Page 70 of Wicked Beautiful (Wicked Games 1)
Shit. Great job, Victoria. I close my eyes. When I open them again, all the anger is gone. All that’s left is a vast, pounding blackness.
“Tabby, cancel whatever I’m scheduled for through Tuesday. And call NetJets. Book me the first flight to Laredo.”
“Why? What’re you gonna do?”
I look at her, and then at Darcy. I see their concern plainly on their faces, but all I care about now is finishing what I’ve started. And there’s only one person in the world who can help me with that.
“I’m going to see my daughter.”
Darcy’s mouth drops open. Tabby shakes her head and sighs.
And I turn to go to my bedroom to pack.
TWENTY-TWO
When I giggle, Parker tries to shush me, but he’s giggling, too. He can’t help it; he loves it when I laugh.
“Bel, we have to be quiet. My parents can’t know you’re here.”
“It tickles!” I try to hold still, try to muffle the squeals of pleasure and happiness desperate to escape my throat.
“Tickles!” Parker pretends to be offended. “It’s supposed to feel good!”
He slowly drags the tip of the feather between my bare breasts, down my ribcage, and across my belly. When he whorls it around my belly button, I have to cover my mouth and bite my lip so I don’t shriek with laughter.
“It does feel good. But it tickles, too.”
He grins. He’s stretched out naked beside me, propped on an elbow, his golden hair mussed, his heavy leg thrown over both of mine. We’re in his bed in his parents’ house, the bed sheets tented around his head and shoulders, snug in our own lovely world. It’s eleven o’clock on a rainy school night, and—as I often do—I’ve snuck out of my house to visit him on the other side of town.
My parents are deep sleepers, but I share a bedroom with my little brother. Parker, an only child, has a giant bedroom on the upper floor of his parents’ mansion, far away from the cocktail party going on in the great parlor downstairs.
His parents like to throw cocktail parties. My parents like to eat frozen dinners in front of the TV.
“The book says this is supposed to be super sexy. You’re supposed to be, like, all worked up right now.” He purses his lips, trying to act stern. “You don’t seem very worked up.”
“If you count trying not to pee my pants because I’m laughing so hard, I’m very worked up.”
Parker drags the feather lower down my belly, over my hipbone, across the slope of my upper thigh. When he flicks the feather between my legs and I shiver, he smiles.
“You’re not wearing any pants,” he whispers, and leans down to kiss me.
“Neither are you.” I brush my hand across his stiffness, which twitches restlessly against my leg.
His grin, always at the ready, appears again. “How’d I get so lucky to be with the most observant girl in town?”
It’s my turn to pretend to be offended. “Observant? So you’re saying you love me for my mind?”
His grin fades. Into his eyes comes a look so warm I feel bathed in heat. “Yes, I love you for your mind. And for your heart. And for your soul and your eyes and your hair and your smile and the way I feel like I’m ten feet tall when you look at me. I love you because I’m more me around you. Around you, Bel, I’m the best me I’ll ever be.”
Parker rests his hot cheek against my chest. My body hums with joy. I wind my arms around him and close my eyes, my heart so full it’s bursting.
No one ever told me it could be like this. No one ever said it would be so easy to lose myself in a beautiful, brilliant boy. To lose myself and find myself, all at once.
Without warning, Parker’s bedroom door flies open and hits the wall with a thunderous bang. Beneath the covers, we both jump.
“Who you got there in your bed, boy?” booms Parker’s father. “Better not be that goddam wetback whore!”
In a sudden move that leaves me gasping in shock, the covers are stripped away. Parker and I, naked in each other’s arms, stare up in horror at his father’s livid face. Parker jumps up, attempting to cover me with the sheet, but his father backhands him across the face and sends his son staggering. He stumbles into a chair, loses his balance, crashes against the dresser, and then tumbles to the floor. Bill Maxwell leers down at me as I cower on the bed, starting to cry.
