Summary and disclaimer in part 1.

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Ms. Parker felt infinitely better when she woke up from a much needed rest. The sun was already setting, giving everything around her a vibrant orange cast.

'How long did I sleep?' she thought as she stretched, her bones cracking from the hours of inactivity. She let out a soft, happy sigh as she noticed that the constant ache in her back born from too many nights sleeping in less than ideal accommodations had receded. "Thank God for small miracles.'

Ms. Parker was about to slouch back down on the bed when she felt another presence in her room. Not for the first time, she wished she'd brought her gun as she rolled to the ground and crouched down.

Not hearing any movements, she peeked out from the side of the bed, her stance becoming less guarded as she recognized the person sitting on the white wicker chair across the room.

"Jarod, what are you doing here?" she demanded while she stood up and stalked towards him, her voice tinged with anger.

He looked up at her, his earlier desolate expression replaced by something she didn't recognize. Something she didn't *want* to recognize. Ms. Parker wished he'd stop looking at her like that. It made it too hard for her to stay mad.

"It wasn't really a mistake, was it?" Jarod asked in a husky voice.

Ms. Parker found her resolve weakening under his tone but insisted, "Yes, it was."

Jarod suddenly stood up, brushing an errant lock of hair behind her ear. She tilted her head up to look at him and found him staring at her lips.

Then slowly, as though he was waiting for her to protest, he lowered his mouth to hers. She responded to his kiss with a lifetime of pent-up longing, any protests she may have had having disappeared with the feel of her lips against his.

Too soon, Ms. Parker felt Jarod pulling away, his breath coming out in gasps while he held her at arm's length. "Then tell me you don't want this."

His voice was shaky, unsure. So different from his usual tone. She cupped her hand against his cheek and whispered, "I want this. I want you."

This time, it was she who initiated the contact. Ms. Parker grabbed the lapels of Jarod's polo shirt until they were eye to eye before brushing her lips against his.

She watched him close his eyes. Normally, she'd have done the same, but she wanted to remember all of this. Every single second of it.

She wasn't optimistic enough to believe that this encounter could be repeated. What happened to them this past week was special, a moment taken out of time.

Come Monday they'll be back to their roles of predator and prey, but in the meantime. . .

Ms. Parker felt Jarod shyly tug her towards the bed, and she couldn't stop the smile forming on her face as she saw his face color in the quickly dimming light.

He looked up and noticed her expression. It seemed to be all that he needed for his confidence to reassert itself and he gently pushed her onto the bed, pressing his lower leg more firmly into its side and in the process forcing hers apart.

Jarod then placed his hands on either side of her head and smiled his usual mischievous smile. Normally, she hated it when he did that, but in this context it was exciting. Arousing. Even a little bit dangerous.

Ms. Parker wrapped her arms around his neck, bringing his face closer to her. She let out a frustrated sigh as he stopped halfway and playfully shook his head no.

The sigh turned into an appreciative moan as he lowered his head and licked the underside of her chin before slowly making his way down to the hollow of her neck.

Jarod stopped as he reached the collar of her shirt, looking at her with all seriousness while he said, "I sure hope I don't swallow any of these."

He began to unbutton her shirt one by one using her teeth, eliciting a throaty laugh from her as she understood what he meant. She couldn't believe how aroused she felt as he continued to remove her clothes in a manner she'd always thought inefficient and silly.

The man was just too damn sexy for his own good.

It took her a couple of seconds to realize that he'd stopped taking off her clothes to look at her. "What?"

He smiled. "I was just thinking how beautiful you look when you laugh."

Ms. Parker felt her throat constrict at Jarod's sweet words. 'This is what he looks like when he's trying to make me cry,' she thought as she tried to burn his image in her memory for all those lonely nights she lied awake.

She sat up and motioned for him to face her. "Come over here," she whispered huskily before giving him a quick kiss on the lips.

Ms. Parker had Jarod's shirt off and lying on his back before he could fully process what was going on. She planted light kisses on his bare chest, eliciting a soft growl from him as she kissed him just above the bulge in his pants.

Remembering how he'd unbuttoned her pajama top, she used her teeth to unzip his tight, black jeans. She gave his cock a playful squeeze before looking up at him with a mischievous smile. "I wouldn't mind swallowing this."

Jarod let in a sharp intake of breath, his eyes dark as he stared back at her. She ignored the throbbing between her legs that resulted from that look and concentrated on running her hands over the hot, boxers-covered bulge in his lap.

"Okay," he gasped. "But if you keep doing that I can't promise that this will last long."

"We have time." Ms. Parker murmured before leaning back down to kiss his damp chest.

Jarod suddenly grabbed her hand and flipped her on her back. He nuzzled her hair for a moment before putting his mouth against her ear and whispering, "I never claimed to be a patient man."

With a gentleness that sharply contrasted his kisses, he parted her silk top. Her back arched as she felt the silk slide over her chest, quickly followed by his fingers. He momentarily cupped the underside of her breast before moving over her heart, stopping to feel her heartbeat. She let out a frustrated growl before dragging his hand back to her breast and moaning as he brushed his thumb against her rigid nipple.

'This is what he looks like when. . .' "Oh!" Ms. Parker cried out, all coherent thought leaving her as his mouth, hot and moist, descended on her other breast.

Her hand came up and twined around his hair, her grip tightening as he bit her lightly. The ever-present thrum between her legs became almost unbearable and she found herself pushing his pants and boxers down with the hand she managed to untangle from his hair. "More," she urged, desire turning her vocabulary monosyllabic. "Now."

Jarod nodded before throwing away the remainder of his clothes to a corner of the room, untangling himself for a moment to use his teeth to pull down her shorts and underwear. At her questioning glance, he murmured, "Just keeping up with tonight's theme."

Ms. Parker wanted to argue that they'd already broken it; however, there were other, better things that demanded her attention so she instead settled for another moan.

It didn't take long before her remaining clothes joined his at the pile in the corner. He gave her another deep kiss, his tongue probing every curve and corner of her mouth before he reluctantly disconnected his lips from hers and filled her in one thrust.

God.

Ms. Parker felt Jarod begin to move and she shifted her hand down to grasp his sweat-slicked arms. She then leaned forward a bit to give his damp forehead an openmouthed kiss. 'He tastes salty," came a rather asinine thought. 'Like potato chips.'

Jarod looked up at her and gave her a smile. "I. . . guess. . . you're. . . not. . . patient. . . either," he grunted in between thrusts. "You. . . said. . . we. . . had. . . a. . . lot. . . of. . . time."

How the hell was he still able to make coherent sentences? Jesus. At this point, she had to remind herself to keep breathing.

Ms. Parker decided she had to fix the situation. She wasn't the only one who was going to be left glassy eyed and squirming whenever she thought of this night, damn it!

She brought her left hand down to gently stroke his balls, all the while giving him a smile that told him in no uncertain terms, 'I want to hear you *scream* my name.'

He complied, making his thrusts harder, faster. She tightened her hold on his arm as his accelerating speed began to affect her.

God. She was so close.

Ms. Parker felt the coil in her stomach that had been slowly winding since the start of their encounter begin to strain from the pressure. She let out a gasp when his tongue left a wet trail between her ear and the curve of her neck, giving her the extra stimulation she needed for the coil in her stomach to unfurl as her orgasm overtook her.

Her nails dug into his skin while she cried out, her back arching towards him. She waited until she caught her breath before opening her eyes and listening to Jarod begin to chant her name over and over again as his movements became less controlled.

Ms. Parker wiped off a bead of sweat rolling down his brow and watched him tremble slightly at the contact. She intensified her assault on his skin and slowly made her way up his right arm using her tongue, summoning a surprised yell from his lips when she nipped him.

For a second Jarod stared at her like he'd forgotten her name. Or anything he'd ever learned, for that matter. He quickly snapped out of it, though, and started pounding into her with more vigor than before.

His litany of her name became punctuated with animalistic grunts; their frequency intensified with each thrust. It didn't take very long before he was rendered completely incoherent as he came, his face the very definition of ecstasy.

Ms. Parker felt the world come to a stop as they lay there, panting. She wanted to tell Jarod how incredible he made her feel, but how could she describe it to him when the words 'fucked out of her mind' felt wholly inadequate?

She was saved from the responsibility of saying something first when he rolled off her and plopped down on the bed. "Wow."

Ms. Parker playfully poked Jarod on his side, a ticklish spot she'd discovered when they were children. "We just had sex and the best thing you can say about it is 'wow'?"

He turned his head to look at her for a couple of minutes as he searched his mind for something more appropriate. "Wow," he repeated.

She laughed before turning her head back to stare at the ceiling. "Yeah, wow."

******

The shrill ringing of the bedside phone rudely brought Ms. Parker out of a pleasant dream, eliciting a curse from her as she tried to shut it up. She blindly moved her hand in the general direction of the sound and was heartily surprised when she instead encountered something soft and warm. Soft and warm and *breathing.*

She quickly pulled back her hand and turned on a nearby lamp, her pounding heartbeat slowing down some when she realized that the person on her bed was Jarod.

He was on his back, his hair tousled from sleep and their earlier activities. A cotton sheet was draped strategically over his hip, something she would have thought to be rather modest of him had she not gotten a front row view of what it covered only hours before.

Ms. Parker suddenly realized that the phone was still ringing. She picked it up, her voice softer than usual as she asked, "What?"

"This is the five o'clock wakeup call that you requested. . ."

"Thank you," she said and hung up the phone before the operator could finish.

Ms. Parker ignored the figure on the bed as she cleaned up and packed what little stuff she had laying around. She even kept her head down as she efficiently sorted her toiletries, refusing to look at Jarod's reflection on the vanity mirror.

It wasn't until she was standing by the door with her suitcase, hand poised over the knob, that she managed to work up the courage to turn around and look at him.

So this was it. Somehow, it didn't seem right to her for it all to end like this.

It wasn't like she was looking for a happy ending; she'd learned long ago that there was no such thing. All she wanted was some kind of. . . closure.

Ms. Parker sighed and shook her head for making such a silly wish. Hadn't her father taught her to make the best of what she'd got? She took one last look at Jarod before turning back around and opening the door.

"Parker," she heard him whisper, causing her to freeze in her tracks.

She bit her lip as she heard him move behind her and begin to tenderly nuzzle the back of her head. Damn it. He always had to make thing so difficult.

Ms. Parker was about to push Jarod away when he murmured something that brought a smile to her face. "Wanna make another mistake next week?"

End Part!