And as it comes up, so do my eyes, which firmly lock on the teeth sinking into his bottom lip.
He’s the big bad wolf, and apparently, I’m his next meal.
The moment my gaze lands on that hunting snarl, a fire so hot it nearly burns my core ignites between my legs. My lord, it’s been a long time since I felt this kind of desire. The kind of animalistic need to mate that isn’t rational or logical, and won’t be satisfied until the urge is spent.
I’m both terrified and exhilarated to see just how well he can meet that need.
As he grabs for me, at the exact moment I lunge at him, I can’t help but think how he’ll destroy me just like the wall behind us.
Judging by the pheromones in the air, you’d think we could level an entire city.
3
Brennan
Parker slams me against the wall, and luckily it isn’t the portion with shards of drywall sticking out or I’d be impaled right now.
Hell, I’m about to be impaled as it is.
This giant, intense demigod picks me up the minute I start for him, and immediately, we’re going at it. His tongue is in my mouth, punishing my own with long, heated strokes that feel more like fucking than kissing. He’s tearing at my clothes, ripping the navy shirt Mom bought me over my head. It disappears somewhere on the floor in a heap, but I barely register it.
Because right then, as one arm holds me up, his large palm cradling my ass, the other hand begins rolling my nipples between its fingers.
“Oh my …” I don’t even get the God out, because Parker Avery has my hot, tightened bud between his teeth.
My fingers scratch at his scalp, the buzzed hair creating an electric current that runs from my tips to my toes. I grind my pelvis against his, the jeans I’m wearing too constricting for how I want to move my hips.
This is all so insane, I can barely keep up. It’s light out, not the typical keep-the-lights-off bedroom play that I’m used to. He’s sober, which is new for me. Also, I barely know him, so this entire situation is new for me. Plus, he has me pinned to a wall that probably costs more than my entire apartment is worth to build, and he’s a freaking baseball superstar …
“This is insane,” I mutter, but what he’s doing to my boobs is so damn pleasurable, I’m not going to stop him.
“Fucking crazy,” Parker growls into my chest, completely unclasping my bra so it falls between our joined bodies.
And I won’t stop. This might make me certifiable, but I’m relishing in the power trip this is giving me. I’m controlling this narrative, taking what I want and giving in to the spontaneity of life.
With some maneuvering, I manage to pull his shirt over his head. I shouldn’t have done that. Before, I could have stopped. We could have put this in the pile of “ridiculously hot slash weird make-out sessions with some boob sucking,” and then gone about our day.
But the minute I get a peek at his pecs, his abs, the curls that lead down to what I can feel is a very impressive bulge … yeah, it’s game over.
“Take your pants off,” I tell him, my voice sounding foreign in my ears.
It’s reed thin and needy, filled with lust and … authoritative. Maybe I am finally overcoming all the trauma I had to go through.
Parker’s eyes spark, and something illicit passes through them. “Only if you take yours off, too.”
Playful? Is that a note of flirtiness in his voice? Jesus, and I thought this guy couldn’t turn me on more than he already has.
Together, we hustle out of our jeans, his belt clanging as it hits the floor. My slip-on leather mules are kicked across the room, and in an instant, I’m back in his arms.
Pressed skin to skin.
God, this feels delicious. It’s been way too long. Way too long. And from the way this is already going, I’m halfway to an orgasm. Something I’ve rarely been given during sex since I started having it ten years ago.
“I fucking love this freckle. Right. Here.” His teeth skate over my collarbone in the place I know I boast a pea-sized beauty mark.
“Shit …” I hiss, because his teeth on my neck just made my clit twitch.
“You on the pill?” He groans, his cock barely contained in his boxer briefs.
“Yes,” I choke out, because Parker’s fingers just pushed the crotch of my thong to the side.
From underneath me. This man is fingering me while holding me in the air. Who is this sex god and how did I stumble into his lair?
Two thick fingers push inside me to the knuckle, and I yelp. The pleasure throbs through me, stinging but tightening every muscle in that way they do before an earthshaking climax.
“Good. Going to fuck you now. Hold on.” He smirks.
I can’t help but lean forward and swipe my tongue over the upturned side of his lips. In a matter of minutes, this hotshot went from scolding and testing me to playful foreplay to …
My brain wipes clean. White, bright hot white is all I can see as my eyes snap shut.
With my underwear pushed to the side, and his slid down to his knees, Parker enters me with a shattered groan.
And Christ, he’s fucking huge. I was busy being held in the air most of our foreplay, so I didn’t get a good look at the thing. But I can tell as he pushes another inch and another inch and then another inch into me … he’s massive.
I press my forehead to his, our eyes locking as he seats himself to the hilt. When all is said and done, his cock feels like it’s in my belly and I’m quivering around him.
Then, with one swift movement, those large, callused hands pull me up and slam me back down. The noise of our wet suction is drowned out by the guttural moan I release, throwing my head back in ecstasy.
“Let me hear you,” Parker demands, and instead of cowering at his request for obedience, I relish in it.
He fucks me hard and fast, each stroke pushing me further to that edge. I teeter there on the knife, waiting to be sliced in half, as I cry out my pleasure like he told me to.
I come with a million shudders wracking my body, my teeth and nails probably leaving marks on his body as I swallow the scream and allow myself to feel every inch of this orgasm. Freedom, relief, pleasure, control, power … it all washes over me, making me whole.
I’m just in time, as I pull my head out of the daze, to watch him unravel beneath me. Parker stills, the muscles in his jaw twitching, as he buries his dick all the way in me.
“Fuck, yes …” He erupts inside me, those big arms crushing me to him as they wrap around my back.
For a few seconds, we stay intertwined, his cock still twitching in me.
And then, as reality begins to creep back in, Parker pulls me off his cock.
Fumbling off him, I squat and scrounge around to gather my clothes. Holy crap, I just had sex with Parker Avery.
Mind-numbing, “bang you up against a wall” sex with Philly’s favorite baseball player.
Jesus Christ, what did I just do?
Taking the new lease on life a little far, aren’t we? My head screams at me. It’s one thing to control my own destiny, to say what I want when I want, and not let a man keep me down in any sense of the word.
It’s another thing entirely to fuck random strangers in the home you just barged into, as you’re supposed to be interviewing for a job.
Breath enters my body again as I straighten myself, brushing the tousled hair out of my face. One piece of it is wet where it got stuck in my mouth, or maybe his? I’m not even sure what just happened, or if my body is still fully intact.
“So, you’ll get started tomorrow?” a gruff voice hits me square in the lady parts.
“What?” I’m dazed and confused, and not in the good Matthew McConaughey way.
“On the wall. You still know how to do your job, right?”
“Yes.” I scowl, zippering my jeans. “You still want me to fix this?” I motion to the wall we just fucked like animals against.
“I didn’t call you out here for sex, there are actual services I
could use for that if I wanted to. Ones where the girls don’t invite themselves in and curse at me. Be here early, I want this fixed immediately.”
This guy is a complete asshole.
So why do I, all of a sudden, want to giggle like his parting statement is a joke?
4
Parker
Come on, motherfucker. Give me your best.
In my head, I taunt at the pitcher, giving him a snide smile as I tap my bat on home plate and raise it up to rest on my shoulder. He’s already given me his slider, which I know is his best pitch. Then he tried a curveball, and thus far, I’m one and one with one out and two of my teammates on base.
The entire Philadelphia ballpark is mobbed, as it should be for a Saturday afternoon game. The scent of buttery popcorn and beer spilled all over the seats perfumes the air, and out of the corner of my eye, I see the fans doing the wave around the stadium. This is my church, the only kind I’ve ever believed in.
Because when that holy baseball ghost starts moving in you, you can feel it. Kind of like right now, when my fingers start to tingle and the weight of the bat feels just right. An electric current runs down my spine, through my arms, and into my fingers just as the pitcher serves the ball up. On a fucking silver platter.
My bat connects with the red stitching, thwack, and the kickback reverberates through my upper body. The stuffing pops out of the ball, but it goes soaring, careening through center field and up into the stands. I watch it go, smirking like a cocky shit, just standing on home plate and not bothering to run just yet. This is my moment.
Suspended, for just a second, the crowd holds their collective breath as we all watch it soar over the seats, and finally … out of the park. Over the fence. Thundering applause rains down on me, the high of congratulations filling my blood. This is the only ego boost that works anymore, the only way I can somewhat feel like I’m enough.
I hope this hit lasts me until the next time.
After my run, our second baseman strikes out, and then our shortstop hits a pop fly to end the inning.
As I trot back out to center field, my eye paint thick and my ball cap pulled low on my head, I can’t help but think of the heat. It’s scorching, the sun singeing every part of open skin on my body.
Kind of how Brennan Raker had.
Fuck, I haven’t been able to get her face out of my head, or her body out of my fantasies, since she showed up at my house mere days ago.
The woman just walked into my house without knocking, without ringing the bell, and proceeded to make judgments on my actions. Fuck that. I mean … I did leave it open, but who in their right mind wanders into someone else’s home? And why did she need to know how it was damaged? She’s getting paid to fix it, end of story.
Then Brennan had to go and mouth off, and … holy fuck. I’m not sure a woman has ever handed me my ass in such an epic way. She’s got spirit and fire and a whole lot of sarcasm racing through those veins. The sex … Jesus Christ, that was mind-blowing. The fastest I’ve ever let my guard down and just taken a woman.
A ball comes flying my way, and I almost trip over my feet trying to get to it. In the end, I grab it, securing it in my glove and sending a sheepish grin to the pitcher. The coaches in the dugout are all looking at me with murder on their faces.
The inning resumes, and my mind wanders.
With that long, thick caramel-colored hair, and hazel eyes so complex and hypnotizing that they’ve been burned into my memory … God damn, I can think of nothing else.
The way those impossibly long legs had wrapped around my waist, how the blunt nails of her fingers sunk into the skin of my back. Shit, I still have scratch marks.
One of the opposing players whacks one into right field, and I’m slow to jump to the ready, but it hooks foul.
I’ve only known her all of a couple of days, but there is also something between us I can’t quite put my finger on.
“Avery, get your head in the game!” Kyle, my left fielder, screams at me.
He’s too close to me, meaning he just swooped in to grab a ball I hadn’t been aware was coming straight for me.
Of course, I am going to have her fix the wall. Hell, if it means I don’t have to interact with another person because I’d have to interview someone again, then that was enough in itself. But the way she looked at my house, at the destroyed wall, I just felt it in my gut she was going to do a good job. Plus, I’d be a fucking asshole to bang her up against my wall and then not even give her the job.
I mean, I am a big enough asshole to do that. But when it comes to Brennan Raker, I … don’t know. Something in me stops just before that ultimate cruel line I’ve so often crossed.
The end of the game is called, and when I march into the dugout, a lot of the guys give me looks that could kill.
In the locker room, some of my teammates start in with me.
“We almost lost today, no thanks to you,” the pitcher, Juan, chirps at me. “You’re supposed to have my back out there.”
“Well, play like the World Series caliber pitcher you are and I won’t have to back you up,” I clip.
My teammates know not to fuck with me. I don’t have bad days. And when I occasionally give up an error, no one better mention it.
“Dude, not cool.” He shakes his head.
“We won, didn’t we?” I growl, slamming my cleats into the bottom of my locker.
My teammates really needed to back off. They haven’t seen me lose my temper yet, not in the slightest.
“Come on, Avery, you seem distracted. Let’s grab a beer. You can help grab me a girl.” Garreth, the first baseman, smirks at me.
I don’t go out with these guys, not the way I used to with my college friends. I guess that’s what being completely abandoned will do to you. It’s not as if I have a huge support system. I grew up in rural Virginia, with a deadbeat dad and an even more neglectful mother. They worked three jobs each just to get by and largely ignored me. We haven’t spoken in close to seven years, not even for them to ask me for money, and as an only child, there is no connection binding me to a family.
At least in my Grover University days, I had Owen, Miles, and Clint. Sure, I was still a prick back then, but a softer one. After we graduated, and they all paired off and created a six-person love fest I wasn’t invited to, I had no one left. Drinking, being a wingman, friendly camaraderie, it doesn’t appeal to me anymore.
The couple of times I did go out, I’d given them the full Parker Avery wingman experience. Each guy had gone home with a smoking hot girl and thanked me immensely the next time I saw them. It’s my specialty … though kind of a weird one. I’m like a pretty girl sommelier, delivering the perfect blend of attractive, funny, and down-to-go-home with whatever guy was requesting a flavor of the night.
Maybe it’s because I can’t get past the mental block of picking a girl up for myself. There have only been less than a handful in ten years that I’ve taken back to bed. And normally, it’s because the urge to fuck had built up so much, I needed to flush it out of my system. But if I could flirt with a chick, hang her out on a line, have her eating out of the palm of my hand … that’s what I need. I need to feel wanted, to feel like I’m the one with the power, that the ball’s in my court. And then I can reject her, in my mind that is. Pass her off to a friend, leave the interaction on top.
“Back when I knew him, distractions didn’t exist.”
A joking voice comes from the entrance to the locker room and a couple of heads turn to see who spoke the words.
Owen Axel stands in the doorway, golden boy smile directed right at me. My former college best friend has gone on to major league stardom as the youngest pitcher to win a World Series and be awarded a Cy Young. When I heard he was traded to my team, I was pissed. Golden boy is about to storm into town, be the fucking campaign candidate of this team, and try to completely wipe away the fact that he, nor Clint or Miles, have not contacted me since we graduated.
“Yeah, well, you d
idn’t know me well.” I give him a hard stare.
Owen doesn’t look fazed. “Good to see you, old friend.”
See? Trying to act like he’s everyone’s bestie. Typical Owen.
Finishing up the last of my post-game clean up, I haul my gym bag over my shoulder and storm through the locker room.
“We’re not friends.”
It sounds like a curse, for only Owen to hear, before I shoulder past him.
5
Brennan
Walking into the dingy basement of the local recreation center isn’t exactly what I want to be doing on a Saturday morning, but I know I’ll feel better after I leave.
The pressure on my chest has built up so much in the past week that I need a release. I need catharsis, and this is the only therapy I’ve done that seems to work, so here I am.
I nod hello to a couple of other regulars and make myself a cup of decent coffee. People always try to convince you the coffee at these things is bad, but we have a barista in our midst, so Kathy brings the good stuff she gets as a kickback from her job.
The organizer calls the meeting together, and about twenty-five people congregate in the rows of metal folding chairs. I don’t look around, people here don’t want to be noticed. They just want familiar souls around them who understand what they went through. Just like I do.
“Would anyone like to start us off today?” she asks from up front.
I raise my hand, not fast or frantically but strong and determined. The organizer nods and I make my way up, bearing in mind not to make eye contact with anyone as I step to the podium.
“Hi. Name is Brennan. I’ve been free of my abuser for almost three years now.”
A grunting jumble of hellos and noises of awareness that they’re listening to me resounds from the room.
Clearing my throat, I forge on. I’ve shared this story in bits and pieces, but this week I feel strong. I feel capable enough to tell the entire thing without breaking down, and sharing is one of the best ways to rid myself of the horrible memories.
Over the Fence Box Set Page 61
