Double The Love (BWWM Pregnancy Romance Novel) (19 page)

“Gwen,”
I warned, rolling my eyes.

Gwen
laughed and waved her hand at me before taking notice of Parker lingering
behind me. “Oh I’m sorry, how rude of me,” she said, meeting eyes with me for
an explanation. “And is this your…”

Gwen’s
question trailed off into a silent assumption. When an awkward air of silence
settled over us, I immediately snapped into action, grabbing Parker’s hand and
pulling him forward. I was hoping to get the introductions over with in one fall
swoop when everyone was present, but of course that wasn’t possible. Not with
my family. They were always off in about five different directions.

“Gwen,
this is my boyfriend, Parker Gold,” I spoke up. “Parker, meet my little sister,
Gwen Evans.”

Gwen’s
eyes nearly popped out of her head as soon as the word ‘boyfriend’ left my
mouth. I really couldn’t believe that she’d yet to hear this tidbit of
information from our mother, but I figured it was just because she was too
distracted by her wedding to gossip.

“Boyfriend?”
Gwen questioned, making no attempt to hide her shock. “Uh, since when?”

 
“You say that like you thought she was
playing for the other team,” Parker spoke up, breaking the tension with comic
relief. “Should I be worried?”

I gave
him a grateful smile. It was incredible how quick on his feet he was, but I
figured it was probably a requirement of his career of choice. Selling yourself
for money didn’t go too well with awkwardness.


“Well,
I’ll be honest,” Gwen spoke up once some of her shock began to wear off. “She
had us all wondering for awhile there. Anyway, come on in you two. I’ll have
Donald come out and grab your bags.”

Chapter three

The way
my family behaved throughout the rest of the evening made me wonder what I’d been
so worried about. They were all nostalgic stories, and wine sipping, and
laughter. There was none of the tension or discomfort I’d come prepared for.

What
bugged me out the most, though, was the fact that Parker seemed almost
bizarrely at home here. It didn’t matter that he was the only white face in a
crowd of black folks, or that I was paying him to be here. I’d brought him
thinking my white “boyfriend” would put them off, but instead, they’d welcomed
him with open arms. It was just my luck. Evette was right. I really couldn’t
rebel to save my life.

I
sighed when I caught sight of Parker saying something to Gwen that sent her
into immediate hysterics. When he met my gaze, I nodded towards the kitchen and
stepped inside to refill my wine with the hope that he’d follow me. I was in
the process of draining the last of the bottle when he came up behind me,
wrapping his arms around my waist with all the ease of someone who’d known me
for years. Not a day. Still, for the sake of the charade, I allowed him to do
it.

Parker’s
breath was warm against my neck as he whispered in my ear, brushing a wet kiss
against the cusp of my neck without a shred of hesitation. “God you’re tense,”
he remarked. “I thought wine was supposed to make women relax?”

“You
fit in with them even better than I do,” I said, getting right to the point.

I could
feel Parker smiling against my flesh. “Is that
jealousy
I’m detecting in your tone?”

“Funny,”
I deadpanned.

When I
caught a glimpse of my mother staring at us from her perch in the living room,
I turned in Parker’s arms and pressed a firm kiss against his mouth.
“Goodnight.”


“Uh,
sorry?”


“It’s
been a long day. I think I’m going to call it a night.”

“And
where am I sleeping?” Parker questioned. I started to answer him, but he
brought his mouth back down against mine before I could. “Just kidding,
girlfriend.
I'll tell everyone you went to bed and I’ll be up in a few.”

I
clenched my teeth and made my way upstairs towards my childhood bedroom. When I
overheard my name being spoken, I paused near the top step to eavesdrop despite
my better judgment.

“Where’s
Nina?”

That
was my mother. I could tell by the underlying note of judgment in her tone.

“She
took a Motrin and went to bed. She’s been feeling under the weather all day,”
Parker lied. Flawlessly, I might add. I could totally see why he was becoming a
lawyer.

Gwen
cleared her throat and exhaled an elongated sigh that told me she’d had one too
many glasses of wine and was ready to do her worst. “I don't know how you can
put up with her. She’s
so high strung. You must be a very tolerant man.”

Now there was the sister I knew and
loved!

I
rolled my eyes and continued down the hall. I couldn’t listen to another word
of this. Gwen’s tone made it clear that she was on the verge of another one of
her slander-fests, and as much as I enjoyed being her personal punching bag, I
wasn’t about to pick a fight with her just a few days before her wedding. I had
a little more class than that.

Parker
entered my bedroom about twenty minutes later. I heard him walk in, but I
remained perfectly still with my back turned away from him. I wanted him to
think I was already asleep, and it seemed to work. He shut the door as quietly
as he could manage, pulling off his t-shirt to reveal a perfectly chiseled
abdomen, which I caught an up close look at in the vanity mirror across from
me. I tensed when I felt him climb under the sheets bedside me. The tension
between us was palpable, even with me fake sleeping, but I was still too caught
up in what Gwen had said about me to focus in on it.

It was
all so damn predictable. As soon as I wasn’t around to hear it, my loving
family didn’t hesitate to become my own personal judge and jury. I could only
imagine what kind of things they’d said about me once I walked away. They were
all convinced that I was some cat lady in training. A bitch doomed to be
forever alone because I was a
“tight-ass who scared off any halfway decent man who looked my way”
.

It was
no exaggeration. Gwen had spoken those exact words to me more times than I
could count. Every time we saw each other, all it took was a little liquid
reinforcement for her to take all her resentment and failure to make anything
out of her own life out on me. She acted like it was my fault that she had two
kids by the time she even graduated high school.

Parker
shifted to get comfortable, and I remained still until I heard his breathing
become shallower. As soon as I was sure he was asleep, I rolled over to face
him. This arrangement was shaping up to be much more complex than I’d foreseen.
It didn’t make any sense, but I felt more at home in this strangers presence
than I did with my own family. The way he wrapped his arms around me in the
kitchen had ignited emotions inside of me that I’d long since retired. Emotions
I didn’t think I was ever capable of feeling again.

Every
time I came back to Hillcrest, I felt like an outsider looking in on someone
else’s life. It wasn’t that I doubted that my family loved me. I just had the
distinct feeling that they felt as though I’d sold out by leaving them and this
god-awful lifestyle behind to pursue a life of my own.

Gwen
was my mother’s pride and joy. She’d followed in her footsteps in more ways
than one—from popping out kids at a young age, to getting married to her
high school sweetheart and working at the family restaurant. It was the
daughter who went to college, climbed the corporate ladder, and sent her a
check every month who she refrained from bragging about to her friends.

I
sighed into the darkness and attempted to push my bitterness aside so that I
could get some sleep. Unfortunately for me, Parker heard and opened his eyes.

So much for him being asleep.

“You
okay?”

“I’m
fine,” I said, turning over onto my back to stare at the ceiling. “Just
thinking.”

Parker’s
mouth curled into a smile and he raised himself onto his elbow to look down at
me. “About what, jumping my bones?” When I didn’t respond, he gave me a soft
nudge. “I could feel you staring at me.”

I
scoffed and squinted up at the glow-in-the-dark stars plastered to my ceiling.
They still had their shine after all these years. Parker leaned in without a
word and pressed his lips to mine, silencing me before I could stop him. I was
breathless by the time he finally pulled away from me.

“You’re
tense,” Parker whispered, slipping his hand beneath the hem of my tank top to
caress my midriff. “I think I could help...”

“I'm
not paying you for that,” I reminded him, trying my best to ignore the warmth building
between my legs.

Parker’s
quiet laughter resonated through me as he tugged my earlobe between his teeth.
“Lets call it a freebie then.”

An
involuntary moan escaped my mouth when I felt his lips make contact with my
neck. It was one of my most sensitive spots, and somehow, he seemed to pick up
on it right away. He straddled me without a shred of effort, keeping his mouth
pressed against my throat as he curled one hand in my hair and used the other
to caress my breasts.

Any
rebuttal I might have had dissolved into a series of throaty moans that gave
away to just how turned on I was, but I wasn’t the only one. I could feel
Parker’s dick pressing against me through the thin fabric of his briefs, and in
no time at all, I found myself grinding against it.

Parker
pushed up my tank top with a newfound sense of urgency, latching his mouth onto
one of my nipples as his hands skimmed their way down my body. I gasped his
name in a halfhearted attempt at getting him to stop, but it was obvious that
we were way past the point of no return.

“Nina?”

I
stirred awake at the sound of my name. When I opened my eyes, a fully clothed
Parker was smirking at me from the other side of the bed. “You okay?” he
questioned.

“Fine,”
I said as I regained my composure and turned away from him. “It was just a
dream...”

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