Charisse knew back in the day, Cheyenne and Chyna often switched places and most people wouldn’t tell the difference. “And what did you see in Chyna? Cause it certainly couldn’t have been her personality.”
“I think every man fell in love with Chyna when she walked in that room, because she looked very attractive.”
Biting the inside of her lip, she decided on not pointing out that he used past tense when describing his attraction to his wife. Had Cheyenne picked up on that too? Was that what caused his affair? Or was that just a key for Cheyenne to get to him? Did he know he had just admitted not being attracted to his wife presently? Maybe Parker dropped that piece of information on purpose to get closer to her?
He continued, “I just happened to spill a drink on her white shirt which garnered her attention. Negatively though, but at least she spoke to me whereas she had not spoken to anyone else other than the host. After I delivered a very costly outfit to her home along with several dozen flowers to make up for it, she gave me a chance. Next thing I knew a few months later, we were driving down to Ohio to get married on the spot.”
“Well if you looked as good as you did back then, I can’t see why not,” she blurted out then quickly bit her lip again and darted her eyes down to her apple as if it held the secret to eternal youth.
There was a brief intense look in his eyes before she forced herself to find her apple more appealing to stare at.
Before she had a chance to deny those words had come out of her mouth, he acknowledged them humbly. “Thank you, Charisse, but I can’t say that I was good looking back then.” He dug out his wallet and found a picture of himself and Chyna taken the day they married. “I destroyed most of my early pictures and because of the way I looked back then, I was camera shy, but for some crazy reason I keep this one.”
Charisse mouth dropped open. “That’s you?”
The man in the picture had Parker’s great body, but it was peaked by a man’s face filled with pimples, buckteeth, braces and thick bi-focals.
“What the hell happened?” she asked. “Not to be mean, but it looked like the ugly train hit you a couple of times.”
Used to the jibs and not surprised that she took advantage at hitting him with one of hers, he just shrugged it off taking his time putting the picture back in his wallet and setting it on the counter before answering. “Life made the pimples disappear and a lot of acne treatments and facials per your sister. I’d already had the braces since high school and Chyna had them put back on so damn tight, my teeth couldn’t do anything else but straighten up. That was about five years ago when I had them removed.”
Mentally she noted it was about the same time the affair with Cheyenne had started. That sounded like her older sister’s shallowness. “And the glasses?”
“Lasik. Chyna convinced me. I just did that recently.”
“Wow!” She said impressed. “You’ve been good to Chyna and she’s been good to you.”
“You still sound doubtful,” he noted.
“That beauty is only skin deep but ugly is to the bone? I don’t doubt that or do you still feel like that frog prince? Which is it?”
“Neither, Charisse,” he said coming around the counter to be closer to her. Leaning on the counter, he bit out, “There’s a diamond in the rough.”
“You mean in Chyna?”
“No. Me.” He winked and left the room finishing off his apple. Their verbal conversation had truly stimulated him physically and he hadn’t felt so aroused in a very long time. He really needed relief.
Going to the bedroom he shared with his wife, Chyna was asleep. At that moment Parker really enjoyed being married. Knowing there was a warm receptive body in his bed titillated him.
Moving behind her, her planted kisses on her neck. When she stirred a little in encouragement, he wrapped his arms around her waist to draw her against him.
“Oh Daddy,” she murmured seductively in her sleep.
His desire was immediately replaced with revulsion.
Releasing her, he moved to his side of the bed and closed his eyes. Chyna sat up in bed.
“Parker, why’d you stop?” she asked.
Obviously, she didn’t realize what she had said.
“I’m tired,” he mumbled. “Real tired.”
She nuzzled up behind him. “How was your day?”
He had no real urge to strike up a conversation with her anymore and he just mumbled, “Long.”
She could tell he was not in the mood and decided to give up on engaging him. With his back turned, she didn’t see that his eyes were wide open and all he could do was stare at the wall.
He was tired, but far from sleepy.
Shutting his eyes, he tried not to think about how soft Charisse’s lips looked even when they were pursed together, and tried not to remember how warm her skin had felt when she had made a mistake and touched him.
Nor was he going to try to think about how he had really wanted to have sex with her to create a baby and how disappointed he felt that he was fucking a damn plastic utensil instead of burying his shaft deep inside of her virgin softness wondering how wet he could make it.
No, he wasn’t going to think about that. He wasn’t because that was his sister-in-law – it was Charisse and she would never allow him to touch her.
***
Finishing up her apple, enjoying the quietness of the house, she spotted the wallet Parker had left out on the counter.
Picking it up, she decided to drop it off in the library that was substituting for an office. She raised it to her nose and she could smell him along with the worn leather. Maybe there was an Almond Joy in there, she wondered and flipped it open as she arrived at the library.
An alarm went off outside, startling her and she dropped the wallet to the floor. A credit card fell out and some pictures.
Carefully picking them up, she saw the picture on top he’d just shown her. Lingering a moment, she stared at it and studied Chyna’s face. She didn’t look happy at all. The next picture was Chyna, Cheyenne, some Hispanic dark man and Parker, taken before he had his lasik. Charisse had never seen the strange man before and didn’t think much of it. The next picture made her drop the wallet again. It was very old and worn. It was something she hadn’t seen in a while.
It was Charisse as a little girl sitting on her father’s lap.
An overwhelming sense of love gripped her and tears streamed down her face as she realized how much she missed her father. His eyes looked out the picture and he looked so happy holding her, but then… She remembered he had been crying before Chyna had snapped this picture. No, he had been sobbing. He’d been so miserable all that time and her mother had not made it any easier for anyone, but he took the brunt of it all when he was alive.
‘I won’t let the monsters hurt you.’
The harsh words used made Charisse’s ear hurt and no one could stop the monster. No one had. Her father had found his own way to stop the monster. He had tried, but failed. And then Charisse came in and…
“How’d you get my wallet?” Parker asked accusingly, stepping in front of her suddenly dressed in dark gray silk pajamas.
She turned the picture to him. “You left it on the counter.”
He ignored the picture as he picked up his wallet at her feet. “So you thought to just rummage through my stuff?”
“No. I was bringing it to the office. And it fell. How’d you get this picture?””
“Your old house,” he confessed. “After they put you away this last time, they had to dispense with your mother’s things because they wanted to sell the house.”
“They sold the house?” she asked stupidly, angry with herself for ignoring everything that she had been through since going into the facility this last period. The house had been her only memory that really connected the dots for her. Even when she was there taking care of her mother, she found some comfort just going in her room and sometimes in the middle of the night, sitting on the floor next to the co
uch in the family room where her father had last lain. It was as if her sisters were doing everything in their power to make her forget.
“And that’s how I felt. I told Chyna they should have said something to you. Chyna told me to mind my own business.”
Charisse knew that was something Chyna would have said.
“I walked around while they were organizing the clean up and move, because like I said, neither ever talked about the past and this felt like something I needed to find out things about the family. Personally the house was void of everything warm, until I went into your room.”
“She didn’t like memories. She didn’t like anything around to bring us peace or comfort,” Charisse said quietly.
“She who?” Parker asked confused.
“My mother.”
He continued because there was this distressed look on her face. “Your room was just like you left it. Cheyenne said you hadn’t changed it since that day. That picture was on your wall. I tried to take more, but Chyna found it when they were redecorating this house and threw it out. She said you didn’t need the memory.”
Looking down at the picture, Charisse had begun to remember a lot more than what she had known.
“I also had a selfish reason for taking it too,” he admitted. “I’d never seen your father and your sisters never spoke about him. It felt as if he were taboo.”
“My mother made us never to speak about him. She tried to make us forget him, but I couldn’t and I guess that’s why I received almost all her punishments. It hurt her too much to remember.” Pressing the picture to her chest, she asked, “Can I keep it?”
“Only if you promise not to tear it up.”
“I promise.”
“Then take it.”
Charisse walked away holding the photo as if it were the Hope Diamond.
Parker felt good that he had done something wonderful for someone. And it hadn’t cost him a dime. That was a strange feeling. He was used to buying things or bending over backwards to make Chyna and even Cheyenne happy.
Sitting in his office, he leaned back in his chair relishing this feeling of making Charisse happy by one thoughtful action.
He hadn’t felt like this in a long time, but that’s because no woman had looked at him past his looks and wealth in a long time. Charisse didn’t care about the money and she saw him as just a brother-in-law, so her intentions to interact with him were true and not with any hidden means.
For so long he had used his money to get women and then when his face started to straighten up, he took advantage of that, but he knew Charisse was different. She saw things differently. She saw him differently.
His manhood twitched.
‘Down boy, that’s your sister-in-law and you are not about to seduce her and ruin your just patched up relationship with Chyna.’
Plus, there was no way in hell Charisse would have sex with him. She didn’t want to be touched.
‘But there are ways to charm a woman and you know it,’ the evil side of him said in his head.
But Charisse was no ordinary woman.
His conscious spoke again, ‘You’re dwelling on this too long and it’ll only turn to something you don’t want. Take this as it is, just a thoughtful gesture that brought you both emotional pleasure. Nothing more.’
He would do that and leave it at that.
Chapter 13
A sharp nudge to his arm jerked him awake to see Chyna shoving the turkey baster in his hands.
His manhood was semi-erect already and he showed no shame in removing it from its cloth prison. He’d been doing this now for a week and he was getting pretty tired of it, but his wife was being persistent even going for twice a day now. Along with the fact that Chyna’s ever growing frigidness was driving him to forget about manners and care for decency. He practically had to work himself to exhaustion every night in order to get his manhood just to be semi-hard instead of full erect.
Chyna gasped insulted. “Can’t you go in the bathroom?”
“No time like the present since it’s almost ready,” he snipped and began to jerk his member to full attention.
He watched her walk away and looked in misery at the piece of plastic. He’d been dreaming about a lot of things all of which he knew he shouldn’t have been dreaming about, but the sight of Chyna early in the morning and then this cold plastic kitchen utensil took the steam out of him.
Frustrated he went to the bathroom to get something to help the friction, but that didn’t seem to work.
Chyna found him and looked in disappointment at the empty baster. “What’s wrong?” she asked as if it should have been the simplest thing in the world to accomplish.
“I’m trying to fuck a plastic kitchen utensil, Chyna,” he said with frustration. “I’m not a damn machine.”
Chyna looked at the time impatiently. “Rochelle is going to get suspicious if we don’t hurry up, Parker.”
“Don’t you think I know that,” he cursed viciously. “I’m stressed already. You think that’s helping?”
Sighing, she bent on her knees and began to push down all his clothes.
“What are you doing?” he asked confused.
“Just let me know when you’re close, so I can get out the way.”
Her warm mouth wrapped around his shaft. Something he hadn’t felt in years. It felt like decades and instantly he knew what he was missing in his relationship with Chyna because as much as he missed oral, he missed intimacy with a woman, which he knew he couldn’t get with Chyna and had never gotten from Cheyenne. Still, he allowed his imagination to wander into the forbidden. Plump curves, soft skin, burnt orange brown eyes staring up at him as he tenderly drove down into her delicious womanly abyss he had just tasted…
***
Charisse was about to get up from her position because her back was beginning to hurt, after lying there for about thirty minutes. Her sister had never taken so long to come back before and the cloth gloves she was wearing was starting to itch.
Suddenly Chyna came rushing in the room and shoved the baster in her hands. As Charisse made the deposit Chyna ran to the guest bathroom to gargle to wash her hands and face, looking very disgusted.
“What happened?” Charisse questioned.
“It seems Parker is having difficulty doing his deposit and it was going to take longer if I hadn’t rushed it.”
Confused, she asked, “So what did you do?”
“Chyna came out to get the baster and took it to the bathroom to wash it. “I helped him.”
“How?” Charisse asked just out of curiosity.
“With my mouth, Charisse.”
It took a minute for her to realize what Chyna had done, but then she was a little confused. “Why are you acting as if it is disgusting? In that book that woman was doing that and she didn’t look disgusted. Besides, you’re his wife. You’re supposed to do that, aren’t you? Does he smell bad down there?”
Chyna blushed. “No, but this isn’t something women talk about, Charisse.”
She ignored her sister and continued to speak, “I heard them talk about it when they thought I wasn’t listening.” All week long since they’d started this, she had a lot to think about and looking at that book didn’t help. “Men like that a lot from what I heard. There was this girl who liked doing that along with other things with men, which was why she was in there. The male patients loved her. She used to get everything.”
“I bet they did.”
“She used to sit at my table across from me and egg me by sucking on her spoon. She’d say ‘it’s all in the tongue, Char Char.’”
Chyna giggled coming back out wrapping the turkey baster in a towel.
“Well is it?” Charisse asked.
“What? That? Oral? I don’t know. I just put my mouth on it tightly, move up and down and let him do what he does and just make sure he doesn’t go down too far.”
Charisse frowned but kept the rest of her questions to herself, except one. “And he likes it l
ike that?”
Shrugging indifferently, Chyna said, “I don’t think he cares. He’s in his own world.” She stood up. “I’ll tell Rochelle you’re in the library with Parker. Stay until I get back.”
“Tell her to make me a bath, please Chyna.” Charisse pulled the covers over her from the gust bed and signed to herself.
With so much time in her hands this past week, Charisse had a lot to think about. Mostly it had been about Parker because thinking about her past was becoming upsetting more and more. She was convinced Parker had married Chyna for her looks and she got with him because of the money, but then he slept with Cheyenne most likely after Cheyenne saw how handsome he really was. Plus, Cheyenne must have been viciously jealous that Chyna had a good thing.
Now, she was having Parker’s baby.
This was the weirdest sex triangle Charisse could ever imagine.
The devil himself appeared at the doorway knocking lightly for entrance. “Are you decent?’ he asked before entering.
“Yes,” she said a little nervous. Underneath the covers she was exposed and lying on her back with her feet in the air wasn’t a very good way to talk to anyone, but he didn’t seem to mind.
Parker came to sit in the chair near the bed, with a cup of coffee in hand and looking freshly groomed as usual. He wore his usual nice suit that complimented his masculine physique. Laying on the floor and staring up at him, she was able to see how well built he looked and with his goatee, his face was actually even more handsome than the last time she had seen it. Her agitation for noticing his good looks emerged.
“I’ve been thinking about you,” he confessed.
This admission caught her a little off guard. “Is that why you couldn’t get it up?” she blurted out. ‘I know I’m a turn off.”
He flushed. “Chyna told you that?”
“I can understand. Prolong thoughts of me can produce unhappiness. Severe depression and bouts of suicide can occur as well,” she said as if this were a fact.
Biting the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing because he could now tell if she was serious or not, he forced himself to be serious and pointed out, “It didn’t seem to make your father unhappy.”
His Substitute Wife... My Sister Book One Page 11
