CHAPTER EIGHT
Parker
I was still chuckling to myself as I pulled up outside Dirty.
There were worse things in life you could see than Raven Archer naked. Not that I’d ever seen it—and I never would. As Ryan’s sister, she always had been and always would be firmly off-limits.
Maybe if I kept telling myself that, I’d stop imagining her naked.
But messing with her was too damn fun. Last night, when she’d said about me sticking my cock anywhere I wanted, and I’d asked her if it was an offer, she’d blushed as she’d told me to get out.
She was too hot for her own fucking good, that woman. I wasn’t going to beat around the damn bush. When she got pissed off, she was even hotter. It was the way her cheeks flushed and she pouted her full lips. The way her eyes, brighter than they had any right to be, glared at me with an ire that stoked the fire that burned only to annoy the shit out of her.
It was a disease, I’d swear.
But I’d found the line, and I wanted to toe it as much as possible. I wanted to see how much shit she’d take before she finally snapped and really lost it with me.
Maybe it was because I wanted her to break her own line—to go past the point of annoyance where she tells me to go away and tries to make me.
Maybe it was because ever since I’d come back and laid eyes on her, I’d been unable to shake her. I wanted to know how much it would take for my lips to wipe that glossy, red lipstick off hers. I wanted to know how hard I’d have to kiss her before she’d be whimpering in my mouth.
And that was a problem. I had no idea how to handle it. All I could do was chant “off-limits” inside my head before I did something stupid. I needed to remember that. She was the one person I couldn’t have.
It made me want her more.
I had no place wanting her. She was so many different kinds of forbidden it wasn’t even close to funny. My best friend’s sister, my boss, the person I’d hated my whole life.
The only thing that would hold me back was the knowledge she hated me more than I did her.
If I kissed her, she’d probably remove my cock with her bare hands and then hit me with it.
That was just the kind of person she was.
I was a little scared of her, if I was honest. Even if I knew she had a softer, rarely-seen side, the fact remained that Raven Archer was a brutal, sharp-tongued vixen capable of building you up and tearing you down in the same sentence.
I got out of my car and headed for the bar. From what Alexandra had told me, they wouldn’t be far behind me, and although I’d left the kitchen clean, I was smart enough to know that my kind of clean wasn’t Aleta Karras’ type of clean.
I retrieved the key from beneath the mat in front of the door and let myself in. The lights were all on, and the door echoed around the open space when I closed it behind me. It was completely silent with Raven nowhere in sight, so I tucked the key into my pocket for safe keeping and headed for the kitchen.
It was just as silent in here. Checking the dishwasher was my first job, as well as glancing around the place just in case there was something I’d missed last night.
There was always something I’d missed.
“Shit fuck shit!” Raven burst through the doors, her wet hair bundled into a mess on top of her head.
“Good morning.” I smirked over my shoulder as I opened the dishwasher.
“Ten minutes!” She tucked a wet bit of hair behind her ear. “Ten freaking minutes. Not to mention I have to call my supplier again because my invoice is wrong yet again which always takes half an hour and we don’t even have the ingredients for omelets at least not the kind my grandmother makes and she’s not coming alone they’re all damn well coming except Ryan who managed to get out of this so why does it always fall to me?”
I blinked at her. “Now, take a deep breath, and start again.”
Raven curled her fingers into a handgun motion and poked herself in her temple with her middle finger. “Boom,” she muttered. “Gotta call the shitty supplier. No ingredients. Ryan got out of this.”
“That’s stressful. Yet, I notice you had time to do your make-up.”
Those bright blue eyes of hers pierced into me. “Don’t fuck with me today.”
“Fucking hell, Raven. The second your family walk through the door, your grandmother will take over and nobody will notice if you go make a damn phone call. Your mom said they were getting ingredients on the way, and there’s a meat and fish delivery coming in forty-five minutes.”
She threw her arms up in the air and turned away. “Of course there is! Let’s add one more thing to the list!”
I got up and followed her out of the kitchen, stopping her by grabbing her shoulders from behind. “Did you have coffee yet?”
She took a deep breath. Her shoulders sagged on its release. “When do you think I’ve had time to have coffee?”
Slowly, I steered her toward the nearest seat and sat her down. “Let me make you coffee.”
“I don’t have—”
“Sit!”
She lowered herself back down into the chair at my sharp look. She wasn’t the only one who could stop somebody in their tracks with one glance. I already knew that having her family in town was enough of a clusterfuck without Raven being out of control.
I smiled to myself as I turned on the coffee machine behind the bar. She was the quintessential control freak—everything had a plan, and every plan had its own time and place to be enacted. But, sometimes, just sometimes, that control flew out of the window when she reached a point that she no longer had fingers on which to count the things she couldn’t control.
I’d almost forgotten that little gem.
While I wasn’t entirely sure that giving her coffee was the best idea in this instance, I didn’t have anything else to give her. Water wasn’t going to do anything and it was too early for alcohol.
“Do you know how to make a mimosa?” Raven asked as if she were reading my mind.
“It’s just champagne and orange juice,” I replied slowly, tightening my grip on the coffee mug. “A child could make that.”
A slow smile spread across her face. “So, make one.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
“No. I’m one hundred percent certain it’s a dreadful idea, so that’s exactly why it should happen. Good things come from bad decisions.”
She was philosophical this morning.
“Uh...Okay.” I, however, was a fucking idiot. “Where is the champagne and the orange juice?”
“Champagnes in the middle fridge, orange the furthest to the left.”
I had to bend right down to get a good look in the fridges. Thankfully, I found both items without toppling over or causing myself some serious damage, so I was counting that as a win by the time I stood up, carton and bottle in hand.
“Champagne glasses above your head,” she instructed, pointing to the wine and champagne glass rack above the bar.
I pulled down two glasses, then another two, and then more.
“Why so many?”
I swung my gaze from the glasses to her face. “Let’s call it a lucky guess.”
Her bright, red lips pursed before curling to one side. “In that case, you’re gonna need a jug.”
I laughed and grabbed one from beneath the bar. She joined me and reached for the champagne, prompting me to ask, “I thought I was doing it?”
She waved a hand as she peeled off the foil from around the cork. “You’ll probably take a window out. I’ve seen your dad attempt to pop these things. He almost blinded the neighbor’s dog once.”
“The nearest dog is three houses down.”
She briefly cut her gaze to me. “Exactly.”
“Come on, I got this. I’m not an idiot. My dad is challenged.” I took the bottle from her and positioned it to uncork it.
Her eyebrows shot up beneath her now-dry bangs, but she didn’t say a word.
I slid my finger and thumb up the neck of the bottle to where the roughness of the cork was and pressed. It didn’t budge, so I pressed down a little harder. Still, nothing happened.
A little harder again, and nothing.
Annoyance sparked within me. Why was it so fucking hard to pop a cork?
“You’re holding it wrong.” Raven folded her arms.
All that did was make her tits pop.
And all her tits popping did was make me look there.
Which was when my hand slipped, shoving the cork. It burst from the bottle with the force of a bullet, slammed into the wall an inch above the window, and bounced right back.
Raven moved quicker than I ever thought anyone could. She literally dodged the flying cork by all of an inch as it came firing back into the bar and bounced onto the floor.
For a moment, neither of us moved.
Then, she flew to the bar and kneeled down, pressing her hand against the wood.
“Goddamn it, Parker, you are so damn lucky that cork didn’t break a window or dent the wood.” She stood back up and took the bottle from me. “You open champagne like a savage.”
“You wanted a mimosa when I was happy to make you coffee,” I reminded her.
“I need the straight champagne to cope with this.” She tilted the jug to a 45-degree angle and poured the champagne in it.
“Why don’t you just tip it straight in?”
The withering look she gave me shrunk my balls. No fucking joke.
“The bubbles,” she answered as if it were the simplest thing in the world. “Stops it fizzing over.”
Right.
That was why she mixed the drinks and I cooked the food.
She emptied the last of the champagne into the glass and motioned for the orange juice. I didn’t want to risk her wrath, and since we were already crunching time, I didn’t want to be the one who was responsible for giving her mimosas, either.
I was already taking the wrap for the kitchen. She could take the wrap for the nine-a.m. alcohol.
No sooner had she emptied the juice into the jug and stirred it with a bright green, plastic cocktail stirrer than she was filling one glass with the mixture.
I stared as she lifted that glass to her lips, pursed them around the clear rim, and downed the thing in one.
My eyebrows shot up, but she didn’t stop—and nor did her lipstick come off. She put her glass down perfectly clear and, with one hand firmly around the stem of it, poured out mimosas for every glass I’d set on the bar.
She did it much more smoothly than I ever could.
I was pretty sure not even condensation dripped onto the bar.
The second she put the jug down, like it was synced, the doors opened. Her mom lead the way, but her grandmother’s turquoise maxi dress was the showstopper. I couldn’t look away from the luminescent garment. It hung and flowed like it was the gown of a Greek Goddess herself.
Aleta Karras stepped into the bar with one smooth movement. She was barely across the threshold when I heard Raven’s deep inhale. Dark eyes canvassed the entire space, lingering on me for the slightest moment, before sweeping across the rest of the room and ultimately onto Raven.
Her knuckles whitened with her grip on her glass.
I waited for the moment the stem snapped.
“Raven!” Aleta threw up her arms and hobbled across the bar toward her.
I was barely able to swipe the glass from Raven’s hand before she was swept into a giant hug by her tiny grandmother. It was quite a sight to see, given that Raven had a good foot on her grandmother. The top of Aleta’s head barely came to her shoulders, and if if weren’t for Raven bending down just in time, it would have been a pretty uncomfortable situation to be in.
Alexandra headed straight for me and pointed to Raven’s mimosa. “Please tell me that’s got alcohol in it,” she whispered.
I nodded and handed her a new glass from the bar.
Like Raven just did, she downed it in one. Then, she handed me the empty glass and picked up a new one.
“I feel better already.” She blinked and smiled.
I glanced at where Raven was trying and failing to extract herself from her grandmother’s grip. My lips pulled to the side at the sight of her unable to pull her away. Mostly because now, the rest of the Karras’ had surrounded her, and it was the biggest group hug I’d ever seen. There were literally eleven people all surrounding her. The only part of her visible was her head because she got her height from her dad, so her mom’s family were all shorter than her.
I set down Raven’s glass and escaped to the kitchen before she was released. I knew that the moment she was, she’d be on my back, using me as a shield just to annoy me. I was getting the heck out of dodge before shit got crazy.
***
“I cannot believe you left me out there!” Raven hissed, slamming the kitchen door behind her. “Two hours, Parker! How could you leave me for two hours?”
I sealed the tub of hummus I was holding. “Your family. Your circus. Your monkeys.”
“Damn it. I knew I should have put some small print in your contract.”
Laughter escaped me as I put the hummus in the fridge. “They haven’t been that bad.”
Annoyance sparked in her eyes. “Haven’t been that bad? Are you freaking kidding me? Are you high? They’ve been insufferable. My twenty-three-year-old cousin is married with a baby on the way in four months and asked me when I’m getting married because I’m so old now. I’m twenty-six!”
“It’s a different culture,” I said slowly, grabbing the things for a salad. “You know that.”
“That doesn’t mean it’s okay for her to say that.”
“When did she get married?”
“Three weeks ago.”
“So, is she married despite being pregnant or because she’s pregnant?”
Raven’s jaw dropped, and it took her a moment to pick it back up. “I didn’t even think of that. I’m so using that next time one of them ribs on me about being single.”
I shook my head and chopped the lettuce. “They can’t all be on your back about your life.”
“Well, they don’t have to be. Yia-Yia asked me for a Dirty Screw, my Uncle Christian asked me the potency of the Blue Balls, and Aunt Alexa asked me if the hot guy who had the mimosas would serve her a Pussy Pounder.”
“That depends on your aunt.”
She rolled her eyes. “She’s fifty-two and once put her back out hanging up laundry. Calm your cock.”
Again, I laughed at her. “I was just saying. I’ll have to pass.”
“Why? Are you discriminating against the older generation?”
“I didn’t see her asking you if a gentleman of the older generation was dishing out Pussy Pounders.”
“Touché,” she muttered, pushing off the door. “I’m in hell fresher than a field full of spring flowers here. I can’t handle this for two weeks. There’s just no way. I’m over it already.”
I felt like it was my turn to roll my eyes.
“First you, and now this. I’m ready to go for a swim with the sharks.”
“That’s mildly dramatic,” I said, throwing diced tomatoes into a bowl. “Besides, last I heard, sharks don’t eat bitch.”
“I really hate you.”
“I know. It makes my life much more amusing.” I flashed her a grin over my shoulder. “If you didn’t hate me, you’d probably be fucking me.”
“With a machete,” she snapped. “I don’t know what’s worse. Being in here with your ego or out there with that crazy.”
I’d found her new line.
“Be honest, Raven.” I put down my knife and walked to her. “Are you telling me we wouldn’t be fucking if we actually liked each other?”
Her eyes pierced mine, but the lightest flush crept up her cheeks. “I’d rather have sex with Satan than with you. Oh—wait. If I slept with you, I would be sleeping with Satan.”
“That sounds like you’re saying you’ll fuck me anyway.”
“Go outside, Parker. The heat in the kitchen is getting to you. I have better things to do than waste my time on a hate-fuck with someone like you.”
I didn’t know why, but I stepped closer to her.
I stepped right into her personal space, still holding eye contact, and ran my thumb down the sleek curve of her jaw. Her lips parted as she drew in a deep breath, and she raised her hand to where I was touching her.
Before she could pull my thumb away from her, I clasped her fingers in mine and murmured, “I’d hate-fuck the hell out of you on this counter, right here, right now, if I didn’t think you’d alarm everyone with your screaming.”
“Because you’d be coming onto me?” She batted my hand away and took a step back.
“No. Because I’d be fucking you and you’d know about it.” I smirked and turned back to the salad.
Raven darted in front of me and jabbed her finger into my chest. “Talk to me like that again, and you’re gonna find your balls inside that blender on the highest setting before I drown you in your own cock. I’m still your fucking boss. Are we clear, Parker Hamilton?”
I curled my hand around hers and dropped it. “As clear as the fact you’re wearing a white shirt and no bra. I’d go put one on before you head back out to your family.”
She looked down at her chest and let out a whispered curse before turning away and slamming through the back kitchen door. The door bounced on the hinges a few times before finally settling against the frame. No sooner had it done that than Raven had shoved it back open, gripping it tightly, and met my eyes.
“You could have told me that three hours ago!” she snapped.
“Wasn’t looking then!” I yelled as she spun and left again. Her frustrated scream reached me right before the door closed once and for all and cut it off.
I slammed the knife onto the board, just narrowly missing my finger.
What the fuck was I doing?