“I’m an equal opportunity reader,” I admitted. “Though I didn’t really get into the first Fifty Shades book as much as I was into the last one. That one had better BDSM in it. Which is where I tend to gravitate to at times. While other times I really want a story that I can sink my teeth into. Which is where Harry Potter or Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief come in. My all-time favorite series, though, is one by Jim Butcher. The Codex of Alera.”
“What’s that about?” he asked, sounding calm and collected.
I shifted again, and when I did, I felt a distinctive male hardness—his cock—against my leg.
I didn’t act like I noticed, and he didn’t stiffen, so we just stayed like we were while I told him everything that I could think of about my favorite series.
In the end, I was fairly convinced that he needed to read it.
“I have them in audio and in book form,” I said, shifting slightly so that I could regain feeling in my right leg.
My pussy was still feeling really good, but the downfall was that now my feet were going numb.
I wasn’t sure whether to move or to stay exactly where I was.
In the end, Peter Parker Penn made the decision for me.
He pulled my leg up, and then did this flip thing with my entire body so that he was cradling me like I’d done to Abrielle only a few hours before.
Only, this time there was a distinctive difference between a child and an adult.
He had his hand on my ass, and there was not a single innocent thing about it.
Though, neither one of us so much as commented on the fact.
Instead, we just stayed there while I regaled him with tales of my favorite book.
Then, with my head resting on his chest, listening to the beat of his heart, I pulled out my phone and started up the audiobook.
We were in the same position over an hour later when I knew he was caught.
“This doesn’t seem like it follows the life of such a young kid,” he said.
“It’s the magic, I think,” I admitted. “Though, I have to admit, when I reread this series, I start over at book two. As much as I love the first book, there’s not nearly as much action in it as the following ones.”
He grunted, and then we stayed in silence for another hour.
At some point during that time his erection had gone away, but my desire was only fanned.
I tried to ignore it, but he had his hand on my ass, only inches away from my pussy.
I could feel his fingertips brushing the inside seam of my jeans every once in a while, and I knew that he wasn’t doing it accidentally.
A man like Peter Parker Penn didn’t do a thing like that by accident.
“It’s his mother, isn’t it?” he asked.
I grinned. “Keep listening.”
My eyes closed, and my fantasies started to get hot and heavy.
This chair was big. Big enough that I could fit on it, knees either sides of his hips, and ride him.
Oh God, could I ride him.
Or, if I wanted, I could flip around and sit on him reverse cowgirl style.
I licked my lips and swallowed a moan.
I was literally seconds away from coming, and all because of my imagination, and him barely brushing the seam of my vagina.
Jesus Christ.
I bit my lip and picked up the phone that was sitting on the arm of the chair, then pressed pause on the Audible App. “I have to use the potty.”
Then I sat up, thinking that I was going to move up and out of his lap, only I didn’t so much as get both of my feet to the ground before he wrapped both of his arms around my body and pulled me to sitting directly on his lap.
I heard my phone hit the floor, and would’ve asked what the fuck, but then I felt his lips brush my neck.
“If you don’t want this…” He squeezed me tighter. “Then you need to tell me now before this goes any farther.”
Like I would ever tell him no.
Chapter 16
Why is a flying cockroach something that God deemed necessary to be on this Earth?
-Asking for a friend
Parker
I was giving her an out.
I was also hoping that she would take it.
I didn’t want her to, my dick especially didn’t want her to, but I was bad. Bad news. Bad attitude. Bad for her. Bad at relationships. Bad, bad, bad.
But I wanted her with a ferociousness that bordered on worrisome.
For her and for me.
I wasn’t sure what to do with the emotions I was feeling toward her.
This woman? She was everything that I wasn’t.
Full of life. Happy. Healthy. Young. Good.
I wasn’t full of life. There were days where I wondered what I was fighting for. I wasn’t happy, and I hadn’t ever been happy. My health, while okay, still wasn’t the greatest. I’d lived a hard life before I came to be where I was, and I sure as fuck wasn’t good like her.
But, as cliché as it sounded, she made me want to be a better person. She made me want to try to live life the way she lived it. She made me want to smile when all I used to want to do was frown. She made me happy. She made my day interesting. And mostly, I was falling in love with her.
She was making me feel things that no other woman had ever made me feel—things that I just wasn’t altogether ready to admit to yet. Feelings that would get my ass kicked by her mentor—Loki.
I hadn’t forgotten about that.
After learning her devotion went deep with Loki, I knew things would never be the same.
At least, that was what I’d been thinking.
How could someone that cared that much for someone love the person that hurt them? How could she ever look at me and think that I was a good human being?
Because I wasn’t.
I was bad.
There was no denying that.
I’d done some horrible things in my life. Still had my own nightmares to deal with in the early morning hours.
I still felt Bryce’s blood on my hands. Felt him sag to his knees while I watched. Watched impassively as he started to bleed from his throat.
Then felt ten times the coward as I ran away while I could’ve been helping him.
“Parker?”
I blinked and immediately realized that I was making a mistake.
I pushed her up off me.
“Go to the bathroom.”
She stood up and turned.
“What’s wrong?”
I swallowed at the concern in her voice.
“Have you forgotten what kind of person that I am?” I asked.
She stared at me.
“No.”
“And you are still here?” I laughed. “I’m a bad person, Kayla. I can’t do this to you.”
She stared at me for so long that I wondered if she was finding her answers.
Maybe if she found some, she’d share them with me. Because I was so goddamn clueless that half the time I was fumbling around through my life wondering what in the hell I was supposed to do next.
I kept waiting for the day that a police officer would come to my door and charge me for the attempted murder of Bryce Rector. Even though I knew that’d never come.
Bryce had known the price of leaving the gang just like I had.
Neither one of us had spoken about it, mostly because we knew that the gang, The Crimson Horde, were still active in Florida to this day. If we talked, we’d die.
Simple as that.
But, that didn’t mean that he couldn’t still hate me…or that I couldn’t still hate myself.
“You’re not a bad person.”
I snorted and skirted around my chair, my hands going to my overly long finger-length hair. “Bryce wasn’t the only person that I nearly killed.”
She made a sound in her throat, and I turned around.
“What?”
“Are you talking
about the little boy now?”
I looked away.
“Or the men you killed while you were a SEAL?”
I didn’t say anything to that, either.
All of it.
All of it weighed heavily on my soul.
Sometimes, I couldn’t even take a breath deep enough because all that worry felt like a lead weight on my chest.
“You think you’re a bad person?” she asked.
I didn’t think—I knew.
“What about that man you tracked down and—though he was a little worse for wear once you were through with him—found after he killed Jett and his classmates?”
I swallowed as a sick sort of dread started to twist in my guts.
“I also know about how you roughed up a few more men—and one woman—who thought nothing of shooting innocent children.” She paused. “The woman being the most recent.”
The woman was the one who’d brought me to Hostel—and to Kayla—in the first place.
“I know how they gave you an ultimatum. Either resign or be fired…and let me tell you something. I would’ve done the exact same thing you did when it came to the people you investigated,” she replied hotly. “You’re not a bad person. Bad people don’t make sure that families have closure. Something that you’ve done on over twelve cases that you were in charge of.”
In the years since Jett’s death, I’d investigated twelve cases, the twelfth being the one that I was given the ultimatum of quit or be fired. And surprisingly, it wasn’t my conduct that had gotten me that ultimatum. It’d been the fact that I was burned out, and they could tell. My boss could tell.
He’d seen the signs in me. He’d also known the type of man that I’d been when he hired me. My conduct hadn’t been in question when he hired me.
He knew what I’d do.
And I’d done it.
He’d let me.
But…seeing death day in and day out wasn’t something anybody could handle on a daily basis. There was only so much a person could take, and I’d reached that point.
I was just lucky my LZ—landing zone—had put me near Kayla.
Because she made me feel again when all I wanted to do was curl up in a ball and pretend like life didn’t fucking suck.
“Janie investigated you for me after you told me what you did to Loki.” She paused. “I asked her to.”
“And you’re still here?” I repeated.
She stared at me, then moments later, she had her shirt up and over her head.
My breath caught in my throat.
“I’m here because I want to be here,” she informed me. “And I’m not going anywhere.”
Everything inside me clenched at hearing her say those words and meaning them.
Nobody ever meant them.
No one but her.
She meant every word, and then showed me she meant them by walking to me and placing a kiss on my throat moments later.
My hands went to her hips as her tongue came out and licked me along sensitive skin.
And, that was my downfall.
That was the moment that I let everything go.
I didn’t care about my past. I didn’t care about my future. I didn’t care that I was ruining her life and setting myself up with a permanent shadow over my shoulder in the form of a man who hated me and loved her.
I didn’t care.
Why?
Because her tongue felt divine on my throat.
The bare flesh of her arms felt like warm, soft silk.
I wanted her more than I wanted my next breath, and I was going to have her.
It was inevitable now, and, as I dropped my mouth to hers, I realized two things.
One, I should get saint status for holding out as long as I had.
Two, I’d never be the same.
My hands fit around her hips like they were made to be there, and my thumb glided up her rib cage, barely caressing the underside of her breasts. Breasts that were covered by the flimsiest looking bra on the planet.
“Why do you even wear this?” I growled against her mouth.
She giggled against my lips.
“If I don’t wear a bra, you can see my nipples,” she told me. “I don’t necessarily need it for support…”
No, she didn’t.
I unsnapped the bra at her back, then trailed one finger down her spine as she hunched forward and helped the bra slide off of her arms.
Then I looked down at her.
Her breasts weren’t big—far from it—but they were cute and perky with the prettiest nipples I’d ever seen.
They were a dusty rose color and sized perfectly to fit in my mouth.
I ran my thumb over them and stared into her eyes as I did.
“This is a really bad idea,” I tried one more time to give her an out.
In answer, she stepped away.
I thought for sure she was going to leave.
But when she got to the point where she could either choose to leave or to go to my bedroom, she chose me.
I watched her walk into my bedroom, shedding the rest of her clothes as she did.
I swallowed hard as she got to her panties, looked over her shoulder at me, and then dropped them.
Slowly.
She made sure I got one hell of a show before she stood back up, stepped into my room, and hopefully made her way to my bed.
Instead of following her, I exited my door, walked over to her place and grabbed the bags that were still in the same place they were when I’d dropped them there earlier in the day.
After locking her door, I went back to my place, looked over at Carmen and made sure to lock my own door. Then closed my bedroom door.
I loved my dog.
I did not love her watching me when I did stuff.
And I was about to do a whole lot of stuff to Kayla.
The moment she saw me, her eyebrows rose.
“How did you know those were for you?” she teased.
I dropped the bags on the bed, and a bottle of lube rolled out.
It was an industrial size. I didn’t realize that they made industrial size.
“If it wasn’t for me, I might’ve had to kill some man who thought he’d ever be good enough for you,” I told her bluntly. “If I’d heard that through the wall…let’s just say things wouldn’t have ended like you’d be expecting.”
She giggled, causing her breasts to bounce.
I swallowed, and then went for the hem of my shirt, shucking it up and over my head.
Her breath caught.
The next thing to go was my pants, leaving me in nothing but a pair of boxer briefs.
The fabric barely contained my erection.
It was pulsing, angry, and deprived of everything that it wanted. And had been for a very long time.
Her.
She watched me watch her but never made a move.
She was waiting for me to get on board. Little did she know that not only was I on board, but I was also about to raid her ship.
I wanted nothing more.
But there was one tiny thing holding me back. Her. Would she regret this? Would she want to do this again? Would this ruin what we already had?
Because regardless of what she thought, I wasn’t only offering her support. She was doing the same for me—giving me support I never knew I needed.
I hadn’t woken up from a nightmare since she’d moved in, and yes, that had a lot to do with her waking me up. But I’d trade that sleep—and more—just to no longer feel like I had blood all over me.
And that’s when I knew. This may not change anything at all—or it might change everything. It might change my whole entire world…and maybe that was a good thing.
She saw the moment that I’d decided that, too.
Her breathing accelerated. Her nipples hardened impossibly further.
And she had a beautiful red flush that started at the tips of her be
autiful breasts and rose all the way up to her pretty cheeks.
That’s when I realized that whatever I was using as an excuse wouldn’t ever work again. She was just too beautiful. Too life changing…too mine.
She was young, yes. Much younger than me—by about sixteen years.
She was naïve, and probably barely tried in bed—though I’d never had the courage to ask, and she’d never offered up the information.
Her attitude toward life was my polar opposite. I was jaded—and she saw the world in rose shaded glasses.
But…I didn’t care.
I finally put one knee on the bed, and then dropped down to my hands, pushing between her legs.
She gasped when I crawled up between those barely spread thighs. And the moment I got closer? She tried to close them.
I laughed. “Too late for that now, honey.”
Then I dropped down to my stomach while simultaneously pushing her thighs apart and settling myself between them. I took one of her legs and wrapped it around my neck, while the other I pushed out wide and held there.
Then I stared at what I was about to do.
She had no hair there—mostly. There was a strip of hair from the top of her pubic bone, right down to the little triangle that split her pussy. A landing strip.
My mouth watered.
“Hold it out wide,” I ordered, looking up.
She was staring down at me with such wide surprise that I almost stopped to ask her if she was okay—but her nipples were still pebbled, and I’d seen, first-hand, the proof of just how turned on she was—meaning I knew that she was more than okay.
She was on fire.
For me.
“Oh God,” she breathed, trembling now.
I dropped my mouth to rest above her clit, then dropped a single, tiny, chaste kiss to her clit.
She jolted like I’d touched that tiny clit with a live wire.
“Oh, shit.”
I smiled.
Then moved my hands. One curled around her leg that was resting on my back and neck, finding a home at the top of her pussy. The other trailed up the length of her inner thigh.
One hand spread her open even wider, while the other zeroed in on her entrance.
My fingers hit her slick heat, and her pussy clenched, closing inconceivably tighter.
She was small—really small, and some sick part of me couldn’t fucking wait to be inside of her.
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