Chapter 24 Grayden
TWENTY-FOUR
Grayden
Piper looked so downcast. She’d come here for some comfort, and I’d just given her a cold splash of reality.
I took a gulp of the coffee drink Piper had made me.
“Not trying to make you feel bad,” I said. “It’s just something to think about.”
“I hate the world sometimes. So many things aren’t fair.”
“Truer words.”
But Piper was essentially agreeing with me. Her situation would be harder with me around.
I never should’ve kissed her the other day. She was the wiser one to turn me down.
Of course I would never regret defending her, but I could’ve backed down a little with Danny when I confronted him that day. Instead, I’d escalated the tension. Now he hated me, and I worried how far he’d go as a result.
If Piper or Ollie got hurt because of me, directly or indirectly, how could I ever forgive myself?
These were some dark fucking thoughts. Piper deserved some time to relax and smile, and I realized I might have just the thing.
I placed my empty plate on the tray. “Hey, I almost forgot. I found something yesterday in the house. It was behind an old dresser.” Tugging out my wallet, I extracted a folded piece of paper.
Piper took it from me, and her whole face changed as she smoothed out the creases.
“Oh my gosh. I haven’t seen this in ages.”
“It was folded up like that when I found it,” I added.
She touched the photo gently, like she was afraid it might disappear. “No, I’m the one who folded it. Used to keep this in my purse to remind me of better days, I guess.”
Her lips parted slightly as she stared down at the image. It was her and Grace, maybe around eighteen or nineteen years old, with their arms around each other as they laughed. Caught in a moment of pure joy.
“I took this selfie of us during freshman year of college.” Her thumb traced over the image. “Went to the drugstore the next day to have the photo printed out, and I pinned it to the bulletin board in our dorm room.”
My upper body shifted to face Piper, which wasn’t easy given the tight space on this loveseat. My arm draped over the backrest. “You and Grace were roommates in college?”
“You didn’t know that?”
I shrugged, though the empty spaces in my chest echoed with the reminder of what I’d missed. There was far too much I didn’t know about my siblings’ lives.
By the time Piper and Grace were nineteen, I’d been years into my prison sentence. Totally cut off from them, in part by my choice. Furious at the world for everything that had been taken from me.
“There’s been a lot to catch up on,” I simply said. Most days since I’d returned to Silver Ridge, I tried not to think about all those missing years. Because when I did…
Fuck, it was a lot to even process.
“Grace and I had way too much fun.” Piper looked up at me, her eyes glossy in the firelight.
“There we were, two small-town girls in Fort Collins. Which isn’t that big of a town anyway, but to us, it was a whole new world.
She had this amazing scholarship covering all her tuition and expenses and felt like she had to study nonstop.
So I had to drag her to all the frat parties. She was such a good girl.”
“As any little sister should be,” I grunted. “I don’t want to hear otherwise.”
Piper laughed. “I was more the kind to dance on the tables. Made sure Gracie didn’t grow roots in the library with her nose in an accounting book.”
“You were the wild one, huh? I buy that.”
“I could get wild. On occasion.” Her chin angled as she looked at me through her lashes, downright sultry.
Hell. If I wasn’t in full view of her, I would’ve adjusted my cock in my jeans. I shifted around, trying to do it subtly.
She blinked, and the flirtation disappeared from her green eyes. “Until I met Danny my junior year. He was older, a dental student down in the Denver area. He was on campus visiting a former frat buddy. He seemed so polished.”
I didn’t like hearing about Piper with him, even if it had been over a decade ago. When I’d still been behind bars. But if she needed to talk about it, I’d listen.
“He fooled you. Can’t blame yourself for that.”
“In my defense, I didn’t have the chance to know him all that well before I got pregnant. Ollie was the best accident to ever happen to me. But I’ve always had this daydream of going back to school to finish my English Lit degree.”
“You could do it online. Same way I got my Bachelor of Fine Arts.”
She grinned. “You have a degree? When did that happen?”
“I finished it when I was in Seattle. But when I started on the credits, it was whenever I had privileges in the prison library, mostly.”
Piper’s expression faltered. “Exactly how long were you… Sorry, never mind.”
I lifted my hand to trace her jaw with my thumb. “It’s okay. I’ve told you before, I don’t mind talking about it. How long was I in prison? That’s what you were going to ask?”
She nodded.
“Ten years. My full sentence.”
Her body went totally still. As in, I could actually see the moment her exhale cut short.
“Ten years?” she said when she started breathing again. “I know it’s been fifteen since it all happened, but I didn’t think about it exactly. How much of it you were behind bars.”
“Time is weird like that. Those ten years felt like ten lifetimes when I was going through it, but looking back, it’s like this strange blip in my life story. Parallel universe or something.”
“Don’t people usually get out early, though? For good behavior or however that works?”
My hand dragged over my beard. “Good behavior, sure. Problem was, my behavior didn’t meet the US Army’s definition of good. I had a lot of anger in me, Piper. Not just after I got to prison.”
“Because of losing your mom? And your dad leaving?”
I gave her a soft smirk. “I’m not that hard to figure out, am I? I was an angry teenager, and an angry man when I joined the Army, hoping it would sort me out. Sometimes, I still am. To a lesser degree. You’ve seen it.”
“But you’ve never seemed that way to me. Not now, not then.”
I hadn’t wanted to get into this. But Piper wanted to talk about it, so I had to give her a truthful answer. “I hid it around you and Grace. Even Teller and my brothers, to some extent.”
When I’d been a soldier, being angry had sometimes been an asset. Lit a fire under my ass to be tougher, stronger, get shit done.
Unfortunately, it also interfered with my discipline and ability to follow orders. Superior officers tended to frown on that.
But I had to stay on topic. Otherwise we’d be here all night with the saga I could tell.
“After I got to Leavenworth, after all the shit that put me there, I didn’t see any point in trying to keep that anger at bay.
My fellow assholes among the inmates got the brunt of it, and I ended up in the hole a few times.
But then there was the time I punched an Army Corrections Specialist. A guard. ”
“Oh, Grayden.” She winced. “Really?”
I had to laugh at her reaction.
“I promise he was the king of the assholes, and he kept getting away with it. Made a younger inmate his personal punching bag. Eventually, I couldn’t stand for it anymore. I’m lucky I didn’t get my sentence extended, but there was enough evidence the guard had been abusing his position.”
But that was me. Reacting impulsively to try to protect someone, try to make this screwed-up world a little bit right. Often it didn’t go well.
Maybe that was a lesson I didn’t want to learn.
Piper’s hand rested on my thigh, filling my blood with endorphins and helping push away the bad memories.
“I’m sorry that happened,” she said.
“It was a wake-up call, actually. After I realized I wouldn’t get out of there until my ten years were up, I got more serious about making something of myself.
That’s when I signed up for the correspondence courses and started getting college credits.
Read a ton of books and really focused on my art.
Did what I was supposed to. Just took it one day at a time. ”
“But ten years. I’m still trying to make sense of it. How you got through that.”
“I didn’t care for the alternatives, so I didn’t have much choice.”
When I glanced over at her, Piper’s eyes were shining again, and then a tear slipped free.
Fuck me, I was making her sad.
Bringing the pad of my thumb to her cheek, I smudged the tear away. “I told you before, when you hear my whole history, I don’t come out of it sounding like a hero. Just a guy who messed up every good thing in his life and took years to figure out how to start over again. Still working on that.”
I sat back, pushing out a laugh that sounded more like a sigh.
“And now I’m a guy who hijacked the entire conversation. We were talking about you and Grace in college.”
“Grayden.” Piper’s frown was still there, and still deathly serious. “The more I get to know the man you are, the more you’re a hero to me.”
Then she leaned over, put her palm on my chest, and kissed me.
I tilted my head, and my hands found the sides of her waist. Piper’s lips were hesitant against mine at first. I let her control the kiss.
Then she shifted so our bodies were more aligned, her thigh draping over mine. My hands reached the edge of her sweater and dipped beneath. My fingers spread wide over the warm, smooth skin of her back above the waistband of her jeans.
Really, if I was the hero Piper thought, I would stop this right now, no matter how much I craved her. I was becoming a liability for her. This town had been looking down on me since the moment I returned, thinking I wasn’t good enough for their golden girl.
But I didn’t stop her.
Piper sighed against my mouth, her tongue licking against my lips. Which was all the invitation I needed.
My lips parted and drew her tongue inside, sucking gently on it. I fed her mine.
And I was just gone. Lost in her.
We tasted each other, and between the heat of the fire and the heat of want igniting my veins, I already felt like I might combust.
Another tug of my hands against her hips brought her closer. Piper straddled my thigh, and her crotch rocked against me with the movement.
Her eyes went wide as her head tipped back and a moan snuck from her lips.
Oh. She’d liked that, huh?
My conscience tried one last time to speak up. Just a week ago, I’d told her one or two secret hookups wouldn’t be enough for me.
But if this was all I could ever have of her?
I rocked Piper forward again by the hips, nudging my thigh upward a little. She rewarded me with a gasp.
“Does that feel good, wild girl?” I murmured. “My thigh between your legs?”
Her eyelashes fluttered. Her lips were pink, swollen from kisses. “Amazing,” she breathed. “But…”
“Do you want to stop?”
“No. Please, Grayden. Don’t stop.”
She needed this. Piper’s day had sucked, mostly because of her ex, but I’d had my part in it. Least I could do was give her this.
Make her feel sexy and wild again. Beautiful and wanted.
Like Piper had said the first time I kissed her, no one had to know. Nobody could see. We were out of sight of the windows, though of course in full view of the rest of the empty coffee shop.
If I could have my way completely, I wouldn’t just have Piper in secret. I’d hold her hand down the street and defy anyone who said I couldn’t be enough for her.
But this moment, making her feel amazing, was better than nothing. I was desperate for this.
And on a day like today, I could be more than selfish enough to enjoy it.
Dipping my head to reach her neck, I dropped kisses to the skin there. Her pulse throbbed under my tongue. Her vanilla-and-flowers scent filled my lungs.
“Make yourself feel good,” I whispered in her ear. “Use me.”
“Grayden,” she gasped, and my name had never sounded so filthy.
Piper held onto my shoulders and rode my thigh. Keeping my firm grasp on her hip with one hand, I pressed the heel of my other to the erection stretching along the seam of my jeans. My cock was thick and swollen, the vein on the underside pulsing.
Then she grabbed my face, pulling me into another dirty kiss. Tongues sliding and teeth nipping.
She wasn’t holding back, and fuck, did I love that.
It was just a preview of how uninhibited Piper might be in bed. How she could drive me crazy in all the best ways, matching my need for her with a voracious appetite all her own.
If only I would have the chance to see that.
“I can’t believe we’re doing this here,” she said.
Neither could I. But unless she tapped the brakes, there was no way I could stop. Not now.
Piper reached for her waistband and popped the button on her jeans. “I need more. Please.”
I wasn’t sure at first what she wanted. If she intended for me to strip her jeans off and bend her over this loveseat, which I was tempted to do.
I imagined sinking my cock inside her, the haze of desire between us pushing away any doubt or hesitation. Seeing her come apart while I felt her shuddering with pleasure around my shaft.
“Your fingers.” She took my hand and brought it to the juncture between her legs, though she hadn’t stopped rubbing against my thigh.
Mmm. That worked too. “Whatever you want, wild girl.”
My cock twitched with jealousy as I unzipped her fly and slid my fingers into her panties. My fingertips met hot, wet heaven.
I groaned, my eyes rolling back involuntarily.
“You’re soaking for me.”
I could only fit the tips of two of my fingers into that slick space inside her panties. Piper grabbed my wrist to angle my hand toward her clit, which drove my arousal even higher.
Loved how she knew what she wanted and made sure I gave it to her.
Her hips bucked wildly, sliding her clit over my fingers. Her eyes were closed, golden hair tumbling over her shoulders after falling out of its tie.
Firelight danced over her pale skin and her pink lips. Gorgeous.
And mine. For these few minutes, even if this was all I ever got, Piper was mine.
Her rhythm turned staccato. As she began to shudder and moan, I slid one finger deep inside her, feeling her squeeze around me.
My cock throbbed with envy.
When she stopped shaking, Piper slumped against me. “Oh my…”
I rubbed her lower back and kissed her temple. “Feel better? Less stressed?”
“Mmhmm.” She lifted her head, green eyes glazed, but with easy contentment instead of fear or confusion. “That was hot. And kind of crazy. I wasn’t expecting it.”
“Neither was I.”
“But I liked it. What happened to just friends?”
“Maybe we can have the occasional day pass for benefits,” I said.
“Yeah? I’m up for that.”
I pulled her into another kiss. Piper’s hand trailed lazily down my body until she found my erection. Her fingers traced the outline of my shaft until she reached the head and circled it through my jeans.
I shifted beneath her, and my hips lifted. “Fuck,” I breathed. Especially as she used her thumb to rub over the tip.
Then her nose scrunched cutely.
“What is that? Are you… Is that a piercing?”