Chapter 7 #2
The outdoor shower was tucked along the side of the house behind a cedar enclosure Gray had built tall enough to provide actual privacy instead of vacation-rental optimism.
There was a latch, two hooks, a small bench, and a shower head that had enough pressure to remove skin if you turned it all the way up.
I handed Piper the towel.
“Hot water takes ten seconds. Left handle sticks.”
“Anything else in the safety briefing?”
“No stepping on the gunwale.”
She smiled.
Then she reached for the hem of her wet tank.
I stopped breathing.
Piper looked at me.
“You can go now.”
“Right.”
I turned.
Made it two steps.
“Rafe.”
I stopped.
“Yeah?”
“Lock the gate.”
The side gate opened from the driveway into the narrow shower walkway.
I looked back at her.
Her expression was calm.
Mine probably was not.
“The gate?”
“Unless you want a delivery driver learning too much about my afternoon.”
“Excellent point.”
I locked it.
When I turned around again, Piper was inside the enclosure with the door half open.
Her tank top was on the bench.
So were her shorts.
Dark one-piece swimsuit. Wet skin. Bare legs.
My mouth went dry while standing six feet from running water.
“You can still go,” she said.
“Do you want me to?”
She hooked one finger into the front of my shirt.
“No.”
That was enough.
I stepped inside and latched the shower door behind me.
Piper grabbed the hem of my shirt and pulled it over my head before I could make a single intelligent contribution.
“That seems aggressive,” I said.
“You like aggressive.”
“I contain multitudes.”
She laughed and kissed me.
The first kiss in the equipment bay had surprised me.
This one did not.
That made it worse.
Or better.
Definitely worse for my ability to remember we were standing under a shower attached to a house where I had lived for eleven years.
Her mouth opened under mine. I backed her into the cedar wall, then immediately put one hand behind her head because the wood was rough and apparently Cole had infected all of us with risk management.
Piper broke the kiss just enough to smile.
“Safety first?”
“I hate that you know us already.”
“I know you.”
That landed hard.
I stopped.
Not physically. My hand stayed at her waist. Her fingers stayed at the back of my neck.
But something in me stopped performing.
“Do you?” I asked.
Her smile faded.
There it was, the dangerous quiet.
I could have made a joke.
I was extremely qualified.
I didn’t.
“I know you remember which client is scared before they tell you,” she said.
“I know you keep a color-coded lesson schedule while pretending organization is morally beneath you. I know you were early for Nico’s pickup because you promised Dani you would be there.
I know you brought me a towel before I knew I needed one. ”
Water ran between us, warm now, sliding over my shoulders and down her arms.
She touched my face.
“I know you’re fun,” she said. “I also know you use fun to hide every time something matters too much.”
Well.
Fuck.
I looked down.
Piper caught my chin.
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Turn this into a joke because I went too far. Apparently that’s a house rule now.”
I laughed once, but it had no humor in it.
“Cole?”
“Cole.”
Jealousy flickered again.
I hated it.
I hated how quickly I could become twelve years old inside it, measuring who got what part of the person I wanted.
Piper watched my face.
“Say it.”
“I don’t want to be the fun one.”
Her brows pulled together.
“You are the fun one.”
“That came out wrong.”
“Very.”
I rubbed water from my eyes.
“I don’t want to be only that.”
There.
Worse than naked.
Piper’s hand slid down to my chest.
“You’re not.”
“You don’t know that yet.”
“Neither do you. That’s the point of the next five and a half weeks.”
I looked at her.
“Five and a half?”
“Approximately. Gray has infected me.”
“Tragic.”
She smiled.
Then her hand moved lower.
Every thought I had about emotional honesty left my body through my feet.
“Piper.”
“Yes?”
Her palm slid over the front of my board shorts.
I closed my eyes.
“That’s hostile.”
“You brought me a towel.”
“I had no idea the reward structure was this good.”
She kissed me again.
I pulled her closer, one hand sliding over the wet curve of her ass through the swimsuit. She made a small sound against my mouth and pressed into me.
There was nothing abstract about wanting her now.
No competition. No future. No three-men-one-woman logistical crisis.
Just Piper, warm and wet under my hands, kissing me like she had decided something.
I hooked my fingers under the edge of the swimsuit at her thigh.
She shifted her stance and let me.
Useful information.
My hand moved higher.
Her breath caught.
“Still okay?” I asked against her mouth.
“If you stop now, I will drown you in twelve inches of water.”
“Clear.”
I kissed her neck and slid my hand under the suit.
She was already slick, and the first slow stroke of my fingers made her head fall back against my hand.
“Rafe.”
I had heard my name yelled by clients, children, ex-wives, business partners, and one Coast Guard inspector who had caught me standing somewhere I should not have been standing.
None of them had said it like that.
I wanted to hear it again.
So I did the thing that had caused it.
Her hand tightened around my shoulder.
“Again,” she whispered.
I smiled against her throat.
“That sounded like a professional directive.”
“Rafe.”
“Right. No talking.”
I lasted maybe four seconds.
My fingers worked slowly at first, learning what made her hips move, what made her breathing change, what made the hand on my shoulder turn into nails.
Piper was not quiet.
I loved that immediately.
I kissed her to catch some of the sound anyway, partly because the neighbors did not need a live demonstration of Tide & Timber’s customer-service standards.
She bit my lip.
I groaned.
“You like that,” she said.
“Deeply.”
“Good.”
Then she did it again.
I slid a second finger into her and her whole body tightened around my hand.
“Fuck.”
“That is the general direction.”
She laughed breathlessly and shoved at my shoulder.
“You were told not to talk.”
“I have never respected management.”
“Liar. You have conditional formatting.”
I kissed her hard enough to end the audit.
Her hips started moving against my hand. Not subtly. Not politely. Piper did very little politely when she actually wanted something, and discovering that felt like being handed classified information.
I curled my fingers.
She gasped.
There.
Again.
Her forehead dropped to my shoulder.
I kissed the wet curve of her neck and kept the rhythm exactly where she had told me without words to keep it.
“Don’t change that,” she said.
“Wasn’t planning to.”
Her fingers dug into my back.
She came with my name muffled against my shoulder and her body clenching hard around my hand.
For several seconds, I forgot every joke I had ever known.
That might have been the most alarming part.
Piper slowly lifted her head.
Her cheeks were flushed. Her hair was soaked flat around her face. She looked wrecked and pleased and completely unlike any photograph she would ever let a client use.
I wanted the image burned into my brain permanently.
She looked down between us.
“You appear to have a problem.”
I laughed weakly. “Finally, some sympathy.”
Her hand closed over me through my shorts again.
I stopped laughing.
“Piper.”
“You keep saying my name like it’s an emergency.”
“It currently is.”