nods. When I don’t respond, he says with gentle sarcasm, “Go ahead. Lie to me. I promise I’ll believe you.”
I have several choices. I can follow my earlier impulse and tell him everything, and then get out of his bed and never look back, with the knowledge that at least I got him to fall for me and then dumped him. I know it will sting.
A sting doesn’t seem very satisfying.
I could also cry—which I know horrifies men—thereby gaining a momentary reprieve, at least long enough to concoct a good cover story.
Unfortunately, at the moment the likelihood of me being able to summon fake tears is about as likely as pigs flying.
So I decide to go with option three: sling some bullshit and see what sticks.
“I did go to California to visit my mother. But…on the way I stopped in Texas.”
Though I have no idea what he knows, if perhaps a story has already run that exposes all my lies—or, worse, for some reason Parker has been having me followed—I’m proud of how even my voice sounded. Now I just have to figure out what to say next.
Parker studies my face. “Why?”
The image of my brother’s smiling face crosses my mind. “To visit the grave of someone I once loved.”
My voice is no longer steady; it wavers with emotion. True emotion. Because I did visit the grave of someone I once loved. Someone I once loved very much, and still do, and always will.
My little brother.
I don’t tell Parker that, of course. When he asks who the person was, I fabricate a story about a college boyfriend who was originally from Texas, a boy I’d once planned to marry. When he died in the military, or so my story goes, his family had his body shipped back to his hometown so he could be buried like the hero he was.
I keep my fingers crossed that this story jibes with whatever Parker’s found out about my trip.
With genuine sorrow in his voice, he says, “I’m sorry to hear that.”
Awash in relief, I close my eyes. “Thanks. It was a bad weekend.”
More honesty, more emotion in my voice, more softening in Parker’s body.
Well. Except there.
He kisses my throat, his lips soft and warm. It feels exquisite. Against my skin he murmurs, “I’m originally from Texas, too. Did you know that?”
This conversation is wreaking havoc on my blood pressure. “No. Small world.”
Please don’t ask what city I visited. Please don’t tell me what city you’re from.
He doesn’t. Seemingly satisfied by my story, Parker kisses a tender path down my throat, over my collarbone, to my chest. He rests his cheek against my breastbone. He holds still for a moment, listening. I know what he hears, because I feel it in every vein in my body:
Boom! Crash! Thud!
Stupid, traitorous, truth-telling heart.
Parker inhales deeply. He cups my breast in his hand. He whispers, “Maybe you’re destined to fall in love only with men from Texas,” and lowers his lips to my hard nipple.
