A Beautiful Lie (Playing with Fire #1)(83)

Parker slid her arms around Garrett’s waist and turned her head to the side so she could rest her cheek against his chest, right above his heart. The muffled thumps of each beat reverberated through her ear, and she counted each one.

Garrett let out a sigh of relief at having Parker in his arms again and being able to feel that she was safe and alive. He rested his chin on top of her head and rubbed slow circles across the skin of her back above where the towel ended.

Garrett wasn’t sure when it had happened, but he had accepted the fact that CIA Parker was independent, strong, and could take care of herself. He realized that watching her in action made him care about her even more than he thought possible. She excelled at what she did, and he was amazed at how easily his previous notions of her personality before he knew she was CIA fit so well with who she really was and who he had always known her to be.

The only problem he had, the one realization that sucker punched him in the gut with the force of a freight train, was that he was powerless to keep her safe. Garrett would never forget the staggering pain he felt when he thought she’d been hurt.

Or worse.

There was one thought on his mind and one thought only – if she was gone, she’d never know how much he loved her.

Garrett squeezed his eyes closed and kissed the top of Parker’s head. She pulled her cheek away from his chest and looked up at him, keeping the rest of her body as close to him as she could. He stared deep into her eyes, and she felt her heart speed up.

Garrett brought his hand up to push some of her hair behind her ears so he could cup her cheek. His thumb moved lazily back and forth against her skin while the butterflies in his stomach fluttered rapidly.

“I love you,” he told her softly, his gaze never wavering from her own.

Parker heard him say the words, she saw his mouth move to form the sounds she waited a lifetime to hear, but it didn’t seem real. She was afraid if she closed her eyes, if she looked away, it would all be a dream. Nothing about this day made sense. It only seemed right that this shouldn’t either. Of course Garrett loved her. They’d been friends for years and now they were intimate. He was scared he'd almost lost her today, and it made him want to reaffirm the love he had for his friend. It was a natural response to a scary situation, a knee-jerk reaction to the adrenalin still coursing through him.

“I know,” Parker replied softly, understanding evident on her face even though she wished things were different.

“No, I don’t think you do,” Garrett said with a shake of his head. “And that’s completely my fault. I should have told you a long time ago. I shouldn’t have waited until I almost lost you. I know love isn’t something that comes easy for you or that you even believe in it. I know and I don’t care. I don’t care if you’re afraid to love me back, I don’t care if you never feel the same way that I do. I just need you to know, right here and right now, that I am in love with you, Annabelle Parker.”

Parker bit her bottom lip in an effort to stop the flow of tears that were threatening to spill over onto her cheeks, but it was useless. His admission alone would have made her fall apart, but the way he said her name, like she was the most important person in the world to him, forced a sob past her lips.

Garrett hadn’t given one thought to how Parker would react to his declaration. He just spit it out. She hadn’t said a word since he’d spoken; the tears just slowly leaked from her eyes as she stared at him in disbelief. Garrett felt like maybe he said something wrong. He should have planned it better, given her some kind of warning about how he felt before throwing it at her after the day she had. He was so busy kicking himself he almost missed Parker’s whispered response through the tears.

“I’m scared.”

Garrett knew because of her father and the way she was treated she refused to give all of her heart to someone. Garrett didn’t want her to feel guilty for one minute because she couldn’t return his feelings.

He bent his knees so he was eye level with her.

“I told you, it doesn’t matter to me if you can’t-”

Parker quickly reached up and covered his mouth with her hand before he could finish.

“I’m not scared because I can’t give you my love in return,” she told him softly. “I’m scared because I love you so much sometimes it’s hard to breathe.”

Garrett groaned softly behind her hand.

“I’m scared because I never ever wanted to lose myself in someone as deeply as my parents did. I’m scared because I was so stupid to realize I would have no control over that where you were concerned.”

Garrett closed his eyes for a moment, letting Parker’s words sink in and letting himself believe in everything she was saying. He opened his eyes as another tear fell from her eyes and slipped down her cheek and over her lip.

“Everything I have to give, it’s yours. It’s always been yours,” Parker told him with a sob.

Garrett lifted Parker up into his arms, her hand quickly falling away from his mouth as he captured her lips and sighed once they were connected. The exchange of breaths, the slide of tongues, everything was more enhanced than it had been before. Garrett’s hand went to the back of Parker’s head, holding her in place against his mouth. He turned and walked with her to the bed, climbing onto it and laying her down in the middle, never breaking the kiss.