Total pages in book: 28
Estimated words: 26061 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 130(@200wpm)___ 104(@250wpm)___ 87(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 26061 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 130(@200wpm)___ 104(@250wpm)___ 87(@300wpm)
CHAPTER 4
Penn
I’m not surprised when Erin beats me twice in a row in tic-tac-toe while we’re waiting for our pepperoni pizza to arrive. My concentration is shot. Every time I blink, I see Jenna. I smell her vanilla sugar scent on my clothes. I feel her incredible body beneath mine.
I’ve never been a believer in love at first sight, so I don’t know how to explain what happened this afternoon. I can’t explain the feeling of being dumbstruck the first time I saw the actress, the painful ripple that went through my chest, like I’d been pierced by an arrow. I can’t explain why we ended up humping in her trailer ten minutes after meeting. That kind of thing simply doesn’t happen—and especially not to me.
Erin’s mother and I were in the service together. We bonded over our dedication to our post and slowly became friends. It was natural to get married when we got home. We had all the same friends, the same history. Once we’d been home for a while, though, with no tours on the calendar, all our similarities seemed to fade and the fighting started. It makes me feel guilty to say this, but hell, the physical attraction I used to feel for my ex pales pitifully in comparison to whatever happened today. Today was…a lust cyclone that swept me up and shook me, right down to my boots.
Enjoy the memories, you bastard, because it isn’t happening again.
That girl needs someone to protect her from the vultures circling her. Maybe, briefly, she thought it could be me. But I’m sure by now she’s come to her senses. She’s probably laughing with her manager about the coarse, horny lumberjack who thought he had a shot with the sexiest starlet in Hollywood.
“I’m going to run to the bathroom, kid,” I say to Erin. “Don’t open the door if the pizza comes. Just holler for me and I’ll get it. Okay?”
She’s busy drawing the next tic-tac-toe grid. “Okay, Pop.”
My heart tugs at the way her fist is clenched so tightly around the pencil, her knees gathered up beneath her on the chair. I wasn’t sure I could be successful at this full-time father gig, but Erin’s mother decided to go back on active duty and she’s away for the foreseeable. It’s just me and Erin for the next couple of months, at which point we’ll go back to our joint custody arrangement. I’m doing all right, aren’t I?
On my way into the bathroom, the poster on Erin’s wall catches my eye.
Jenna beams back at me from the one-dimensional surface, but it’s a far cry from the Jenna I saw naked today. Nah, she sure as hell doesn’t look like the stylized girl on the poster anymore. They aren’t even the same person. But the fact remains that Jenna is only nineteen to my thirty-three. Living a whole different lifestyle. On another planet.
Can you tell that I’ve had to learn how to take care of myself, but…maybe I need someone to take over the job once in a while? So I can just be…a girl?
I enter the bathroom and close the door, turning to press my forehead to the cool wood. Her words continue to ring in my ears, churning up all kinds of instincts I didn’t know I had. Do I have fatherly instincts? Sure. Yes.
The instinct to be Jenna’s Daddy? That is an entirely different ball game.
One that I never considered playing. One I never even thought about until I recognized the need in her this afternoon and filled it, as natural as can be.
As right as can be.
It seems that being a Daddy is about dominance and sex and care. A romantic kind of tenderness. Protection and fulfillment.
But I meant what I said on the way out of her trailer today. She’s been taken advantage of by too many men. Men I’d be very happy to kill with my bare hands. That’s the only reason my ugly ass looks like a viable option. She’s confused. Aching for the male figure she didn’t have growing up. What kind of sick fuck would I be if I filled that role for her knowing it came from an unhealthy place?
My phone vibrates in my pocket.
Sighing, I take it out and look at the screen.
My friend Zander is calling.
“Yeah,” I answer, hearing the stress in my tone.
“Penn!” It’s loud in the background, which means he must be working. Zander does logging work for me on a freelance basis, but he also bartends a few nights a week at the local watering hole. The only local watering hole. “Bunch of LA folks here tonight, and boy oh boy, they can’t shut up about you! Ruined their little photo shoot this afternoon, did ya?” He lets out of peal of hysterical laughter. “Good for you, buddy. Good for you.”