The Seduction of Alex Parker(43)

“Why are you making a big deal about it? Just sit down and eat your scrambled eggs and burnt toast.” He smirked.

Sitting down with a smile on my face, I began to eat the eggs Alex so graciously prepared for me.

Crunch.

Crunch.

“What the hell, Parker?” Laughing, I spit the eggs back onto the plate.

“What? That was really gross, Emerson.”

“Eggs aren’t supposed to be crunchy.” I dug through the eggs with my fork. “Oh my God, there’s shells in here.” I looked up at him.

“Oh. I thought I got all those out. Sorry about that.” He pushed his plate away. “Go get dressed. We’re going out somewhere.”

“Where?”

“For a drive.”

“Where?”

“I’m not telling you. You’ll see when we get there.”

“I really don’t feel like going anywhere.”

He sighed and got up from his seat. Pulling my chair out, he picked me up and threw me over his shoulder.

“What are you doing?! Put me down.”

“I told you to go get dressed and you didn’t listen, so I’m dressing you myself.”

“The hell you are. Put me down.” I pounded on his tight ass.

When we reached the bedroom, he walked into my closet, with me still over his shoulder, and pulled a black sundress from the hanger.

“This will do.” He set me down and untied my robe. After sliding it off my shoulders, he pulled the sundress over my head. “There. Now do you need me to do your hair and makeup as well?”

“You’re such a douchebag, Parker.” I smiled as I walked into the bathroom.

“At least I’m not a f*cker. You have fifteen minutes, Emerson. I’ll be downstairs waiting.”

“Did you take your pill?” I yelled before he walked out.

“Yes.”

“Good boy.”

****

As we were driving, Alex still wouldn’t tell me where we were going, but the route was all too familiar to me. Panic started to settle inside me as he made a left turn into a subdivision.

“Alex, what are you doing?” I asked nervously.

He looked over at me and took hold of my hand but didn’t say a word.

“Parker. I’m speaking to you. I don’t like this. Turn around!”

“Stop, Emerson,” he spoke as he pulled into the driveway of my childhood home.

I gulped as I stared at it from the car window. “I will ask you nicely one last time to please take me back to your house. Because if you don’t, I swear to God, I’ll break your balls.”

“There you go again.”

“Alex, I’m serious. This isn’t funny and I want to leave.”

He grabbed both of my hands and stared at me. “Listen to me. I want you to calm down. This was your childhood home and you had wonderful memories here. We’re going to go inside and you’re going to tell me about those memories. Okay?”

“How the hell are we going to get inside?”

“The realtor will be here shortly. The house is up for sale and I made an appointment to look at it.”

I rolled my eyes and sighed. “How did you even know about this house?”

“I talked to Adam this morning.”

“Of course you did. Fuck you, Parker. I’m not going inside that house.” I opened the car door and ran straight to the backyard. Why? It was a place of comfort.

As I stopped in the middle of the grass, I looked straight ahead by the oak tree that was still there and at the empty spot where the little house used to be that my dad had built for us. He called it “Twins Cottage.”

Alex walked up from behind and clasped my shoulders. “What are you staring at?”

“Over there by the oak tree, Emily and I always played in the cottage my dad built for us. It was our own little house. We would have tea parties when we were really little and then, as we grew, we used it as a place to escape from our parents for a while. Emily and I would sit in there for hours and listen to music and talk about the things we were going to do. We had some amazing times in there. I even got my first kiss in there by a boy named Sam. What happened in that cottage, stayed in that cottage.” I smiled.

I walked over to the tree and examined the trunk, finding the arrow that I had carved into it. “See this spot right here?”

“Yeah.”

“This is where we buried Muffin, our dog. I carved this arrow in the trunk of the tree pointing down so I’d always remember exactly where she was buried.”

Alex put his arms around my waist and kissed my head.

“Excuse me,” a woman spoke from behind us. “You must be Alex Parker?”

“Yes, and this is Emerson James.”

“Nice to meet you both. Come with me and I’ll show you around inside.”

I took in the deepest breath I ever took in my life before walking through the back door of the house I grew up in. Stepping inside, memories of my parents, Adam, and Emily flooded my mind. Tears started to spring to my eyes.

“As you can see—” the realtor started to speak.

“Excuse me, ma’am, but I just want to look around myself. If I have any questions, I’ll let you know.”

“Oh,” she spoke with an offended tone. “Well then, I’ll be sitting in the kitchen.”