4. Christian
Christian
I can see Piper’s jet-black hair falling like silk down her back, long enough to brush the curves of an ass I’ve been fighting myself not to stare at for over half a year.
But fuck if I haven’t imagined sliding my cock between those soft, round cheeks until she’s begging to be filled.
I already know how perfectly she’d take me.
How warm and wet her cunt would be, and how every tight clench of her body around mine would be a reminder that this was always meant to happen, no matter how wrong it might be.
My cock throbs as I stroke myself, a nightly ritual that started the day Piper walked into my life.
Piper, with a smile that could bring a man to his knees.
Who’s eighteen years younger than me.
Who I’m pretty damn sure I fell in love with the day my brother employed her to work at his bar.
Who’s now my son’s girlfriend.
Yeah, I’m a special kind of fucked-up. I know it. Hell, I live with it every day.
I know it makes me the biggest piece of shit in all of Rosewood Falls, and if you think I asked for this or wanted it, you’d be dead wrong.
But if we’re getting into the messy, uncomfortable truth of it all, I saw her first. I had my eyes on Piper long before Travis even knew her name. I was just too damn slow and too caught up in my own head to take my shot when I had the chance.
If I let myself forget for just one second that she’s dating my kid, that she’s supposed to be off-limits in every way that matters, then the truth is clear as day—she was always meant to be mine.
From the way she lights up a room with her laugh that sounds like pure sunshine to the way her hips sway in those perfectly fitted jeans. She’s the kind of temptation a man doesn’t walk away from, not without leaving the best part of himself bleeding on the ground behind him.
This secret? It stays buried deep. Hidden where it belongs because I can’t have her, I’ll never have her, and yet, my dick doesn’t seem to give a damn about morals or loyalty.
Every time that curvy, raven-haired beauty creeps into my mind, he stands to attention.
And maybe, just maybe, I don’t fight it as hard as I should.
What kind of sick fuck gets off to visions of his son’s girl?
Me, father of the fucking year here.
My hand wraps around my cock like it’s got a mind of its own, instinct obliterating reason before my brain can catch up.
My eyes squeeze shut as my breath comes in ragged.
I know I shouldn’t be doing this. I should be thinking about something else, anyone else, literally anything that doesn’t involve Piper Nightengale.
But it’s only ever her.
The water pounds against my shoulders but does nothing to cool the fire ripping through me. If anything, it stokes it, making my body ache with the force of how badly I want her. I tighten my grip, my jaw clenching, while my pulse thrashes in my chest like it’s trying to break free from my skin.
If she ever dropped to her knees for me…
She’d look up through those dark lashes, part those pretty lips, and give me that look—the one that told me she knew exactly what I wanted from her, and exactly how she was going to give it.
I’m dying for her.
Dying to hear my name fall from those full, kiss-bitten lips while I wreck her so thoroughly she can’t remember her own name, let alone my son’s.
I’d learn every breath, every gasp, and every sound she makes as I pull her apart, just to piece her back together again until the only thing left in that beautiful head of hers is how right it feels to be wanted by a man who knows exactly what to do with a woman like her.
The way I’d feel against her body.
The way I’d taste on her tongue.
It’s wrong, so fucking wrong.
She’ll walk through that door later today, and my whole world will tilt the second she does.
She’ll be ready to help at every moment because that’s just who Piper is.
She’s the type of woman who steps in without being asked, rolls up her sleeves, gets her hands dirty, and makes herself indispensable without even trying.
Small town.
Big heart.
Impossible woman.
I stroke myself harder, my hand moving like I’m trying to fuck away every complicated thought in my head.
I can already picture the way she’d look riding me, thighs flexing, back arched, tits pushed out, practically begging for my mouth.
And fuck me, she’d be wet—so goddamn wet—because she’d always be ready for me if she were mine.
And if she wasn’t, then I’d have the best time prepping her and stretching her out with my fingers until she was desperate for me to fill her.
Another stroke and my grip tightens as I try to silence the part of my brain that knows exactly how twisted this is. But guilt’s got nothing on need, and my body couldn’t care less about right or wrong when I’m this close to the edge.
Seconds later, I’m coming so hard my vision blurs. My release spills across the shower tiles, coating them with the evidence of just how fucked-up I really am. I rest my forehead against the cold ceramic, trying to catch my breath, each inhale a reminder of my weakness.
I hate myself.
Just a little.
Maybe more than a little .
The water keeps running, washing away everything except the truth: I’m in love with my son’s girl.
Things between Travis and me are strained. I’m barely holding us together most days, but that doesn’t make my feelings right, and it sure as hell doesn’t make my behavior okay.
Travis was the result of one wild night in Silverpine when I was eighteen and too stupid to know what forever looked like.
My buddy Teddy and I had rolled into the next town for a party at one of his friend’s ranches.
We were chasing a good time and not thinking past the next beer in our hands.
Music thumped through the open fields, mixing with laughter and the kind of reckless energy that only comes when you’re young and convinced you’re invincible.
That’s when I saw her.
Meredith.
She was beautiful. I remember thinking so even through the haze of cheap beer. Her long golden hair caught the firelight, and her bright blue eyes flicked to mine across the crowd, and that was it. One look, and I was gone.
One moment was all it took to change my entire life, and nine months later, there was Travis. Our boy. The child I never planned for but loved fiercely from the second he wrapped his tiny fist around my finger.
I might not have been a perfect father, but I made damn sure I was present in whatever way his mother would allow. Every visitation, every phone call, every school event she’d let me attend, I was there.
Meredith has fed him a steady diet of bullshit about me since he was old enough to understand words. She painted me as some absent, uninterested parent, and maybe I wasn’t around as much as I should’ve been. But God knows I tried to be the father he deserved.
And now, Travis is too much like her.
He’s got her looks, a hint of my temper, but none of my grit. None of the understanding that life doesn’t hand you a damn thing—you have to earn it.
I’ve watched him grow into a man who takes but never gives, who shows up when he needs something but disappears when real responsibility comes knocking.
Sometimes, I catch glimpses of myself in him, but mostly, I see the things that break my heart.
The entitlement. The way he judges first and asks questions later.
The assumption that the world owes him something.
And yeah, maybe it’s the world we live in now, one that lets boys coast through life untouched by consequence and never forced to own up to their choices.
Maybe it’s because his mother spent years telling him he was perfect just as he was, never pushing him to be better or do better.
Maybe it’s just who he is at his core, and all the good intentions in the world can’t change that.
Or maybe it’s on both of us and the mess we made ever since I didn’t step up and marry her when she got pregnant.
But I know better than to think you can force yourself to love someone. Just as I know you can’t help who you fall for, no matter how much damage it might cause.
I understand the irony that my son, the boy I could never quite reach, is with the woman I’m pretty damn sure was meant for me but handed to me twenty years too late.
I know I spend too much time with her, but obsession isn’t a choice you make. It’s something that latches on, digs in deep, and refuses to let go, and Piper’s wrapped around my ribs like barbed wire, threaded through my veins like she’s always been there, just waiting for me to notice.
Outside of my fantasies, would I ever cross that line with her? Not a chance. I might be many things, but I’m not the kind of man who rips his family apart. Not intentionally, anyway. But Jesus, the way she looks at me sometimes.
There’s something there between us, a spark, a connection that has no business existing, but it does. Even before Travis started dating her, before he ever touched her, I’d catch her watching me.
I still notice her green eyes drifting to me when she thinks I’m not paying attention.
I still feel the weight of her stare on my skin, which only feeds my obsession, and maybe I should be angry that she’s entertaining these thoughts while dating my son.
That would be the right reaction, wouldn’t it?
The moral one. The one that proves I have a goddamn conscience.
But I guess I’m not built that way .
Instead, I’m perversely pleased. Because even if nothing ever happens, at least I know the truth.
She sees me.
Not Travis’s father.
Not just another Crawford.
Me.
And I can’t bring myself to feel guilty about that.
Now I’m staring down fourteen days of exquisite torture.
Two weeks of Piper and Travis under my roof, watching her move through my space like she belongs there.
Two weeks of trying to build something real with a son who looks at me like I’m a stranger, while the woman I’ve fallen for sleeps down the hall in his arms.
I’ve spent years trying to find common ground with Travis.
I’ve tried to find some kind of thread that might tie us together, anything that proves we’re cut from the same cloth, but we’re not.
We’re so fundamentally different that we may as well be speaking different languages.
It’s like we’re two strangers forced into the same bloodline by some cosmic joke.
I’d swear he wasn’t mine if I didn’t know better, but Meredith’s father made damn sure of that, demanding a paternity test faster than you can say “small-town fuckup.” Because heaven forbid his precious daughter have a baby with a rough-around-the-edges cowboy like me.
We were just two reckless kids, drunk on youth and each other. Stupid enough to believe the future was too far away to touch us and young enough to never think we’d end up as teenage parents.
And as Travis so often likes to remind me, I’m just the guy who knocked up his mom and walked away.
Every December, when he comes here to stay, he lingers like a ghost—present but never really here. He drifts through the days like he’s punching a clock, pretending to work, and going through the motions, but never committing to any task that actually needs doing.
I ask him to deliver some trees, which means loading up the truck, taking them into town, and handling a simple transaction.
But it’s always a firm no and a roll of his eyes like I’ve asked him to cut off his own arm.
I ask him to talk to the families who visit the farm, to at least pretend he gives a shit, but the look on his face alone is enough to make them want to turn on their heels and never come back.
People want warmth, a friendly smile, and a handshake that makes them feel welcome, but Travis barely manages indifference.
Most days, he’s just straight-up unapproachable.
He runs from the dirt and sweat of honest labor, from the weight of responsibility that comes with actually having to earn something, but what cuts deepest is that he runs from me. Every squealing tire, every cloud of dust… it’s just another fuck you to everything this farm represents.
I’m not asking for love; I’m not even asking for like—just a basic level of respect.But Travis would rather burn bridges than build them, and God help me, I’m getting tired of holding the matches.