Chapter 26 Piper
TWENTY-SIX
PIPER
I tangled my fingers into Rhett’s hair as pleasure shattered through me. He groaned his enthusiasm against my skin, and I lost myself in the decadence of his touch. Broad hands pulled my thighs wider. Strong fingers sank into my flesh. I trembled and clung to the edge of the sofa.
I’d convinced myself that the time in his kitchen had been a fluke. There was no way sex could feel so good, so intense. It had been a trick of my mind, a distorted memory that wasn’t based in reality.
I was wrong.
When Rhett entered me this time, I forgot how to speak. Ecstasy carried me in its raging current, and I drowned. Rhett’s dark eyes brought me back to the surface, his touch dragged me back to shore. I sank my fingernails into his shoulders and clung to him, pulling him down for a kiss.
One thing I’d learned about Rhett over the past couple of months was how observant he was. He noticed people’s reactions, moods, and habits, and tweaked his personality very slightly in every interaction. We all did it to a certain extent, but Rhett was a master.
To have all that attention pointed at me and my pleasure was an experience like nothing else.
He drank in every half moan and twitch of my facial expressions, single-mindedly focused on making me fall apart.
And he did. With a brush of his thumb against my clit, a stroke of his palms over my skin, and a hard, rough kiss pressed against my mouth.
Only then did Rhett loosen the reins on his control. His movements became less fluid, and his eyes took on a wild, ferocious quality. I came again at the sight of him like that—dangerous and sinful and mine.
Panting, with our bodies draped over the sofa, we let our heartbeats return to normal. Rhett’s fingers traced shapes over my arm and shoulder as he held me, his breath ruffling my hair. I pushed myself up to my elbows, my body squished between him and the back of the sofa, and glanced at him.
He looked unguarded and content. My heart flipped as his lips curled gently, a tender expression on his face.
Not knowing what to say or how to say it—or if these feelings were just a mix of hormones and muddled thoughts—I laid my head back down on his chest and draped my arm across his stomach.
I could have asked him what was happening.
I could have sat up and faced it head-on.
What were we doing? Would we keep sneaking around?
He was my boss, and there was this house to think about.
Were we making everything more complicated by sleeping together?
Were we doing something more than sleeping together? What was I to him?
If I’d been brave, I would’ve opened my mouth and asked the hard questions. But his body was warm, and mine was languid. Snow drifted down from the skies outside the big front window, and the stillness of the house stayed my tongue.
I didn’t want to have that conversation, because for the first time in a long, long time, I’d done something simply because I wanted to, and because it felt good. It was indulgent and reckless and maybe it would come back and bite me in the ass—but it felt too good to stop.
All of a sudden, it was Thanksgiving. The weeks had passed in a blur of work, parenting, and Rhett.
We stole moments together wherever we could.
More than once, he ducked into my tiny office, closed the door, and kissed me until I couldn’t think straight.
Work at the house slowed down because we spent so much time fooling around.
I couldn’t find it in me to care. I felt younger, more carefree. I felt amazing.
My sister Georgia came to visit, driving my car over and bringing all her friends from Heart’s Cove. They descended on the town in a flurry of laughter and love, and a part of me longed for that kind of friendship in my own life. I met them at a local brunch spot on their first morning in town.
The weeks had been so busy that I hadn’t quite mentioned to Georgia how Rhett and I were, ahem, getting along now.
She’d heard me vent about him for weeks when I first started working for him, so when the boys and I arrived at the restaurant and Simone, one of Georgia’s friends, asked me how work was going, all I could do was blow it off with a “I don’t want to talk about it. ”
“That bad, huh?” Simone asked me.
“Worse,” I replied, avoiding my sister’s stare. Georgia watched me from across the table, and she saw too much. She always did.
The conversation rattled me, and all I could do was pretend it didn’t. As far as these women knew, Rhett was a self-important jerk who had tried to push me around.
It felt wrong to deny our connection now, in front of all these people.
But how could I turn around after complaining to Georgia for weeks and tell her that actually, the man I thought was arrogant and conceited and fake was actually the best man I’d ever met, and I might actually be a little bit in love with him?
I couldn’t do it. Not right now, when everything was hectic, when the boys were with me with their ears that heard everything and their eyes that saw too much.
Besides, a part of me still wondered if it was real. My romance with Rhett was a secret whirlwind. We weren’t out in the open. We couldn’t be.
So how could I trust that it would last? And if it didn’t, how could I face the humiliation of another failed relationship—this one so much more reckless and embarrassing than my marriage?
Simone gave me a nod. “Atta girl,” she said approvingly, and shame burned deep in my gut.
Her husband, Wes, had his arm around the back of her chair, his focus on his food.
Every time they were together, they touched each other constantly.
The sight of them made me yearn for the same thing, the kind of companionship that didn’t need to yell to be enduring and strong.
I wanted to sit in a restaurant with Rhett’s arm around my chair.
I wanted to lean into him—lean on him—just because I could.
But we hadn’t talked about it. We’d just stolen what moments we could as we drove both the lodge and the house toward completion.
I settled the boys into chairs and ordered food for them, then sat beside them. My sister was on my other side.
“You’re hiding something,” Georgia whispered.
“I’m not,” I protested, which was a lie.
“How’s the house going?” I’d told Georgia about the house, but I’d asked her not to share the news with her friends.
“Progress has slowed,” I said, hoping Georgia wouldn’t see the guilt in my expression. Progress had slowed because I was too busy screwing my boss every chance I got.
“Well, I’m still happy to watch the boys for a night if you want to work on it this weekend.”
“We can have a sleepover, Aunt Georgia?” Alec asked from three chairs down, proving that my children had ears with very keen selective hearing.
“We sure can.” My sister smiled, then gave me a look like she’d demand answers.
I used the holiday weekend as a shield between us.
We were invited to Thanksgiving at a local resident’s house, which was a gorgeous, huge property partway up the mountain.
Mia, a barber in Heart’s Cove, had gotten us the invitation through her landlord, Des.
Something was going on between them, I could tell, but I focused on eating good food, watching my boys, and participating in the ridiculous family traditions that Des’s family kept.
I’d learned that in Lovers Peak, the Friday after Thanksgiving was a very important day.
The whole town would descend on Main Street as night fell, and the annual lighting of the Christmas tree would happen.
I worked a half day, as usual, picked the boys up from their friend’s house, fed the three of us, then bundled us all up and waited for Georgia’s fiancé, Sebastian, who would pick us up to save us from the crazy traffic near Main Street during the event.
Sebastian and Georgia would be using my car for the weekend, and then I’d return my rental car and go back to the little rusty hatchback that had been my daily driver.
Nate and Alec were their usual chatty selves, and I sat in the front seat next to Sebastian, trying to get used to the thought of my sister’s high school boyfriend being a part of her life again.
“Nice town you’ve found here,” he said, the familiar Texas twang warming his words. It made a little homesickness squeeze my chest, but it was only a shadow of what I used to feel about leaving the state.
As I glanced out the window, listening to the familiar rattle of my old car’s engine, I realized that this cozy mountain town had carved out a place in my heart.
I didn’t want to go back; I wanted to stay right here.
“It’s so beautiful here,” I agreed. “Everyone has been so great. I can’t wait to see it in summer. ”
“Georgia told me you’ve been having issues with your boss.”
I cleared my throat and shifted in my seat. Sebastian slowed the car as we approached the center of town. There were people and cars everywhere. “He’s…yeah. He pushed back against a lot of my ideas at first,” I hedged.
Sebastian hummed in response, and I directed him down a side street where I knew there was free street parking. We climbed out, and I focused on herding the boys toward Main Street and said nothing more about the boss I was meant to hate.
It wasn’t quite five o’clock yet, but the sun was going down.
The western rock face of Lovers Peak Mountain caught the fading light of the sun, and even after seeing the view nearly every day for three months, it didn’t fail to make my breath catch.
We found the gang at Rita’s. The boys got hot chocolates, and Rita herself came out to say hello.
I sat beside Georgia, who turned her face up to accept a kiss from Sebastian before nudging me with her shoulder.
“What are you going to do with your free night?” She’d agreed to watch the boys tonight.