Chapter 21

I’ve given up on getting a bikini body. The Lord put ice cream and Olive Garden breadsticks on this Earth for a reason.

-Kayla to Parker

Kayla

The next weekend, once again, I found myself in a car with Parker.

This time, though, we were driving to Virginia where Parker would be attending the Wreaths Across America wreath hanging ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery.

“Why do you come here, of all places?”

Parker grinned as he pointed out a tattoo on his arm.

It was a list of dates. All precisely placed to be in a perfect rectangle on the fleshy part of his forearm.

“I have a buddy here,” he said. “He was with me through the SEALS. On our last mission, he took a sniper bullet straight to the heart…a bullet that was meant for me.”

My mouth fell open.

“Really?”

He nodded. “Really. I’d been standing in the same place just moments before, but we got in a shoving match because he’d eaten one of my Jolly Ranchers that I’d been saving…and then he was gone.”

The idea that Parker had come so close to losing his life had never occurred to me…though it should have.

I’d seen the scars all over his body and had firsthand knowledge of what every one of those scars felt like against my lips. A man didn’t get scars like that without having at least a somewhat dangerous life.

I should have known. I mean, it was more than obvious.

But to know that a bullet had once been aimed at him, with the sole purpose of killing him, was enough to take my breath away.

I couldn’t imagine my life without Parker in it.

I couldn’t even imagine what I would do, let alone how I would react.

Just the idea of him no longer being there to talk to me when I was having a bad day was debilitating.

That point was hammered home hours later when we arrived for the Wreath Ceremony, and I saw just how many lives had been lost of people who had served our country just as Parker had.

Seeing the thousands and thousands of graves in that cemetery showed me that life wasn’t promised.

It also showed me that I was taking my life for granted. I expected to wake up every day. I also expected to go to sleep every night.

However, that wasn’t guaranteed for me, and neither was it for him.

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

I swallowed and nodded, still keeping my thoughts to myself.

I didn’t want him to know that I was all of a sudden scared shitless at the thought of losing him.

It seemed like a stupid reason for me to be near tears.

But, I was.

I was scared.

Because there were some scary people in this world—like the serial killer that was sweeping the South by storm—and what if one day something completely out of the blue happened to him and took him away from me?

What would I do?

Honestly, I just didn’t know.

After the ceremony, we headed back to Parker’s truck, and he drove to the hotel where he had booked our room.

The hotel overlooked the Potomac River, and it had a stunning view—even if everything was covered in snow and ice.

I’d never once left the south, so seeing all this white stuff was like a different world for me.

Which was why I asked him if we could go take a walk in the park moments after arriving in our room.

“Can we go outside to that park? I really would love to see it up close.”

He grinned at me, and without a word, he re-donned the coat he’d just taken off, picked up his key card, and gestured to the door. “Let’s go.”

The park was within walking distance of the hotel, and I marveled at the beauty.

I was so flabbergasted with the snow—and it was everywhere!—that I didn’t even feel the cold.

We walked, and Parker stayed at my side despite his being adamant that I was getting too cold.

“Have you ever had to live anywhere like this?”

He shook his head. “No. Florida. Louisiana. Texas. And California. Plus where I was stationed overseas.”

“At least you have that. I’ve ever only lived in Texas. I feel like I’m in a different country,” I admitted.

He grunted, but he didn’t reply.

I looked over at him to see his eyes trained on something in front of us, and I turned to see what he was staring at.

A kid and a dog, as well as a clearly-not-paying-attention-to-her-kid mother who was playing with her phone on a park bench.

Parker and I watched as the kid chased after the dog.

Parker tensed, and I frowned. “Why isn’t that dog on a leash?”

But I wasn’t seeing the importance of where the dog and the boy were standing until a loud crack, followed by the boy disappearing through the layer of ice that he’d once been standing on.

I gasped, frozen in at first confusion and then fear.

Parker didn’t.

One second he was at my side, and the next he was sprinting so fast across the snow that he was kicking powder up in the air in his wake.

My heart started to pound as I hurried in their direction.

I couldn’t see the kid, and I couldn’t see the dog.

What I could see were people looking around, trying to figure out why Parker was flat out running like he was toward the pond.

He ran into the water like he was at the beach and not a frozen lake in the middle of winter.

The first step he took, his foot fell through the ice.

Then the second.

And the third.

When he was up to mid-chest, he started to crack the ice with his elbows.

Meanwhile, on shore, everyone started to panic.

“Why is he in there?”

“Oh my God. There’s a dog over there on the ice!”

“There’s someone in there. Look at that red hat floating on top of the water. Do you think somebody fell through?”

I somehow had my phone out of my pocket and in my hand, with my fingers dialing 9-1-1 as I watched Parker go further and further in disbelief.

“911, what’s your emergency?”

“A little boy just fell through the ice next to my hotel. We’re in a park right next to it. Ummm, Luxury Suites,” I said, mostly because I had no freakin’ clue where we were, and I couldn’t tell her something I didn’t know.

“Yes, ma’am. Can you see the little boy?”

“No,” I answered. “But my boyfriend went in after him. He’s in the pond, too.”

“Tell him to get out.”

I laughed then. “Yeah, right.”

Then I put the phone into my pocket without hanging up and ran up to the side of the pond.

Watching, waiting, and feeling so freakin’ helpless that I was crying tears of frustration.

Then, Parker dove.

He disappeared, and then my heart really did stick in my throat.

Three more times he did that, and three more times he came up empty-handed.

On the fourth, he came back up with his hand buried in the little boy’s hair.

***

“We’d like to take you in to get checked out, sir.” The paramedic eyed Parker worriedly.

Parker waved him away, then glanced down at the paramedic’s arm. “SEAL?”

The paramedic grinned. “Yeah.”

Parker lifted his wet shirt and showed him his side where his own tattoo was, very similar to the paramedics.

Something passed between them, and the medic nodded. “All right, I’ll leave you to it then.”

Moments later, the medic walked off and took the passenger seat of the ambulance.

I looked over at Parker, who even soaking wet in the freezing cold, still wasn’t shaking.

“Are you human?”

He looks down at me. “Let’s go back to the hotel so you don’t catch a cold.”

I rolled my eyes. “You’re worried about me getting a cold while I’m worried about you getting frostbite and hypothermia.”

He shrugged. “BUD/S training, paired with quite a few missions where it was much colder than this, and I was in it for longer, has really let me experience cold. Though it is cold right now, I have about another, I’d say, twenty to thirty minutes before it starts to become a nuisance.”

Before it starts to become a nuisance. I would’ve laughed had I not seen that he was a hundred percent serious.

“Well, okay,” I said. “Let’s go.”

I was giddy. I was excited. I was fucking floored that he’d charged out into that icy pond and saved that kid.

But, then again, I was also mad.

And I didn’t know why.

I mean, I’d have done the same thing, or at least I would have tried to. So why was I so upset that he had done it?

I shouldn’t be.

I really shouldn’t.

But I was.

He kept glancing over at me as if he was waiting for something, but I never gave whatever he was waiting for to him.

We rode up the elevator in silence. Then he put the keycard into the slot and pushed opened the door, holding it for me.

I walked under his arm, but before I could so much as pass him, he curled his arm around my belly and twisted.

I found myself pinned up against the hotel room door, staring angrily at him.

“Spit it out already.”

“Spit what out?” I asked.

His eye twitched.

“Tell me why you’re so mad.”

I opened my mouth, then closed it.

I wasn’t sure what he wanted me to say.

I was glad that he found the kid, yes. But I was pissed that he took that risk.

It made me sound like a real asshole, but I couldn’t help it.

Seriously, it was a really shitty situation.

“Kayla…”

“I’m just pissed, okay?”

His wet clothes were starting to seep into my own clothes at this point, so I pushed him away.

Or tried to.

He didn’t so much as budge.

“I’m not going to sit on the sidelines while there’s a problem I can fix,” he said evenly.

His nonchalance at what he’d done was seriously pissing me off. Did he not see that he could’ve freakin’ died?

“Whatever.”

His eyes narrowed. “You can’t change me. I’m set in my ways and have been for a really long time. If you can’t handle who I am…maybe we shouldn’t do this anymore.”

I opened my mouth and let him have it.

“It’s not okay for me to worry about you?” I screeched, banging him on the chest with my closed fist.

He grunted but didn’t move to set me down on my feet or pull away from me.

He stayed exactly where he was and continued to glare.

“There’s worrying, and then there’s nagging,” he countered.

My mouth fell open. “I was most certainly not nagging!”

He laughed in my face. “You were. Are.”

“What you call nagging, I call worry,” I countered. “You’re being an ass.”

He growled. “Well, you’re being an entitled little shit! Not everything is about you!”

“Uhh,” I was literally flabbergasted. “I’m the furthest thing you can get away from entitled. I grew up without anything. No mother. No father. Literally, nobody. At least you had that.”

His eyes went intense and he moved until his nose was a small inch away from mine. “You had love. You have six men who stood in for your father. You had just as many women that would’ve given you anything you asked for. You’ve never wanted for anything. You had your college paid for. You have pseudo-uncles in the Dixie Wardens MC. You’ve got more than a lot of people could ever dream of. Yet you’re playing the ‘I have no mother and father’ card? Please.”

I would’ve punched him had he not suddenly read the intention on my face.

He caught my arm, then the other moments later, and pinned them both up above my head. All with an ease that was still so surprising.

“Let go of me.” I yanked on my hands.

“No,” he denied me. “Because if I let you go, you’re gonna hit me or run, and you’re not doing either of those.”

“No?” I asked in a deceptively calm voice.

He tightened his hand around my wrists, ensuring that I wouldn’t be able to yank them free, which had been what I was intending to do once he let his guard down.

But I should’ve known better. I couldn’t hide a damn thing from Parker.

I gave it an experimental tug anyway, causing his grin to spread out over his lips.

I had a sudden idea to headbutt him, but he caught that, too.

Then slammed his mouth down on my own.

I bit his lip, but he didn’t even seem to care.

Not even when I could taste the coppery tang of blood on my tongue.

I gasped, and he took advantage of it by thrusting his tongue into my mouth, running his along mine.

And I lost the urge to hurt him.

I was still extremely mad, but I was horny, too.

There really was only one option. I couldn’t get away from him, so I might as well fuck him instead.

Maybe once we got our aggression out, I’d be able to have a rational conversation with him.

He must’ve thought so, too, because moments after that thought crossed my mind, he started to yank down my jeans. Moments after he got the button undone, and the zipper down, they were already making their way down my legs.

My panties soon followed, but not the same route.

This time, he ripped them free from my body, and I gasped against his lips in surprise.

“Parker, those aren’t cheap!” I cried, my head going back as far as it could to stare at him with anger once again.

He grunted, not bothering to reply, and I narrowed my eyes.

“Keep talking and I’ll gag you with them.”

“You wouldn’t.” I snarled.

His eyes came to mine. “Wanna bet?”

I curled my fingers around his hand and dug my fingernails into his skin.

His mouth curled up, and I caught the cut on his lip with my eyes.

I was held captive by it. I’d done that.

To him.

My smile grew, too.

Good.

Then I heard the sound of his zipper as he slowly tugged it down.

The only thing holding me up was his lower body pressed to mine, so I decided now was the time to try if I was going to get away from him.

With his precarious hold, he wasn’t really expecting me to throw my entire body into the move.

Meaning, one second I was being held by him, and the next I found myself scrambling up from the ground on my hands and knees.

I got no farther than the end of the bed—my goal being the bathroom failing spectacularly—when he caught me with one arm around my waist and took me down to the ground.

“For such a short little shit, you’re spry,” he growled against the back of my neck.

I wiggled experimentally and realized that not only was I even worse off than before, there would be no getting out of this position. Not if he didn’t want me to.

My ass was exposed to him, and the only leverage I had was my knees—but then he took that away moments later by spreading my legs as wide as he could get them, and then placing his own thighs in between my knees so I couldn’t close them.

And then I felt his thick cock touching the cheeks of my ass as he flattened himself on top of me.

“Don’t struggle, or you’ll find out that I’m far from the man you think I am,” he rasped against the shell of my ear.

Yeah, right.

If I didn’t struggle, this would be nowhere near as fun.

For some reason, I wanted him to prove to me that he could dominate me.

I wanted him to hold me down, and then fuck me so hard that it hurt.

I was mad. Horny. And hungry.

Those three things should never happen at the same time when it came to a woman.

Yet Parker didn’t seem to care that I was any of those three things. He was solely focused on himself and keeping me exactly where he wanted me. Which, if I thought about it, was really hot.

I wanted him to do this.

Badly.

But I didn’t want him to think I was too cooperative.

Meaning I continued to struggle while he had to work to keep me where he wanted me.

While I tried to get away, he tightened his hold, immobilizing me completely, and making me realize just how useless my puny strength was when compared to his.

Then he licked my spine, from between my shoulder blades to the back of my neck, then circled it to run along the curve of my ear.

Once he reached my ear, he tugged on my earlobe with his teeth, causing me to gasp for air.

“Stay still,” he ordered.

I would’ve laughed at the fact that he thought I’d obey him at all, but I couldn’t.

Mostly because I felt his fingers at my pussy, and I couldn’t find the right words to make my brain work.

“Soaked,” he breathed into my ear. “You’re pissed at me, but your pussy doesn’t share the same feelings.”

I grunted and tried to wiggle, but he flattened himself even more to hold me in place, compensating only slightly to allow his arm free range to move.

And suddenly I was no longer empty. I was filled with Parker’s fingers as he whispered dark, dirty things in my ear.

“A man like me shouldn’t want this sweet pussy.”

I didn’t reply.

“I should have stayed far, far away from you.”

I bit my lip to keep my moan in.

“But it’s too late now. You’re mine. Your stubborn, angry, pissed off self will just have to get used to it.”

Then he punctuated that comment by curling his fingers up, which caused everything inside of me to clench on his fingers.

I felt his body leave me, and I started to get my hands up underneath of me, taking advantage.

However, he was ready for the move and reached for both of my hands, pinning them behind me at the small of my back.

I felt the wetness on his fingers from when they had been inside of me on my wrist, and I clenched again on nothing.

“Your pussy is dripping, baby,” he teased, transferring my hands to one of his, and then going back to what he was doing earlier—torturing me.

I swallowed thickly and turned my head on the carpeted floor so I could see him.

His eyes were focused on what he was doing down below, though, and not on me, allowing me to watch him do his thing to me.

And, as if he felt me watching him, he glanced up and caught my eye.

Neither one of us said a thing as he bent his lower half down, and drug his cock up the lips of my sex.

“Fucking. Soaked.”

I swallowed hard.

He repeated the move three more times, coating himself in my wetness, before notching his cock at my entrance.

Keeping his eyes on mine, he slowly sank inside until I couldn’t keep them open anymore.

Every inch that filled me felt like heaven.

He continued to fill me, and I thought he was never going to end.

The eroticism of this position, paired with the anger, was enough to make me ready to detonate with just him filling me.

I felt every single inch of his cock. Every single vein.

I started panting, unable to control the pleasure that was rising up in me like a tidal wave.

Then, with nothing else to do, I started to come.

He didn’t even begin to thrust yet, and I was coming.

That’s when he started to laugh. “That’s all it takes?”

I would’ve flipped him off had I had use of my hands.

I would’ve crawled straight out from under him had he not been holding me in place.

Therefore, I just laid there and took it when he started to fuck me.

Hard.

Fast.

Rougher than anything I’d ever experienced from him before.

And I fucking loved it.

I loved how he took me. I loved how our breathing was ragged. I loved this man—despite him being an ass.

The only thing that was heard after that was the slap of his skin against mine.

His balls hit my clit with each rough thrust and dragged away so deliciously that another orgasm was welling up in me before the first one was completely finished.

My nipples were scraping against the inside of my bra, and then he let my hands go and thrust them into my hair, pulling until my neck was arched, and my face was off the carpet.

I cried out, and everything inside of me went white hot.

My vision dimmed, rolling to black, as the orgasm hit me. This one much stronger than the first.

Then his hands were on my hips, dragging them up into the air as he went up to his knees and really started to show his strength.

Four thrusts later, his entire body stiffened, and he started to come.

But he didn’t do it inside of me. Nope. This time he pulled out and stroked his cock against my ass, shooting his come all the way up the length of my back. He came so hard that it was probably in my hair.

I didn’t care.

Not one. Single. Bit.

And when he collapsed partially on top of me, I couldn’t complain about the lack of oxygen, either.

My mind was trying to recover from being blown.

His touch was a whole lot gentler, though, as he pulled my head to rest against his.

“It’s not my fault you thought I was normal. That’s on you.” I nudged him with my ass.

He grunted in reply but rolled over so that he was no longer on top of me, taking me with him.

I settled on his chest and went completely limp. There was zero fight left inside of me.

When our breathing was back to normal, and his head was resting against my collarbone, I rested my cheek on his head.

“I was scared, you asshole,” I whispered. “You’re all I have.”

I covered my mouth with the palm of my hand.

I hadn’t meant to say that. Not even a little bit.

Shit.

“I’m all you’ll ever need.”