The Parent Trap Read online

  I close my eyes, remembering this, now. All I’d remembered, originally, was being here, in the dark clearing of The Spot, playing spin the bottle. I’d gotten to kiss Olivia and Callie that night. I’d remembered laughing. Having fun. I’d forgotten why we were laughing, apparently.

  “Shit,” I whisper.

  “Now you remember?” She’s quiet another moment. “You whispered something to Dane, and he started laughing. And he looked at me, right at me, and was like, ‘Matt tells me you have a crush on me. That’s cute and all, McKenna, but I’m not into bestiality.’” I can hear the hurt in her voice. “Not into bestiality. That’s what he said to me. And you all laughed. Like, you all laughed like it was the funniest thing ever. Ha ha ha, Delia McKenna is a hippo. Delia McKenna is so ugly, so fat he wouldn’t even kiss me playing spin the bottle.”

  “Delia, I—” I stop, because what the hell can I say? That’s who I was.

  She wasn’t ugly, or fat. I was just a bastard.

  “Want me to walk you back?” It’s all I can think of.

  She picks up her shotgun—I see her movements as shadows moving in the darkness, and then she switches on her flashlight. “I’m good.”

  “Sure? We had a bit of scotch, and as you said, these woods—”

  “I’m fine. I can handle myself.”

  I hold up one hand palm out. “Suit yourself.” I fumble my phone out of my back pocket, juggling the bottle and the speaker, manage to turn on my own flashlight. “See ya.”

  I make it a few steps. “Thai?”

  I stop, turn; she’s in the same spot, still, watching me walk away. “Yeah?”

  “Don’t drive yet.”

  I nod, even though I know she can’t see the gesture. “Yeah, no, I won’t. Thanks.”

  The spear of her flashlight beam bobs away, into the forest, and I’m alone. I walk back to my truck, trying to figure out how I feel about that whole situation.

  Delia clearly thinks the worst of me, and I can’t say I blame her.

  When I get to my truck, I start it and put it in gear…and then back into park. Shut it off. Lean my seat back all the way and close my eyes.

  Instead of sleep, I see Delia.

  That green plaid skirt wrapped tight around thick, generous, juicy hips. The white button-down tailored to her trim waist, bulging around her breasts, gapped at the buttons showing teasing hints of white lace and silk of her bra.

  I see again the unhelpfully graphic and detailed image I had earlier, when I thought about her lips—Delia on her knees, her thick long wavy hair loose around her shoulders. Sparkling lips parted, ready to take my cock.

  I groan, open my eyes and push the image away, savagely.

  Will NEVER happen.

  She sees me as…some kind of subhuman monster, some kind of soulless, black-hearted deviant.

  A civil conversation mostly devoid of brutal digs at my intelligence and character is likely as good as it’s going to get.

  And the worst part of it is, I earned it. She doesn’t know who I am now, just who I was then.

  I push that line of thought away. But my mind stubbornly goes back to her.

  I don’t even want anything with Delia anyway. Physical, mental, let alone emotional.

  I don’t want to see her naked.

  Well…okay fine, maybe I do. I mean, shit—she’s suddenly a gorgeous woman with an incredible body. So yeah, sure, I can admit my lustful curiosity.

  But I’m also entirely cognizant that Delia McKenna would bathe in acid before she allowed that. I doubt she’s even aware of me as a male.

  Chapter Ten

  Delia

  I can’t sleep.

  It’s not the scotch—I’m nice and floaty and buzzed, but far from anything like drunk. I’m sleepy, but can’t fall over the edge into unconsciousness. I get close, and then…

  I see Thai fucking Bristow.

  I see his stupid, perfect hair. Blond and thick and messy and too long and perfect.

  I see his stupid, perfect eyes. Green with hints and streaks of gray. Expressive and deep and full of humor and intelligence. Eyes that see me. See through me. Eyes that make me feel…exposed. Naked.

  He hasn’t said or done anything I can pinpoint as being lecherous or inappropriate. Hasn’t given me the leering once-over. I haven’t caught him staring at my cleavage or my ass. Nothing I can call him out for. But yet, somehow…around him, I may as well be dressed in nothing but a lace teddy.

  I wonder what he would think if he knew I own a red lace teddy—an expensive, sinfully revealing one.

  Sure, I’ve never worn it around a male before, but I do own one and have worn it. Alone, in my own house. Under a bathrobe.

  I didn’t look at myself in the mirror while wearing it.

  But it counts, right?

  He’s made comments that make me feel like he sees me as a woman. As a physical creature, as an object of male desire. A sexual being.

  No nun I’ve ever met wears skirts like that.

  Begs the question, how many nuns has he met?

  More to the point is the phrase, skirts like that. The emphasis, skirts like that.

  Hopefully, the dim light of the fire hid my blush when he said that.

  The moment I got home, I stood in front of my full-length mirror and looked at myself. At the skirt.

  What did he see? My giant ass?

  “Hey, Donuts Delia—did your dad bring you to school with a crane?”

  “Yo, Delia. Watch out for that chair. It was a bit wobbly the last time I sat in it. I wouldn’t want it to break when you sit down.”

  “Hey, Delia. I got you something.” A Weight Watchers meal.

  I hear his voice in my head, even still, every single day when I look in the mirror. The things he said.

  I groan and toss and turn in bed, trying to quiet my spinning brain.

  Stop thinking about Thai Bristow.

  Stop thinking about how thick his arms looked. How tight and round his ass was in his slacks as he walked away from me last night. He’d been still dressed for work—khaki slacks, Timberland boots, collared, short-sleeve polo shirt, brown leather belt. Not quite dressy, not quite casual.

  Stop thinking about him, dammit.

  Although, thinking about how hot he’s gotten is better than thinking about how mean he used to be.

  I wonder if he has a six-pack. He and Dell both pranced around shirtless from April to November, and they both always had hard, visible abs despite rarely doing anything remotely resembling exercise beyond running away from me after pulling some lame, cruel prank on me.

  He probably still has a six-pack—arms like that and shoulders like that don’t come from nowhere.

  The guys I tend to go out with and sleep with aren’t the hardbody types, let’s just say. Thai’s accusation as to my type was scarily accurate.

  I kick the blankets off and sit up with a frustrated huff. “Stop thinking about Thai Bristow,” I scold myself out loud.

  Think about somebody else.

  Anyone else.

  I reach out and grab my phone. I have to distract myself.

  Bring up a website I would never admit under torture to even knowing the name of, let alone that I frequently peruse in search of visual fodder for distraction and release.

  I find a video.

  The guy in it is all hard lines and sculpted muscles…and thick, throbbing member. He’s rough, demanding. The woman in the video is tiny and frail-looking with bolt-on boobs, but she takes him like a champ, acting like she loves every second of it. I ignore her. Think about him.

  Pretend it’s me in the video, doing things that are a million and a half miles outside of who I am and what I like and what I do—I pretend I’m openly sexual. Hungry for him, eager. All the things I simply don’t have the courage to actually be.

  I wouldn’t know how. I wouldn’t know where to start. I’d laugh, or more likely, I’d just never let myself even get close to a situation like that.

  My sex
ual experiences are carefully choreographed. We go on no less than four dates before I let him kiss me. It’s more like six dates before I let him get any farther. When we do, it’s at an upscale hotel in town. Lights off. I undress—there’s no messy trail of ripped-off clothing. That frantic, Hollywood passion and frenetic, absurd need is fake. I’ve never felt anything even close to it, nor has any male ever shown a hint of it for me.

  Thus, not real.

  I take my clothes off, there’s a careful fumbling as he puts on a condom, and then we lie down and he enters me and does the thing, and then it’s over.

  That’s sex, in the world of Delia McKenna.

  Is it any wonder I’ve never been super desperate for it?

  In my fantasy world, however…

  There’s a man who has the body of a god rather than a marshmallow, and he wants me. Can’t get enough of me. Touches me like he owns me. Demands I give him my body, my desire. He drags screams out of me. I’ve never screamed during sex. Barely manage a whimper, most of the time.

  But like now, when I’m pretending? Watching this stupid fake scripted video and wishing it was me, I slip my hand under the waistband of my underwear and touch myself and a moan escapes me and I close my eyes and picture the sculpted, hardbody god levered over me with one thick, rippling arm like a pillar beside my face he’s staring down at me with blazing gray-green eyes and his hair is messy and wild and sun-kissed and his skin golden and he’s looking at me like he’s never seen me before. And he’s touching me. It’s his fingers at the apex of my thighs, swirling around my sex in light deft touches. His lips would touch my skin, scour and explore. I’d grip him and caress him and he would be unable to hold back, needing me and wanting more of me. Maybe he’d even pull away and kneel over me and bury his hands in my hair and bring himself to my lips. I’d act like I don’t want to, but secretly I would—secretly I do. And I’d make him grunt and groan with wild need, he’d be crazy with how I’m making him feel.

  He’d rip himself away before he finished in my mouth; he’d need me.

  He’d need to be inside me, unable to wait any longer.

  And when we joined, it would be…

  Wild.

  Delirious.

  A frenzy of screams and primal roars.

  I’d come again and again and again, and he’d hold back and keep making me come, and finally, in unison with me, he’d explode, helplessly.

  The fantasy brings it out of me. I’m seized with tremors, moans escaping my clenched teeth, hips flexing.

  It’s only when I’m limp and gasping and finally toppling toward a fitful sleep that I realize:

  It was Thai in my fantasy.

  I can’t look at myself in the mirror as I get ready for my run, the next morning. It’s just past dawn, the sky beyond the trees pink-gray-orange. I wear what I usually wear to run: tight black yoga shorts and a super compressive sports bra, hair in a braid, earbuds in, running shoes laced tight.

  In the debauched hinterlands of my brain, my fantasy from the night before plays on repeat.

  I do my best to repress it, ignore it.

  Pretend I’m not hyperaware that I did in fact maybe make myself orgasm while fantasizing about Thai Bristow, my archenemy.

  I put on my hip-hop running playlist and step out my front door. Do a few jumping jacks and high knees to get my blood pumping, and then head out at my usual slow but steady jog. I have a five-mile circuit that I could do in my sleep, with my eyes closed: down the driveway and to the dirt road, turn left, two miles along the dirt road until I come to the stile that marks the border between our property line and the thousands of acres of state forest that’s on the other side. Around the stile, jogging along the two-track used by the forest rangers, along the western edge of McKenna land. A mile of that, and the trees give out, with the county line road as the northern boundary of our property—it’s this county road that Thai would have taken to get to the far side of the woods. I’m in the groove, now. Feeling the beat and my heart is pounding and I’m sweating and my breathing is nice and rhythmic and deep. Just me and the music and the pound of my feet, just the rising sun and the occasional squirrel darting across my path, or a crow wheeling on a wingtip overhead.

  I almost don’t register it, at first, as I near it—a truck, parked along the tree line. Who would be here, at this time of day? It’s either state forest land or private property for miles in every direction, so it’s highly unlikely to be a hunter or hiker—it’s not hunting season anyway. But then as I get closer, I realize I recognize the truck—it’s Thai’s.

  Draw closer and slow to a walk as I approach it.

  He’s asleep, seat tilted back, head to one side, mouth open.

  I tap on the glass with a fingernail. He stirs. Tap again, a little louder. This time he jerks and bolts upright, blinking.

  I back up as he shoves the door open, rubbing at his eyes. “You okay?” I ask.

  He wipes at his face with his palms. “Huh?”

  I laugh. “I asked if you’re okay.”

  “Oh.” He draws in a deep breath, stretching, arms going up and behind his head. The hem of his shirt rides up, and I catch a glimpse of golden-brown skin and a hint of hair in a thin trail under his navel. Finally, the stretch ends and he blinks a few times at me, then looks around. “It’s morning?”

  “You are not a morning person, are you?” I say, with a laugh.

  I’m still breathing hard and sweating from my run. I feel a drop of sweat trickle down my throat, and down into my cleavage.

  Thai’s eyes follow it. Linger.

  Drop lower. To my belly, my hips. My legs.

  Back up, to my breasts.

  Then, finally, to my eyes, after that long, perusing, appreciative, lingering scan of my body.

  I resist the urge to cross my arms over my chest, over my stomach. I have a flat belly, and I’ve worked my ass off to get that. No visible abs, but I know I’m toned.

  He shakes his head, as if just then realizing he was staring. His eyes drop, turn away. “No, I’m…not a morning person.”

  “What are you doing here?” I ask.

  He scrapes his hand through his hair a few times, but it’s tangled and snarled. “I, uh…I was going to drive home after we talked last night, but figured I probably shouldn’t. So I lay down to rest and maybe sober up a bit, and then next thing I knew, you were tapping on the window.” He glances at me—at my eyes. “Out for a run, huh?”

  “Stunning powers of observation you have,” I say, the snark automatic.

  He snorts. “Well, we did just establish that I’m not a morning person.” He rolls his shoulder, twists his torso to work out the kinks in his back. “You run a lot?”

  “Five miles every morning.”

  “At dawn?”

  “I’ve woken up at six without an alarm for years now. Just habit, I guess.”

  “Sounds horrible.” He laughs.

  I can’t help but laugh. “Yeah. Funny thing is, every morning I grumble and complain as I’m getting ready. I try to talk myself out of actually running. Like, I’m just too tired, my legs are still sore, I didn’t really eat anything bad yesterday, I don’t feel like it, that kind of thing. But I force myself out the door. I force myself to just start running. The first half a mile, mile…it just sucks. My legs hurt and my lungs burn, and I hate it. And I want to quit, turn around and go home. But I don’t let myself. Force myself to keep going. And then, it’s kinda like magic. Somewhere around mile two, two and a half, something shifts. I can breathe better, and my legs feel good and I’m in the groove and I’m not even really aware of when it happened.” I laugh. “And then by the time I get home, I feel proud that I did it. I never want to run but I’m always glad to have run.”

  He nods. “Sounds like me and going to the gym. The first few sets suck and are hard and I hate every second of every rep. Then somehow, by the third or fourth set, I’m just…bam, I’m in it. Y’know?”

  My eyes go to his arms again, his sh
oulders. He was lean and sharp and hard as a teenager—as a man he’s…he’s not brawny, not some muscle-bound macho maniac. But he’s just…dense. And still hard.

  An image flashes into my dumb brain: his thick arm pillared beside my face, his hair messy and around his face and drifting above me as he moves, golden skin bare and taut around sculpted muscles.

  I flush, and I’m sure my face is beet red; to hide it, I turn away as if to keep my muscles warm, even though that ship has sailed—my run is over.

  I feel his eyes on me.

  Ignore.

  “I need coffee in the worst way,” he says.

  I sigh. “Alright. Let’s go.”

  I turn, and he’s eyeing me with an arched eyebrow. “You say, with resignation.”

  I can’t help but laugh. “I always make a pot before I run so I can have coffee as soon as I get back.”

  He just stares at me, as if not comprehending my meaning. “Okay?”

  “I have to spell it out? I’m two and a half miles from home and cooled off, so you may as well just drive me home, and in return, I’ll provide you with a cup of coffee.”

  His arched eyebrow of disbelief rises higher in further disbelief. But he has the good sense to just nod. “You’ve got a deal. Hop in.”

  I round the hood and clamber up into the passenger seat—unlike the interiors of most construction guys I’ve ever met, Thai’s is neat and clean and smells good. No garbage, no piles of Mt. Dew bottles and empty dip cans and McDonald’s wrappers.

  Thai makes the larger circuit around the county road and back to the road we live on, pulling into our driveway with a familiarity of long practice. His face seems pensive, thoughtful. At the last minute, I realize he doesn’t know about the house I built and is heading by old habit toward the main house, where Mom lives.

  I point at the pull off. “Actually, I’m here.”

  He jams the brakes and skids in the dirt and gravel, slewing sideways a bit, and then we’re entering the tunnel of trees that leads to my little clearing.

  He pulls to a stop in front of my house. Stares. “This is you, huh?”

  I nod. “Home sweet home.”