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  And finishing the engine for him would certainly do that.

  “So you two are serious then?” Paulie chanced a question from the other side of the opened hood.

  Shrugging, I focused on the task at hand. But even just thinking about what Parker and I were becoming made me grin. “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Good.” Though it was only a single word, I heard the volumes Paulie actually said. It made him happy to know I was happy. And a simple conversation was all we needed to get that out in the open.

  “How’s Annie?” Keeping my eyes trained on the ratchet in my hand, I offered up a silent prayer that nothing bad had happened at their appointment yesterday.

  Sighing, Paulie stood up from his hunched-over position. He stretched his back and looked up at the dingy ceiling. “She’s good,” he finally admitted. “Really good actually.” The smile on his face was unlike any I’d ever seen and it did me good to hear Annie was doing more than fine. “She’s been following some crazy holistic eating plan and going to acupuncture and it’s been helping control any flare ups which helps the baby.” His face fell, something morphing from pure excitement to genuine fear.

  “What’s wrong then?”

  Scrubbing a hand over his face, he leaned against the car, facing the open bay door. He folded his arms over his chest as if to ward off some kind of blow. “Just kind of hit me out of nowhere.”

  “What’s that?” Standing next to him, I stared out into the early spring sky.

  “That I’m going to be a father. I mean, I know nothing is guaranteed, especially with Annie being sick and all, but with each passing day and with each successful doctor’s visit, I feel like this is really going to happen and it scares the ever-loving shit out of me.” His chuckle was a precise blend of self-preservation and fear.

  Clapping a hand on his shoulder, I laughed with him, but for an entirely different reason. “You don’t see it, do you?”

  Angling away, he looked down at me with an utterly baffled look on his face. “If you make another obscure movie reference about a head in a box, I’m going to have to rethink having you around so much.”

  We both shared a burst of laughter before the seriousness set in again. “In all my life, not just in the ten years I’ve been here, you’re the only father figure I’ve ever had.” Paulie’s face fell, swirling with so many unnamable emotions. “And God knows your baby is going to be a totally different situation, but you’re not new to taking care of people. You’ve been doing it for me for the last decade.”

  “Thanks, man.” The stress in his voice, as if he was working hard to hold back the emotion in his words, was clear as day. Giving in to at least some of it, he clapped a hand around my shoulders. With a few loud slaps on my back, he gave me a half-hug, saying, “And I wouldn’t change any of it.”

  “Am I intruding on something?” Parker’s voice, filled with joking playfulness, called out from the office door to our side. “I can come back if you two need a few more minutes of alone time.” The bastard even air-quoted alone time, bursting into a full-bellied laugh.

  “Nah.” Paulie slapped me one more time on the back, really hard, before stepping away. Wiping his grease-covered hands on his coveralls, he walked toward Parker who was entering the garage space. “He’s all yours. Just watch it if he asks you to go looking in boxes for anything. You won’t even see it coming.” Obviously, the inside joke was lost on Parker. “See you guys later.”

  Shooting Paulie’s retreating back a confused look, Parker’s face twisted up. “What the hell was he talking about?”

  Swatting my hand at the old man, I said, “Don’t worry about it. He’s clearly going senile.”

  Parker loosened his tie, shrugged his jacket off, and unfastened the buttons on his vest with such smoothness, it made my mouth go dry. He’d been in the same room as me for less than a minute and already I was a mess with wanting him.

  “You know you’re sexy as fuck in that three-piece suit. And watching you take it off, piece by piece like that, it fucks with my head.” I actually felt like I was chewing on my words as I watched him carefully roll up his sleeves, revealing his muscular forearms.

  “Yeah?” Tossing his jacket over a chair in the corner, he quirked an eyebrow at me. “Well,” he started as he walked close to me. “You look fucking hot. Ripped jeans and a dirty t-shirt. A smudge of grease on your arm and across your cheek.” His breath washed over my stubbled jaw. “You’re the poster boy for bad boys everywhere and I fucking love it. Love that you’re mine.”

  Like a plow barreling down the highway, the word love ran me over and left me in pieces. And he hadn’t even used it to say how he felt about me, just about my body, my attitude. I’d be ruined if it were ever used in any other capacity.

  Fuck if I knew whether I would ever be able to use the word myself.

  Pushing all of those wayward thoughts out of my brain for a minute, I popped a quick kiss to his hot lips, letting my hands travel down his arms, stopping only when the cool metal of his watch met my overheated hands. “Come with me.” Lacing my fingers with his, I pulled him toward the engine that was only a few small steps away from being finished. “I have a surprise for you.”

  “You did all of this?” he gasped in shock.

  Shaking my head, I said, “No, not all of it. But I wanted to be able to definitely finish it tonight so you could feel like it was getting somewhere.”

  He gave me a shy smile. It was rare and real, reserved just for me in moments like these. Slowly, he stepped toward me. Wedging his thigh between my legs, he pushed me back up against the car. His fingers grazing against my skin, first my cheek, then down the side of my neck, felt like silk. “Thank you,” he whispered against my lips. Sinking his teeth into my lip, he ran his tongue over the captured skin. The heated lashes of his tongue and the sharp bite of his teeth sent jolts of pleasure mixed with pain racing all over my body. “And when we’re done,”—he released my lip, licking his tongue over to the corner of my mouth—“I’ll thank you properly.” His mouth pulled into a deliciously sexy half-smile and my cock throbbed. Suddenly, I couldn’t wait to get to work.

  As we worked on putting the last pieces in place on the engine, it was as if we were dancing. Our bodies kept in constant contact—a light brush here, a wayward stroke there. In the two hours it took us to finish our work, we’d built each other up into a frenzy. As I tightened the last of the crankshaft, Parker pushed me up against the body of the car, his hard chest resting against my back.

  Parker ran his hand down my arm, easing the ratchet out of my grip. “I think we’re done with this now.” His voice slid over me like the cool breeze coming in from the open bay door. When he lifted my shirt over my head, chills raced over my skin and the ratchet fell to the floor. Forcefully, he kicked my legs wider, pushing my body further into the car. “This isn’t going to work,” he decided as he pulled my wrists behind my back.

  As if I was under arrest, he dragged me to the back panel of the car where the trunk provided a bit more leverage. He spun me around, my ass making a dull thud as it fell to the metal of the car. “Can’t bend you over an opened hood, now, can I?”

  His kiss conveyed something more powerful than a simple “thank you” for getting the engine finished. It was something larger and more important than just recognizing the weeks we’d spent together. The passion in his kiss told me he was grateful for simply having me here with him. And despite the hard press of his body into mine, his fingers knotting in my hair, his tongue lashing through my mouth, there was tenderness in everything he was doing.

  My heart pounded in my chest as his fingers unfastened my jeans. He pushed them down to my knees, essentially locking me in place, prohibiting me from moving. In stark contrast to every single touch and movement he’d made up to that point, he lightly grazed his knuckles along the underside of my dick. “Ahh, fuck, Parker.” My words were nothing more than a breathless growl, a staggered panting syncopated to the rhythm of his touch.

&
nbsp; “I know,” he crooned, his lips pressed to the shell of my ear. “Just relax,” he whispered, before lightly nipping at my earlobe. He left me no choice as his lips and tongue worked their way down my neck, across my chest, along the dark line of hair leading to my jutting cock.

  My neck arched, ready to receive the pleasure of which he’d deemed me worthy. Then, his fingers, long and strong, wrapped around my throat at the same time his other hand stroked my length. “I . . . oh, God . . .”

  “I know, baby.” His lips moved against my cheek.

  “Park . . . I need . . . Oh, fuck . . .”

  “Tell me,” he commanded, tightening the grip on my throat. “Tell me what you want, what you need. You know I’ll give it to you.”

  “I just can’t. It’s too much.” Though I found my voice, I hadn’t found my courage to ask for what I really needed from him. The roughness with which he’d handled me up to this point was definitely an indication that he had an inkling of what was in my head, but I knew he wanted me to say the words.

  But saying the words would open the scar to the wound that had long since healed.

  Or so I thought it had.

  Because if I was afraid of it bleeding all over the place, it was anything but gone and lost forever.

  “I need you to take me,” I muttered quickly.

  Parker snickered, a joker-like smirk on his face. “You know that’s what you’ll get.”

  “That’s it. That’s what I need. Please,” I begged around my lie.

  The tether to his restraint was cut, and as I spoke those words, he dropped to his knees. Without any prelude or warning, he had me deep into his throat, sucking my dick with this wild passion that seemed to abandon all reason. “This,” he mumbled, only the tip of my cock still in his mouth, “is this what you want?”

  Without waiting for me to answer, not that I was capable of doing such a thing, he took me deep again, this time adding his hands to my shaft. His nails lightly scraped along my balls, forcing them to tighten even more. “Fuck, Park . . . I’m getting close.”

  “No,” he demanded, my dick falling from his mouth on a loud pop echoing against the concrete walls of the garage. “You’ll come when I come,” he commanded. My needs brought that out in him, made him more powerful, more in control. It was a part of myself I was willing to give to him, but it was the part of myself I feared the most.

  Parker spun me around, pressing my chest and stomach down against the trunk of the car. He left just enough room to reach around and work my dick with his hand. Glancing behind me, I saw him spit into his hand before stroking his own cock. Like mine, his pants were shoved past his hips, his shirt pushed out of the way, exposing the deep V of his abs and the trail of light blond hair leading to his dick.

  Readying myself for his invasion, I rested my cheek against the cool metal of the trunk. Then his heat was gone, replaced only by the wet lashes of his tongue against my ass. Spreading my muscles, he fucked my ass with his mouth as if it were the last thing he’d do in his life.

  As he stood, he scratched his nails over my ass before smacking it. “Now. I need to have you now.” Then he was inside of me, thrusting so deep, pushing so far, I wasn’t sure there was a part of me he wouldn’t touch. His body covered mine, one hand reaching around my throat. Using my own body for his leverage, Parker pounded into me, taking pleasure from my offering.

  Electric pulses of need gathered at the base of my spine. “Parker . . .” His name came out in two syllables, matching the rhythmic thrust of his dick in my ass, the tightening of his fingers on my cock, the wild beat of my heart, the blood pounding in my veins.

  With his fingers digging into my skin, he growled in my ear, “Liam . . . you’re so fucking tight. Ahh, fuck . . .” He moved with reckless abandon, pulling completely out of me only to drive right back in. The sound of our skin slapping together, my body pushing into the car, our joined breathless grunting it all became overwhelming—a temporary symphony of sex.

  On one last push, which I felt deep in my gut, Parker stilled, calling out the pleasure of his orgasm while mine rushed over his hand.

  “One day,” he breathed against my back, “you’ll tell me what you want, what you need.” When he felt me begin to protest, he ran a hand calmly through my hair. “Tonight’s not that night, but you will, because I know you feel the same things I feel. And I’ll wait, Liam. I’ll wait for you to tell me what means so much to you, because you mean that much to me.” His lips pressed gently against my shoulder, sealing every last breath he’d just breathed into a vow I couldn’t yet wrap my head around.

  In that instant, something came over me. Maybe it was a moment of bravery or stupidity, I guess it all depended on how you looked at it, but the possibility of a future with Parker became more important than hiding my past. So I twisted just enough to let him know I wanted him to let me face him. With my back against the car, I crumbled under the weight of my secrets. Sliding down to the floor, I held my head in my hands. Near shaking, I uttered, “I just can’t.”

  “Shh,” he settled me. “I know,” he added, wrapping his arm around my shoulder. He didn’t say anything more, just held me as I battled the demons I couldn’t yet share with him.

  Yet, an unexpected surge of something intangible hit me—a force I couldn’t possibly have seen coming. “I will,” I spoke softly, “if you promise to follow through on your own firm. If you do the right thing by the Maxwell kid, and by yourself, then I’ll tell you.”

  Was it emotional blackmail?

  Some would say yes.

  Was it unfair?

  Some would agree.

  Was it a way for me to save my own heart while letting his soar?

  Absolutely.

  And I would hold onto that notion for as long as I could. Push him as far as he would let me push him, all for the name of a love I couldn’t yet voice.

  While we sat there, the cool concrete floor not bothering us in the least, we said no words, yet spoke volumes. Then, as if to bring us back to the reality to which neither of us seemed all that willing to return, his cellphone rang loudly across the room.

  He ignored it, but when it rang again, he jumped up. Explaining as he pulled up his pants and stood before me, “It’s not Serena, or my father. Or you,” he added rather mysteriously.

  As I watched him walk across the garage, I didn’t have time to understand him fully. So rather than try to figure him out, I stood as well, pulled my own pants up, and put myself back together without looking too much like I was trying to overhear his conversation.

  There wasn’t much to hear, anyway. By the time I had my fly zipped and buttoned, he was ending the call.

  “That was a good friend of mine,” he explained, coming back to me. The fact that I didn’t even have to ask him before he explained wasn’t lost on me. I already recognized that with Parker, the truth was as effortless as breathing, at least where I was concerned. But, for a reason I didn’t want to expose just yet, his unwillingness to be true to himself made me keep a part of myself concealed—it was the part I’d never shown anyone.

  Not Paulie or Annie.

  Not even Gabe.

  No one knew what he wanted to know.

  And no one had ever come as close to knowing it as he did.

  But, no one’s closeness, love, and passion had ever meant this much to me.

  Parker made me teeter on the edge of the reality I’d created for myself. He made me balance on this precarious edge between past and future, completely absorbed in the present, loving every second of this new and exhilarating life I was currently living.

  Lost in my own fog, I almost missed what Parker was explaining. My brain picked up when he said, “You’ll come with me, right?”

  Blinking hard, and pressing the heels of my hands over my eyes, I needed some clarification. “Uh, yeah, I mean, sure. Wait, where?”

  Parker laughed, letting his lips draw up into a lazy and sated smile. “You didn’t hear a word I said, did you?”<
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  “Sure I did,” I lied.

  “Yeah?” He snickered. “Then what did I say?”

  He had me in a cold stare, knowing full well that I had no clue what the hell he was talking about. “Something legal?” I toyed, stepping close to him. Hooking my thumbs into his pockets, I pulled him close to me. “But my heart beat hasn’t returned to normal just yet, so maybe I misheard,” I teased. “Why don’t you tell me what you said,” I joked with him. “And then I can tell you if that’s what I heard.”

  Parker’s laughter rumbled between us like a low-grade earthquake—tremors that bordered on the fine line between panic and calm.

  “Fine,” he conceded. “I’ll repeat myself.” Pressing his lips to mine, his smile made me smile. “I called a friend today to see about an office space in his building that he’s putting up for rent. It turns out that it’s available and he was calling to see if I’d be interested in taking a look at it before he lists it.”

  Excitement thrummed all around us. Parker’s face was impossibly bright as he explained all the details. All I could focus on was that the man before me, who was once so afraid of what the future held, was now grabbing it by the reins and making it his bitch.

  I wondered if I’d ever have the same strength.

  But when he said, “If this works out, I can start work right away. Besides I’ll need a place to meet with Harvey Maxwell on Monday morning. Especially if he decides against letting me meet at his home.”

  Parker took stock of my perplexed look as I asked, “Harvey? As in the future ex of your previous client? I’m no legal expert, but isn’t that a conflict of interest? I know you’ve been taken off the case, but still.”

  Some mysterious expression washed over his face and when he said, “No. Not since I already resigned from my father.” I knew that it was a combination of fear and shame that changed his beautiful features into worried ones. “So if I get this place, I’d be able to at least get started right away on my own without much downtime in between. Not that I have any clients, but I guess that’s the bitch of starting over.”