“Parker,” I say, my voice husky and wrong. “Wait.”
He stops kissing my neck, pulling away when our eyes lock. “Did I hurt you?” he asks, searching my face.
I sit up and cover my bare chest with my arms, and it’s as if the temperature in the room has plummeted.
“Here,” Parker says, grabbing his dress shirt and placing it around me.
I slip my arms into the sleeves, breathing in his masculine scent.What am I doing?I force my next sentence out. “Have we done this before? I mean, in the future, have we had sex?”
Parker sits on the edge of the bed and runs a hand through his hair. “Well… Yeah. I thought you knew?”
I shake my head, unable to verbalize my thoughts. But he’s right. Of course I knew. My intimate, heated dream—not a dream at all, but a glimpse of our future together. How do I explain that I don’t want to compete with my future self? That I’m worried the experience might fall short for him? I stare at him, all bronzed skin and defined muscle, sitting half-naked on the bed. My bottom lip trembles—our last time together and I’ve blown it.
He buries his head in his hands. “I’m sorry, Ella. I got carried away.”
“No, stop. Please don’t. I want this, it’s just—” I want to crawl into a hole and die. “I’ve never—” I take a deep breath. “I’ve never been with anyone before.”
Parker’s jaw drops, and his body stills. “I thought you and your ex…”
I shake my head, and he gets off the bed. I’ve only seen him this angry once before, on the night I helped anchor Rose. How did things change so quickly? I wish I could time travel back five minutes and still be in his arms. “I’m sorry,” I whisper.
He tenses. “I wouldneverwant to take that experience from you.”
I draw my knees into my chest. “So, when we’re together, after I’m recruited, I’m not—I’ve already—”
“The first time we were together, it wasn’t your first time,” he says quietly, staring at his empty hands.
I twist the button on the cuff of his shirt. How is it possible I’ll sleep with someone else while feeling this way about Parker?
He sits next to me, his mouth pulled to the side in a grimace. “Please tell me what you’re thinking.”
I’m unable to meet his gaze. “I want my first time to be with you, but you said when we have sex in the future, I’m not a virgin, so—” I suck in a breath. The room seems too quiet, my stomach too tight. I rush the words out. “If we do it now, what if it’s not what you expect?” I peer up at him with my heart in my throat.
Parker’s leaning away from me, his brows drawn up. “That’swhat you’re worried about?” A tentative smile builds on his lips. “Those things don’t matter.”
I don’t see how. Parker exudes confidence… andexperience. “Really?”
He laughs. “Of course not.” He puts his arms around me and draws me into his chest. “Our time will come, and when it does, it’s”—he shakes his head—“everything.”
He guides me back down onto the bed, shifting so myback is flush against his warm chest. With his arms wrapped around me, I close my eyes, and the tension leaches from my body with each steady thump of his heart.
Parker stirs behind me, and I wake from my sleep. I turn to face him, his legs tangling with mine.
“Still feels like a dream, being able to touch you,” he says.
I press my lips to his. His kiss is slow and gentle, lacking the urgency of our previous encounters. We break apart and my heart sinks—he’s kissing me goodbye.
“I don’t want you to go,” I whisper.
“I promised I’d take you to see your mom,” he says. “When you’re ready.”
“I’m ready,” I say, despite my quickening pulse.
We stand from the bed, and I immediately miss Parker’s warm, reassuring touch and the scent clinging to his dress shirt as it slides from my shoulders. I pass it to him, a flush creeping up my neck at his dilated pupils, his bronze gaze hovering over my exposed skin. I step into my dress, struggling with the zip at the back.
“Let me,” Parker says. He steps up behind me, heat radiating from his body. “Ella, I want you to prepare yourself for the possibility your mother wasn’t a time traveler,” he says, dragging my zipper up. His knuckles brush my bare back, igniting a shiver over my skin.
I nod, my reply hitched in my throat.
