A Beautiful Lie (Playing with Fire #1)(59)

Garrett’s phone vibrated in his pocket, and he pulled it out to see he had missed a call from an unknown number. That would make three in the span of an hour. Garrett knew he needed to focus and stop letting thoughts of Parker mess with his mind and ruin his concentration. He sent Brady a text asking him to try and trace the unknown number, pushing aside his frivolous thoughts of love and relationships when there were much more important matters that needed attention.

Garrett glanced up to take in Parker’s sleeping form again only to notice that she was staring at him. She was on her stomach hugging the pillow to her, the sheet draped down around her hips. Garrett’s eyes trailed down the smooth skin of her naked back and he decided to do something he wanted to do and knew he had to do for the purpose of the hidden ears that listened.

His eyes found hers again, and he kept his gaze locked on them as he wordlessly walked over to the bed, rested his hands and one knee on top, and leaned over towards Parker, pressing his lips to the skin of her shoulder. He should have backed away then, but he couldn’t help himself. Garrett moved further over her body and kissed her between her shoulder blades, down a few inches to the middle of her spine, finally ending at the small of her back, right where the sheet began.

Parker closed her eyes during the kisses, sighing lightly each time Garrett’s soft, warm lips made contact with her skin. She had been nervous things would be awkward between them this morning while she lay there watching him. She felt the wetness pooling between her thighs as his breath ghosted along her spine.

Garrett forced his mouth away from Parker before he pulled the sheet lower and kept going. He stood up from the bed and watched her slowly open her eyes back up.

“Good morning, sweetie,” he said cheerfully as he turned his back and sat down on the settee at the foot of the bed to put on his shoes. “Get your sleepy ass out of bed so we can get some breakfast.”

Garrett finished slipping on his shoes, got up, and walked into the living room without another glance in Parker’s direction.

To a stranger, Garrett sounded perfectly content and ready to start the day. But to Parker, the woman who knew him better than anyone else, his voice was strained, overly joyful and dripping with false affection.

He was playing a role. The one he came there to do. Parker was an idiot for not remembering that and for thinking anything different. She spent years training for things like this, and with one orgasm from the man, she forgot everything. She sat up, angrily flung the covers off of herself, and put the mask back in place as she walked to the bathroom. Halfway there, she paused, turned right back around, and marched across the bedroom and through the door to the connecting living room. Parker found Garrett sitting on the couch with his hands on his knees and his head in his hands. His head shot up when he heard her walk into the room. The look on his face would have been priceless and one she would have got a good laugh out of if she wasn’t so pissed off.

Standing in the doorway completely naked, Parker twirled a lock of hair around her fingers. When she reached the end, her hair fell from her fingers to rest against the top of her breast. She let her middle finger trail a path down her skin from her collarbone to one perfectly erect, pink nipple,where she circled it a few times for good measure.

“I’m just going to take a quick shower, baby. If you weren’t already dressed, I’d ask you to join me. Maybe later you can f*ck me up against the shower wall.”

Parker turned on her heels and strode from the room, blocking her mind from the way Garrett’s eyes had trailed hungrily up and down her naked body while she stood there in the doorway. She was too angry to care that just the sight of her had given him quite an obvious erection.

She made it to the bathroom without swearing or kicking anything out of her way, and then turned the water as hot as she could handle it to try and burn the feel of Garrett’s hands and mouth from her skin.



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Garrett didn’t think he would ever recover from the shock of seeing Parker walk into the living room naked. He had absolutely no idea what had possessed her to do something like that, but the image of her perfect, bare breasts and the heaven between her thighs that he wanted to sink his mouth into was forever burned into his brain. It was torture enough that he could still feel her heat on his fingertips and her body against him. Now he knew exactly what the parts of her body he touched the night before looked like in full, glorious living color. Garrett remained rooted in place with his mouth hanging open while Parker showered. As soon as she finished and got ready for breakfast, she bound into the living room. Giving him a kiss on the cheek, she pulled him up from the chair and told him how handsome he looked today, calling him sweetie, baby, hon, honey, love, and every other variation she could think of with every single sentence and a sickeningly sweet smile on her face as they made their way downstairs. Garrett wondered where Stepford Parker had come from and wished she would go back into hiding. He wanted to push her back into their room, lock the door, and kiss her until she dropped the act. He wanted to run his hands over every square inch of her beautiful body she put on display for him earlier. He wanted to tell her that the previous night had changed everything and he didn’t want to go back to the way they were, but he couldn’t do that.

A guard greeted them as soon as they exited the room and escorted them to a smaller dining room on the first floor, right off the kitchen. Parker had curled her arm through his and practically skipped down the stairs, rambling about how happy she was and how they should come back to the Dominican for a vacation when they were done with work. Garrett hated that his own fake husband act earlier had forced her to behave like this. He second-guessed his decision to focus solely on the assignment and realized belatedly that he should have just acted how he felt. Knowing there were people listening in on everything they did made him self-conscious and nervous about what he might let slip if he let his guard down. Garrett thought it would be easier to just be professional with Parker so they wouldn’t make any mistakes.