Los Angeles

by Carlan, Audrey

  I cuddle into his arms as confetti bursts out from the ceiling and drops in sparkling pieces over all of us. Music blares, and the host starts his spiel about the end of the episode and joining the show next time when they have another set of couples wishing for a mix and match.

  “You happy, honey?” I hook my arms around his neck and stare up into the only eyes that have ever looked at me with love shining from every inch of their depths.

  “More than happy. I’m elated, and to tell you the truth . . . kind of relieved. Proposing to Skyler freakin’ Paige in front of the world would have been a shit show!” he jokes, smiling.

  Laughter bubbles up my throat and out my mouth. “This is true.”

  “Thanks for saving me the trauma, baby.”

  I frown. “Oh, you’re not off the hook.”

  He dips his chin and pouts. “What do you mean?”

  “You still have to ask me back. I did the hard part. And besides . . .” I smile and pat his ass. “I want my own ring to show off!”

  He shakes his head, lifts me up, and spins me in a circle, confetti floating like snow all around us, creating the most magical moment of my life.

  Until later that evening . . .

  “Jesus. Christ. Fuck. Me. Woman!” Parker pounds me against the headboard. He’s up on his knees, one arm locked around my back and up, cupping my head, the other at my waist. I have my arms spread out wide against the headboard, fingers curled around the wooden edge, legs wrapped around his waist, ankles locked at his lower back as Parker fucks me raw.

  We’ve been going at it nonstop since we tumbled into the hotel room hours ago. The first time was on the floor in the entryway.

  Let’s just put it this way: the badass jumpsuit didn’t survive. It’s a pile of shredded fabric lost somewhere between the tile floor in the entry and the kitchen area.

  “Honey, please . . . no more. No. More!” I moan in ecstasy at the same time I beg, my head shaking back and forth as if I can will myself not to fall apart again.

  Parker won’t hear it.

  He’s relentless.

  Sweat drips off his brow, and his face twists into a snarl as he rocks his hips. The muscles of his shoulders, arms, and chest are straining, veins protruding with his effort to sink so far into me he makes a Skyler imprint on the headboard behind me.

  “Need. More,” he growls, before sinking his face into my neck and sucking the skin there.

  Chills race out my arms, gooseflesh rising as another intense wave of pleasure shreds me from the inside out.

  “Want you to come again. Squeeze the goddamned life right out of my cock. One last time, baby. Come on. You can do it. Give. It. To. Me.” He groans an animalistic sound against my skin that reverberates down my spine and straight to my clit. A pulsing throb starts there and spreads out as he continues to hammer his length deep inside.

  I move my hands from the death grip I have on the headboard to tunnel my fingers into his hair. With all I have, I lift my chest, then rock my hips with every plunge, wanting to take every centimeter of him inside me. Parker hisses with pleasure or pain. I don’t know anymore. The line is so fine between the two that I can’t tell the difference. All I know is they are both brilliant and life altering at the same time.

  Parker uses his chin to nuzzle his way between my breasts, pressing me firmly against the headboard until he’s got my nipple in his mouth. He sucks so hard I cry out, splintering apart with every pull of his lips. My eyes water, and I enter this space of nothing but dead air and silky bliss. I can feel that my skin is soaked in sweat and saliva from his endless kisses, my limbs locked so firmly around his body that I no longer feel the pain of the overused and abused muscles. My mind swims on this plane of bliss until he crushes my clit with his pelvic bone, and I’m gone. My pussy locks down around the base of his cock, and I scream, and scream, and scream . . . letting it all go in that one final moment of eternal ecstasy.

  Parker makes a choking sound and buries his mouth at my neck. Heavy bursts of air rocket against my heated skin as his body jolts and jerks.

  One thrust.

  Two.

  Three . . .

  He bites down, so hard he might actually break the skin, adding another bruise to the wasteland that he’s made of my body. His own form shakes as his release heats me up from the inside for what feels like the millionth time tonight before he grips me fully. My guy loses his strong hold once we fall to the bed and are against the sheets, him shifting immediately to his side, taking me with him, still connected. One of his hands lands on my ass and stays there, keeping me close. His other is under my head and around my back. I’m locked in his embrace, a happy prisoner.

  After our breathing calms down, I can barely open my eyes long enough to see his baby blues rolling up, and he’s out. I follow him a moment later.

  10

  PARKER

  I wake to the incessant ringing of a cell phone. It stops for a couple of minutes, then starts back up again.

  Hers. Mine. Hers. Mine. An endless, devilish loop of annoyance.

  For a minute I take stock of my body. I’m warm. Crazy warm. My entire body is hot, with a heavy weight pressing my bicep into the mattress to the point it’s now numb. I open my eyes slowly and find I’m face-to-face with the prettiest woman alive. My Skyler, sound asleep, her body half-glued to mine. I wiggle around, and my dick slips wetly out of her.

  Jesus! I groan as copious amounts of our combined lovemaking trickle out of her, sliding down one toned thigh, then trailing onto mine. I glance down and watch the proof of our passion with a twisted fascination. It may be sticky as hell, but I sure as fuck love watching my seed drain out of her. I scan what I can see of her body and wince as bluish fingerprints appear on her thighs and hips where I gripped too hard, got carried away. At the tantalizing curve of her neck and shoulder I can see a series of teeth marks and a whopper of a hickey.

  Shit. When was the last time I got so lost in the moment I gave a woman a hickey?

  Skyler does that to me, and after her asking to tie herself to me for life, I couldn’t keep my hands off her. I literally fucked her until we both passed out. We’ve had some serious sexathons in the past, especially when we first hooked up, but nothing like last night. I lift my hand that now carries an unfamiliar weight and inspect the ring she put on my finger. It’s thin with a simple twist of metal running down the center looking like two lines that have merged. The same way Skyler and I have merged. Two people on our own paths, now tangled up seamlessly with one another.

  I grin wide until the damn phone starts to blare again.

  Skyler mumbles in her sleep and swats at me. “You fuck too much.” She sighs, and her mouth lands in a sultry bow-shaped pout, her lips swollen as fuck from my nonstop kisses.

  I chuckle under my breath at her cuteness and watch the little puffs of air leave her beautiful lips. God, I’m one lucky son of a bitch. And last night, I simply could not get enough.

  She rocked my world when she proposed to me on live television, and I couldn’t get the image of her on her knee, professing her love to me in front of the world, out of my mind. Every time I thought about it or caught a glimpse of my ring I lost it. My dick got hard, and I had to have her.

  She didn’t turn me away. Not once, even though she repeatedly begged me to stop giving her orgasms. A request I straight-up ignored, making her sing as many times as I could. I’m pretty sure we hit a record last night.

  The phone starts to ring again, and this time, my sleepyhead beauty finally hears it. Sky opens one eye, and her golden-brown gaze meets mine. “Honey . . . why is someone blowing up our phones?” She lets her face fall back onto my bicep, where she nuzzles and then kisses me a few times.

  I lock my arm around her, lifting her limp body and dragging her on top of me. Her wet slit makes contact with my once-again hardening cock.

  She moans but also groans. “Honey, you broke my lady parts,” she says, playfully miffed, and yet . . . her hips start to move
, picking up a scintillating rhythm. Up and down my cock, spreading the moisture that’s between us.

  I cup her ass cheeks and grind her back and forth, allowing her body to lazily move against me. It feels so good I don’t care that I’m not inside her.

  She continues to shift her weight, rubbing her clit along my cock. “God, honey, you feel like heaven . . . I just can’t stop!” She catches the opening of her cleft at the wide knob of my tip and gasps. I grip her ass more fully and grind hard.

  I help her rock her hips, dragging along my length, but especially making sure the tip grates along her sensitive bud over and over until her body moves faster and her breath picks up a laborious pace. “Park . . .” She sets her lips over mine, not exactly kissing, just letting them touch, sharing our breath as our bodies rock and roll. “Honey, you’re gonna make me come.”

  “Fuck, I hope so, or I’m going to look like a horny goddamned teenager when I come all over you.” I slam my lips over hers and delve my tongue deep. She sucks hard on the bit of flesh as her body arches and she loses her hold.

  Sky cries out, and her body tightens with her release. I grip her hips, keeping her body sliding up and down my cock, the tips of her breasts rubbing along my chest until I follow her over the edge.

  We both breathe against one another, enjoying the sated feeling of being together like this once more, this time during the light of day, until the damn phone starts ringing again. She lifts her head and looks at me with her dazzling, sex-hazed gaze. “That was, um . . . different.”

  “Different good?” I cock an eyebrow and wait for her thoughts.

  “Oh yeah, different good. Made me feel young again,” she teases, as if she’s old. The woman’s only twenty-five, but she is about to get another year older.

  “Well, since your birthday is next week, I’m glad I could be of service.” I smack her ass, and she howls, sliding off.

  “We need a serious shower . . . and, um, probably some new sheets.” She picks up the rumpled mess of our linens and makes a sour face as though what she’s touching is smelly as well as dirty.

  “First, we need to find out who the fuck is on our ass with these calls . . . ,” I growl, getting out of bed and storming over to the pile of discarded clothes.

  She giggles and stretches her sexy-as-fuck body along the mattress, her hands out above her head, her toes pointed toward the headboard. Jeez, we didn’t even sleep the right way. Just conked out where we dropped after that last bout of sex. Though I can’t say that shit wasn’t inspired.

  A shiver races down my spine with the memory of taking her up against the headboard and wall.

  “I thought I was the one who was on your tip . . . ,” she teases.

  I filter through our clothes and pick up the phone. It says “Mom and Dad” on the display. I point at my girl, still holding the phone. “Quiet, before I fuck you again.” Any mention of her and my tip will make “the beast” rise again.

  She grins and makes a motion of zipping her lips.

  Fucking cute.

  I hit the answer button and put the phone to my ear. “Yeah?” I growl into the phone, not wanting to talk to anyone right now, least of all my parents.

  “You’re getting married! It’s all over the news! Oh my God!” Ma screeches into the phone. I hold it away from me and toss the phone to Skyler, who heard the scream and is smiling like a loon.

  “Baby, it’s for you,” I say, before walking my naked, filthy ass to the bathroom for a much-needed piss and a shower.

  I turn around and see Skyler sitting up on her knees holding the phone to her ear, a big smile on her face. “Hi, Cathy, you got me, Sky,” I hear her say. “I know. He said yes. Isn’t it awesome! I can’t wait to be part of your family.”

  My family.

  Me. Skyler. Mom and Dad. Paul and Dennis. And the rest of our wild clan.

  Skyler Ellis. It has a nice ring to it. Now all I have to do is get her a ring and pop the question in reverse. And then it dawns on me. What Skyler did, she made public, which I think she did because she wanted everyone to know I was it for her. It was a beautiful statement not only to me, but to the rest of the world. Except Skyler is the kind of girl who craves belonging, and she wants to belong to me. To a family. Be a crucial part of something real and everlasting.

  I grin wide as the idea comes to me. I’ve got the perfect fucking place and plan for when and how to pop the question right back.

  Opening the shower door, I flip on the hot water while I do my business at the toilet, then step into the steamy shower.

  I’m going to need some reinforcements.

  “It’s all ready to go, man. Trust me. I got this on lock,” Bo says jovially in my ear as I pace the entryway of our house waiting for Skyler to finish getting ready and make an appearance.

  It’s been a week since we’ve been back from LA, and it’s my woman’s birthday. Everything needs to go smooth or I’ll lose it.

  “Today is the day, man; it has to be perfect. Make sure every single fucking person is there,” I warn.

  “You’ve got Nate and Rach, right?”

  I glance up and look at Nate, who’s standing on the porch, surveying the front of our house, waiting for us to exit and get in the car.

  Rachel is sitting on the bench in the entryway rebraiding a chunk of long platinum hair that’s part of her ponytail.

  “Yeah, they’re here. You got Ma and Pops? The Sterlings? Mick and Wendy. Annie. Kendra. Paul and Dennis. Baylee. Elliott. Geneva. Rick the Prick.”

  “Aw, man, that’s not right. Rick’s a cool cat.” Bo’s tone is chastising, but I don’t give a rat’s ass.

  “Bogey, the guy has seen Skyler naked, had his mouth and hands on her body, and pretends regularly that he’s in love with her,” I grate through clenched teeth.

  “Yeaaaah.” He drags out the word. “Good point. I’m sure you hate that shit.”

  “I’ve learned to live with it.” I let out a strangled breath, pushing any thoughts of my woman and her costar out of my head. No good thoughts come of that. “Still, he’s her friend. What about Sophie? She and Gabriel were cutting it close as I recall . . .”

  “Brother. Re-fucking-lax. You gave me the list. Annie made sure every flight was booked and arrived with plenty of time. Sophie is chatting up and charming the pants off Ms. Sterling and Roy’s sisters. All that we’re missing is you, the birthday girl, and He-Man and She-Ra.”

  I chuckle. “Don’t let Nate hear you say that or you might be in some trouble.”

  Bo lets out a hiss. “He’s not the one I’m afraid of. That chick could make Wonder Woman shake in her red boots, and she’s got a Lasso of Truth that I imagine hurts like hell when Superman takes a lashing.”

  I shake my head and press my fingers into my temples. Leave it to Bo to bring sex and superheroes into regular, everyday conversation.

  “You’re trying my patience. Is the food ready?”

  “Yep. Cook’s got the roast for the pulled pork cooking low and slow, all the fixings, that special potato salad that Sky loves, and everything. We’ve even got champagne chilling for the toasts. Just get your asses here already. Got shit to do,” he clips, before hanging up abruptly.

  I drop the phone to my side and keep up my pacing.

  “Park, you’re making me dizzy, and you’re wearing a circle in the rug,” Rachel says. “It’s all going to go perfectly. Stop worrying.”

  “It’s an important moment. I want it to be just right. For her.”

  Rachel smiles a wide grin, her ice-blue eyes sparkling. She stands up and puts her hand to my forearm and gives it a squeeze. “It’s not like you don’t already know the answer. Remember that. You’re wearing her ring already. Take it easy, or you’re going to ruin the surprise.”

  I nod and place my hand in my pocket, making sure that the ring is still there. Yep.

  I hear a noise from the other room, and then my girl is here, pretty as a picture.

  Skyler spins in a circle, showing off
her tanned, long legs. The outfit she’s wearing is a black chiffon bohemian minidress that’s tied at the waist, but the front is a wide V straight down past her boobs. If she weren’t wearing an electric-blue lace bralette-type job, her tits would be falling out of the thing. The blue of the lacy bra matches the teal and aqua flowers running down the front of the dress. The fabric hits midthigh and is flowy and flirty. On her feet are a pair of coral wedges that zip up the front.

  “You’re enchanting. What’s this look? Rocker chick?” I tease, and flirt with the edges of her short dress even though my heart is pumping a wild beat in my chest and I’d like nothing more than to ravage her where she stands.

  She wiggles her body away from me. “I call it boho chic. Do you like it?” She looks up, and her gaze meets mine. Those beautiful brown eyes swirl and sparkle with pure joy. Her golden hair is in beachy waves, parted down the center, except she has something bright clipped in the mess of waves.

  I lift my hand and reach for the colorful item and find it’s a series of multicolored feathers. My Sky, always a bird in flight, but she always comes back home, back to me.

  “You are gorgeous. Now let me take my best girl out for dinner on her birthday.”

  She skip hops to the door. Rachel holds out a tan purse that has a leather fringe dangling off the base.

  “Thanks, Rach. I always forget my purse.”

  Rachel grins. “Job security, babe. You’d forget your head if I weren’t there to remind you to take it with you when you left somewhere.”

  Skyler winks. “Too true.”

  I open the door for the ladies and let them through before setting the alarm and locking the door. Nate is already at the SUV holding the back door open for Sky and me.

  After we get in, we’re off.

  It doesn’t take long for us to make it to Lucky’s on a late Sunday afternoon. When we roll up, Sky turns to look out the window, her nose scrunched up.

  “You’re taking me to Lucky’s?” A hint of sarcasm in her tone. “We go there all the time.” She pouts. “I figured we’d go somewhere new, maybe a place we haven’t been a bazillion times?”