No Quarter (NOLA's Own #2) (50 page)

“It’s not necessarily a bad thing, son,” he tried to assure me. “Laurie used to tell me that you had to have it in you to be able to pull music out of the air like you do. Not as bad as your mother. She never could control it on her own. But you…you turned it into a gift. You found the way to unleash it. But in your grief over losing that girl, I saw it in you, and I was desperate to tell you how to find her.”

“I paid a private investigator who turned up nothin’!” I hissed at him, feeling the inferno heating up once more. Calling me mad hadn’t helped either.

“I paid that investigator to find nothing,” the traitor so fuckin’ informed me. “But let’s stay on point for now, okay? You were in Texas with the boys when Laurie passed on. I didn’t call you to come back to go to a funeral for a woman you likely didn’t remember even if you never forgot about your Baby Girl. I wanted to be alone with my grief anyway. And I wanted to see the young woman who had had your heart her whole life and never knew it.”

“So, why didn’t you tell me after the funeral?”

“Betty begged me not to,” he replied.

“You put that old fuckin’ woman ahead of your own son?” I raged
. Smoke, smoke, smoke. Think of Kenna, waitin’ in our bed, naked and wet just for me.

Yeah, that just sparked another fire elsewhere in me.

Dad looked at me in misery and fury. “That old fuckin’ woman was like a mother to me. And no, I didn’t put her ahead of you, you little shit. When I finally saw Kenna…”

“What?” I barked, hating that he had looked upon my Baby Girl, had seen her and denied us each other.

“She needed you,” he whispered. “I saw it in her, Philip. She was broken in ways I knew only your love could heal. I almost told Betty that I couldn’t do it. I had to let you heal that poor broken spirit. But then…”

He wasn’t making this any easier, for either of us, the more he talked.

“Just fuckin’ tell me!” I snarled, trying hard to keep my voice down for the neighbors and whatnot.

“She told me that Kenna was all she had left. She had just lost her only child, and she couldn’t lose her granddaughter to the madness that had taken Laurie away from her, too. She wasn’t strong enough to lose them both at once. Kenna had made the decision to go back to school. After everything, she was going to make something of herself. Laurie hadn’t done that. She had met Sigmund and up and left all of us, barely eighteen.

“Betty wanted Kenna to
be something
before she lost herself to you. What she said made sense to me. Because I wanted the same for you. You and the boys, a bunch of brilliant jackasses, the lot of you. I knew you’d all take this thing you had and make something of it, just so long as you stayed focused.”

“You—” I choked, trying my fuckin’ hardest not to lose my shit again. “You have
no idea
how fucked up—how
I
fucked up everything in my fuckin’ life over her. How I came so close to givin’ up, how much I hated myself for what I was turnin’ myself into—”

“Why?”

“I
blamed
her! I
hated
her and hated myself!” I cried, my vocal beast rising up. “I thought I was alone in what I felt, that I was nothin’ but a few hours of fun. I did some fucked-up shit because I thought she never cared, and even still, I couldn’t stop thinkin’ of her!”

“I
am
sorry for that, Philip. But as much as you want to believe you fucked up, look at what you are,
who
you are, and you did all of that on your own, no matter the reasons behind it.”

My dad was looking at me, and the pride and the unconditional parental love pouring out of his eyes punched me in the vitals.

“I’m
nothin’
without her,” I spit.

“You are
everything
to her. To
me
. To
your family
, Philip. You’ve become one of the most well-known and celebrated front men of your generation. Your voice pours out to millions, touches the hearts of God knows how many people all over the world.”

“So? That’s not who I am, not really. Who I am is
hers
, and I should have been there for her when she was broken!”

“Yes, you should have been. But it’s not your fault that you weren’t. Kenna is right. You’re there for each other now, and she came through her loss just like we did—alone. Otherwise…she might not have been
your
Baby Girl.”

“She was
always
my Baby Girl,” I hissed.

“You know why I moved us out of La Place when you were kids?” Dad asked. He took a joint and sparked it.

Ass
.

But Kenna would’ve handed it to him, no asking needed.

“Because you didn’t want to be reminded of Mom,” I said.

“Because my son was so sick over a little girl that he camped at her grandmother’s house, waiting for her to come back.”

My eyes snapped to his, and a painful sharp zing zipped its way through my chest.

“You had the madness in you then, too. I think I hated Laurie for a long time for that. Bringing her little piece of sunshine into your life and then taking her away and never bringing her back for you. She knew, too, Philip. I used to call her and beg her to bring Kenna back. When your mother was sober, she would call her and just beg her to come back.”

“Mom only ever paid attention to me when she was drunk,” I snapped. “A whole helluva lot of attention. She hated me—”

“She didn’t hate you, Philip,” he said softly. “It was a vicious endless cycle. Your mother drank because she was deeply depressed after your birth. And because the one person she truly loved, who truly understood her, was off keeping your little piece safe from the nightmare that you lived through.”

My brain buzzed blank. “What?”

“Everything happens as it should, Philip. Every once in a while, someone shows up with the ability to know the reasons. Laurie knew, and she was able to grasp the full picture. Your mother knew it, and it drove her insane. Make sure it doesn’t do the same to you.”

“What the fuck does that even mean?”

He shrugged and hit the joint. “Who knows? I’m fuckin’ stoned.”

Danielle’s laughter floated down from her bedroom window.

Gray light of dawn chased me as I drove home.

Exhausted and aching, I found Kenna right where I’d left her. She was hugging my pillow, her nose buried in it. So fuckin’ sweet. I knew she didn’t have a stitch on her
.

She ain’t allowed to have a stitch on her in our bed.

I’d made that a fuckin’ law a while ago. She didn’t seem to mind either.

My heart tripped around in my chest as I just looked at her. Wild, unique beauty, she was like nothing I had ever seen, ever known. I loved how she wasn’t like any other woman I had ever had.

Kenna wasn’t gorgeous like Danielle was. Kenna was beauty unto herself. People looked at her first because she was so bright—copper and emeralds, skin like cream and honey combined. She didn’t have the features of classic beauty, the kind that guys tripped over themselves to get into for a night, a week. She looked untamed. She was striking in all the right ways. Tall, big-boned, built to withstand a brutal fuckin’ from her Gigantore man. Men looked at her, and the ones who weren’t pussies wanted a crack at taming that.

And fuck me running, I was the
only one
who could.

Stepping out of my clothes, I crawled into our bed. She sighed, feeling me even in her sleep. I rolled her onto her back, debating if I should bury my face in her sugary slice or do what my dick was begging and just bury all of me into all of her.

Fuck it.
I was always hungry, especially for her sugary slice of heaven. I closed my mouth over her and sucked lightly, filling my mouth with all of her slippery sweet goodness, rolling my tongue over her secret little piece.

“Phil…” she moaned, not even awake.

Fuck yeah.

Kenna’s flavor and scent filled me, and my head started playing another anthem—sounds and beats forming, coming together—as I tongued a softness that had no words to describe it. I felt her fingers tug through my hair, pulling it down. I loved when she pulled my hair. I loved it when she hurt me.

Fuck me, those noises she made when it felt good…her buttery voice getting trapped in the back of her throat. Shit, hearing them could make me come. She started dripping, and I slurped it up as though it were the nectar of her gods.

“Fuck!” she cried.

I knew I had a split second to decide to feel her come in my mouth or on my dick.

Fuck it. I’ll just make her come again anyway.

Spreading my tongue to cover as much of her as I could, I felt it when she came, as though her cunt, her clit, had suddenly grown a heart and was pounding its own drum beat in my face. Pulling back, I kissed that pretty little drum once more, loving to see it pulse and kick, knowing it was me who had made that happen.

Kenna might not be a little woman, but she was small beneath me. My eyes drank in the sight of her as I rose above her, her face and chest red, her tasty little tits flushed. Under her satin skin, she was strong muscle sculpted into the curves of her kind.

Kenna arched against me when my dick touched her slippery slice, trying to pull me in.

“Do you need it?” I asked her, teasing just a little.

“Yes!” she gasped.

“Tell me,” I demanded.

“I need you, Phil…” she whispered.

“I fuckin’ need you, too.”

I pushed in, and because she was so fuckin’ wet, I sank like a stone into her thermal pool. Lava hot and just as molten, I imagined the inside of her pussy to be like glowing liquid gold—sleek, gripping me so tight.

I moaned and buried my face in her hair. She smelled like apples. She knew I loved it, and she’d started using that old shampoo again just for me. Now and again, she would rub some organic vanilla-scented lotion into her skin. On the days she did, I’d fuck her at least five times before nighttime—and then halfway through the night until I was saturated.

Reaching up, I stabbed my fingers through the heavy copper mass, turning her face to mine, and I kissed her until she moaned and bucked under me, making my dick nudge in just that little more. I could feel that tiny little heartbeat deep inside her, the one I knew only I had ever touched.

I ground into it. She imploded, squeezing down on me to the edge of pain. I’d hardly moved. After she came down, her secret little smile disarmed me as her eyes opened, and she showed me what those secrets were. Enchanted, I stared down into them, letting them soothe me, and I found myself smiling back.

“Well?” she asked.

“Well, what?”

“You hashed it out with your dad, yeah?”

Pressing my mouth to hers, I kissed her just to have a sweet taste before I told her everything, buried deep inside my sanctuary. Her eyes watched quietly, unsurprised by anything I said.

“Do you feel better, knowing?” she asked.

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“Does it change anything?”

“What do you mean?”

“Does it change how you feel?”

“About you?”

“About anything.”

I thought about it. I really did. “Only that I think I love you even more than I did when I left. You had your own hell to burn through, and you did so, comin’ out even stronger.”

“Is that what your father told you?”

“He made me aware of that fact, yeah.”

Rocking into her, she wrapped her legs around my waist and pulled me in tight. I dropped my forehead to hers and felt her peace and joy coursing their way through me, pooling into the head of my dick, which nudged that spot until her tiny heartbeat kicked in again.

Beyond motherfuckin’ heaven.

Kenna

Last day of work!

The best part about being a doctor of therapeutic medicine was that I had the ability to have the regularly scheduled holiday. Working in a clinic that treated long-standing symptoms of non-life-threatening illnesses, we had the freedom to shut down for the winter break and were guilt-free when we reopened after the New Year. I had two full weeks ahead of me free to spend with Phil.

NOLA’s Junk was finished with the studio. Phil and the guys had decided to put in some extra hours on the weekends until vacation to get it finished before the New Year. He had taken me to see how it was progressing a few times, and it was like nothing I had expected.