Chapter Twenty-One
P iper was feeling light and giggly as she crawled across her bed and installed herself under the thick, fluffy duvet. Massima had questions, of course, but Piper had managed to brush her off with her own interruption, laughing as she insisted Massima had been right that they had an early morning tomorrow and needed to get plenty of sleep. They’d all booked off work for this, it was important. Massima hadn’t been especially happy with that, but Piper figured she’d already heard enough for one night.
She toyed with the neck of the sweatshirt she’d thrown on, holding her phone up and staring at her messages with August. Was it too soon to message? Too late? Would August already be asleep, or trying to sleep? Her drive home wouldn’t have taken long. She’d have made it back while Massima was asking questions and Piper was taking a quick shower.
Her phone screen switched. An incoming call. August’s name.
An excited bolt shot through her body.
“Hello,” she said, low and amused, as she answered.
“So, I went on a date tonight,” August said, matching her tone and following a familiar script that suddenly felt like a whole new story.
“Oh, yeah? Did it go well?”
“Mm, yes, very well.”
“Ah, so, she didn’t call you by another woman’s name, or ditch you in the middle of the date to flirt with someone else?”
August laughed quietly. “She did not.”
“Didn’t bring her mom along to question every choice you’ve ever made in life?”
“Nope.” She laughed again, a little louder. “Although, if she had, I still might have been into her.”
Piper snuggled further down in her blankets. She hadn’t been this soft over anyone in a very long time. “Wow. It must have been a very good date if you’d overlook something so egregious.”
“Maybe she’s worth it.”
She bit her lip, acutely aware of the slide of her thighs against each other, the small boxer shorts she was wearing riding high on her legs. August’s voice was so deep and sensual down the phone, right into her ear.
“I wish I’d invited you in,” she told August.
“I wish I’d said yes.”
Piper’s chest rose and fell rapidly as she heard August’s breath hitching too. “Yeah?”
“I would have said yes.”
“I would have asked.”
“I know.”
“Even though it was a first date?” Piper laughed.
“It wasn’t just any first date. Which is why I know you’d have asked.”
“And why I know you’d have said yes.”
“Yes.” August breathed the word so softly but it filled Piper’s head and seemed to resonate through every atom in her body.
After a moment, she laughed. “You know we still have the same problem, though?”
“And what’s that?” August asked.
“We have to get up early to help your brother move in with one of my best friends.”
August groaned. “I really don’t want to talk about them right now.”
Piper bit down on a sigh. “Same, but…”
“But.” She uttered a frustrated little noise. “I’m in bed. Are you?”
“Yes?”
“You aren’t sure?” August laughed.
“No. I am. I’m just curious where that question is going…”
“Ah.”
Piper hummed as she listened to August clear her throat. Excitement bounced around her stomach and her chest.
“I was…” August hesitated. “I was just making the point that we’re both in bed. Nice and early.”
“Not as early as it would have been if I hadn’t been on a date with you tonight,” Piper teased.
“Oh, are you sad about that? Wishing you went out with someone else?”
“Not at all.”
“Wishing we hadn’t spent quite so long at your front door?”
The way her voice trailed off suggestively was exactly what Piper wasn’t supposed to want—and exactly what she did. Her fingers traced over her lips, remembering August’s mouth on them. “It’s not that. Well, actually, it is—in that, I’m wishing we’d spent more time there.” She hesitated. “Or here.”
“On the phone?” August asked, even though she knew exactly what Piper meant.
“No,” she breathed. “ Here. ”
Piper traced the fingers of her free hand down her body, longing for it to be August’s hands on her again.
“Piper,” she warned, and Piper could hear all of the desperate need inside her reflected in August’s voice.
“August,” she replied, the sound halfway to a moan.
“ Piper. ”
“Mm.” She could feel her heartbeat pounding in every part of her, like a drum driving her on. Driving them on. “August?”
“Yes?” she gasped, breathless.
“What would we have been doing if you’d come inside?”
“I think you know the answer to that.”
“I want to know that you do, too.”
She laughed, the sound wavering with desire. “Well, your hands wouldn’t be cold, that’s for sure.”
Piper giggled. The memory of August’s hot skin burning into her cold hands was so vivid she could almost feel it again, almost smell August’s skin, and hear the way she’d gasped before pushing Piper’s hands back under her shirt. “What would they be doing?”
“Piper,” August groaned. “Do you really want me to answer that?”
“Yes.” Her voice burned. “But you don’t have to if you don’t want to.”
“I want to. You have no idea how much I want to, but I need you to know what’s going to happen if I do answer.”
Piper’s heart raced impossibly faster. “What’s going to happen?”
August’s breath rushed from her body with enough force to be heard clearly down the line. “What do you think might happen if I’m lying in bed right after we kissed and telling you what we’d do if we were in the same bed?”
“We’ll have sex.”
August cleared her throat, clearly surprised by how simply and directly Piper named it. “Phone sex, technically.”
“First time for everything.”
“Second time, too,” she said stiffly.
Piper grinned. “You’ve had phone sex before?”
“Once.”
“How was it?”
“Terrible. We were young and awkward and not good enough at it in person to pull it off over the phone.”
“Mm. Well, you’re not any of those things now.”
“I think we’d actually have to have sex for you to know if I’m any good at it.”
“Oh, believe me, I look forward to finding out exactly how good you are, but there’s no way you’re not great at it, not with the way you kiss.”
She laughed in surprise. “Well, I’m glad you approve.”
“I do. So, August, tell me what my hands would be doing if you were here.”
“Touching me,” she whispered, her voice impossibly urgent.
Piper couldn’t help but trace her fingers lightly up her thighs. She’d never been able to hear just how badly someone wanted her before. It was ridiculously compelling. “Yes,” she gasped. “Where?”
“Anywhere. Everywhere.”
“God, I want to touch you.”
“Piper,” she moaned, a little louder, more confident than before.
“I have to take my shorts off.”
“ Yes. ”
“What are you wearing?” Piper asked as she used her free hand to yank her boxers down, kicking them off somewhere under the blankets.
August laughed at the clichéd question. “Pajamas.”
“Take them off. I want to know that you’re naked.”
August moaned in agreement and Piper could hear the rustle of bedsheets as she stripped her clothes off.
She really should have just invited August in. Who cared what time they had to get up in the morning? Being with her was worth whatever exhaustion tomorrow would bring.
“Are you naked?” Piper asked when the noise settled down again.
“Yes.”
“Wow.” She couldn’t hold back any longer, her hand moving eagerly to her clit, fingers working faster than she wanted them to. She wanted to draw this whole thing out, wanted it to last, but her body was racing ahead of her. “I’m touching myself, August. Thinking about you naked. Thinking about you kissing me, about my hands under your shirt.”
“Fuck, that’s hot.”
“ You’re hot.”
“You, too,” August said right as Piper moaned down the phone, prompting a needy gasp from her too.
“God, I wish you were here.”
“Me too. I want to kiss you, feel you. I was so turned on the whole way home.”
“I love thinking about you like that, trying desperately to concentrate on anything but how much you want me.” Her fingers moved rapidly, dancing over her clit, her body hurtling closer and closer as she listened to August’s ragged breathing and imagined how wet she’d been driving home. “I took a shower trying to cool down—” She broke off as she felt herself close to the edge, forcing her hand to slow down, to make this last longer.
“Is that supposed to help?” August asked, her voice rough and uneven, informing Piper she was getting close too. “Because the thought of you wet and naked isn’t cooling me down.”
“I’m not sad about that.”
“Same. Fuck. Piper, I’m so close.”
Piper moaned. She loved phone sex. She loved hearing August touching herself, loved having August tell her what was happening. “I want to listen to you come, August. I want you to come thinking about me wet, and naked, and touching you. Because I am wet and naked right now, and I wish I was touching you.”
August let out a long, low moan before she began chanting curses that cut off with a gasped moan as she came. The sounds pushed Piper over the edge with her, her fingers moving so fast they were almost clumsy. Her body tensed, her feet planted on the mattress pushed her hips up, desperately searching for August’s distant touch as pleasure wracked through her body, flooding every inch of her in delicious, thrumming satisfaction.
She listened to August’s panting coming into time with her own as they both floated in the bliss of the moment.
“I definitely should have asked you in,” she said eventually, breaking the joyous quiet between them.
“We both know why you didn’t. We both know it was for the best.” August laughed, sounding thoroughly spent.
Piper desperately wanted to know what she looked like after she came—and when she came. “Do we?”
“Okay, maybe we don’t, but we both know why we had to go home alone.”
“Because phone sex is amazing and we wouldn’t have gotten to do it otherwise?”
“All you have to do is call.” She laughed softly. “I think we’d have gotten the opportunity either way.”
“That is great information to have.”
“Are you surprised I want to have sex with you? After tonight ?”
“Ha. Well, I guess not. But, still. Good to know which options are on the table.”
“All the options. Every single one of them.”
Piper hummed happily and wondered whether that included doing it on the table. She still hadn’t gotten the answer for exactly what August had done on tables before but she didn’t mind getting it from a live demonstration. “So… if I called a cab and had it bring me to you right now?”
“Absolutely on the table.”
She giggled. “We probably shouldn’t…”
“Probably not. I wouldn’t want to get any sleep at all if you were here right now.”
“Right. And we’re supposed to be awake and alert tomorrow.”
“Apparently.”
“But… just so you know, I’m totally free tomorrow night.”
August breathed another laugh. “What do you know? Me too.”
“That is fantastic news. Best news ever.”
She sighed fondly. “Piper?”
“Yes, August?”
“I had a really great date tonight.”
A dazzling smile took over Piper’s face. “Me, too.”
“I’m glad.”
“Same.” She paused. “Also, you’re a fantastic kisser. Can’t wait to do it again.”
August groaned in amusement. “Are you trying to make me get in the car and drive over there right now?”
“You’re asking that as if I don’t want you in my bed.”
“Well—”
“I want you here. In my bed. With me. Right now.” She laughed once. “And, preferably, without clothes.”
“You seemed to enjoy having your hands inside my clothes earlier.”
“Yeah, interestingly, that wasn’t about the clothing.”
“Ah. The more you know.”
“Although, maybe you should be coming here and driving us back to your place to get naked.” Her fingers brushed lightly over her sensitive clit, just thinking about it. “I wasn’t exactly keeping it down and, you know, I have a roommate. A nosy one.”
August laughed. “Right. I’d forgotten all about that. Don’t tell Massima.”
“Your secret is safe with me.”
“If tonight is anything to go by, she’d probably press a glass against the bedroom wall to better listen in. Definitely preferable to come back here where we can be alone to do whatever we want, wherever we want.”
“Is this you telling me you want me in every room of the house?”
“It’s not not me saying that.”
Piper laughed. “Are you going all coy on me?”
She paused, the silence loaded. “I want you in every room of my house. And I want you here, in my bed.”
“Mm.” The sound was more of a moan as the throbbing between Piper’s thighs kicked up again. “August. Not being in the same place is supposed to be saving us from staying up all night having sex.”
“Oh?” she asked, faux innocently. “Did I say something contrary to that?”
Piper moaned and spread her legs wider again. “Yes. You did.”
“My bad.”
“You’re not even a little bit sorry.”
“Correct,” she laughed. “Why would I be sorry that the most interesting, beautiful woman I’ve ever met is turned on?”
“Because you’re not here.”
“Ah, well, I am sorry about that. But, for now, you can touch yourself and think about tomorrow night when I get to have you here, spread out on my bed.”
Piper writhed and moaned and couldn’t resist touching herself eagerly again as August—a little more composed for having come once—took Piper apart with her words and the vision of what tomorrow night would be like.