Chapter 7 #3
She untied the drawstring at my waist.
I caught her wrist.
Not to stop her.
She looked at me.
“What?”
“I don’t want you doing something because I got you off and now you think the transaction requires balancing.”
Her expression changed.
For one terrible second, I thought I had killed the whole thing.
Then she stepped closer and pressed her mouth to my jaw.
“Thank you,” she said quietly.
I swallowed.
“But I am currently touching you because I want to touch you.”
Her hand slipped inside my shorts.
I nearly hit my head on the shower wall.
Piper smiled against my skin.
“That was attractive.”
“I am losing motor control.”
“Good.”
She wrapped her hand around me.
Any remaining concern about appearing composed became historically irrelevant.
I braced one palm against the wall beside her head.
“You are very pleased with yourself.”
“Immensely.”
Her hand moved slowly, water running over both of us.
I kissed her because I needed somewhere to put the sound she dragged out of me.
She knew exactly what she was doing.
Maybe not with me specifically yet, but with a man’s body, yes. There was confidence in the way she watched my face and adjusted her grip when I reacted.
The confidence in her touch told me something I liked almost as much as the touch itself.
She felt safe enough with me to want exactly what she wanted.
That realization did something almost as powerful as her hand.
I put my forehead against hers.
“Faster,” I said.
She did.
My hips moved before I could stop them.
Piper’s eyes darkened.
“Again.”
I laughed under my breath. “Now who’s giving orders?”
“Me. Keep up.”
I did.
Not for long.
I came with my face buried against her neck and one hand gripping the cedar wall hard enough that Gray was going to ask why a slat had fingerprints embedded in it.
When I could breathe again, Piper was laughing softly.
“Do not become smug.”
“Impossible.”
“I hate when my own material gets used against me.”
She kissed the corner of my mouth.
We stood under the water for another minute without talking.
That was harder than sex.
Talking I could manage. Joking I could do professionally. Silence with someone I wanted was where all the dangerous stuff climbed out.
Piper rested her head briefly against my chest.
I held her.
No performance.
No line.
Just held her.
Then Mango screamed from the porch, “TAKE YOUR PANTS OFF!”
Piper’s shoulders started shaking.
I looked toward the top of the enclosure.
“He cannot see us.”
“He doesn’t need to. He has instincts.”
“That bird is a lawsuit.”
“Your bird.”
“Collectively tolerated wildlife.”
She laughed into my chest.
There it was again, the thing I wanted more than I knew what to do with.
Not sex.
Well, also sex.
But this.
Her in the middle of the ordinary ridiculousness of our house like she had always known where the jokes lived.
I checked the waterproof watch I wore for lessons.
Two oh seven.
Piper noticed.
“Pickup?”
“I leave at two twenty-five. Nico’s shuttle is running late today, so Dani asked me to get him from school.”
She stepped back enough to look at me.
“You scheduled shower sex with a buffer?”
“I did not schedule shower sex.”
“But you have a buffer.”
“I have a life.”
“Color-coded?”
“Fuck you.”
Her eyebrows lifted.
I looked down at her.
“Poor wording.”
“Eventually.”
Everything in my body came back online at once.
Piper smiled sweetly and turned off the water.
“Go be dependable, Soto.”
I stood there dripping and emotionally compromised while she wrapped herself in the blue towel I had brought her.
“You enjoy this too much.”
“Immensely.”
She opened the shower door.
I caught her hand before she stepped out.
Piper looked back.
The cottage was visible past the side yard. New drywall showed pale through the open doorway.
I hated how much courage the next sentence required.
“When that place is ready, I want you to know you can move into it.”
Her face went still.
I forced myself to keep going.
“I also want you to know I don’t want you to.”
No joke came to save me.
Piper’s fingers tightened around mine.
“Okay,” she said.
My chest hurt in a way I did not particularly appreciate.
“Okay what?”
“Okay, I know both things.”
“That’s annoyingly incomplete.”
“You people have had me here less than a week. Nobody gets a five-year housing plan before Thursday pickup.”
I laughed.
“Fair.”
She looked toward the cottage.
Then toward the house.
“But I’m not packing tonight.”
It was not a promise.
Good.
Promises made too early had been one of my specialties once.
This felt better.
Small. True. Enough for today.
I unlocked the gate, grabbed my shirt, and went inside to find my keys.
Piper followed in the towel, carrying her wet clothes in one hand.
Mango saw us through the screened porch door and flared his wings.
“Bad idea!” he shouted.
Piper looked at me.
I looked at her.
“He’s going to be unbearable if we’re happy,” I said.
She smiled.
“Then I guess he’ll have to suffer.”
I left for school pickup six minutes early.
For once, I did not feel like being dependable proved I was less fun.
I felt like it might be the reason she stayed.