Beyond the Play (Out of Reach 3)

“You’re taking me there? To your new place?”

“I am.”

“It’s all yours?” she asks.

Reaching into the cupholder, I hold up the set of keys I got today at the closing. “All mine.”

“Holden! I’m so excited for you.” Her hand lands on my arm, and sparks flow through my veins. It happens every time she touches me and every time I touch her. The chemistry between us is like nothing I’ve ever felt before.

“You felt it, too, didn’t you?” I ask. I can see it in the way she just looked at her hand before placing it back on her lap.

“Did you?”

“Yeah, sweet pea. I felt it too.” I don’t want to have this conversation with her while she has alcohol in her system. This feeling, it’s also something that’s completely foreign to me. I’ve never felt the flash of desire from just the brush of skin against mine. I’ve never craved time with a woman. I’ve craved the release that comes with sex, but that’s not what this is. She’s all I think about, and any sliver of time she gives me is like winning the lottery.

“It’s weird, right?” she asks. “It only happens with you.”

Internally I’m fist-bumping and screaming hell yeah. On the outside, I try to remain calm and cool, when I’m anything but.

I turn into the driveway of my new house, stopping at the gate to enter the security code. I called the company and had it changed as soon as I signed the papers today. Driving up the long driveway, I hit the button for the garage door opener and pull inside. That’s another thing I love about this house. The attached garage is big enough for my truck. Leaving the garage door open and the engine running, I remove my seat belt, then reach over and do the same to hers. Moving my seat back as far as it will go, I pat my lap.

“Come here, Parker.”

She smiles softly and climbs over the console. “My shoes are on your seat.” She giggles.

Drunk Parker is fucking adorable. “I don’t care,” I tell her. “I just want to hold you, and I couldn’t wait until we got inside.” Not to mention I have zero furniture in the house. I need to drive to my old place and arrange for movers to bring it all here. This is my home now.

“This isn’t something that I’m used to either,” I tell her, wrapping my arms around her. “It’s only ever happened with you. I think you’ve bewitched me somehow,” I tease.

“Right,” she scoffs. “Like I could bewitch the sexy Holden Bailey.”

Drunk Parker is also apparently an open-book Parker. “You think I’m sexy?” I ask. I don’t bother to pretend her comment doesn’t make me smile.

“You know you are.” She runs her hands over my chest.

My cock twitches in my jeans, and her little ass wiggling on my lap tells me she knows what she’s doing to me. “That’s all you,” I tell her.

Her eyes widen. “For me?” She tilts her head to the side, a coy smile playing her lips.

“You know it is,” I say, pressing a kiss to her forehead.

“Holden?”

“Yeah?”

“Why are we sitting in your truck in your new garage?”

“There’s no furniture inside, and I wanted to hold you.”

“We need to go get you some furniture.”

“I need to drive to my old place and get movers organized.”

She looks up at me. Her bottom lip pushed out in a pout. “You’re leaving? It’s Christmas in three days. You can’t leave.”

“I’ll just be gone overnight. I need to pack up personal items and organize movers for the rest of it. I won’t leave until after Christmas.”

“Okay, good.”

“You going to miss me, sweet pea?”

“I always miss you when you’re gone.”

Her words grip my heart like a fucking vise. Whatever this magnetism is between us, it’s growing fast. If it were anyone but Parker, I’d probably be scared as hell as to what it meant, but it’s Parker, and I can’t find it in me to fight it. I don’t want to fight it. I want to see where this crazy connection leads us.

My arms tighten around her. “I always miss you too,” I confess.

“I didn’t want to, though. I didn’t want to miss you. I didn’t want to let you in because I knew it would happen.”

“You knew what would happen?”

“I knew my heart would get tangled up in you.”

Another tight squeeze in the center of my chest. “Is that what’s happening? Your heart’s tangled up in me?”

“You know it is.”

She’s wrong. I didn’t know that, but knowing that she’s falling just as fast as I am is a huge relief. It’s good to know that I’m not jumping in feet first, and she’s nowhere near the water.

“You wanna know a secret?” I ask. I know she’s buzzed, but not so much she’s not going to remember this conversation tomorrow.