“Ugh. I’m not. First, that’s way too cliché, and second, I wouldn’t want Nick to think I’m copying his style.”
I roll my eyes conspiratorially, and Parker laughs again. Sadly, he’s gone back to that quiet chuckle. It’s nice, but not nearly as satisfying or sexy as his laugh. “I think you’re the only person in the world that gets away with calling him Nick.”
I smirk. “I am not calling him Gorgeous. That’s just ridiculous, and the man hears it way more than is healthy for a guy’s ego.”
Parker laughs again—a second real laugh—and I can’t help the proud grin that spreads across my face. I meet his smile with mine, and suddenly he’s right there, all up in my space, stealing the breath from my lungs and making my heart beat erratically. His eyes lock on mine, filled with so much heat that I gasp. “Parker.” I mean it as a warning, but I can’t quite make it sound like one.
He moves in closer. “I want you, Nora.”
Well, shit.
I gulp in some air and accidentally shiver. Our chests are touching now, but his hands are still at his sides, and he’s being very careful not to touch my skin with his own. Our mouths are just inches from each other. He refuses to break our stare, and I can’t. “I’m a desperate man,” he whispers. “Ease my suffering.”
He leans in. I don’t move. I’m not sure if that means I’m giving him permission or if I’m just too frozen with nerves to back up. His lips hover, just for an instant, over mine, so close I can barely feel them. Instead of pulling away, my eyes fall shut, and then, suddenly, Parker devours me in a heated kiss.
It’s the first kiss I’ve had in almost four years, and my body reacts as such. I push myself against him, and kiss him back.
His thoughts start out sweet. Her lips are as soft as I knew they would be, but she tastes so much sweeter than I’d dreamed. I’ve wanted this kiss since the first night we met. I can’t believe she’s honoring me with it. I didn’t think she ever would.
He nudges my lips with his, and in my daze, I progress the kiss to an openmouthed one but don’t open up enough to let him deepen it. I’m not ready for that.
Feeling me respond is enough to send Parker’s thoughts in a much lustier direction. He can’t help himself. He’s wanted this—me—for too long. He really is desperate for me. He wants so much more than a kiss.
I see in his mind all the things he wants to do with me. His thoughts quickly spin into intense fantasies. His body responds to the images in his mind. He wraps his arms around me and pushes the kiss deep, and suddenly I’m not kissing Parker, but I’m back in the arms of my one and only boyfriend—the one guy I ever risked giving my heart to. Only, he’d taken my body instead, despite my begging him to stop and my efforts to fight him off.
He’d been dazed afterward and claimed he didn’t know what had happened. He said I put him in some kind of trance. I believed him, but he’d still hurt me, and I couldn’t stand to be around him or even look at him anymore. After that, I figured because of my power—my curse, whatever it is—I’d never be able to be in a relationship. That was the day I’d sworn off dating forever.
Parker’s arms around me now feel like a cage, and his tongue in my mouth makes me choke with fear. I can’t breathe. I can’t remember where I am. I just feel my ex-boyfriend pushing me down on the couch and taking what I’m not willing to give.
Panicking, I start to thrash and hit the person holding me. Parker releases me immediately, but it’s too late. The damage has been done; I can’t calm down. I scramble away from Parker, trying to regain some sense of security. I push my back against a wall and reach for the small, thin ash wood stake in the sheath attached to my belt. It was a gift from Terrance after Josephine attacked me. I’ve carried it with me at all times since he gave it to me, and it feels good to have it in my hands now.
“Nora?” Parker’s eyes bulge as he notices the stake I’m holding. He steps away from me with both hands up in surrender. “Nora, calm down. It’s okay. You’re okay. You can put the stake away. I’m not going to hurt you. I won’t touch you again.”
My eyes are still out of focus, and my breathing is so fast I’m on the verge of hyperventilating, but his low, steady voice breaks through my panic, and I start to calm down. It takes me a few minutes before I become fully aware again, and I’m shaking so hard my vision is blurry.
Parker, thankfully, doesn’t approach me. His eyes are on mine, full of regret. I glance down at the way I’m clutching a weapon specifically meant to kill him, and I’m overwhelmed by remorse. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. I put the stake back in its sheath. “I’m so sorry, Parker.”
“It was my fault,” he says. “I knew you had problems with physical intimacy. I pushed you too hard last time, too. I don’t know what happened. I meant to be so careful, but when you kissed me back, I lost control. Nora, I am so sorry.”
His words break my heart. “It’s not you,” I insist again. “It’s my power. That’s why I can’t date. My allure is too strong. It makes men go crazy. Especially if I want what’s happening.”
I crack a small smile, letting him know that I purposely admitted to wanting him to kiss me. I’m hoping my acknowledgement will make him feel better, but it doesn’t. He looks completely devastated. “At least you were able to stop yourself,” I say. “The last guy I kissed couldn’t. Not until the deed was done, anyway.”
I look away from him, hugging myself as I remember, again, my ex pushing me down. I’d been sexually abused before, but somehow what my ex did disturbs me the most because I had trusted him.
“What can I do?” Parker asks. His voice sounds strangled. “How can I help you?”
He can’t. The only thing that could help me is figuring out what I am and learning how to control my power.
I take a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to calm my still-racing heart. Parker’s waiting for instructions. I don’t know what to tell him, so I say, “Help me find a coat?”
He chews on this a moment before giving in with a nod. Turning back to the sea of clothes without a word, he pulls a moss-colored military-style coat off a rack. My face lights up. It’s feminine looking but still hard-core. I love it. “That’s the one.”
The mood lightens, but Parker and I never really get back the playfulness we had before our disastrous kiss. He keeps a good distance from me the rest of the evening, careful not to touch me at all or even get too close. I’m both relieved and disappointed at the same time.
When it’s time to eat dinner, he asks if we can skip the food court and go to a place nearby that he really likes. “As long as it’s not all fancy like the last place you took me to.”
He grins. “Actually, it’s a bit of a dive.”
“Sounds like my kind of place.”
We drive to the south end of Dearborn to a building that looks like a doctor’s office. It’s closed for the night, but Parker stops there anyway. “What are we doing here?”
“Look closely at the building.” He smiles at my confused frown. “You’re an underworlder. You should be able to see through a weak glamour.”
“That building is glamoured?”
He nods. “To keep humans away. Let your eyes relax and pay attention to the feel of it, then wait a second. If you concentrate, you should be able to shake off the glamour and see the building beneath it.”
I focus in front of me, trying to pay attention without really looking directly at the building, like he suggested. My eyes catch a glimpse of a ripple in the air, and when I look back there’s a dumpy-looking motorcycle bar in front of me where the doctor’s office was. “Holy shit!”
Parker laughs again. That’s three times now I’ve made him laugh. This time he’s laughing at me, but I don’t care. I love the sound.
The place is busy but looks rundown. It’s made of dirty old cement and has no windows out front. It’s long and skinny, with a row of motorcycles parked along a wooden walkway lining the front of the building. Sadly, none of the bikes are half as nice as Nick’s beauty of a machine. Eighties rock pours out the open door, and the neon sign above the place is half burned out, so instead of Skinny’s it just says Skin. I snort, wondering if they haven’t bothered to fix the sign because they find it amusing. “Classy place.”