Epilogue
PIPER
“Let me come with you,” Caleb insists as he walks me to the police station. “It’s a big thing to confront your father.”
“I know, which is why I need to do it alone.” I squeeze his enormous hand and let go, flashing him a smile as I head into reception. “I want to see him.”
“I know you do. But just be careful.”
“Always am.”
We both know that previously, I’ve been the opposite of careful. Between straining my toe in a stream and almost getting myself killed by one of my father’s many enemies, it’s safe to say that I’m a liability.
But for my children and for Caleb, I’m desperate to put all that behind me, hence why I’m checking into the station to visit my detained father.
I need to move on from the past. Seeing that his actions have finally caught up with him will allow me to start over on a fresh slate, and begin to move on.
I wait in the reception area and jump out of my skin every time one of the heavy metal cell doors slams. The sound carries into my bones, shocking the very membrane of them, same as it did when I was in the motel hearing that gunshot.
I expect the horror from that to stay with me for a while. But it’s my father offering to sell me that eats me alive the most. In my head, he was always meant to see the light. But you’re already six feet underground when you’re saying shit like that.
“If you would like to follow me, Ms. Hart.”
I peel myself off the plastic chair. It takes two attempts. All of the sweat had me glued to it, and the officer who guides me through the cell hallway can clearly see that I’m nervous, because she turns over her shoulder and tells me, “Don’t force yourself to do this if you don’t want to.”
I need to.
My father needs to know that there’s a limit to how much I can take from him.
We make it through the hallway and into the visitor’s area, where my father is slumped in his seat, tucked into a desk, waiting for me. Or maybe he wasn’t waiting for me, because he perks up in his seat and looks confused.
“Piper.” He exhales a long sigh and blows bad breath my way, suggesting he’s not picked up a toothbrush since being at the motel. “I thought you were my lawyer?”
“Lawyer?” I stifle a snort. “You know you have to pay for those, right?”
“Yes,” he replies. “But I was hoping through legal aid to get one free.”
I frown, clearly forgetting how out of touch he is. That’s my father alright. More attuned to his bees than to his own daughter. More concerned with scoring a jackpot in the casino than he was about his daughter’s horrific grades in school.
I clasp my hands together on the desk and let the silence fall over us for a moment. He always kept me waiting, so it feels right to return the favor.
“How are your legs holding up?” I ask.
I invite myself to look under the table. Both of his thighs are wrapped up in two ridiculous bandages that other detained people here definitely have something to say about.
“The doctor says they don’t need amputating, at least for the time being.
” He takes a sip of water from the plastic cup in front of him.
I stare at his fingernails, nauseated by the amount of grime stuck underneath them.
Those things are like talons. A pair of nail clippers wasn’t obviously ever in the budget.
“I could get used to this place,” he says, blowing another sigh my way. “I don’t know how long these entitled bastards are planning on keeping me here for, but it’s a step up from the motel.”
Living in a fucking toilet would probably be a step up from that hellhole he was squatting in.
“There’s a chance they might be putting together a court case,” he tells me.
“They as in…?”
“Sally and her bullshit partner in crime. They have affairs in legality, so it won’t be difficult for the pair of them to get me in prison.”
Another step up from the motel.
My father picks at his split lip, thinking something over, and slams a restless hand onto the table. It almost makes me jump.
“Surely you can find a way to get me out of here. I’m your father.”
“And I’m supposed to be your daughter.” Rage creeps into my veins. I do my best to manage it, seeing as there are people with tasers and authority in here. “You were prepared to sell me.”
“That was just a lie to get us both out of there.”
I nod. It’s almost funny how much of a compulsive liar he is. It’s always been excuse after excuse with him. I always kept holding on, waiting for him to be my father.
“You left me alone in the house for days. As a minor.” I’m only starting to realize how serious of an offense that is, now with my own children to look after.
He should be grateful that I’m keeping my voice to a minimum.
If anyone important hears this, he’ll be behind bars before his Boston buddies can even file a case.
“You spent all of your money on gambling, and left me alone at eighteen years old with no money, and mortgage loans to pay off. You were uncontactable.” My hands curl into fists under the table.
“And you have the audacity to sit here and ask for my help to bail you out?” I sit back, exhausted from all of this.
“The worst part is that I’m still counting on you to change, but that will never happen. ”
“Piper.”
It’s ironic that I finally have my father’s attention, right when I’m about to walk away from him.
I think I’m ready to finally do that.
I scrape the chair back and stand. He gets to watch me walk out of his life this time. Should be satisfying. He needs a taste of his own medicine.
“I hope the oatmeal they serve you in prison won’t be too sloppy.” He’s definitely going to spend most of his life—if not all of it, behind bars, so he better get used to eating the rationed slop.
“Goodbye, father,” I say, adding extra punch onto the end of his name.
And with that, I walk away and never look back. I’m straight out of the police station, and hopping back into Caleb’s truck, since he’s waiting outside for me.
“How was it?”
“Satisfying,” I say, “and necessary.”
Caleb kisses me on the lips, and sparks immediately start flying.
Maybe we can do something about those sparks the second we get home, seeing as the kids are back at school.
“Do you know if they found the hitman from Boston?” Caleb asks as we step up onto the porch.
“The police didn’t mention anything about him, no. But I didn’t ask.” I shrug. “I don’t really care what happens to him either.”
“No, neither do I,” Caleb says, “but we better hope that it doesn’t get back to the others in Boston.”
“The cops seem like they’re pretty switched on. We should let them do their thing. In the meantime…” I turn Caleb around and plant a slow, heated kiss to his lips that I know he won’t be able to refuse. “I want you to take me to bed. Now.”
“Bed?” A delicious smirk plays on his face. “I thought you were more partial to being thrown against hard surfaces?” He smacks my ass playfully and lifts me up, tossing me over his shoulder in a fireman carry.
We arrive in my room—the one we both slept in last night, and he throws me onto the unmade bed.
Between all the rounds of sex we’ve been having ever since yesterday, we didn’t think it was worth it to make it.
Last night, we were tangled in limbs and bedsheets until the early hours, and I plan on it being the same tonight.
“Come here,” he grunts in that gorgeous sandpaper voice of his. He tugs me, bringing me up from the bed, and swipes his hot tongue over mine, giving me everything.
He combines his tongue with mine with a new kind of desperation. Before, it was different, a rush to undress one another as fast as physically possible. Now, seeing as we have all the time in the world and are in full acceptance of our feelings, we slow it right down and feel everything.
Caleb’s scent washes over me like fresh bread on a cold morning, heating me right to my core. A feral need for him grows low in my belly, spreading outward into my limbs that are designed only in this moment to be intertwined with his.
Caleb removes all of my clothes, underwear included, and takes a seat on the floor. He shuffles me to the foot of the bed and worships my entrance like it’s a fucking temple.
And I lose the plot.
Moans rattle out of me, and since we’re alone, I don’t hold back.
Caleb doesn’t seem to be holding back either, feeding as much of his tongue into my clit as he can. He strokes lavish circles over the sensitive nub and has me roaring in complete, utter pleasure by the end of it.
“Fuck, Hart,” he strains, coming up for a breath. “When it comes to loving you, I have all the time in the world.” He dives back in for seconds, this time inserting his tongue inside.
White spots cloud my vision and electricity returns to the apex of my thighs, pulsating in hot, erratic spirals as I get close again.
“I want to love every single inch of you,” Caleb purrs, taking himself out of his pants.
I’m drooling like a starved dog at the sight of him. The biggest canine in the world couldn’t even get their mouth around the kind of bone Caleb is sporting. He’s so fucking massive that I’m astonished each time, no matter how many times he pulls it out.
And inserts it in.
I develop about a billion nerve endings in my cervix as soon as he gets inside.
Caleb crawls up over me, laying me flat on the bed, and starts to create a rhythm. He goes for something slow this time, deep, meaningful, the tip of his dick shooting right to the base of my fucking uterus. We’ll be having twins if he’s not careful.
“That’s it, Hart. Show me how good it feels.”
I die and come back to life under him, blacking out from the pleasure. Who knew that admitting our feelings to one another would make the sex all the more explosive?
I arch my back and let Caleb go as far as he can.
I’m completely at his mercy, and I melt around him, parted in two by his saving grace as he brings both of us to a life-shattering orgasm.
I’m exhausted but replenished, and dead to the world on the bed I still don’t see the point in making.
We’ll be messing it up again in less than ten minutes.
I’ll even set a timer, and I bet we’ll be back inside of each other before the alarm rings.
“Fuck. I didn’t think it was possible to be any more in love with you,” Caleb says.
“You know, I never truly fell out of love with you.”
“Good,” he smiles. “Because I thought I was the only one.” Another thought takes precedence in his mind, causing him to lay his hand gently over my naked stomach.
“We already have Ellie and Sonny, and those kids are more than I could ever ask for,” he says.
“But God am I looking forward to raising this child from day one with you.”
I grab his shoulder and pull him in for a kiss. “I know. Me too.”
The End