25. Pontius
25
PONTIUS
Piper: Where are you?
I stare at the message on my phone. My chest squeezes. She’s messaging me. She’s contacting me!
Me: I’m at home.
Piper: Really? Prove it.
I snap a quick selfie with my apartment visible in the background and send it to her.
Piper: Doesn’t prove anything. Take a photo with a spoon on your head.
I grin at the message, walk over to my kitchen, pull a wooden spoon out of the drawer, and take a selfie with it on my head.
Piper: You could have taken that any time. Use a metal spoon.
I grin wider, pull out a metal spoon, and take another selfie for her.
The response dots pop up immediately. My heart flutters. I don’t know exactly what this means, but she’s speaking to me. We are becoming friends. Me and my mate.
Piper: One spoon on your head and two forks left hand.
Me: My left or your left?
Dots blip past.
Piper: Yours.
Piper: Dummy.
I snicker and do what she requested, sending a fourth selfie.
The dots blink at me for what feels like an hour, so I take the initiative.
Me: Any reason for this quest?
Piper: I thought I saw you earlier tonight.
And then before I can respond…
Piper: Can I call you?
Me: Of course.
“Hello?” I pick up the phone on the first ring, too excited to even pretend to play it cool. Why is she calling me? Why tonight?
“Where were you tonight? For real?” She sniffs into the other end of the phone, and my chest tightens. She is crying. Who hurt her? How can I ruin their lives? Hack into their computers and corrupt all their hard drives? Have all their devices regularly forget their Wi-Fi password so they have to log back in every day?
“I’m at home. I have been all evening. What’s wrong, Piper?”
“Okay, okay. Thank you.” Her voice cracks.
“Piper, are you alright?” I ask. “Where are you? Are you safe?”
There is another little sniffle on the other end of the phone.
“Please,” I add. “Piper. Tell me.”
“I’m okay. Everything is fine. I’m…I’m at home. I just thought I saw—” She cuts herself off.
“Saw what?”
“Saw you.” She sniffs and then laughs.
“That made you cry?”
“No. That’s about someone else,” she says very quietly.
“Why are you crying? Who upset you? Are you safe?”
“I ran into Colin.”
“Your ex?” My whole body feels hot.
“He’s back in town and?—”
“And what?” Red fills my vision. I’ll kill him. I’ll snatch him off the street, fly out to the ocean, and drop him three miles from the shore. “What did he do to you?”
“Nothing,” she mutters. “It’s okay. I’m safe.”
“Then why are you crying?” I release a breath, trying to calm my racing pulse. “Did he make you cry?”
“We just had an argument. He said a few things that upset me.” There’s a soft noise on the other side of the phone, like blankets being adjusted.
“I’ll kill him for you.”
She laughs. Is that permission?
“What did he want?”
“It was weird. He wanted the stuff he left in my apartment back,” she says, “but he put that in storage months ago.”
“Ah.”
“What?”
“That’s my fault,” I admit.
“Ant, what the crap are you talking about?” She laughs.
“I put his things in storage.”
“What?”
“I sent the storage company to your house. I’ve been paying for temperature-controlled storage for his things. I didn’t like that it was in your home, bothering you.” I pause. There’s only silence on the other end of the line. “I did have a key sent to him in New York.”
There’s a sharp intake of breath on the other end of the phone. I’ve ruined everything. She’s going to tell me off; insult me.
Her laughter breaks through the phone speaker. That loud, open-throated, full-body laugh that makes me want to bury myself in her.
“Ant. That is absolutely hilarious.” She presses the words out through her gasping giggles.
“I was worried you would be mad,” I admit.
“No. No.” Her laughing finally subsides. “Fuck him,” she says quietly, but I can almost hear the embarrassment in her voice. I can imagine the pink creeping up her cheeks.
“Fuck him,” I respond, certain she can hear the smile in my own voice. “Are you really okay?”
“I’m fine. It’s fine. My friends took care of him. It was kind of embarrassing. Anam and Bailey had to step in.”
“That’s not embarrassing, your friends care about you.”
“Hmph,” she disagrees.
“Don’t roll your eyes at me,” I growl.
“You can’t even see me.” She laughs lightly. I love the sound.
“Are Anam and Bailey still there?”
“No. I’m alone. I think.”
“You think ?”
“I kinda thought I saw you tonight. Watching me.”
“I’m not. I haven’t.”
“It’s okay. I kinda…” Her voice trails off to nothing.
“Kind of what?” I swallow hard.
“It made me feel a little better. The idea that you cared.”
“I do care. I can be there in five minutes?—”
“No. Maybe. Crap. No!” she repeats with a gorgeous little laugh. “I don’t want you here. But, it’s nice to hear your voice.”
“It’s nice to hear yours too,” I say. “I really am sorry.”
“For what?” she asks idly.
“That I upset you, before, when I followed you. I didn’t consider it stalking. But it was wrong of me. I’m sorry if I scared you.”
“I know you are.” She’s quiet, her breathing growing more even.
“I caved to my baser Mothman instincts. I shouldn’t have let them win.”
She takes a deep breath, so I continue.
“I just wanted to know more about you. To know who you were and what you were doing. To know everything about you. But, I haven’t followed you anywhere since you told me to stop after our first weekend together.”
“Never?” she sounds incredulous. “Not even once?”
“No. Of course not.”
“Huh.” She laughs. “I guess I’m not used to men respecting my boundaries.”
“I’m sorry for that too, Piper.” I pause so I can listen to her gentle breathing. She sounds much calmer now. “Do you feel better? Is there anything else I can do for you?”
“Will you just—” Her voice is strained. “Will you talk to me for a little while?”
“Of course. What do you want me to say?”
“What have you been doing lately?” The noise on the other end of the phone is like her rolling over.
“I’ve kept myself busy with work. And my sister’s family.” Anything that distracts me from thinking about her. “The mothlings are heading back to Canada next week. Sacha and Bailey invited me to their wedding, but I don’t know if I’m going to go.”
“What?” she asks. “Why not?”
“It’s going to be loud and crowded,” I say. “I’m not sure they even want me there.”
“Of course they want you there.”
“I just don’t know if I’ll be comfortable.”
“You’re going to regret it if you don’t go. You should go, take a date.”
“Who would I take?” It’s a stupid question. I’m not going to take anyone but her. “No one would want to go with me.”
I hear her shifting on the other end of the phone until a string of questions comes out of her in a rush. “You haven’t been dating anyone else? You don’t have anyone to take?”
“If I said yes, would you come over and try to stop me?”
She grunts in irritation.
“No, I haven’t been dating.”
“Just promise me you won’t get back with Tiffany.” There’s a sneer in her voice.
“Why are you thinking about Tiffany?”
“I met her today. Ant, she was just awful. You can do better than that. You deserve someone who?—”
I swallow hard. “Someone who what?”
“Respects you.”
My chest squeezes. “Thank you, Piper. For respecting me.”
There’s a long pause before she talks again. “Would you like me to go with you?”
“We can go anywhere you like,” I joke.
“To the wedding. I could go with you, if it will help you feel comfortable.”
My stomach does a swoop.
“If the crowd is too big, or it’s too bright, or too noisy, we can leave,” she assures me. “We’ll bring your sunglasses and earplugs if you want, and?—”
I cannot stop smiling. “You’d do that for me?”
“Of course,” she says with a little laugh. “Why wouldn’t I? We’re friends.”
“Right. Of course. We’re friends,” I repeat. The word stabs at me, but Ness was right. This small contact is so much better than never speaking to her, or seeing her.
“Yes, friends,” she mutters. I hear her shifting in the bed. Alone. Curled under her covers. Warm and soft.
I cannot stop the purr caught in my throat.
“Hmph.” She makes a strange noise on the other side of the phone.
“What are you doing right now?” I ask.
“Just lying in bed. Trying to sleep,” she replies. “I can’t sleep when you purr like that.” Her voice goes breathy.
“Do you want me to stop?”
“God no.”
I settle into my office chair, making the noise again, letting my chest rumble.
“I could listen to that sound all day. It’s almost like ASMR, but—” she murmurs, on the edge of sleep, or maybe something else.
My rumble deepens, and she releases a small gasp. Yes. That is what I wanted to hear, she's far from sleep.
I pause my purr. “But what?”
She groans.
“What?” I pester, leaning forward in my chair. I can feel she’s about to say something amazing.
“Ugh. It’s hot, alright? It’s sexy! It’s really really nice to listen to,” she grumbles.
I’m grinning as I let another purr rumble through my chest for her. I hear her sigh and shift on her bed. I rub my palm across my heated groin. A growing need to touch myself.
She makes a strangled noise.
“Is something wrong?”
“Ant. I don’t want you to think this means anything.”
“What would it mean?” I ask, cupping my own slit. My cock strains behind it, longing to emerge.
“I just wondered if you would help me with something.”
“What’s that, my flame?”
“I… haven’t been able to come since we were together,” she confesses. I suck in a breath.
“That must be really frustrating.” A small part of me preens at her admission.
“It is. Believe me. I’ve tried. A lot. The only times I have was—” She stops herself from speaking.
I need to hear the end of this sentence so badly. “Was when?”
“When I pretended you were outside my window. Watching me.”
Fuck. My dick shoots out in one fast swoop, into my waiting grip. Another purr rumbles deep in my chest, I couldn’t stop the noise now if I tried. She makes another soft moan on her side of the phone.
“Fuck, baby girl. That’s hot.”
She lets out one of her sexy little giggles.
“I can help you,” I tell her. “If that’s what you need right now. Friends help each other with things, right?”
“Right,” she agrees easily.
“What are you wearing?”
“Nothing,” she mutters. “I mean, clothes of course.”
“A shirt?” I ask.
“Tanktop.”
I reward her with a louder purr.
“No bra,” she murmurs. I can picture her now, spread across the bed. The slopes of her full breasts, her nipples puckering at the thin fabric of the shirt. Fuck. One hand tracing lazily across her stomach down to?—
“Underwear?” The rumble settles deep in my chest.
“Big baggy granny panties,” she says, but I hear the giggle in her voice.
“That’s a lie,” I say, slowly stroking my cock.
“It is,” she admits with a little laugh. “I’m Pooh Bearing it. No bottoms. Completely bare down there.”
I reward her with a deep loud purr and feel justified when I hear her breath hitch.
“Piper,” I whisper her name.
“Ant?” she whispers back.
“Are you wet?”
“I don’t know.” She giggles.
“Why don’t you touch yourself and find out?” I resume the warm purr.
She’s quiet for a long moment. I worry that I pushed her too far until her voice comes back a little strained.
“Yeah. I’m really wet.”
“I bet you are,” I whisper. “Are you touching yourself for me?”
“Ant,” she says just my name, and my whole body lights up.
“Do you think you could come for me now?”
She makes a soft noise that I can only interpret as an agreement.
“Would you put a couple fingers into that wet pussy?” I purr. She lets out a soft moan. My fist pumps furiously along my shaft. “Will you stroke yourself, for me? Play with your clit?”
She doesn’t say anything for a long moment. I just sit with her, letting her listen to my continuous purring. Waiting to find out what else she needs from me.
There’s a little whimper on the other end of the phone. So quiet that I barely hear it. It’s gorgeous. Not the same noises that she made when she was with me. It’s different when you are touching yourself. There’s no surprises, nothing to tease or make you gasp.
“How are you doing, beautiful?” I ask. “Are you close? What do you need?”
“I don’t know—” She makes more quiet needy noises that make me squeeze my cock harder. “I don’t know what I need, Ant.”
“What if I was outside your window right now? Looking at you? Watching you put your hands between your legs. If I could see your dark nipples through your tank top. The way your mouth hangs open, those plump lips gasping and begging for me.”
“Ant. Please.”
I don’t think either of us knows what she’s begging for. “I’m outside watching, while I stroke myself, my big long dick, wishing you were wrapped around it. Maybe if you are a good girl, and come for me, I’ll fly across the street, open your window, sneak into your room, and fuck you into that mattress.”
“Yes. Yes. Ant.” She’s gasping now, her voice strained and broken.
“Come for me, baby girl.” I purr deep and long, my own pleasure half forgotten. At this point, all I can think about is her needs. Her desires. “You are going to come for me as many times as you can, and then, I’ll be at your side, using you, taking your body. Making it mine. Sliding into you and filling you up with my cum.”
“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.” She’s whispering, her voice shattered and broken. I hear when she falls apart. The break in her gasps let me know she’s reaching her climax. I speed up my own strokes, trying to meet her. “Fuck. I?—”
A strangled noise that contains my name spills through the phone, and a breath later, my own cum splashes across the bottom of my desk.
“Wow. Ant. That was—did you?” She doesn’t finish her question, and she doesn’t need to. Her breathing slows to a more regular pace, but all of her words remain monosyllabic.
“Yes.” I purr for her, wishing it was my hand, or my mouth, or my cock that made her come. I’m okay if it’s just my voice.
“Oh my god, Ant. I really needed that.”
“Any time, beautiful.”
“Oh yeah?” She laughs. It’s such a perfect sound, I love hearing it from her.
“Yes. You need to fix this orgasm problem. Human women are already having tragically few orgasms. If you need to call me to get off, that's okay.”
She laughs again. “I wish it were that simple.”
“It can be,” I tell her. “If you want it to be. At least until you figure out how to come without me.”
I hate even saying that, but I mean it. As long as she’s happy. I’d rather she call me and break my heart every day than turn to another male.
“Okay,” she says quietly. “Maybe I’ll take you up on that.”