All I Want Read online

  asleep in his arms had probably been a mistake because that had felt even more intimate than the lovemaking.

  In the hallway, Oreo nudged her toward the stairs. He wanted food. She crouched low and hugged the dog. “Listen,” she whispered into Oreo’s fur, “I know he’s super sexy and he smells good and his smile makes us stupid, but he’s leaving. We need to remember that and be strong. No falling for him, okay? Promise?”

  Oreo didn’t promise, and she sighed. Then she headed to the kitchen in desperate need of caffeine. She intended to wake up fully and get herself to work. She didn’t have any flights scheduled, but there was a staff meeting she had to attend. Joe, annoyed by the exorbitant maintenance cost of the aging Caravan, wanted to sell it and get something newer and bigger, and she wanted in on that discussion.

  But mostly she wanted to keep busy so she could think about something other than Parker. His moan of appreciation when he’d tasted her French toast. The sound of her name on his lips when he’d been buried deep inside her. The look on his face whenever he touched her, a look that conveyed something his words never did, that he was every bit as into her as she was him . . .

  Damn. She had it bad.

  Hey, it’s not all doom and gloom, her little voice said. You learned to bake kick-ass blueberry muffins last night. Somehow, in spite of herself, she’d opened her life a little and was having some fun.

  Actually, if she factored in all the sex, she was having lots of fun. After Wyatt and Darcy had moved out, she’d really thought all her fun was behind her, but she was happy to be wrong about that.

  And there was a lot more fun out there to be had, she told herself. When Parker was gone and the glow of all the orgasms wore off, she’d still be going for life, one hundred percent.

  Or at least seventy-five percent.

  Determined to be fine, she decided it was a blueberry muffin sort of morning. While waiting for the coffee to brew, she carefully re-created a batch from the recipe Manda had written down for her, doing everything from the night before—except drink a bottle of wine—and stuck them in the oven.

  Waiting was not a strong suit of hers, so she ran upstairs to shower and dress for the day, and then, because she’d forgotten last night, she started to switch her laundry from the washer to the dryer. But she got distracted by the kittens, whom she’d let run free while she was in the shower.

  Massive mistake.

  Wild woman was hanging from the curtains in the living room, swaying back and forth like Tarzan. The tabby had vanished completely. It took Zoe fifteen minutes to find the thing. Eventually she found him in the dryer she’d left open—snoozing on her fresh, clean whites. She scooped him up in her hands and he lifted his little fuzzy head to give her a sleepy “mew,” looking so adorable she couldn’t find her mad.

  That was when she remembered the muffins.

  A few minutes later she’d tossed out the burned muffins, run across the driveway to get a bag of muffins from Manda, and then corralled the heathens in the kitchen with her, and was opening the bag of muffins that Manda had given her. It took only a minute to decide that last night’s muffins would be better warmed.

  Five minutes later, the room no longer smelled like burned muffins but instead like perfectly baked and warming muffins, and Zoe nodded in satisfaction. This was more like it.

  She needed a Manda.

  She looked up when Parker came into the room, dressed in jeans and a button-down, keys in hand. His hair was still damp from a shower. As she took a deep breath, her nose filled with the essence of Parker: soap, deodorant, and delicious, sexy man. Her body practically vibrated with unbidden memories: Parker in his bed, inside her body, his mouth hot at her throat, his hands positioning her as he wanted as he’d moved within her, driving her wild.

  “Hey,” she said.

  “Hey.” He smiled and her heart hurt. “I thought I’d wake up with you.”

  She ignored the way her heart squished at that.

  “What smells so good?” he asked.

  She looked at the oven, where the muffins were warming. Manda’s muffins. But hey, Zoe had helped make them, so technically that meant they were half hers, right? Maybe more than half since she’d done the reheating all on her own. And if she’d decided to make breakfast casserole or breakfast burritos or something like that, she would have rocked it because she could so totally cook, dammit. “Blueberry muffins,” she said, and nonchalantly pulled the pan of perfectly made blueberry muffins from the oven.

  Both man and dog locked eyes on them and licked their lips.

  “Did you make ’em?” Parker asked, not making a move any closer.

  His wariness was more than mildly annoying. “Why?” she asked. “Are you afraid?”

  He looked pained now, like he was in a quandary.

  “Guess you are,” she said, taking a muffin from the tray and slowly peeling back the paper, breaking the muffin in half, watching as the steam rose. Mouth watering, she took a bite and closed her eyes. “Mmmm,” she moaned.

  When she opened her eyes, Parker had moved into her personal space, his eyes dark with heat and more than a little bit of trouble. He’d skipped a shave this morning and his jaw had just the right amount of scruff on it so that if he rubbed it against her she’d probably orgasm on the spot.

  Her inner thighs trembled.

  “Good?” he murmured, his gaze locked in on her mouth.

  “Very.” She stared up at him, out of breath. Why was she out of breath? Because you want him. Just one more time . . . “Parker?”

  “Yeah?”

  Deciding to show, not tell, she ran a finger down his chest to the button on his jeans.

  His eyes heated, but he remained still.

  So she let her finger slip beneath the waistband of his jeans.

  He caught her wrist. “You chilly again?” he asked, amusement in his voice.

  “Don’t play hard to get now,” she whispered, and he laughed.

  “Zoe,” he said in that early-morning sexy guy voice, “with you, I’m never hard to get. I’m just hard.”

  She snorted and pulled him down to kiss him.

  He kissed her back and then looked deep into her eyes.

  She did her best to look like something he couldn’t live without. At least for the duration.

  “When you sneaked out of my bed this morning, I figured you’d come to your senses,” he said.

  “If I’d come to my senses, I’d have kicked you out days ago.” To soften the words, she once again pulled his head down to hers.

  “Be sure,” he said, voice low, calm, even though the hunger and desire in his eyes gave him away. “No regrets.”

  “Of course not,” she said. “The three W’s, remember? No wondering, no worrying, no wishing for things I can’t have.” Okay, so she’d added on those last few words, but it sounded like a good policy.

  “I don’t want to hurt you—”

  “You can’t.” She put her finger over his sexy lips when he didn’t cave. “I get it now,” she promised. “I want to enjoy this, enjoy you, while I can. I need this, Parker. I need you.”

  She waited a beat for him to deny her, to be stoic and strong and hold her off because that was what he thought was best for her. But doing what perhaps was the most incredible thing any man had ever done for her, he assumed she was an adult and capable of making her own decisions. His hands settled on her hips and he pulled her in. “Zoe?”

  “Yeah?”

  He slid the pad of his thumb over her lower lip and then let his fingers sink into her hair so that he could tilt her face up to his. “I’m going to kiss you,” he said in that sexy, gravelly morning voice.

  She nodded eagerly, her breathing already shallow and rapid. “Yes—”

  Before the word was all the way out of her mouth, he lowered his head and kissed her hard, pinning her to the counter. She sucked his tongue into her mouth, greedily savoring the taste of him while he appeared to do the same. “Here,” she said.