Chapter 6

I hate it when I have to be nice to someone I want to punch in the throat.

-Parker to Rafe

Parker

I saw her pull in as I was walking to my truck.

She was carefully maneuvering her car into the parking lot. She was going very slow due to the sheer amount of trucks—the majority of them being tow trucks twice the size of a normal car.

Today there was a mandatory team meeting that I was supposed to go to since I was technically an employee of theirs.

Since it was during the workday, and it was at the shop, I’d decided to go.

I’d decided against going to yesterday’s party at the club that the Hails owned.

I’d considered going for all of five seconds, but since the majority of the men that I worked with weren’t all that friendly, I hadn’t thought that going would be fun.

And, honestly, I was glad that I’d stayed home.

Despite the positive ending of the encounter, hearing the panic in Kayla’s voice was enough to make being there worth it. It could’ve all gone in a very different direction, and as a medic, I knew that better than most.

Janie started walking to Kayla’s car but was stopped when her phone started to ring.

Ignoring the two women as best as I could, I got to my truck and started it, frowning when it sounded different.

I gave the accelerator a small tap, and then heard something pop, followed by glass breaking.

I frowned and got out, my eyes automatically scanning the area.

That’s when I saw Kayla standing beside her car, staring in horror at something that was sticking out of her windshield.

I walked in that direction and immediately saw the culprit.

“What the hell was that sound?” Janie asked, running up beside me.

“There is one thing I can say about working with a group of men,” I said to Janie, who was looking at me with horror.

“What’s that?” she asked, her hand still covering her mouth.

“It’s that they’re a bunch of assholes,” I explained. “They think they’re funny, but really, they’re just fucking assholes.”

Janie burst out laughing. Kayla, who was busy studying her car’s broken windshield, snorted.

“What exactly did you do to your fellow employees for them to do this to you?”

I shook my head. “Absolutely nothing.”

She made a disbelieving sound in her throat. “I’m not sure that I can believe that. You had to have done something.”

Then she touched the pocket pussy that had been duct-taped to my tailpipe—or at least I assumed that was where it had been taped—but was now embedded in her windshield.

“I didn’t do a damn thing.” I shook my head.

“That’s not totally true,” Baylor said from behind us. “You refused to go to the club with us yesterday.”

“I refuse to go to the club, or lunch, with you every day,” I murmured, as movement caught my eye.

My eyes were fastened on Kayla as she bent over her car.

She had on a pair of jeans today that made her ass look incredible. There was a slit in the jeans right under one ass cheek, and I couldn’t see any underwear in that hole. Meaning either she was wearing a thong or nothing at all. My bet was on a thong, but she’d surprised me before.

“Maybe that’s why,” Baylor shrugged. “I, of course, had nothing to do with it. I would’ve known that the pocket pussy wouldn’t have stayed in place given the size of the engine you have in that truck.”

I rolled my eyes.

“Why does he need to go to lunch with you?” Kayla asked.

“It was a team building exercise,” Dante said as he came out of the open garage bay. “What the fuck happened to your windshield?”

I sighed. “Someone thought it’d be hilarious to tape a pocket pussy to my muffler. When I gassed the truck, it shot off of my tailpipe and embedded itself in her windshield.”

Dante blinked and then shook his head.

“I don’t even know what to say to that,” he muttered.

“I’m not paying for that,” I told them.

Then, without another word, I walked to my truck and went to work.

The entire time I thought about Kayla and what she was doing today.

This morning while she sang in the shower, I wrapped my hand around my cock and jacked off to the sound of her voice.

I was so going to hell.

***

Kayla

“Y’all really need to learn to leave him alone,” I told the lot of men that had come to investigate my windshield.

“Why?” Baylor questioned.

“Because,” Dante grunted. “One day he’s going to kill you.”

“He could try…”

“He could try, and he would accomplish his goal because he’s a scary mother fucker. Then you’d be dead, and Mom would miss you at the family dinners.” He inhaled. “Leave him the fuck alone, Baylor.”

Baylor held up his hands in acquiescence. “It wasn’t even me. It was your brother!”

Dante looked at him like he didn’t find him the least bit funny.

“I have quite a few of them. Care to point out which one?” Dante drawled.

Baylor opened his mouth to reply, but then Rafe rolled up in his tow truck, backed expertly into his spot and got out. “What happened to your windshield?”

Baylor started laughing and walked away.

I didn’t.

“Someone thought it’d be funny to duct tape a pocket pussy to Peter Parker Penn’s tailpipe. When he gassed it, it shot off his tailpipe and implanted itself in my windshield,” I explained.

Then we all burst out laughing.

“Y’all are a bunch of fuckers, and you wouldn’t be laughing if that’d hit her,” Dante grumbled as he walked inside.

“Hey!” someone called from inside. “Where are you going?”

“To order a goddamn windshield,” Dante muttered, then disappeared fully into the shop.

“I’ve never been hit with a pussy before,” I said to Rafe and Janie.

Janie pursed her lips. “Well, there was that one time that I fell on you and slammed my vagina into your face.”

“What’s this now?” Rafe asked, walking over to his wife.

He peeked beneath the cover that was over Abrielle’s head and dropped a kiss to her fuzzy black hair.

“Well, there was this one time that we were trying to sneak back into my dad’s house…”

I snorted and walked inside, leaving them to their discussion.

I didn’t need to be privy to what they were discussing. I’d lived it, after all, except that I lived to tell the truth.

“Hey, Kayla?”

I paused as I was passing Dante’s door. Dante was co-owner of Hail Auto Recovery. He and his brother, Travis Hail, had built it from the ground up. Where once it was a family-owned operation, it now employed a bunch of us lowly individuals who didn’t have the Hail name.

Travis was sitting in a chair directly in front of his desk. He had a pencil in one hand, and a phone in the other. He looked harried and annoyed.

Dante, however, just looked resigned.

“Yes?”

He gestured for me to come into his office, and I did, stopping directly next to where Travis was sitting. I raised my brow in question.

And he didn’t beat around the bush.

“We could use you in dispatch today,” he gestured to Travis. “Pretty much, all you’ll need to do is answer the phones and then call the next guy on the list.”

I paused. “On the list?”

He nodded, then gestured to the paper that Travis was holding.

“Normally you’d do this on the computer, but since we don’t have anyone here that can teach you how to navigate it, we’re gonna do it the old-fashioned way,” he explained.

I nodded. “Okay, where would you like me to do this?”

Dante stood up and grunted. “Follow me.”

I did, hitching my purse up higher on my shoulder as I did. Dante had long strides, and I didn’t even bother trying to keep up with him.

He went to a closed door and threw it open. “You can use Hannah’s office for today. She’s out with the flu…”

I held up my hand. “If she’s out with the flu, I’m sure you don’t really want me in her office.”

I didn’t really want to be in her office.

“The only other place I have is at the club,” he explained.

I’d take anything as long as it kept me from going into a confirmed germ-infested office.

I nodded. “I’m fine with that.”

He grunted. “Lines two and three are the lines that you’ll need to answer. Those are the numbers that the county will call if there are any towing needs. It’s also the line that customers use to call in if they need a tow.”

And so it went as Dante talked about what my duties would be for the day.

“Do you want me to go ahead and do the rest of what I was going to do today as well?” I asked as he walked me into the club and up a set of stairs.

The office he led me to was just off the main room where I’d been temporarily setting myself up when I was over here. He pushed the door open and gestured to the desk. “It’s not much. Baylor’s office is next door. If you need anything, call. Okay?”

I nodded, then Dante was gone, leaving me with a very long day ahead of me.

But then I got to call Parker for the first time, and my day looked up.

The second time I got to call him, it got even better.

Why?

Because his voice, that’s why.