Chapter 15

Boys wake up with a boner. Girls wake up with an attitude.

-Fact of Life

Kayla

Overall, I’d had a pretty spectacular day.

That spectacular day took a downward spiral with about an hour left in Parker’s workday when we passed the house where the latest victim to the Lampshade Serial Killer had been murdered.

Since this serial killer had now gained national attention due to the number of victims, there was way more than just the local news crews in attendance. Now, there were so many that they lined both sides of the streets and even curled around to the side streets.

The mob of reporters and cameras outside the house, behind the police line, was insane. There had to be at least two hundred, if not more.

I shivered in my seat, and my good mood instantly fled.

“I don’t know what it is about this that’s freaking me out so badly,” I told him. “But it’s all I can see. I thought that I could handle that life…but with one look at that man—how his body was mutilated—my conceptions were proved false. I just…I can’t get over this.”

“Why?”

“Why?”

“Yeah, why?” he repeated.

I thought about that for a long moment, and the more I thought about it, the harder it was to say the words.

He allowed me to sit in silence as I tried to get out the words, and it wasn’t until we were pulling into the parking lot of our apartment complex an hour later that I finally released them.

“In his pictures…he looked like my dad.”

Parker shut the truck off, then released his seat belt.

The moment he did, I started to cry.

“I know it’s not rational. I never really even knew my father.” I drew in a deep breath. “But the way that Max, James, Gabe, Sam, Elliott, and Jack talk about him…I feel like I knew him. And I have some of our earlier videos. They’re all grainy, but for my eighteenth birthday, Cheyenne and Shiloh had them all digitally recreated. There are five twelve-to-fifteen-minute videos, and I watch them all the time.” I made this sound in my throat that had him releasing my seat belt and pulling me to him. “I feel like I know him.”

“Baby, you do know him,” he told me, holding me tight and allowing me to cry into his shoulder. “In that Wreaths Across America thing that I do, they want you to say the veteran’s name. They say that you die twice. Once when you leave this earth, and once when your name is spoken for the last time.”

My breathing hitched.

“I’ve lost a lot of friends. I’ve lost a mom. I’ve lost a sister. A nephew. But I talk about them. Always. Because they deserve to be spoken about. People need to know that this world lost some great people. And I need that reassurance, the reminder of their love.”

I blew out a breath against his neck, then threaded my arms around his back and clung to him.

His arms around me tightened, and I inhaled deeply, taking in his scent to help calm myself down.

“They all look like him,” I told him. “Even down to the dimpled chin.”

He didn’t say anything for a really long time, and I realized that he wasn’t going to.

He was just going to hold me and let me get it out, and I appreciated that.

Sometimes, I didn’t need to talk as much as I just needed to be held…and I didn’t have that in my life. Ever. So for Parker to give it to me without me even asking? That was huge for me, and I had a feeling he didn’t realize just how huge it was.

***

I looked at the closed door that Parker had just departed through and wondered how much longer my control would hold.

I wanted so much more from Parker than what we had. I wanted his love. I wanted his devotion. I wanted him to let me be there for him, too.

Not to mention I wanted to give him the same thing he gave me when our situation was reversed, and he was the one who needed a shoulder to lean on.

I’d certainly taken quite a bit of his time.

After my crying jag in the car, he’d dropped me and my groceries off, and then he left.

Honestly, I was wondering if he’d even wish to see me anymore that day.

Instead of going over there and ambushing him with that, I sat down at my computer where my videos of my dad were loaded, and I pulled up my favorite.

It was on my first birthday, and it was only me and him.

We were sharing a Big Mac and fries, as well as a twenty-piece chicken nuggets.

My father was sitting next to me, the camera sitting on the table across from us, recording our whole conversation.

Most likely, it was due to the fact that the chicken nuggets were about to make an appearance, and he wanted to record my reaction.

I smiled when my father’s words started coming out of the speakers.

“One day, those eyes are going to break some man’s heart.” My father’s voice drifted through me. “He’s going to take one look at you and fall. Just like I did.”

A tear slipped down my cheek.

“Isn’t that right, Kayla girl?”

I swallowed.

“He’s going to love you like I do. He’s going to take care of you. He’s going to protect you. He’s going to be everything that I ever wanted for you—and nothing you ever imagined.”

On the video, my father was recording me eating, and he was handing me French fries out of his McDonald’s fry container.

For each French fry he handed me, four more went into his own mouth.

Then he started on the chicken nuggets.

That’s when my eyes lit up.

I loved chicken nuggets. Always have, and always would.

My tastes have refined slightly, and I only eat McDonald’s chicken nuggets when Chick-Fil-A isn’t open—on Sundays when you always seem to crave the popular chicken chain and they are closed.

“You want one of these, baby girl?” he asked me.

On the screen, I nodded with excitement.

“More!”

And so it went. He recorded my one-year-old self eating twelve chicken nuggets.

With each one I put away, he’d laugh harder and harder.

It made my heart feel full, while simultaneously making me feel sad, too.

It wasn’t so much that I missed it, but that I wished that I remembered it.

I hated that I was too young when he died to remember anything about him.

Wiping my tears, I did the one thing that I knew that would make me happy.

I walked over to Parker’s place and walked right in.

He was sitting in his recliner.

The moment I came in, he turned the chair to me.

“Come ‘ere.” He held out his arms wide, indicating with his body language that I should climb into the chair with him.

I did, straddling one of his huge, muscular thighs. I laid down on top of him so that my entire front was plastered to his. The tips of my toes were just barely brushing the floor, and the majority of my weight rested on top of his thigh.

His very hard, very hot thigh.

I squirmed and resettled, and my eyes nearly crossed when the new position that I was now in put just enough pressure on my clit to make my lady bits start to tingle.

I froze as he wrapped his large arms around my shoulders, hugging me to him.

And then he started to rock.

“What do you want to watch?” he asked.

I silently cursed in my head.

I didn’t want to watch anything. Unless it was his cock being pushed up inside my… I roughly shut that thought off and shrugged.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I’m not a big fan of TV. I think the last thing I watched was the first Thor movie. I’m more of a book kind of person.”

“Like Harry Potter kinds of books, or Fifty Shades of Grey kinds of books?” he questioned.

I grinned against his chest and then raised one hand to smooth his t-shirt free of wrinkles.

I didn’t realize that I was close to his nipple until my thumb brushed fully over it.

The second time I did it, I was fully aware that it was his nipple.

Oh, and it was hard.

Oh my God.

I felt my pussy pulse again, and I closed my eyes.

“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.