All I Want(86)

They made it as far as the stairs before Zoe dragged him down on top of her, reaching for his zipper. “Thank God my sister left,” she said, freeing a most impressive erection.

He was in the middle of stripping her naked, his hands everywhere. “Yeah, maybe we could not talk about your sister right now.”

She smiled coyly. “What should we talk about?”

He pulled her over him and shoved her hair from her face. “How I’ve been yours since the second we met.”

She felt her throat tighten, but still she tried to make light. “You mean when I mistakenly kissed you on my porch?”

Poised to enter her, he stopped and cupped her face, staring into her eyes, not letting her joke this away. “Best damn mistake to ever happen to me, Zoe.”

Oh, he was good. So very, very good. “So what now?” she asked in a whisper.

He kissed her softly and then not so softly. And then he pulled her down so that he could thrust up into her. “First, I’m going to take you on these stairs.”

Her breath caught and she found herself nodding her head like a bobblehead. “And then?” she asked eagerly.

“And then we’ll move to the upstairs landing. And then your bed. And then maybe the shower, if we can still walk.”

She pressed her mouth to his gorgeous lips. “And then?”

“And then,” he said, voice rough with need and emotion, God, so much emotion, “I want to hold you while I sleep. All night, Zoe. I want to wake up with you in my arms. And then we do the same thing all over tomorrow night. And the night after that.”

Her heart had swelled up against her rib cage. “For how many nights?” she asked.

“All of them,” he said, and mended the last rift in her heart.





Epilogue




Six months later . . .

A warm breeze settled around Zoe and Parker as they watched a just-married Wyatt and Emily sway to the music together in Zoe’s backyard. The plan had been to do the reception in the house but the day had turned out so unseasonably perfect they’d moved the party outside. They were still dressed as bride and groom, though Emily was barefoot and on tiptoes, wrapped in her husband’s arms as they stared at each other raptly.

“You look so beautiful tonight,” Parker murmured, coming up behind Zoe, pulling her back into his strong, warm arms. “You outshine even the bride.”

She felt herself flush a little and wriggled, gratified to feel Parker’s body respond.

Mouth nuzzling her ear, he laughed softly, naughtily. “Keep that up and I’ll drag you inside.”

“Not yet, you won’t.” She laughed breathlessly. “AJ and Darcy went inside an hour ago for more booze and never came back out.”

“Lucky bastard,” Parker murmured, and dragged her out to the dance floor, where he succeeded in heating her up and making her look longingly at the house.

He laughed at her. “Not yet,” he teased.

It was two more hours before Zoe stood in the middle of the street, finally watching Wyatt and Emily drive off in his truck, the Just Married graffiti all over it.

Behind her, the rest of the gang cheered loudly and migrated back to the yard, where the wedding reception would carry on, probably late into the night.

Parker slid an arm around her. “They grow up so fast.”

She laughed and turned into him, her breath catching at the sight of him, as it had all night. “Did I ever tell you that the sight of a man in a tux makes me wild?”

He flashed a very wicked smile at that. “How do you feel about a man stripping off his tux?”

“Even better.” She laughed when he nudged her toward the house instead of the party. “We can’t yet,” she said. “We have guests.”

“They’ll never even notice,” he promised.

Inside, the house was dark and quiet. Parker didn’t turn on any lights, leading her by the hand into . . . the kitchen? “Not that I’m complaining,” she said. “But I’m tired. I’m going to need a bed to do my best work—”

He flipped on the light.

Oreo lifted his sleepy head from his bed by the stove. Bonnie and Clyde, both cuddled with him, lifted theirs, too. At the sight of Zoe, the Food-Giver-Outer, they came running and tumbling toward her and she gasped.

Each of the kittens had a ribbon around their neck and from the ribbon hung a sign. Clyde got to her first, and his sign read:

Marry our daddy?

And Bonnie’s read:

Will you . . .

Parker sighed. “The one night that he’s faster than she is . . .”

Zoe turned and threw herself at him, both laughing and crying as she squeezed him tight.

Parker’s arms came hard around her. “Is that a yes?”

Speechless, her chest tight with emotion, she nodded.

Oreo, sensing the escalating excitement, lifted his head and barked.

Zoe laughed through her happy tears and kissed Parker. “Yes,” she said against his lips. “We’ll all marry you.”





Sunshine, Idaho, is a small, sunny town – the perfect home for man and beast. Well, maybe not for man, as pilot-for-hire Brady Miller discovers when his truck is rear-ended by what appears to be Noah’s Ark.

As the co-owner of the town’s only kennel, Lilah Young has good reason to be distracted behind the wheel – there are puppies, a piglet and a duck in her Jeep. Still, she doesn’t find it hard to focus on the sexy, gorgeous stranger she’s collided with.