“He left,” I shot back. “Why? Were you going to try to scare him away if he wanted to spend the night?” I loaded up on the sarcasm.
“I don’t care what you do with him,” he bit out. “But why the hell would you play games with me about this?”
“Play games about what?” My back was to the wall and he was all up in my business.
“Play games about your safety,” he retorted. “I’m up to my neck with these people, trying to do what I have to do, and you’re making things more difficult when your job is to make them easier!”
He was yelling at me, and Parker had never yelled at me. I didn’t think I’d ever seen him this angry before.
“I didn’t want to go visit my parents—”
“I don’t give a shit!” He cut me off mid-sentence. “I told you to do something, needed you to do something, and you completely disobeyed me.”
Tears stung my eyes at the force of his fury, and if I was honest, I was scared, too. A nerve pulsed in his jaw and his eyes were practically shooting sparks at me. His entire body vibrated with anger.
“Goddamn it, Sage!” Parker raised his hand to shove his fingers through his hair, but I didn’t know that. I just saw him raise his hand and I reacted, cringing away from him and squeezing my eyes shut.
I waited, barely breathing and not even thinking. Now I was terrified and heartsick. But nothing happened. After a few moments of standing stock-still, I cautiously opened my eyes. Parker was staring at me, his expression stricken.
“Good God,” he rasped. “Do you really think I’d hit you?”
And I promptly burst into tears.
Parker pulled me into his arms. “Sage. Sage. I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.”
He was trying to comfort me, but all the hurt and fear came pouring out of me, turning me into a blubbering mess, smearing mascara on the lapel of his suit. Again.
He kept talking, apologizing, his voice a hoarse, tortured whisper in my ear. I barely heard. Tears still poured down my cheeks as I tried to pull myself together.
“Please stop crying. I’m sorry. I’d never hurt you, you know that.” Parker leaned back, taking my face in his hands to look in my eyes. “Tell me you know that.”
He swiped at the tear tracks with his thumbs, and when I didn’t answer, he pressed his lips to my cheek, kissing away my tears. First one side, then the other. “I’d never hurt you. I swear it,” he murmured. “And I’d kill anyone who did.”
It was overwhelming, and such a tremendous relief from how I’d felt just moments earlier, but I barely had time to process what he’d said before he lightly pressed his mouth to mine in a chaste, sweet kiss.
“Don’t cry, please don’t cry,” he whispered against my lips.
I took a deep, shuddering breath and tentatively kissed him back. Just a tiny movement of my lips against his, but it was as though someone had thrown gasoline onto burning embers. In the next moment, we were kissing feverishly in a tangle of lips, and teeth, and tongues.
His desperation fed into me and I raked my nails through his hair, clutching him to me. His lips and tongue skated down my neck, sucking at the pulse beating a staccato rhythm underneath my skin. I sucked in air and said his name. His mouth returned to kiss the syllables from my lips.
I clutched at his shoulders, the expensive fabric of his suit crumpling in my grip. His hands moved to my arms, sliding down until he took my hands in his and stretched my arms over my head. He leaned into me, bracing my arms against the wall and holding them there.
Our fingers tangled together and his kisses gentled, teasing and seducing rather than hard and demanding. We were both breathing fast when he finally pulled away slightly.
“Tell me you know I’d never hurt you,” he murmured. His nose rubbed lightly at my cheek, his lips brushing the side of my mouth.
“I know,” I whispered, which was the longest speech I was capable of at the moment.
He stepped back, his hands slowly sliding down my arms to my sides, then settling on my waist. I lowered my arms to rest on his shoulders. His eyes devoured me, the hungry glint in them making an answering heat flare between my legs.
“Don’t leave your apartment this weekend,” he said. “Will you do that for me?”