Keep From Falling (Markson Grove Series Book 1) (43 page)

Bree’s mom moves toward me angrily, and before I even have a chance to react, she grabs me by the hair and yanks me out into the hallway. “Leave Evan.
Now
,” she hisses. “And you’re not welcome back, so don’t even try.”

Like I was ever welcome to begin with.

I bet she was just waiting for this. I’m the womanizing asshole from a broken home whose only intention with her daughter is to take advantage of her.

As I’m walking away from the house, I hear Bree yelling angrily at her mother from the opened window above. “You hassle me to get a boyfriend, and now that I have one, you disapprove! Maybe I should just run off and be with a girl then!”

I feel a sharp stab of pain in the pit of my stomach. I don’t stick around to hear any more.

Skylar

Being in Parker’s arms, in his house, in his life, after all of this time should feel off, but it doesn’t. It should feel like everything with us is happening too fast, but for whatever reason, it just doesn’t feel that way. It doesn’t feel fast because, in our hearts, it hasn’t been fast at all. This night was supposed to have happened the night of our ‘first date’ but that possibility was torn from us through circumstance, a circumstance that put everything between us on hold until this very moment.

It feels like I’ve found something I’ve been missing. Something I hadn’t even realized was missing till I got it back. There’s a comfort in the connection the two of us share; a comfort in loving an equal that I’ve never experienced with Bree, because as much as I love her, she has never been my equal. She was my protector and the bearer of my solace, but I was never those things for her.

“If we are going to do this, we’re going to do it right,” Parker says, breaking into my thoughts, and scooping me up into his arms.

“Parker!” I shriek, instinctively wrapping my arms around his neck as he carries me out of his room and into the bathroom. “What the hell are you doing?”

He carefully sits me down on the side of a beautiful Jacuzzi and proceeds to run water into it. I watch as he reaches passed me to a shelf of shampoos, bath oils, and bubble baths that I assume had once belonged to his mom. He chooses a small peach colored bottle, twists off the cap and brings it to my nose. “You like this one?” he asks, and I take a little sniff. It smells really nice, like peaches and cream.

I smirk. “It smells great,” I tell him as I grab his wrist and pull him down toward me so I can kiss him.

He bends down and kisses my lips softly but pulls away when I part them for something more. “Not yet,” he says with a cute little grin as he pours the bubble bath into the water and turns on the jets.

He starts out of the bathroom and looks over his shoulder just before shutting the door behind him. “Get in, I’ll be right back,” he assures me.

I’m not sure what exactly he’s up to, but it’s adorable watching his efforts play out. Besides, the bath really does look inviting.

I eagerly undress and climb in, taking in the fruity scent of peaches and cream as the jets massage my back. This is really nice.

When Parker doesn’t return after a few passing minutes, I hit the button to shut off the jets and call out to him. “Parker?”

“I’ll be right there,” he calls back. I hear the sound of glass clinking together and then his footsteps heading toward me.

He walks into the bathroom barefoot and shirtless, wearing only his jeans. In one hand, he’s carrying a little basket of what looks like candles, wine glasses, and something else I can’t make out. In the other hand, he has a bottle of wine.

“Well, aren’t you Mr. Romantic,” I say, sitting up so that I can see what’s in the basket a bit better.

He puts the bottle of wine down on the side of the tub. I reach for it to read the label as he begins lighting the candles and lining them all around the tub. There is something incredibly hot about watching a guy covered in tattoos lighting candles for a romantic soak in the tub with his girlfriend. I want him so much at this very moment it’s ridiculous.

Once he finishes, he sits a plate of strawberries and chocolate dip down beside me and a corkscrew beside the plate. I can’t help but smile a goofy grin as he walks over to the light switch on the wall and flicks it off.

“Mind if I join you?” he asks, flashing me his flawless grin. The shadows around his face and naked torso make him seem even more mysterious than he normally already does, and it literally takes my breath away for a moment.

I bite down on my lip and reach over for a berry. “I thought you’d never ask,” I say breathlessly, dipping the berry into the chocolate and then taking a bite.

He undresses and climbs into the tub, sitting himself across from me. He turns the jets back on. “Come over here,” he says, motioning for me to sit between his legs so he can hold my body to his.

This is the first time we’ve ever been completely naked together and realizing that has me blushing.
Seeing
him naked is not the issue, that I can handle easily, it’s the idea of his naked body pressing up against mine intimately that has me nervous as hell. I wonder if he’s feeling as nervous as I am but is putting on a confident front for my benefit.

I turn myself around and calmly ease my body to his, taking a deep breath the minute we touch. His thighs tighten around my hips, telling me that the feeling of our skin touching together has the same effect on him and he’s also unsure how to react casually about it.

He wraps his arms around me, exactly how he used to do when we’d sit together on the couch at
The Misfit Mansion
, only this time he allows his hand to linger overtop one of my breasts. I lean my head back slightly, making my chest rise and forcing his hands to have to do more than just linger on one. His fingers tentatively move across my breast and work their way to the nipple. I look down, needing to see exactly what his hand is doing to me at this very moment, and I nearly melt when I notice his fingers are shaking slightly. He’s nervous! Knowing this, somehow relaxes me. I needed him to be just as scared about all of this as I am. It means that regardless of how much experience either one of us has had in the past, this first time is just as important as a virgin’s first time for us because it’s ours.

“I love you,” I tell him and he kisses the back of my neck, letting the kiss linger for a few moments before pulling away.

“I love you too.”

“I’m nervous too,” I whisper, leaning my head back and resting it against his shoulder. I don’t turn to face him though, instead I continue to look straight ahead, not wanting to make eye contact, just in case I’m wrong about how he’s feeling. But I’m not wrong, and I know this the instant he takes in a deep breath, pulling me in a tight embrace. He lays his cheek on my shoulder and exhales onto my neck, causing a shiver of excitement to run right through my body.

“You have no idea how happy I am to hear you say that,” he says, and I can feel his entire body relax. He reaches for the bottle of wine and corkscrew and after a moment of fighting with it, realizes that he’ll need both of his hands to be able to get it open.

He hands me the bottle. “Here, hold this for a second,” he says.

I take the bottle into both of my hands and hold it steady while he uses the corkscrew to take the cork out. “I thought you wanted us to be completely sober for this,” I say. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m not opposed to having a glass or anything, but I know how much keeping that promise you made to me means to you.”

“Shit,” he says, putting the corkscrew down and then taking the bottle from my hands. “I wasn’t even thinking. You see how nervous I am? I completely forgot all about that.”

I laugh. “Don’t be so hard on yourself, Parker. I don’t think a glass will hurt. It might help us relax a little bit,” I say, turning my entire body around to face him. He casually looks up at the ceiling so as not to look directly at my naked body, most notably my breasts. “It would be kind of nice for us to actually be able to look at each other without blushing, wouldn’t it?”

He laughs, shaking his head. He lowers his eyes just enough to look into mine but not any lower. “This is not at all how I planned for this bath to turn out.”

I reach out and take his chin into my hand. “Look at me,” I say, positioning his face so his gaze can’t avoid my breasts. He tentatively takes one into his hand and rubs it gently. It feels amazing.

“Trust me,” he says. “It’s taking all I have not to look at you and touch you as much as I am craving. If I was only thinking with… you know what, you would be up against that wall being fucked senselessly.”

I position my legs on either side of him, over top of his, and scoot my butt right up between his legs. His hardness pushes against me, and all it would take to have him inside of me would be a simple reposition. “I wouldn’t be opposed to having you fuck me against a wall,” I say with a grin. I bring my lips to his chest and begin kissing his tattoos, one after another.

He moans, leaning his head back against the wall behind him. “I want more than that,” he says after a few moments, and I stop kissing his chest to look up at him.

“What do you mean?” I ask, not really sure if he means he wants more than my kisses on his chest or more than fucking me up against a wall.

He shrugs, sitting up slightly. “I’ve never had sex with anyone that I was in love with before.”

The thought had never really occurred to me up until now and I begin racking my brain trying to remember the names of the people he told me he’s slept with before. There was his very first, a girl named Kelly who he’s only slept with once. Then there was the MILF, Rebecca, who he slept with a lot more than once. Then a cheerleader named Julie who used him to get back at her father for something. And then, of course, there’s Tris and Adrienne who he really crossed some boundaries with. Those are the only names I remember and sure enough, he didn’t love any of them. I find myself wondering if he’s slept with anyone after that.

“Have you been with anyone else since… we, um, broke up?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “I was going to once… but I didn’t go through with it. She wasn’t you.”

I raise my eyebrows but don’t say anything. His answer is sweet, but for some reason all I can think about is Parker getting naked with another girl and it bothers me. How crazy is that? I have no right, and I know it.

I absentmindedly begin to trace my fingers over his tattoos, following each one down his torso, and taking the time to really admire them. His body is covered with them now. Last year he had maybe fifteen in total, but now his number must be closer to thirty.

My fingers pass by so many images. Symbols of death, of hope, of fear; a Celtic cross, a dragon, a heart on fire; quotes from famous people, from books, from movies, from poetry; phrases in Latin, and Greek; tribal tattoos starting from his shoulders and making their way down his arms to his wrists. I see the number 34 on his stomach, which I recognize as his jersey number, wedged between a beautiful drawing of an angel resembling his mother and the grim reaper.

He’s wearing his entire emotional self on his skin. Everything no one knows about him is either depicted or written right here in plain sight for anyone to see if only they cared enough to really look.

I brush aside a cluster of bubbles floating on the water’s surface and then dip my hand underneath them, tracing along the spot between his pelvis and bellybutton, over a word I can tell is written in Greek. He brushes my hand away, taking it into his, and bringing it up to his lips for a kiss. I curiously look up into his eyes, wondering why he’s decided to stop me now, with this specific tattoo.

“What’s it say?” I ask, looking back down and trying my best to remember the symbols I’d learned in my Greek Studies class last semester.

When he doesn’t answer me, I look up at him again and I see worry etched across his face. He tilts his head to the side and the uneasiness I see in his gaze makes my eyes dart back down to the tattoo. Why doesn’t he want to tell me?

And then I see it.

Sigma, kappa, upsilon…

Lambda…

Oh my God
.

Alpha…rho…

Σ κ υ λ α ρ

It’s my name. It says Skylar!

“Parker,” I say, and my breath catches in my throat.

“I can explain,” he starts, sitting up quickly, but I cut him off.

“Is this my name?” I ask breathlessly.

“I can explain,” he tries again.

“Does this say my name?” I ask more forcefully.

He nods.

He tattooed my name on his body!

I don’t even know how to react to this. We’ve been back together for twenty-four hours and this tattoo is not fresh. He’s had it a while.

“When did you get it?”

He looks embarrassed. “Last year,” he confesses, and I can see by the look on his face that he’s worried this is too much for me. And it is, kind of. He has a tattoo of my name on his body and he got it last year!

“Last year, when?” I ask, taking his hand into mine. I want him to see that I’m not going to take off running because of this, but I do want to know about it.

“Right after what happened on the beach,” he replies, seeming to have relaxed a bit now that I’ve taken his hand, but not entirely. I watch him anticipate my response uneasily; searching my eyes for a sign of what it is I’m thinking.