Chapter fifteen Parker
Chapter fifteen
Parker
I prop myself up on my elbow, staring down at Cashlynn snuggled into her pillow. She’s in my bed, and after yesterday, I have a lot of feelings about it.
Mostly good ones, some I’m avoiding altogether.
It’s been years since I’ve woken up with a woman in my bed. Hookups have been quick, convenient, and forgettable—at their place or a hotel, much like that night with Cashlynn.
But this? Watching her sleeping peacefully next to me, thinking back to our conversation and how she gave me total control of her body last night?
This is making me wonder if I can have this again—a relationship, a person to devote myself to, but this time doing it right. The fact that I’m even thinking that way tells me that Cashlynn is different, even though deep down I already knew that.
Cashlynn stirs next to me, her eyelashes fluttering as she wakes. When her eyes meet mine, a smile appears instantly, and my chest tightens.
“Good morning,” she says quietly.
I lean down and press my lips to hers. “Good morning, sweetheart. How’d you sleep?”
“That was the best night’s sleep I’ve had in a while. You wore me out.”
I brush her hair away from her face, focusing on those amber eyes that never fail to draw me in. “Pretty sure it was you doing the wearing.”
Cashlynn rode me three times last night—once as I leaned up against the headboard, another time while I was flat on my back, and then the last time she rode my cock in the reverse cowgirl position, and I swear, I saw fucking stars when I came.
She giggles, and the sound makes my already hard dick twitch in interest. Now that she’s awake, my cock knows he can get his fix and is ready to go.
“You have a nice cock, Parker. What can I say?” she teases.
I arch a brow. “Just nice?”
“Fine.” She rolls her eyes and sits up to mimic my position, her head propped up on her hand. “It’s amazing—a unicorn cock, if you will.”
“A unicorn cock?”
“The mythical being that you want to believe exists, but you’re not sure if it’s actually real. A unicorn cock, the ultimate cock of all cocks.”
With a laugh, I roll on top of her, pinning her to the mattress.
Her smile is blinding, her eyes so full of joy that my heart kicks into overdrive.
Fuck, I had no chance of resisting this woman.
Her sense of humor makes me want to keep her talking for hours, just to see what she’ll say next.
Her mind is incredible, a perfect blend of creativity and intelligence.
And her body? Fucking irresistible. Well, I think we all know how I feel about that now, don’t we?
“Did my cock make you believe in magic, Cashlynn?”
She nods slowly, biting her bottom lip. “I’m a true believer now.”
Laughing, I pepper her neck with kisses. “Good answer.”
She lets out a breathy moan as I rub my cock on her hip.
“But it’s mostly your mouth I’m enamored with,” she murmurs.
I lift my head. “My mouth?”
“Oh yeah. The filthy things you say to me…” She bites her bottom lip. “It’s so fucking hot.”
I thrust my hips harder into her side. “Fuck, Cashlynn. You have to be sore, and I don’t want to hurt you, but when you say shit like that, I want to see if there are new words to add to my dirty vocabulary.”
Her laughter reverberates against my skin. “Tonight. Give me a chance to recover and then it’s on.”
Reluctantly, I roll off her, giving my dick a chance to calm down. “So what’s on the agenda for today?”
“I don’t know. It’s Sunday. You usually work out and then there’s dinner with your family, right?”
I nod. “And you’re coming with me.”
She bites her bottom lip again. “What are we going to tell your siblings?”
I blow out a breath, not having thought that far ahead. “We don’t have to tell them shit. But you know they’re going to ask questions.”
She nods. “Hazel is going to drill me the second she sees me. In fact, I’d be surprised if she hasn’t already sent me several text messages.”
Leaning back against the headboard, I stare at the blank TV screen across the room. “Sometimes I hate how involved my siblings are in my life.”
She stares up at me, searching my face. “They just care about you, Parker. Especially Hazel. Do you know what she told me when she was pushing me to keep pushing you?”
“What?”
“That she just wanted her brother back.”
I peer down at her as my heart twists. “Fuck, she said that?”
Cashlynn nods. “She hates how much your relationship with Sasha changed you. You can’t be mad at her for that.”
“I can be mad at her all I want,” I retort, but I know that Hazel’s heart was in the right place. That girl has a way of driving all of us boys nuts, but our lives would be dull without her.
She gives me a knowing look. “Parker…”
I sigh, rolling my head on my neck. “I know she means well —they all do. But when you’re drowning in anger and resentment, it’s hard to appreciate that kind of attention.”
“You have no idea how lucky you are to have them, and your entire family for that matter. It’s only been me and my dad for so long, and I’ve barely seen him since I moved up north for school then settled in Philly.
” Her eyes start to fill with tears. “Everything between us changed when my mom died, and I’d give anything for him to support me and encourage me the way your family does for you. ”
“Fuck. I’m sorry, sweetheart. Come here.” I pull her into my chest.
“The longer I keep this from my dad, all of this, the more afraid I am to tell him the truth. He’s going to blow up either way, and I—”
I place my finger over her lips, silencing her. “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it, okay? That’s all we can do since we’ve already committed to this plan.” She nods but doesn’t speak. “For now, let’s just enjoy this little shift in our relationship.”
“Oh believe me, I am enjoying it,” she mumbles against my finger, making me smile.
“Me too.” I bury my face in her neck again as I roll over on top of her. “Fuck, I can’t get enough of you.”
“I feel the same way.” I lift my head and look down into her eyes as her hand comes up to stroke the side of my face, a look of hesitation in her eyes. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Yes, we can fuck now if you’ve changed your mind.”
She tries to shove me away, but I’m immovable. “Jesus. It wasn’t that!”
“Sorry. My mistake.” She rolls her eyes. “What do you want to know?”
Her thumb rubs over the scar above my eyebrow. “How did you get this scar?”
I know exactly which one she’s talking about because I look at it every day in the mirror, remembering the moment I thought my life might have turned out very differently if it weren’t for my two older brothers.
“I took a steel pole to my face.”
Her eyes widen. “Oh my God! How? Why?”
Sighing, I prop my head on my hand. “My brothers and I were playing on our jungle gym in the backyard. Me being the youngest, they always tried to get me to do stupid shit. That day, we were pretending to be firefighters, sliding down a metal pole we’d leaned against the side of the monkey bars. It wasn’t secured, obviously.”
“So how did it end up hitting you in the face?”
“Dallas was arguing with Penn about moving the pole, and I was standing too close to him at the top of the equipment while Penn was down on the ground. Dallas yanked the pole to his side and the top of it hit me right above the eye.” The memory floods my mind.
“I just remember seeing red and then screaming. When my mother came outside, she thought my eye was gone. It wasn’t until I took my hand off of my face that she realized the cut was on my eyebrow, but it was deep and needed stitches.
” Chuckling, I continue, “My brothers were in so much trouble after that day. I think that was the first time I realized that I really shouldn’t listen to anything that they tell me to do. ”
Cashlynn shakes her head. “Stories like that make me think maybe it was better that I was an only child.”
“The two of them were always ganging up on me, but as I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized that life would be boring without them. However, I have this nice scar to remind me that I should always look out for myself.”
“Do you still exercise caution around them?”
“Uh, hell yes,” I say with a laugh.
She giggles. “Can’t trust them, can you?”
Her words slam into me. “I would trust them with my life.”
Her smile softens “You’re lucky to have them.”
It’s in that moment I realize that I don’t appreciate my family enough. Instead of leaning on them, their involvement in my life has made me irritated and jaded. I’ve let my anger build walls between us, but she’s right—I’m lucky to have those stories to tell. She’ll never have that privilege.
“What about you? Any scars I should know about?”
Her eyes bounce back and forth between mine. “None you can see,” she whispers, and fuck if I don’t understand that.
I trail my finger down her arm, watching her skin pebble. “I grasp that all too well, sweetheart.”
When she reaches for me and pulls my lips to hers, I fight with myself to open up my mouth and bury myself in her, to smother the bad memories with everything good that this woman represents.
“You know, I read a quote once that reminds me a lot of you and me.” I lift my head so I can see her face again.
“Really? What did it say?”
“It said, ‘You can’t force chemistry to exist where it doesn’t, the same way you can’t deny it when it does.’”
She sucks in a breath. “I love that.”
Something shifts inside of me in that moment, something that urges me to be honest with her.
“When I’m with you, Cashlynn… I feel like I can breathe for the first time in years.
I want to know everything about you—what you think, what you feel.
And then I want to fuck you in every position imaginable. ”
Okay, there were some feelings in there, Parker. That was a good start.
She laughs. “I’m not opposed to that.”