Chapter 40
NASH
Ipull into the driveway after a workout session in the arena, a couple days after the charity gala with Piper. The one where she wore that shade of lipstick I still haven’t been able to get out of my head.
I damn sure haven’t been able to get that comment she made about how her lipstick looks on something other than her lips out of my head.
Piper hasn’t shown any mercy to me yet, continuing to tease me and make me sweat with sexual frustration. I’m getting to the point where I don’t know how much longer I can withstand it.
The thing is, I don’t even think she’s trying to make me snap. That doesn’t seem like her motivation here. I think she just wants me to admit that I was lying through my teeth when I said we don’t have any chemistry.
But if I did that, I’d have to give her the real reason why I don’t want us to start sleeping together. I don’t know how she’ll react if she realizes how close I am to falling for her, so close that getting physical with her would immediately push me over the edge, deep into the point of no return.
I look up at the sky as I walk to the front door. The forecast today was clear and sunny, but half an hour ago, ominous, dark storm clouds started to gather overhead unexpectedly.
The petrichor smell of coming rain is thick in the air. The clouds look heavy and swollen with water. There’s a tension in the air that seems to promise thunder.
Even as I’m turning the handle of the front door, I’m struck with the sense that the house is empty. Like Piper’s presence, which I’d surely feel already if it were here, is missing. It’s enough to sink my chest with disappointment.
This is exactly why I can’t agree to her proposition. I’m already feeling sad when I get home and she’s not here.
When I step inside and confirm that she’s not at home, my brows knit. I saw her car outside, so where else would she be? Out poking her nose in the shed again for some reason?
Walking to the back door, a piece of paper on the kitchen counter catches my eye. I pick it up and read it.
Hey Nash. I felt like taking the ATV out for a spin, in case you get home before I get back and wonder where I am. I’m growing addicted to this thing. Yee-haw.
That last word is framed in a speech bubble emanating from a smiley face wearing a cowboy hat that Piper drew.
My chest glows warm at her little sketch.
But the pleasant feeling only lasts a second, because I remember the dark and threatening clouds that are only growing thicker in the sky as the minutes pass. Piper’s still out there.
I step outside, hoping to spot her riding back. But I don’t see her. The land stretches far toward the horizon, and a couple hundred yards away from the house, there are some hills that make it hard to see beyond them.
Worry pulls tight in my stomach. Especially when the first drops of rain start to fall. They’re fat and ice cold, and they hit the ground with concerning velocity.
I pace the living room with my arms crossed tight over my chest and my chin tucked low, until the first thunderclap rips through the air like a bomb. The rasp of rain hitting the dry ground intensifies.
I try to call her, but I just hear her phone vibrate from on top of her bed. Damn it, she went out without it.
I step outside again, not caring a lick that the rain drenches me in an instant, my wet clothes clinging to my body. I gaze out into the distance, but the rain is too dense in the air to even see the distance of the hills.
Maybe she’s at the petting zoo. Maybe the rain started to fall, and she was closer to there than she was to home. I call them, practically praying that that’s the case, but they tell me she isn’t there. The worry pounding through my body is hovering on the edge of panic now.
I run outside, about fifty yards away from the back door, the cold rain whipping my body and soaking me to the bone.
I bracket my hands at the sides of my mouth, take a deep breath, and let out in the loudest bellow my lungs can power, “PIPER!”
If she’s close enough to hear me, maybe she’ll yell back, or at least blow the horn on the ATV. But right now, it wouldn’t matter if she were doing either of those things, because a deafening clap of thunder splits the sky, and the rain starts to fall harder.
My chest hitches, breaths coming in short and choppy, my hands jittery at my sides. It’s a full-blown thunderstorm, and my wife is somewhere out there.
My legs itch to set off in a sprint, running out to try and find her. But there’s way too much ground to cover, and the density of raindrops hurtling from the black storm clouds makes for minimal visibility. We could be twenty yards away from each other in rain like this and not know it.
I wring my hands together, trying to keep the tremors of worry from spreading through my body, trying to will enough collected reason into my brain to think of an actual solution.
There’s only one thing that comes to mind. I run to my truck.
I throw open the gate of the fencing surrounding the property, hop into my truck, turn the ignition, and start to drive.
Even with my headlights on and the windshield wipers going at maximum, the heavy lash of rain makes it hard to see. My wheels squish against the wet ground, throwing up a spray of cold water in my tracks.
I honk the horn and roll down the window, not caring about the rain that whips through it, to yell out Piper’s name as I drive across the land. My voice gets hoarse, but I don’t stop.
I’m not sure how much time passes as I try to cover as much ground as possible. The panic feels acrid and corrosive in my chest. I’m white knuckling the steering wheel, the only thing I can do to keep my hands from shaking.
The harsh lash of the rain against the truck fills the cabin with a constant, unnerving metallic hum.
Somehow, over the sound of my engine, the wheels spraying water, the pounding rain, and my own pulse beating a drum in my ear, I pick up another noise cutting weakly through the chaotic air outside.
It’s short and sharp, but my heart leaps in my chest when my ears sense the slightest hint of recognition.
I stop the truck and get out, cold rain thrashing me.
“PIPER!” I yell with every ounce of strength I can muster.
I press my eyelids shut tight, trying to put every power of sense I have into my hearing. My breath catches when I hear what sounds like a voice respond. The feeling of recognition is stronger this time, and though the sound is too distant to make out what it says, hope blooms through me.
With fragile hope, I bellow into the beating rain, “PIPER, STAY WHERE YOU ARE! I’M COMING!”
I get into the truck and drive toward the source of the sound I heard—or at least think, hope, pray that I heard.
“PIPER!” I yell out the window, my heart stalling in my chest with the desperate hope that I hear a response.
“Nash!”
I gasp, eyelids shooting open at the unmistakable sound.
My whole body is vibrating with a mixture of hope, worry, and impatience as I drive toward it.
Finally, I see her.
I drive until I’m just in front of her, then leap out of the truck and run to her, taking her in my arms and holding her tight, gasping breaths of relief.
She’s soaked by the rain, her usually warm skin frighteningly cold to the touch. I hold her tighter, rubbing my hands all over her to warm her, even though my own are chilled from the rain that poured through the open window.
“The rain came out of nowhere,” Piper says, her voice and body shivering.
“Shhh,” I soothe, picking her up. “Don’t talk.”
I put her in the passenger seat, glad that I kept the window on that side up so that it’s mostly dry. I hurry to my side, roll the window up, and drive back to the house.
“Are you okay?” I ask, adrenaline still pumping, though the relief of finding Piper is starting to take some of the edge off.
She’s curled up in her seat, limbs tucked close to her body, still shivering. But she nods. “Yeah, I think so. I just need to get warm.”
I pull the truck up to the back of the house, swinging out of the driver’s seat and not even thinking to close the door behind me as I hurry to round the engine to Piper’s seat. I open it and gather her in my arms to carry into the house.
I help Piper out of her wet clothes. As I’m unbuttoning her shirt, an action that in this moment feels totally utilitarian and unerotic, she cracks a smile. “Not even buying me dinner, first?”
I lower my brow at her, even as the edge of my lips twitches. “Let’s get you medically stable before you start cracking jokes.”
She huffs a laugh, still shaky from her shivering chest. “I’m fine. Just cold.”
“Maybe we should take you to a hospital.”
“Over-dramatic as always,” she dismisses in a weak voice. “I’m fine, like I said. I just need to warm up. And lie down.”
“That damn stubborn wife of mine,” I joke, feeling the worst of my worry washing away. “Reckless, too.”
“But that’s why you fell for me, right? Opposites attract.” Her voice makes it clear she’s still joking with me, but when the words hit my ear, their truth rings through me.
Once she’s wrapped in a warm blanket and I’ve got her laid down on the couch, I kneel next to her, shaking my head.
“Fuck, Piper,” I heave a relieved sigh. “You had me so damn worried.”
I can’t help myself. I curl my hand around the back of her neck and lean down to press a soft kiss to her forehead. Pure relief spills through me as my lips touch her, and I can feel the warmth returning to her skin.
Pulling back, our eyes lock. Something in her gaze reaches through mine, landing somewhere deep in my chest.
“Kiss me again, Nash,” she says, a soft plea.
I do, planting my lips to her forehead again, letting them luxuriate against the softness of her skin for entirely too long
But when I pull back and our eyes catch again, she says, “Not there.”
My gaze falls to her lips, and my pulse stutters.
“There,” she whispers, her eyes feathering closed and her lips parting. The glimpse of her pink tongue behind the crease of her lips has my self-control in tatters in less than a second.
I can’t kiss her. I shouldn’t kiss her. I have to kiss her.
I know what will happen if I kiss her. I won’t be able to stop. I’ll have to have her in every way she’ll let me, and she already made it clear how far she’s willing to let me.
I’ll be a goner, past the point of no return. If that happens, I’ll …
Who the hell am I kidding? I’m already a goner. I’m downright in love with my wife, and no amount of self-restraint is going to keep me from being shattered when she leaves. I might as well make the most of it for the both of us while she’s still here.
So, I meet her lips, and I kiss her.