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 beautiful 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.

Couldn’t wait to plow through her tiny entrance and seat itself inside of her—so that she would never forget what it felt like to have me there.

The other part of me was worried. I wasn’t a small man.

In fact, I wasn’t an average or even a little more than average sized man.

I was large, and there was no other way around it. Which happened to be why I’d looked at her condoms earlier and laughed.

I had to buy magnums—and not one of those in that first bag had been something that would fit me—at least not all the way.

Then I finally did what I’d been wanting to do since I’d met her—I tasted her sweet pussy.

I took a swipe, from the top of her perineum to her clit, and her flavor burst on my tongue.

I moaned, then took another swipe, this time stopping at her clit to circle it.

My other hand made its move, too.

One second it was just resting at her entrance, and the next I was inserting my middle finger deep inside of her.

Her body bowed, but I was ready for it and held her down so she didn’t interrupt my feast.

Which made her groan.

I curled my finger upward, scraping the top of her channel with my middle finger, feeling that squishy pad react.

Feeling her reaction and loving the way her leg tightened around my head, I did it again. And again. And again.

Until all of a sudden, she wasn’t just tightening her leg around me, but she was strangling me.

I laughed against her clit as she started to come.

Her pussy clenched around my finger and pulsed while her clit hardened.

I dropped my mouth to her entrance to catch some of the juices that were running free and laughed when she went absolutely limp on the bed.

“You’ve laughed more against my vagina than you have since I’ve known you,” she gasped between gulps of air.

I sat up, dislodging her leg, and went for the bags.

After a quick search of the other bags, I found that there wasn’t a single box of a larger sized condom.

Instead of worrying about it too much, I found a random box and tore it open.

It wasn’t one of the flashy boxes, and honestly, I wasn’t really caring at this point anyway.

Instead, I just grabbed a tiny foil packet, sat up on my knees and shoved my underwear down.

Moments later I had the condom open and was smoothing it down over my shaft.

Ignoring how the condom dug a tad bit uncomfortably into my skin, I positioned myself at her entrance.

Her eyes widened—most likely due to seeing my size—but she didn’t say a word. She only waited, eyes on me, and widened her legs.

I started to press forward, my cock filling her in slow, steady increments.

My eyes closed when I felt the tightness surrounding me, and I prayed to the good Lord above—that’s likely blasphemy in some way—that I would make it long enough to make it good for her.

But she was just so…fucking…tight.

I gritted my teeth and moved forward so that my fists were in the bed next to her ribs.

Moving slow was on the verge of breaking me, but I wasn’t going to take her hard.

Not when I could tell that she was inexperienced.

Her pussy had a death grip on my cock, and then she squeezed her muscles around me.

I looked down and saw only half of my cock inside of her.

My eyes went up and met hers.

Her eyes were heavy-lidded, and her mouth had fallen open.

Her chest was rising rapidly, and I couldn’t help it.

I had to kiss her.

So I did.

Her tongue touched mine hesitantly, and I rolled over so all of my weight was resting on my forearm and placed my hand along her jaw, telling her without words to open her mouth wider.

She did, and I swept my tongue inside, causing her to inhale sharply.

She stole the oxygen from my lungs, but it wouldn’t be the only thing she stole from me that night.

I pushed in a little farther and held her face to my mouth.

Then thrust in the rest of the way.

Pleasure and pain tore through me.

Pleasure because my dick was finally surrounded by her.

Pain because not only did she bite down on my lip as I pushed in, but she also dug every single one of her nails into my neck and back.

I felt blood trickle down my face and into my beard and tasted it on my tongue.

I was sure that she tasted it, too.

But neither one of us seemed to mind.

She continued to kiss me, and I continued to stay still, allowing her to adjust to my size.

Her nails slowly let up, one by one, and that was when I knew she was ready for me to move.

Which I did.

Because if I didn’t, I might very well die.

My balls were drawn up tight, and I felt those familiar tingles running down my spine.

My balls slapped against her body as I thrust forward, and she mewled into my mouth.

I pulled away only far enough so that I could slip the hand that’d been holding her face down between us. I circled her clit with my thumb and watched her face.

She wasn’t close.

Not even a little bit.

Her eyes were too coherent, and she was biting her lip, almost as if I was hurting her.

I frowned, studying her closer, but she flushed brightly and reached for me once again.

I went, kissing her once again, but in the back of my mind, I was questioning if I’d done anything wrong.

At least, I had been until she suddenly pushed me away from her and got up on her knees.

Then, she surprised the hell out of me by rolling over onto her belly and spreading her legs wide, giving me an unencumbered view of her pussy.

I bit my lip and shuffled up the bed between her thighs, then placed my cock back at her entrance.

My cock and the condom were covered in her juices, and just the smallest hint of blood.

I opened my mouth to say something, but then she once again surprised me by placing her hand between her legs and sinking three fingers inside of herself.

My mouth fell open as I watched her move her fingers.

The sound of her juices were almost obscenely loud in the room, and I had to grit my teeth and fist my cock tightly to keep from coming.

Watching her get herself off would forever be branded into my brain.

“Parker, please,” she begged, moving her hips.

My hand found its way to her hip, and I lined my cock up with her entrance.

She went to move her fingers, but I didn’t wait for her to pull them out before I was back inside of her.

We both groaned at the sudden tightness surrounding us, and she gasped.

“Oh, fuck,” I growled.

Oh, fuck was right.

I held myself still and reached around her hip, finding her clit with my index finger.

Then I started to circle it, hoping that she’d come quick.

I didn’t have much in me, and I knew that if I started to move even a little, I’d forget that I was supposed to wait on her.

But then she started to move those fingers of hers, rubbing them up along my shaft, and I lost it.

I lost my ability to do much of anything but fuck her with mindless abandon.

I started to come in two strokes, but somehow, I managed to continue circling her clit.

She pulsed around me and stiffened.

That was about the time I felt the condom I’d squeezed on break, and my release splashing inside of her.

Neither one of us were in the position to stop, though.

It was literally impossible to do.

She knew it. I knew it.

And hell, the neighbor below us probably knew it, too.

Especially when I bellowed so loud that Carmen started to bark.

My balls were drawn up tight, and my thrusts were wild as I fucked my orgasm out.

Pairing that with the tightness of her own orgasm, I was a goner.

At some point, she’d pulled her fingers out, and we’d both collapsed onto the bed.

She was panting on her side, while I was mostly on top of her.

I felt my cock shrink inside of her, and then I felt my release on my balls.

When I pulled out, it was only to see the condom shredded, and my come pouring out of her.

“I…” I started to say, but she only rolled her eyes.

“I should’ve known those wouldn’t fit you. Janie told me, but I wouldn’t listen. You’re huge. Why wouldn’t your penis be, too?”

I didn’t know what to say to that.

“I’m on the pill.”

I blinked, then felt my cock harden slightly after what we’d just done.

The fact that she trusted me, and wasn’t freaking out, had certain parts of my anatomy reacting. Like my broken heart, and my obviously unsatisfied cock.

“In that case,” I said as I tore the remainder of the condom off my dick. “Maybe we should try this again.”

An hour later, I carried her into my shower and washed her clean.

With her back against the wall, I used the bar of soap and ran it up and down her legs.

She watched me do it, and never once protested me cleaning her.

When she tried to reciprocate, I allowed it, even though I usually wouldn’t allow such an intimacy.

But everything with Kayla was different.

She wasn’t just a woman.

She was slowly becoming my woman, and I found that I was very possessive of her. I also liked her touch.

Today probably shouldn’t have happened. But, since it did, I wasn’t turning back.

There would be no going back for either one of us, actually.

She was mine, just as surely as I was hers.

She just didn’t know how deep she was in it, yet.

I wouldn’t be enlightening her of her peril, either. I wanted her well and truly entwined with me—I wanted to make her mine.

She stood up from washing my legs and started to rub the bar of soap into my chest.

And the words just poured out, even though I’d never uttered them to another human being in my life.

“You want to go to a memorial service with me this weekend?”