My back slams into the wooden planks of the backyard shed, and I yelp when Parker starts tugging my shorts down my legs, his mouth all over me, my hands scratching at his scalp and fisting his wet hair.
The storm rages on around us, or maybe we are the storm. We’re the flashes of lightning, the thunder booming, the dark clouds of destruction hiding the bright moon. The rain pours down and drenches us, a welcoming contrast to the searing heat threatening to detonate.
My spine bows back when Parker’s finger slips inside me, and I grasp at his shoulders, clawing and digging. “Oh, God…”
“Goddamn,” he rasps against the shell of my ear, biting at the lobe.
I hear his zipper unfasten as I thrust against his pumping finger, needing him deeper, needing more. Parker lifts his head from the crook of my shoulder, finding my eyes for one blinding, potent second, before he pulls his finger out of me and flips me around until my front is pressed up against the shed wall.
A gasp escapes me as the splinters dig into my skin, but I hardly notice because Parker snakes his arm around my midsection, palming my breast with one hand, while the other spreads my thighs apart. Instinctively, I arc my back, searching for him—begging for him.
His mouth is devouring my neck again, his tongue hot and demanding as he tastes me, sweat and rainwater, his hand leaving my breast to fist my hair and tug it back. Parker situates himself between my legs from behind, the tip of his cock seeking entry. The feel of him there, teasing me, has my body tremoring and aching as I grind against him. “Please.”
“Fuck, Melody…”
As the thunder rolls overhead, Parker spreads me wider as his opposite hand curves around my throat, and he pushes inside.
Hard. Abrupt. Unforgiving.
Holy shit.
My cry is muffled when his hand clamps my jaw, two fingers slipping into my mouth, and I bite down. Parker’s forehead drops to my shoulder, his prolonged groan making my skin hum as I slink one arm behind his neck to hold him to me.
He starts to move, his hips rocking against me, slowly at first, stretching me and making me squirm. His tongue drags along the crest of my shoulder, up to my neck, and he pulls the flesh between his teeth, grunting, while his cock hits deeper, his thrusts quickening.
I plant both hands against the shed for leverage while his fingers tug my jaw open, and I yelp again, unsure of what hurts, what stings, what’s right or wrong, and what feels so good, the line between pain and pleasure becomes a glorious, permanent blur.
Parker’s fingers leave my mouth and sweep down my body until he finds the juncture between my legs, and I press into his palm, a silent plea. With one hand gripping my hipbone, keeping me steady while he slams into me, the other rubs my clit into a delicious frenzy, pulling mewls and whimpers and unabashed moans from my throat.
His lips dip to my ear, his breathing ragged. “You’re driving me fucking wild… you feel so goddamn good.”
“Uhh…” It’s all I can manage, his words and hands twisting me inside out, stealing my coherency and common sense.
Reinventing me.
I feel myself peaking, climbing, singing and buzzing, while Parker fucks me against the shed in my backyard beneath black clouds and moonlight.
Like animals.
As his fingers work me to orgasm, and his thrusts become more feral, my body tenses and thrums, and I break apart into a thousand tiny particles, atoms, and stars.
My climax nearly cripples me.
Knees buckling, I crumple forward, while Parker squeezes my breast, tweaking my nipple as a cry of pleasure tears through my throat. He rams into me with violent, frenzied strokes, grunting his release, burying his face into the slick curve of my neck.
“Fuck,” he grits out, shuddering against me, his palm still cupping my breast while his opposite hand clings to my hip, fingertips biting into the delicate skin.
And then it’s over.
His movements temper, and he just kind of holds me for a moment as we both come down from the heady high. It’s nothing but raindrops and heartbeats and heavy breaths as Parker’s grip on me loosens, his head lifting from my shoulder. I feel his heart vibrating into my back, his erection still firm and pulsing inside me, his fingers trailing lightly down my torso, almost a tickle, as he lets out a deep, equivocal sigh near my ear.
Then he slides out of me, letting me go, and I remain still, partially collapsed against the shed with my shorts dropped to my ankles and a sodden tank top bunched around my middle.
Rainwater mixes with Parker’s release and spills down my thighs, reminding me that Charlie is no longer the last man to have been inside me. I gave that title to a man who claims to not even like women—who was cruel to me—who didn’t deserve it.
I gave a precious gift to an unworthy man.
The realization rips a sob from my chest before I have time to even recover. I slump further against the wet wood planks of Charlie’s beloved shed; the shed that has now been defiled by a painful act of betrayal.
A betrayal to him. A betrayal to me.
With limbs quivering with regret, I simply stand there, hardly able to hold my weight and the weight of so much more.
My eyes squeeze shut, my face hidden behind my hands, when I feel a gentle touch graze the small of my back. Light as a feather at first, barely there at all, until he applies more pressure and rubs his palm up and down my spine, as if he’s trying to comfort me somehow.
It’s a tiny token of solace.
A gift in exchange for mine.
And then he’s tugging my shorts up my legs until they’re secured around my hips, the soaked cotton sticking to my skin like adhesive. I pull my forehead up from the shed, pivoting slowly, facing him. His pants are pulled up, but the belt hangs loose, and there’s an angry nail mark etched into his neck from where I must have scratched him.
Parker stares at me with a faint wrinkle furrowed between his brows, and I swear there is concern etched into that crease—maybe even a semblance of empathy.
But it’s all he gives me before pacing backwards, gaze dipping down, jaw hard and tight like his fists that ball up at his sides.
And just like that, he’s gone.
Parker leaves me there against the shed, tainted and torn, reeking of guilt and self-loathing and him.
And when I awake the following morning to chirping birds and ribbons of sunlight, I’m curled up inside the little wooden shed, body aching, skin filthy, dignity shattered.
Heart broken.
—TWENTY-ONE—
When I wake up the next morning, I have no idea what the fuck is going on. I shoot up in bed, momentarily caught between some sort of dreamland, fantasy, and preposterous reality.
What time is it?
Do I work today?
Did I fuck Melody against a shed last night?
My dick twitches in my boxers, as if to reply, hell fucking yeah, you did.
Jesus. Christ.
I went there with every intention of unveiling my Zephyr alter ego, but I couldn’t do it. I choked, and I couldn’t spit the goddamn words out. Why?
Don’t know.
Maybe because I’m a coward.
Maybe because everything would change.
Maybe because Melody wants me right now, and the moment she finds out who I really am… it won’t be about me anymore.
It will be about him.
Him and his goddamn heart.
I have no clue why that even matters—why something so drippy and sentimental would actually matter to me—but I can’t help but feel smothered by the realization that I don’t want to lose her.