Chapter 21
Taylor
Last night we slept with all the windows open, and it was a little chilly, which meant I tucked into Conner’s warmth like a kitten all night long. Between that, and all the orgasms I had yesterday, it was the best night of sleep I’ve had in ages.
Con’s still out like a light and escaping his arms is no small feat. He’s an anaconda tightening his hold on me anytime I wiggle or move. When he finally rolls over and kicks the sheets off himself, snoring super loud, I make a break for it and get breakfast going.
Coffee brewing for him, kettle on for me, bacon sizzling, and eggs baked with spinach and cheese, I stare out my kitchen window and thank the universe for giving me this life. I wouldn’t have changed a single thing to get here. It wouldn’t be the same otherwise.
And this is perfect.
Making a tray for us, I quietly sneak back into the bedroom and balance our breakfast on my bedside table.
Conner’s laying on his belly, his arms tucked under a pillow and legs spread out.
He takes up my entire bed like this. Holding my breath, I run a finger across his shoulder and down his arm.
When I get to the scar on his elbow, my heart skips a beat…
Me and Mommy are at the playground. I’ve got my bucket sitting under the tree and am picking little sticks up. There’s a boy sitting on a bench. He’s been here all by himself since before we got here and nobody is playing with him. Nobody is playing with me either.
“Hi.”
He doesn’t answer but gives me a quick wave.
“Wanna be my friend?”
He shrugs and keeps looking around the park.
“Want to help me make a magic potion?”
His eyebrows shoot up like he’s confused. “Magic potion?”
“Yeah. Come on.” I grab his arm and yank him off the bench. Then I drag him over to my bucket that says, Larson Landscaping. It’s my dad’s bucket. He gave it to me. “First, we gotta grab all the little sticks we can find. They can’t be no bigger than this.” I show him my finger.
“Okay.”
We go on a hunt all over the park, keeping within sight of my mom because she’ll freak out if she can’t see me. Once we’ve made three trips around the trees and behind the bushes, I think we got enough sticks.
“Now we need berries. Any we can find.”
“Okay.” The boy walks straight over to the row of bushes that separate the playground from the picnic tables, and he plucks a bunch of berries from them. They’re a pretty red. “How many?”
“As many as we can fit in our hands.”
We both fill the bucket, and rub our wet, squished berry juice hands on our shirts.
“What next?”
“Umm.” I look around.
“Leaves?”
“Yeah! Leaves!” I give him a big smile because that’s a great idea and we both race around picking up as many as we can see on the ground. “What’s your name?”
“Conner.”
“I’m Taylor. How old are you?”
“Five.”
“Me too.”
Conner’s eyebrows go up with happiness. “Maybe we’ll be in the same class when school starts.”
“Maybe.” I’m scared to go to school. I like being home and at the playground.
“Hey,” he says, looking up. “Want me to climb this tree and grab you fresh leaves?”
“I can do it.” But no matter how hard I try, I can’t get my foot to stick to the trunk long enough to climb up. And the lowest branch is still too high for me to reach.
Conner gets a running start, jumps up, and grabs the low branch super easy, then pulls himself up without using the trunk at all. Wow. He’s a really good tree climber. Way better than me and Carly.
“Which ones?” he asks from higher up because I think he’s showing off. I would too if I could climb like him.
I point at all the leaves we should put in the magic potion, and he plucks them and drops them down to me. Each one flutters around my head, and I add them to my bucket.
“That’s good!” I yell once we have enough.
Conner climbs down the tree limbs and sits on the lowest branch, swinging his feet as he stares down at me. “This is fun.”
Yeah, it is.
“Come all the way down so we can finish it!”
“Okay.” But Conner doesn’t come all the way down because he’s stuck. “I think I gotta jump.”
He slowly stands and wobbles.
“Wait! Whoa!” my mom yells from behind us.
Conner slips, tries to grab the branch, misses, and falls right on top of me.
Mom runs over to us before I even notice my elbow stings.
“Oh, my goodness. Are you two okay?”
“Yeah.” I look at my arm and see it’s a little bloody. Then I look at Conner and he is definitely not okay.
“Oh sweetie. We need to clean that up.” Mom tries to help, but he shrinks back from her.
“I’m okay.”
“That’s a deep cut.”
“Yeah. Better put a band aid on it,” I say. Blood is already dripping onto the ground. It looks bad. Way worse than mine.
“I’m really sorry I hurt you,” he says, still not caring about his cut. “Please don’t be mad.”
“I’m not mad.” But that cut is bleeding a lot. “Get a band aid so we can play some more.”
“I don’t have one.”
“Come with me to the bench,” my mom says.
Conner doesn’t look like he want to do that.
“She’s got a whole bag of band aids in her purse because I hurt myself all the time.” I show off all the scabs on my knees and also my bruises and bug bites.
He doesn’t look impressed. He looks worried. “How’d you get all those?”
“I’m clumsy.”
Mom adds, “Taylor likes to be a daredevil. I bet you’re the same way, huh?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I urge him to come with me and Mom. “Come on. We gotta hurry before our ingredients go bad.”
Conner looks nervous as he follows us. I don’t know why. It’s just a band aid.
After we get all fixed up Mommy says, “You’ll need your parents to look at that. It’s a little deep, honey.” Then she looks around and makes a worried face. “Where are your parents?”
“Mom’s at work. Dad is… around. He said to wait here for him to be done with his stuff.”
Mommy’s eyes get worried like her face. “Okay.”
“Can we go play now?” I’m ready to get back to our good work. When Mommy nods, I grab Conner’s hand and pull him back to where the bucket is. “We need to stir it with something.”
He looks around and finds a big stick. “This good?”
“Yeah!”
As we take turns stirring all the things in the bucket, I notice he’s bleeding through his band aid already. “Does it hurt?”
“Not really. Does yours?”
“Nope!”
Conner shoots me a big smile then it falls fast. “I really am sorry I hurt you. I didn’t mean to fall on you like that.”
“It’s okay. Too bad I couldn’t just catch you.” I check my elbow out again. “Now we have matching elboos. Get it? Elbows and boo boos. Elboos.” I knock mine against his and he winces but also laughs.
“Now what?”
I put my hands on my hips because I’m in charge. “We have to find a good place to dump it for the fairies.”
His shoulders drop. “There’s no fairies. They aren’t real.”
“There’s always fairies and you probably just killed one saying that.”
His eyebrows go up. Then he looks around the park again. “How about over there?”
“Yeah!”
We carry the bucket to the other side of the park where there are lots of trees and no grass. Then we dump it all out.
“Now what?” he asks.
“That’s it. We did it.”
Looking at the pile of magic potion on the ground, I’m really proud of us. “This is my best batch I ever made. Thanks for helping me.”
“You’re welcome.”
We go back to the playground, and I hand Mommy my bucket.
“All finished?” she asks.
“Yup.”
“Well, we better get going for dinner.”
Yay! I’m hungry. “Bye, Conner!”
“Bye,” he says, and it sounds like he’s sad.
“Conner, honey, is your dad going to come soon?”
“Yes, ma’am. He should be here any minute.”
She looks worried again and keeps scanning the park. “I don’t want to leave you here all by yourself.”
“It’s okay. Swear. He’s going to be here any minute.” Conner looks down the road where the bank that has lollipops is. “I think I see him coming.”
Me and Mommy see a man and woman walking up the sidewalk heading our way.
“I’ll make sure my elbow is good,” he says, with a big smile. “Thank you.”
Mommy still doesn’t look sure, but I’m so hungry now I could eat ten kids’ meals. “Bye, Conner.”
“Bye!” He starts walking towards the couple down the street and Mommy and me leave too.
We eat without my dad because he works late in the summers. I eat my first kids’ meal and then beg for another because I’m still hungry. But I can only eat one chicken nugget from it and get full.
As we drive home, I have a bad feeling. “Can we go past the park?”
“Sure.”
I think we’re both worried about the same thing. As we drive past it, there’s Conner, sitting by himself on a bench. It’s dark out now. He’s under the big light with his head down.
“Oh no,” Mommy says as she pulls over.
I hop out of my seat and run over to him, beating her there. “Why are you still here?”
Conner shrugs and won’t look at me.
“Did your parents go someplace else?”
He shrugs again. Then his stomach growls, and he hits his belly to stop it.
I run back to the car and pull out my leftover kids’ meal and give it to him.
“What’s this for?”
“Eat it.” I sit next to him and kick my feet. “It’s chicken nuggets.”
Conner unfolds the bag, and we both smell the French fries first. He stuffs a bunch in his mouth. Then more and more. He gobbles it up like he hasn’t had lunch or breakfast or maybe not even a snack. He even eats the chicken nuggets so fast he doesn’t use ketchup.
“Thanks.”
“Yup.”
I sit and hold his hand while we wait. Mommy’s walking around the park looking for another adult, but there’s no one here but us.
“Conner!” a man yells from the side of the road that has the movie theatre. “Get over here, boy.”
Conner jumps up and quietly says, “Bye” then runs to the man.
My mom doesn’t see it, so I wait for her to come back to the bench. “Taylor, where did Conner go?”
“His dad came and got him.”
“Oh,” she looks around. “I wanted to speak with him.”
“They left pretty fast.” We head back to the car and my belly hurts. “Mommy?”
“Yeah, honey.”
“Conner was shaking when he saw his dad.”
Conner’s eyes crack open as my finger traces the scar on his elbow. A sleepy smile spreads across his handsome face, and he groans like he’s swimming in bliss. “It wasn’t a dream,” he says in a deep, gravelly voice.
“Nope.” I kiss his cheek and then the side of his head. “I have breakfast for us if you’re hungry.”
“Starved.” He rolls me over so fast and smoothly, I have no time to react. My robe falls open, and he nuzzles my pussy. “Damn, you smell good first thing in the morning.”
I’m incredibly self-conscious because I can’t tell if that’s the truth or a tease.
He growls against my sensitive flesh, then licks my pussy. “Mmmm.”
“You’re insatiable.”
He looks up and winks as he drags his tongue between my pussy lips. Then he eats and eats and eats until I’m a whimpering, panting hot mess. Clawing at his hair, I grind against his mouth and come in a slow, steady release that feels surreal.
“Nothing better than a hot breakfast in bed.” He kisses the inside of my thighs and crawls up my body. His dick presses against me, warm and hard as steel. “Are you too sore?”
“No.”
“Can I fuck you?”
“You don’t have to ask permission. You can just take me whenever you want, Conner.”
He shakes his head. “Giving me free rein is a bad idea. I’ll never let you out of bed.”
Laughing like he made a joke, I roll my eyes. “Okay, buddy.”
“I’m serious.” He presses the tip of his cock to my entrance. “I’ll fuck you until you can’t walk.”
That sounds lovely. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”
He nips my shoulder. “You’re playing with fire, girl.”
“Do it.” I wrap my arms around his neck. “Unless you’re all talk, just trying to impress me.”
Conner stills. “Taylor.”
“Fuck me until I can’t move.”
He pushes into me a little at a time, and I wish he’d slam in just to see if I can take it. I probably can’t, but it would be fun to try.
“Are you okay?”
“Stop asking,” I scrape my nails down his back. “I’m fine.”
But I think he’s afraid of screwing up and I’ll kick him out of my body and bed.
I won’t.
“Conner, let loose. Show me exactly what I’ve been yearning for all this time.”
A breath shudders out of him. “I’ll be rough.”
“I hope so.”
“I’ll take and take.”
“I’m good at giving.”
“I won’t be able to stop.”
“Neither will I.”
“Last chance, Taylor.”
“Give me everything you’re made of.”
Conner slams into me, stealing the breath from my lungs. My nails bite into his shoulders. I’m desperate for him to move because the fullness I feel right now is going to drive me insane.
“You asked for it.” He pulls out and slams back in again. “Next time be careful what you wish for.”
I have zero regrets.