I couldn’t believe she’d come to find me.
Even now, hours and hours later I still couldn’t believe she was really here, in my arms and back in my life.
Jasper was right… I am one lucky son of a bitch…
I couldn’t explain how I was feeling in this moment.
I’d accepted that I was never getting her back. It didn’t stop me dreaming about her… or barely being able to function in normal day to day life… but I’d come to terms with it as best I could.
It was like all my Christmases had come at once.
She laughed at something Jasper had said, and the vibration of her laugh moved through my whole body and I smiled – really and truly smiled for the first time in months.
I had no idea what she was laughing about, or heard a single word that had been spoken since we’d arrived back at my house – and I couldn’t have cared less what they were discussing anyway.
I was perfectly content just to look at her, hold her, breathe in her perfume and run my fingers through her hair.
She’d been doing much of the same. Her hands had run through my scraggy hair numerous times, her fingers tracing over my nose and along my prickly jaw… she was committing me to memory as much as I was.
There was still so much we needed to say to one another – but we had all the time in the world for those conversations.
Right now, all that mattered was that she was mine again.
I’m never letting her go.
“I mean this in the nicest way possible, but get out of my house,” I instructed J and Hannah.
There was no mistaking where my head was at so I didn’t even bother denying it when they teased and catcalled me for wanting to take this party to the bedroom.
Damn right I do.
Charlotte blushed at the obvious longing in my eyes.
It had been far too long since she’d been underneath me and I wasn’t waiting any longer.
I stood up and bent down to scoop her into my arms. Jasp and Hannah had barely made it out of the living room and I was already carrying her up to my bedroom.
She didn’t say a word as I carried her – just looked into my eyes with a million unsaid words.
I walked her straight to my bed and lowered her gently onto the mattress.
“Parker…” she whispered, reaching up to cup my jaw. “I love you.”
I’d seen and heard a lot of things from women in my time, but never anything that looked or sounded this perfect.
“God, I love you too, woman.”
“I’m so sorr—”
I cut her apology off. “I told you, I don’t want to hear it… I meant it, legs… you have nothing to be sorry for.”
She hadn’t done a thing wrong. She couldn’t live with my lifestyle and I couldn’t blame her for that.
That was why I was giving it up. All that was left was to tell her… and then the rest of the world.
“I’m done with it all,” I whispered. “I can’t risk losing you again,” I told her as I dragged my shirt over my head and then began work on her jeans.
She gasped. “No…you can’t give it up.”
I reached for the hem of her shirt and she let me lift it over her head.
“I can, and I will,” I answered as I shoved my pants down my legs.
The sight of my hard erection seemed to shut her up.
She made a hum of appreciation deep in her throat.
I reached for a condom, but she reached out and grabbed my hand.
I looked at her in question.
“I got the pill before we broke up… and you and me…this is forever, right?”
Oh fuck yes.
I nodded and tried to downplay just how elated I was. I’d been fantasising about taking Charlotte bareback since I’d first been inside her.
My right hand and I had got pretty well acquainted these past few months, but that wasn’t going to be nearly enough to stop me blowing my load like a teenage boy losing his virginity right now.
“I’m not giving you up for anything,” I confirmed as I lined up to push inside her.
I didn’t need any foreplay and I knew she didn’t either – looking at her creamy skin was all the prep work required today.
“I’m not enough,” she panted as I pushed deep inside her.
I groaned loudly. I’d forgotten exactly how tight and perfect she felt, and the lack of barrier between us only magnified that tenfold.
“You’re everything,” I ground out as I desperately tried to keep my composure.
She dragged her nails down my back, hard enough that she would leave a mark, and I nearly lost it.
I was so damn close to falling over the edge.
“You… need… the… thrill,” she choked out between thrusts and breathy moans.
She was getting close, I could tell.
“You’re my biggest thrill,” I argued through clenched teeth.
I knew what she was doing – she was testing me. If there was ever a time a man was going to say something stupid, it was during sex. Lucky for me, I didn’t have a single thing to lie about – she could grill me about anything she liked.
“Oh god,” she cried out.
I thrust harder and deeper.
“The thrill of the stage or the thrill of—”
“You,” I growled, interrupting her question with a hard thrust of my hips. “Always you.”
She fell apart beneath me, her body sagging from the pleasure we’d both created.
I followed right behind her.
Charlotte kissed the picture of her, right over my fast-beating heart.
“You’re not giving it up, Parker,” she whispered as she looked up at me through her long lashes.
“I promise you I won’t run again because of the fame.”
I kissed her forehead.
“But I need you to give us a chance to make this work, please,” she begged.
I dropped my forehead to hers and sighed. “Okay, I’ll think about it.”