Forbidden Gold (Providence Gold 5)

I swear my legs would’ve given out under me if he hadn’t been holding me still. “Thank you.”

Running his nose down the edge of mine, he mumbled, “But I still want all of the other things I listed. I mean it, Ari, you mean everything to me, and I want you to have all of me.”

Not knowing what to say, I lifted onto my tiptoes and kissed him. No tongues, just a kiss to let him know I was with him.

“Christ, you’re amazing,” he whispered, only lifting his mouth enough to get the three words out before he kissed me again.

With his hand cupping the back of my head while the other one was wrapped around my waist, holding me tightly against him, he teased my mouth open with the tip of his tongue. With every lick and flick, I got carried farther away by the ‘Parker haze’ that seemed to be taking over. I wasn’t aware of the lights, I didn’t care where we were, I only cared about what we were doing now and how it felt.

Of course, if there’s anything that’s going to sink through that haze, it’d be the hand that was banded around me, lowering to my ass and picking me up without making an ‘oof’ noise or saying anything teasing and derogatory like my brothers used to.

Wrapping my legs around his waist, I was only just conscious of the fact that we were moving before I felt the soft cloud of his comforter at my back as he lay me down on his bed. I’d fallen in love with the bed as soon as I’d seen it, and if this ever went wrong, I was stealing it and moving somewhere he’d never find it.

Now that I was lying down, both of his hands were free to roam, so he took full advantage of it and started exploring with one of them. Bracing his weight on an outstretched arm, he lifted off me and looked down at where his hand was on my thigh.

“Every time I see you wearing shorts, I see the muscles from all of the running you do, how smooth your skin is, and how soft it looks.”

“I moisturize.” The two words came out of my mouth before I could stop them, leaving me wishing I could get an eraser and just get rid of them from the world.

The side of his mouth hitched up into a smile, though, so I figured I hadn’t sounded too dumb.

“I love this muscle here,” he murmured, running his hand higher up my thigh. “And this little hollow right here,” he added as he skimmed over a little ditch looking thing that I couldn’t get rid of. “And I really love right here,” he whispered, his hand moving to cup me between my legs.

This time I didn’t say anything stupid, I made sure of it. Instead, I focused on the expression on how intently he was staring at where his hand was.

“Is this mine, Ari?”

Playing him at his own game, I reached down to cup him through his boxers. The move almost backfired on me when I felt how hard and long he was behind the material, but my momma didn’t raise no quitter.

“Is this mine, Parker?”

“Absolutely!” he said with complete conviction. “It’s been all yours since the shit went down with Tom.”

Well, there was no arguing against that. “Then yes, it’s all yours.”

In the next second, he was kissing me fiercely, his tongue brushing over the side of mine, almost like he was laying claim to my mouth. Kissing him back, my hand moved of its own volition up into his hair, grabbing a fistful to keep him in place.

Still resting on one arm, he used his other to shift the elastic of my panties to the side so that he could get under them. I maybe should’ve been embarrassed by how wet I was, but when his finger slid through the slickness with ease and then circled my clit, I almost celebrated it.

“Fuck, baby,” he groaned into my mouth, his finger moving back down to my entrance so that the tip could just dip inside me. “So fucking beautiful.”

I was so distracted by what his finger was doing now that it took a moment to register that he was kissing down my neck, stopping to suck lightly on my pulse, before continuing his journey. The whole time his finger continued to dip in and then circle me until I wanted to scream at him to just put it inside me already.

When he got to the neckline of his t-shirt, he made an irritated noise and tried tugging on it with his teeth, not getting any joy when the fabric didn’t stretch that far. His next move got a twin irritated noise from me because the hand that’d been playing between my legs left me to grab hold of the hem and yank the garment over my head. Then he was back, resting some of his weight on me, leaving the top of his back arched as he stared down at my chest.