by M. S. Parker
Played by Him
New Pleasures Book 2
M. S. Parker
Belmonte Publishing, LLC
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2018 Belmonte Publishing LLC
Published by Belmonte Publishing LLC
Contents
Reading Order
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Also by M. S. Parker
About the Author
Acknowledgments
Reading Order
Thank you so much for reading Played by Him, the second book in the New Pleasures series. If you’d like to read the complete series, I recommend reading them in this order:
1. Claimed by Him
2. Played by Him (This Book)
3. Saved by Him (August 22)
One
The sunlight gleamed off the ocean. Impossibly blue water lapped at impossibly white sand. A cloudless sky and scorching sun was perfectly offset by a sea-salt-scented breeze. The perfect combination of heat and sun and wind.
A spicy scent surrounded me as he ran his hands over my sweat-slicked skin. Up my back and then down, over my ass and down my legs. His thumbs worked into knotted muscles, then spread my cheeks.
A hot, wet tongue probed at my pussy, and I moaned, pushing back for more. Little trickles of pleasure rippled across my nerves, and I wanted it to never end. This place. This feeling. Being here with him. I wanted to stay here and never have to go back to the real world.
But the real world was calling…
Awareness came to me in stages.
I was inside, and the little bit of light coming between the curtains was fairly gray.
I was on a bed with nice sheets. Really nice sheets. That smelled amazing.
As did the body above me. Spicy. Like the sunscreen from my dream.
Heat radiated off him, caressing my skin. His hands were on me too. Palms skimming and fingers massaging. Part of my dream made reality.
I moaned, and he chuckled, the sound as sensual as silk whispering across skin.
“Good morning.” His voice was rough as he leaned down and pressed a kiss to the top of my spine.
“I was having an amazing dream,” I said, my own voice thick with sleep.
“Were you?” He massaged up the backs of my thighs, his thumbs brushing the bottom of my cheeks. “Better than this?”
I looked over my shoulder at him. “A little.”
He raised an eyebrow, humor dancing in his amazing turquoise eyes. “How so?”
I flushed but didn’t hesitate to share. “You had your mouth on me.”
“Let me remedy that.” He pushed my legs apart and settled between them, his wide shoulders tucking under my thighs as he pulled up my hips, and then his mouth was on me.
Jalen Larsen was a gorgeous twenty-seven-year-old billionaire tech genius, but at the moment, all I could think about was that he had an insanely talented tongue.
It danced around, drawing patterns on sensitive flesh, each one sending a ripple of pleasure through me that made what I’d felt in the dream pale by comparison. I closed my eyes and let my head fall down to the mattress. I didn’t let myself think of the mechanics, instead focusing on the sensations coursing through me. Letting myself feel rather than think.
I squirmed, my nipples rubbing pleasantly against the sheets, and he chuckled again, this time sending vibrations through me. A moment later, a finger slid inside me.
“Mmm…” I made a pleased sound.
“Fuck, babe, you’re so wet.”
When he shifted positions, I sucked in a breath. His tongue was venturing somewhere new. He’d told me once that he’d do this, but I hadn’t really expected it like this.
“Relax, Rona.” He added a second finger in my pussy, twisting them even as he moved them in and out of me. “I’m not planning on fucking your ass just yet. Just enjoy yourself.”
I opened my mouth to give a smart reply but ended up only swearing when his tongue teased over my asshole. It felt strange, but not in a bad way. I liked it, in fact.
It shouldn’t have surprised me that he knew what I’d like even when I didn’t. He’d understood me almost from the first moment we’d touched. What we had between us wasn’t ‘normal,’ but it was…strong. This connection, it was something I couldn’t explain, but I couldn’t deny it either. He made me feel things…
He sank his teeth into my ass cheek, and I yelped.
“Stop thinking.”
Thinking was almost always a problem for me. I had so much going on in my head that I sometimes lost sight of who I was. Of what was important. What was good in my life.
We were home. Safe. My father was back in prison where he belonged. Justice had won. Clay and I were friends. Jalen and I had dealt with our issues. I was still mourning Adare, but I understood grief, and I knew she would’ve understood me letting it go for this.
His fingers moved inside me, finding that spot that made me forget everything except the current of electricity it sent rushing across my nerves until I shattered. As I came, he pulled his fingers out, and I whimpered, my body convulsing again as a mini-orgasm rolled through me.
He pulled my hips up until I was on my knees, but when I tried to lift myself onto my hands, my arms wouldn’t hold me. He chuckled as I slumped onto my elbows, bracing myself for what I knew was coming. A moment later, he drove into me, and I cried out as my body stretched too fast.
He froze for a moment. “Are you–”
“Don’t stop.” I barely managed to get the words out. “Please, fuck, don’t stop.”
“Your wish is my command.”
I could hear the grin, and it made me smile too. I’d smiled during sex before, but this was different. This was humor. I’d had heat and friendship during the few weeks that Clay Kurth and I had been in our ‘friends with benefits’ stage, but I’d never had actual humor during sex.
I liked it. Almost as much as I liked the way Jalen felt inside me. Almost…because there was absolutely nothing that could compare to the way we fit together, the thickness and length of him, how much my body molded itself to accommodate him. As if nothing as small as spatial relations could keep us from being as physically close as two people could be.
“You’re doing it again,” he said as he slammed into me hard enough to jar my thoughts. “No thinking.”
My retort came out breathless. “I thought I was in charge.”
He leaned over me and put his lips at my ear. “Now, what made you think that?”
He laughed again, and there was heat in the soun
d. The sort of heat that sent the flames inside me roaring, consuming me from the inside out. I was going to come again, this time with fire rather than lightning. He reached down and wrapped his fingers around my wrists. As he pulled my arms behind my back, I knew I could resist him and he’d let go, but I didn’t even consider it. I might have teased about being in charge, but I liked the freedom that came with not being in control.
My cheek rested on the bedspread as my hands settled at the small of my back, the position somewhat awkward but not necessarily uncomfortable. I had a feeling, though, that my neck and shoulders would complain if I was left this way too long. He used one hand to hold my wrists in place while the other moved to my hip.
“Good?” he asked.
I nodded as best I could. “Good.”
He didn’t attempt to ease me into anything, trusting that I would tell him if I couldn’t take it. The next thrust took my breath away, and what came after kept me gasping for air, each inhalation driven out of me by the snap of his hips, the angle of penetration, the ache in my shoulders. Overwhelming contradictory sensations converged into one tight knot low in my belly, a white-hot explosive just waiting to blow my world apart.
“Fuck, J,” I panted. “Don’t stop. So good. So good. Don’t stop. Fuck. Please. Just like that.”
His thumb slid down my crease, stopped, pushed.
I came with a wordless scream.
He kept going, cursing as I convulsed around him. His thumb popped out, but I barely noticed. Each stroke sent another orgasm rolling over me. Or maybe they kept that first one going. I didn’t know, and it didn’t matter. His grip on my wrists tightened, and he pulled me upright, my back against his front. He wrapped his arm around my waist, driving up into me.
“Close,” he grunted, “so close.”
“Fucking hot.” I let my head fall back on his shoulder. “Fucking hot when you come. Should be fucking illegal.”
He pressed his lips to the top of my head. I turned toward him so he could take my mouth. His tongue twisted with mine in a scorching kiss. His hips jerked, losing his rhythm. The kiss became sloppy, desperate as he chased his release. I reached up, burying my fingers in his hair, the rich brown strands as soft as they looked. He bit my bottom lip, and I groaned into his mouth. A shudder passed through him, and his cock twitched, then pulsed as he came.
We collapsed onto the bed, a pile of sweaty, trembling limbs. Soon, we’d need to get up, return to the real world. We had jobs and friends and family, bills to pay and responsibilities to care for, lives that we’d put on hold.
But right now, in this moment, I could just lay here and exist. Me and him and nothing else, no one else. He was my respite, and I intended to appreciate every second we had together.
Two
I studied my reflection in the mirror, a strange feeling of self-consciousness attached to the happiness I’d been feeling ever since we arrived back in Fort Collins, Colorado. It wasn’t really about my appearance. I was used to being self-conscious about that, wondering if my scar was showing, if the shirt I was wearing was long enough to cover everything when I moved, if the neck was high enough.
Now, when I looked in the mirror and saw the familiar ash blonde hair and china-blue eyes, I wondered if people saw beyond that, if they could see the way I felt. Even though I knew it was silly, I felt like I should be glowing or something.
I’d had moments of happiness with Clay as a friend and as a lover. Moments with Uncle Anton where I’d forgotten that I should have had a different path. My life since my mother’s death hadn’t been all doom and gloom, but it hadn’t been like this either. It wasn’t about perfect circumstances or not being sad over Adare’s death. It was about letting myself see a positive future, and with Jalen, with this life I had begun to build here, I could see it.
I turned away from the mirror and headed back into the office. I’d spent the last couple hours organizing and sorting through things. It had been less than two weeks since Adare’s death, and I hadn’t exactly taken the time to go through her possessions. Even when she was dying, she’d kept up with the bills, with the clients, and when I found the envelope with my name on it, I knew why.
I walked back over to the desk and sat in the chair. The envelope sat on the gleaming wood, and I stared at it, trying to work up the courage to open it.
This was how I knew I was really happy. Even the grief at losing Adare wasn’t the sharp, debilitating agony that I’d known in the past. I missed her, and that wouldn’t go away anytime soon, but I’d known her well enough to know that she wanted me to be happy.
I let out a slow breath, picked up the envelope, and opened it.
Rona,
I’m guessing, right now, you’re pretty pissed at me for not telling you I was sick. I’m sorry about that. I’m sure we had this discussion at some point, and this letter isn’t to go over it all again. It’s to reassure you that you can do this. I wouldn’t have left Burkart Investigations to you if I didn’t have faith that you could make it into everything I always wanted it to be. Don’t doubt yourself.
I’m getting close to the end now, and now I’ll ask you to forgive me for taking liberties that I might not have yet earned.
I know there are things in your past that you don’t want to share, and I respect your privacy. I haven’t gone snooping. I like to think that if we had more time together, you would have eventually trusted me with some of those secrets, and maybe you would have taken some advice. Since we didn’t have that time, I’ll ask for some leeway when it comes to telling you something I wish I would have figured out when I was your age.
Don’t be afraid to live the life you’ve always wanted.
It doesn’t matter if that life is being single and running a private investigation firm, or getting married and being a stay-at-home mom. Go back to college or become an apprentice. Make friends or be a loner. Find a man, a woman, or both. The opportunities are endless.
Don’t allow fear of your past, or of your future, to keep you from reaching that potential.
I swallowed hard, a painful lump in my throat.
Now, for a few final things.
Don’t let Wendy Mikelson weasel her way out of payments. She knows that she doesn’t get a frequent customer discount. If she has a problem paying the bill, remind her that she can always ask her son to tell her where he’s going at all times rather than having us follow him.
Don’t take any cases from Hiram Whitehouse. He believes that aliens impregnate his chickens every few months. He’s harmless, and I don’t like taking money from him for his flights of fancy, so I just suggest he take any suspicious eggs to his vet. Orville knows all about the alien chickens and doesn’t mind turning them into omelets.
When the bathroom sink gets plugged up, before you call a plumber, use the wrench in the toolbox to take off the bottom pipe. It’ll save you sixty bucks even if it makes you curse.
Go to at least one Rams game and mingle with the locals. Become a part of the community, even if you’re an introverted one.
And, finally, I believe in you, kid. I’m just sorry I won’t be around to see everything you’re going to accomplish.
Love, Adare
I set the letter back on the desk and rubbed the backs of my hands across my cheeks. I’d always known that life wasn’t fair – when your father murdered your mother and two other people and left you literally scarred for life, the world being unfair was sort of a given – but thinking about how my father was still alive while Adare was dead really drove the point home.
I’d wanted to become an FBI agent to make a difference, to protect people the way I hadn’t been able to protect my mother. When I’d gotten kicked out of the academy for lying about changing my name and about my father’s murder conviction, I’d felt like I’d failed my mother. Becoming a PI hadn’t been part of the plan at all. Then the case Jalen had brought me ended up leading to the arrests of several human traffickers and the rescue of several teenage girls. That had made
a difference.
Maybe I could make my mother proud and do what Adare had asked of me and run Burkart Investigations. I’d probably still have to take cases like lost pets or following possibly cheating spouses, but I could find other cases too.
In fact, I realized with pure clarity, I already knew someone who worked important cases with the FBI even though she wasn’t an agent. Jenna Archer. The victim of a childhood horrific enough to make my family look like the Bradys, Jenna was a computer genius, and she’d helped FBI agent Raymond Matthews take down several human trafficking and child pornography rings. Oddly enough, Agent Matthews was Clay’s partner, both of them working out of the Denver office.
All these pieces of my life had come together in a way that I’d never expected, never could have predicted. If I was someone who believed in destiny or fate, I might’ve thought that was what was happening here, but I’d seen too much shit to want to believe that there was some higher power or higher reason making things happen.
I preferred to think that the accident that had turned my loving father into a murderous monster had been just that. A series of circumstances and events, results of choices or complete happenstance. Why would I want to believe that there had been a reason for my mother being brutally murdered? For Jenna being pimped out by her own mother? For my uncle being shot to death?
I shook my head. Too many maudlin thoughts. I’d come here happier than I’d been since I was a kid, and I wanted that back.
