“A monster will slither out of my jeans later,” he assured her.
She rolled her eyes. “Uh huh.” She pulled her hand from under his T-shirt and patted his cotton-covered stomach. “I should have added: Let’s leave before we both start having delusions. I guess we’re too late on that one.” She went up on her tiptoes and pressed a kiss to his lips.
He hooked an arm around her waist and pulled her into his chest, deepening the kiss for a brief moment. When he pulled back, he noticed how soft her eyes had gone.
Fuck.
Yeah, she might be burrowing under his skin, but he was afraid he was getting under hers, too.
And that was a problem he didn’t know how to deal with. Hell, maybe it wouldn’t be a problem. Maybe once they got home, they could easily go back to the way it was.
Or, for fuck’s sake, maybe he could stop lying to himself. He knew bullshit when he heard it, even if it was his own lie and only said in his own head.
No matter what, he needed to push that problem aside for now and deal with the one at hand.
John Schmidt.
“All right. Let’s go see if we need to stick around or we can head back to the motel where I can unleash my monster.”
A soft smile curled her lips even though her words didn’t match it. “I just want this over for you and Saylor.”
You and me both. But when this is over, we’re over and that’s gonna suck.
She peeled away from him and turned to head back to the sitting room, where his father had been sleeping when they first walked through the front door.
The asshole had probably been faking it to avoid him. But Rev would sit at his bedside all fucking day if he needed to.
“Hey,” he called out softly, stopping her from walking out of the kitchen by nabbing her wrist.
She paused and glanced back over her shoulder at him.
“Thanks for bein’ a fuckin’ pest.”
“You can thank me properly later.” She tipped her head toward his crotch. “By unleashing the Kraken.”
Fuck yeah. “Reilly Porter, slayer of monsters.”
“Oh, I like that title. Maybe I need a whip and a sexy leather outfit to go along with it.” She walked out of the room with a smile.
He stared at the empty doorway in the direction she’d disappeared, unable to get the image out of his head of her wearing a badass leather outfit that hugged her curves and showed off her tits, while brandishing a bullwhip and slaying both monsters and men’s hearts.
Yeah, she could be a huge problem for him.
He unfroze his feet and quickly followed her, not wanting her to face his father alone. When he caught up with her, she was already standing by the medical bed, her smile a distant memory. Her mouth was tight and her expression closed as she glanced at him entering the room.
Her eyes weren’t the only ones glued on him. His father was awake and his normal loving self, though his voice was weak and raspy, like he was struggling to breathe. “See you brought your… whore with you again… You insult me … and sully my home… by bringing her… here, Michael.” Every few words he had to stop to take a rattled breath. He was definitely getting worse by the day. “Why did you come back? … I told you not to…”
“Just seein’ if you’re dead yet.”
“Sorry to disappoint… you.”
“You can’t die soon enough, old man. I’d make it quicker for you, but I’d prefer you suffer ’til you can’t suffer no more.”
“You were always… a horrible, horrible child.”
“How about that. You were always a horrible father. You reap what you sow, old man.”
“Couldn’t even beat… the petulance out of you… no matter how many times I tried.”
“A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction,” Rev quoted.
“Don’t you dare… throw scripture at me… you wretched, unrepentant brat.” His father lifted his bony, pale hand to weakly tap his own temple. “Figured out why… you are who… you are.”
“We already discussed why. You sowed the fuckin’ spoiled seeds.”
His father continued as though Rev hadn’t spoken. “You have issues due… to who your parents are.” He sucked in a wheezing breath, his chest barely rising under the pile of blankets.
“Ain’t tellin’ me nothin’ I don’t know, old man.”
His father smirked. “Oh, yes… I am, boy... I figured it all out.”
“Figured what out?” His father was playing games Rev didn’t like and wouldn’t stand for, for much longer.
“You came back here… for nothing.” The man’s thin lips almost curled into a smile. Almost. But John Schmidt had never smiled once that Rev could remember so he probably didn’t know how. “After you were born... no matter how many times… I tried to get your mother with child… I failed.” He paused to suck in another noisy breath. “Went to the physician... without telling her… found out I had no fertile seed… Turns out neither of you… ungrateful, sinful children were mine.”
Rev snorted in disbelief. “You’re delirious. That cancer’s rottin’ your brain.”
“No.” The man managed to drum up enough energy to sneer. “Your grandfather…”
Rev leaned forward, waiting. His heart began to pound like a bass drum.
“Gave me your mother… when she was already... with child.”
Chapter Thirteen
This had to be a sick joke. One last twist of the knife in Rev’s back before the motherfucker died. “What the fuck you talkin’ about?”
“He sowed… your rotten seed… Not me.”
Rev stared at him, not comprehending the words that just spilled from the dying man’s mouth.
Reilly barely smothered a gasp next to him. When he shot a quick glance at her, she was staring wide-eyed at the man in the bed, her face paler than normal, proving Rev hadn’t misheard him. He turned his attention back to the bed and the man who was not his father.
That was what he’d heard, wasn’t it?
He couldn’t wrap his head around it. It had to be a lie. His father—No, the man who he had thought was his father—had to be lying, right? A way to torture his son with words since he no longer had the strength to do it physically?
Was it possible that he…
“Wasn’t Sarah’s… either.”
Those three words didn’t quite sink in, because right now, Rev’s brain was on overload.
Yeah, this was all a sick joke.
All of it.
His whole life. A damn sick joke.
He would never stop getting punished for being born. With a hand clamped on his forearm, Reilly’s nails drilled painfully into his skin. “Who’s Say— Sarah’s father?” she asked in a pained whisper.
“Doesn’t matter now… does it? … Since she’s no longer… on this Earth.”
Rev pressed himself against the side of the bed and leaned in until his face was just above the man who no longer was anything to him. Not a fucking thing. They didn’t even share a drop of blood. Not one. “Who’s her fuckin’ father?”