Chapter 16 Caleb
CALEB
“Piper Hart,” Ryan says, reading from the documents that Marco has just sent over. “Again?” He glares at me even though it was Marco who filled in the paperwork. “So, the stream has claimed its second victim.”
“Don’t ask me why she went out there. I have no idea. But she’s okay. I dropped her off at the hospital.”
Marco looks at me sourly.
“Firefighters should not be dropping victims off at the hospital.” Ryan deepens his glare. “This is something I should be telling a grad. Not a professional officer of…however many years. The same rules still apply, even if you know the victim.”
“Apologies.”
Keller keeps up the cutthroat staring. “You were never friends, were you?”
I shake my head before this situation gets even more out of hand. “No. But we are now—I can assure you.”
“This is something that the loss assessor will be able to use against both you and Piper.”
“For having a previous relationship with someone that I’m now letting stay in my house, temporarily?”
Piper’s words. Not mine.
“You’d be surprised.” Ryan slaps the documents on the couch arm and regards me. “There is still something between you two,” he states.
No warning about Piper being a criminal this time?
“I’m not so sure about that.”
“Whatever’s going on, you can’t let it interfere with work. I need you to stay professional and look out for her.”
“Look out for her? What do you mean?”
This peaks Marco’s interest as well as mine.
Ryan sighs. “The woman paid a few late mortgage payments, but she’s no criminal. I fear Mr. Taylor is taking this way out of hand and doing what insurance mongrels normally do. Piper Hart has no criminal convictions. Make sure to watch out for her.”
I narrow my eyes, curious to see where he goes with this.
“Work comes first, of course.” He resumes his normal tone. “These documents from the night shift aren’t going to sign themselves.” He waggles them midair, handing them over. “I’m going for a break, but remember”—he points a warning finger at me—“no taking people to the hospital.”
“You only did that because you love her,” Marco teases as soon as Ryan leaves the room.
I flash him daggers. “I’m not having this conversation again with you.”
“Suit yourself.”
I survive the rest of the shift by drinking strong Americanos and staying clear of Marco. The last thing I need is him bringing up the incident from earlier.
I would’ve dropped everything for Piper, regardless of whether I was in the middle of a job or not. But that’s the big issue I’m having at the moment. I’m risking my job here to save her. And I’d take being fired over losing her.
But I need this job to keep mine and Ellie’s lives afloat. Introducing more people into your life is a disaster waiting to happen. It’s like seeing a car crash ahead and continuing to drive straight toward the wreck. I know what future awaits.
And I still chose to sleep with her last night.
I leave the station at the end of the day, return home, and find her curled up on the couch. Her hair is swirled on top of her head, messy, similar to how it was last night when we—
“I didn’t expect you back yet.” She surveys me from the couch with those same tired eyes that make me crumble.
“Yeah,” I respond, my voice croaking with tiredness. “I finished on time today.” I keep my eyes glued on hers, hoping that this won’t be the end of the conversation.
I don’t know how the fuck we’re supposed to be friends. A college course on friendship would help so I could at least know where to start with it all.
But friends is best. Friends keeps everything civil with the kids, and ours have been through enough already. The last thing they need is for their parents to be acting frosty with one another.
Their parents…
Piper remains on the couch, so I go in with the question I’ve been wanting to ask her. “How did the hospital visit go?”
“Good.” She rolls up her sweatpants, baring a bandaged foot. “Thank God it was a sprain and not a fracture.”
“And you can walk?”
“Just about.”
We fall back into silence—dangerous territory. It’s nighttime and the kids are upstairs. Perfect chance for us to commit a crime, yet again.
After what happened last night, my restraint is holding on by only a thread. She looks good when she’s disheveled. Hair in its natural state. Eyes tired, wide as they stare up at me with the perfect mix of innocence and playfulness. I notice her gaze lingering, like she’s undressing me in her mind.
All she has to do is say the word.
Don’t you dare make this even more complicated, Rourke.
“Where are the kids?” I look at her pointedly.
“Upstairs,” she says, choosing to keep it vague. “Why?”
“No reason…apart from the fact that you sent them to bed hours before their bedtime.” I raise an eyebrow. “It seems like you’re taking a page out of my book.”
“Who says they’re asleep?” She hitches an eyebrow of her own, mirroring my expression. “Jumping to conclusions are you now?”
“No conclusions.” I straighten up and try to regard her as something different. A friend. How might one view Piper Hart as a friend? All my eyes can focus on is her cherry-red lips, and her cleavage, which glows warm and inviting under the soft lamplight.
Interestingly, her chest is rising and falling with shallow breaths.
I study the area for another moment and imagine her on my couch.
Naked. Her pert nipples are the same blushed color as her lips.
I can bet they’re pressing hard against her bra now, begging for my tongue.
She can never get enough when I get my mouth around them.
My cock wants to get inside of her right this second, but another part of me wants to comfort her after what happened today. Reassuring back rubs can go a long way—I can vouch for that after receiving them multiple times from Piper, back when we were dating.
“I can’t resist you when you’re looking at me like that,” she says.
“Look at you like what? Like you want me to fuck you? I see it in your eyes.”
“Friends don’t talk about having sex with one another.
” Piper sticks her nose into the air and tries to ignore her feelings.
Unfortunately, her body language always tells the truth, no matter how much she tries to hide it.
Her cheeks are nearing the same hot-pink color as her lips, and her chest is heaving even faster than before.
I have a mind to rip off her shirt and bury my face in between those breasts.
But I have an even better idea.
“We’ll be friends,” I promise her. “On the condition that you’re not wet.”
“Excuse me?” She snaps her head around to look at me.
“I understand and respect your decision. But friends can only be friends if there’s no sexual attraction there. A woman shouldn’t be getting wet and short of breath for her friend, now should she?”
“I’m neither of those things.”
I give her another pointed look. “Show me.”
“What?”
“You heard what I said.” I lean over and make sure she can smell my cologne. “I want you to show me.”
Her eyes turn black, but her mouth remains stubborn as always. “Last night I told you that I wanted to give the friends thing a go. And I specifically remember telling you that I didn’t want the benefits on the side.” She clenches her jaw, at war with her emotions.
Piper has always been an open book. I can smell the desire on her, dripping warm down the apex of her thighs, but I also know that she doesn’t wanna go there because she’s afraid of falling back into that same place again.
My desire is clouding my ability to make rational decisions.
“Forget what I said. Today has been a long day and I need my bed.”
“Before you need dinner?” She pitches an eyebrow up at me. “What happened after you left me at the hospital?”
“Nothing,” I tell her. “But sleep has a way of catching up to you when you’ve not managed to get much…of…it.”
Her eyes turn shrewd. “What’s keeping you up at night?”
“I think you know, Hart.” I fold my arms over my chest and watch her scroll her eyes up and down my uniform, like she still can’t get enough of seeing me in it. “We both know that this situation was complicated to begin with, and we didn’t exactly help matters last night.”
“I know.” She finds my eyes. “It also doesn’t help that it was quite possibly the best night of my life.”
I hitch an eyebrow. “Is that so?”
“We both know so.”
“You like being bent over my desk—noted.” I let a smirk crawl onto my face and retreat upstairs. “I’m getting an early night, but I’ll be up in the morning for the school run. Night, Hart.”
With a third leg growing between my other two, walking upstairs is a challenge. I make it into my bedroom in one piece, and hear the distant sound of childish laughter coming from Ellie’s room.
I’m lured into Ellie’s room out of curiosity and see her and Sonny laughing contently, in their own world, balancing Barbie dolls on the toy plane Sonny still picks up to play with now and again. They get on like a house on fire and haven’t had one disagreement yet.
I say hello to the pair of them and close myself away in my room for a while to decompress. My erection is gone fully.
Until I pick up my phone and see a message from her.
Hart: Open me.
Attached to the message is a photo, which the rational side of me knows not to open under any circumstance.
Seems like we’re back to the sexting games.
I hover my finger over the message and wait for the screen to go black. Out of sight, out of mind. Except it’s not out of mind.
Hart: Didn’t you want to see how wet I was?
I unlock my phone and tap on the photo. She’s playing a very cruel, confusing game that is testing my restraints even more than before.
The zoomed-in photo of her pussy folds me in half. Her nectar is everywhere, drizzling down between her thighs, just like I thought it would be. Don’t even get me started on the finger that’s teasing through her outside folds, displaying as much of herself for the camera as possible.
I rush downstairs and find her curled up on the couch all the same, but the look on her face is trouble.