“Do you visit your family?” I ask, searching his face.
“Yeah. Sometimes it helps to talk to them. The people from your past. Even if they don’t talk back.” He squeezes my shoulder. “You taught me that.”
Flashes of my dreams skitter through my mind. My mother beside the ocean, and my dark nightmare. “Sometimes I wish my sub-t would stop. I love some of my memories, but others scare me.”
“When I first started at Neurovida, we used early memories with strong emotional ties to hone our skills. I hated it, so instead of staying in them, I’d find an out. Locate a door and leave the room or walk away. Anything to put distance between myself and the memory.” He laughs. “Sometimes I’d just hold my shield until the allocated time had passed.”
“I don’t know what that means,” I say.
“The barrier between you and your timeline.” His mouth curves into a smile, a memory dancing behind his wistful eyes. “Yours was light.”
I think about the blinding light blocking my field of view every time I dream. “How do you hold it?”
“Instead of focusing on what’s past it, draw it toward you.” He shrugs at my skeptical expression. “It’s easier than it sounds.”
Is putting distance between myself and my past what I need? It breaks my heart to think of Parker shutting himself away from the pain of his memories. “I’m sorry you had to do that… escape your past.”
Parker shrugs. “I used to see it as a burden, like you do, but that’ll change.”
I draw my legs up to my chest and wrap my arms around my knees. We stare out across the ocean as the full moon rises in the sky, casting shadows on the surrounding dunes.
“Are you okay?” I ask when Parker becomes unusually quiet.
He turns his body toward me, running a hand through his hair. “Ella, I brought you here to tell you something… while I have the chance.” His eyebrows crease together, chest expanding as his eyes search mine. “I need you to know that every second I’m not with you, I’m thinking of you. And what I’m about to say might sound intense because you don’t know me well, but I know yousowell.” He takes my hands in his and brushes my knuckles with his thumbs. “I don’t need the details of your past to know how kind and selfless you are. I know people think you’re withdrawn because you aren’t always the first to speak up, but it’s only because your beautiful, intelligent mind’s ticking away. And behind that guarded front, you’re the bravest person I’ve ever met. It kills me to think you’ve spent your entire life believing you’re different and you don’t fit in. But I’m telling you, it’s everyone else who should want to fit in with you, because you’re the most incredible woman I’ve ever met in my life—”
“Parker—” I interrupt him, but he continues to speak, desperate to convey his thoughts as if the words might vanish from his mind, or he’ll miss the opportunity if he pauses for even one second.
“And I don’t want you to say it back, but I fell so stupidly in love with you at Neurovida, and now I’m kicking myself for not telling you sooner. You deserve to be told, every day, how loved you are. And incredible and funny and special.” Tears well in his eyes despite the smile on his face. “You’re the best person I’ve ever met. And in case I never get the chance to tell you again, at least I’ll know I told you now. I love you, Ella.”
His words hit me in the center of my chest, right over the hole I’ve been mending since my mother died. The hole Silas widened when he discarded me, deepened each night I spent at home alone, believing I was different and unlovable.
Parker sucks in a breath. “And I—”
I grab his shirt and crash my lips into his. He immediately clasps each side of my face and kisses me back greedily. Goosebumps rise over my skin. His hands trail down my neck and over my breasts to settle on my waist, his strong muscles flexing as he lifts me, pulling me into his lap without breaking our kiss.
There’s nothing slow about the way we explore each other, clutching and pulling, filled with a burning, agonizing need to be closer. To touch and taste and smell, knowing we may never have this chance again.
I fumble with the buttons of Parker’s shirt, dying to feel his bare skin against mine. I’ve undone the first two when electricity races through me. The temperature shifts, and wematerialize on Parker’s bed inside the apartment opposite Anna’s.
His lips never leave me, worshiping every inch of exposed skin. I undo the rest of his buttons and push the fabric from his shoulders, running my hands over his warm skin. My fingers move lower, tracing the pink scar on his abdomen from the bullet graze. He shudders, his mouth buried in the crook of my neck. His tongue sweeps along my skin, tasting me, pinching it between his teeth. I sigh and his head shoots up, his bedroom eyes meeting mine.
“That sound. It’s one of the things I was worried I’d forget.” He runs his hands over the curve of my backside. “The shape of you.” He presses his mouth to the fabric over my nipple, and my heart falters, a shiver racing through me that doesn’t stop until it hits my throbbing core. “The way you taste. I could travel back to this moment one thousand times over just to hear you moan and never tire of it.”
His mouth returns to my neck, trailing kisses lower until he reaches the fabric covering my breasts and he groans in mock frustration. His hand finds the zipper on the back of my dress, sliding it down until the fabric is gaping. He guides my arms upward, dragging a finger up the sensitive flesh on the inside of my arm before he slips my dress over my head.
Left in my underwear, I blush under his heavy stare, roaming my near naked body as I sit in his lap. I resist the urge to wrap my arms around myself. I want this. I want him. His hands all over me, touching my most intimate parts.
I bring my lips to his and lean forward, pushing him back onto the bed so I’m lying on top of him. He grabs my thighs and flips me onto my back, and the air whooshesfrom my lungs. My hands roam his muscular back and arms, tracing every firm line. He grinds down into me, guiding my legs to wrap around his waist so there’s no space left between us. His hard length presses against me, and a jolt of nerves races through me at the thought he might ache for me in the same way I do for him.
His lips pull at the skin of my neck, and his hand finds my breast, his fingers closing over the tip of my peaked nipple. I arch into his touch, the deep aching below my navel almost painful now. I want him to touch me, but I’ve never been with anyone like this before. Does he know?
He shifts above me, and his hand trails lower, palm gliding down my stomach, tracing my skin without hesitation, with a confident familiarity that comes from years of intimacy. I want more, but I don’t need to speak—his finger slips beneath my panties, moving straight to my throbbing core to circle me. Trembling at his touch, my head falls back against the mattress, my body too hot, every exhale breathless.
The same talented finger moves lower, slipping inside me before returning to circle me again, drawing those dizzying rings that make my body so tight it’s hard to breathe.
Parker touches me as if he magically knows what I want and how I want it. And somewhere in the back of my mind, through the clouded heat of his body over mine, his scent in my lungs and his scorching touch, a voice murmurs,because maybe he does?
Does Parker know what I like because he’s slept with me before, in my future I’m yet to live? Has he been with me many times? My breathing quickens for another reason altogether. Does Parker know I’ve never had sex before? Does he wantme to touch him? My throat tightens. I don’t know how to pleasure a man. I’ve barely seen one naked. What if I don’t live up to his expectations?
