by Eden Butler
“I love you too, Eddie. I always have.”
This time Piper moved to me, her mouth eager, quick, her tongue demanding, and I liked the sensation of her on top of me, her tight, sweet body moving against me as she kissed me. She fit me perfectly—curves to my edges. But when she grazed her slick pussy too close to my hardening dick, I couldn’t take the sensation and didn’t want it to end before it started.
“What?” she said when I pushed on her arms, holding her still.
“This is too good. Too much.” She went easily, grinning as I fixed her under me, her round, perfect tits ready for me and I licked them, teasing, and nibbling as she arched into my mouth. “I like it when you’re all spread out for me.”
“Only you, baby…” Piper’s grin stretched and she moved one eyebrow up as she widened her legs, her knees opening to accommodate me and I took the offer for what it was, already hard and anxious for her again.
“You like this?” I said, grabbing myself, stroking and teasing the head against her wet lips before I inched forward.
“Yes…shit, Ed… Deeper…go deep inside me…”
And I would have. She was right there, waiting for me. Her slick, hot lips covering the head of my dick, her hips inching closer, body greedy for me, for what I could make her feel…
But as I moved into her, something grabbed me on my shoulder, jerking me off the bed.
If I didn’t know better, I would have sworn some wild animal had made its way into the apartment. I’d only heard a roar that loud in the wild camping with my grandfather. But when I turned, catching my footing, ready to fight and keep Piper at my back, that sound make more sense when the words came together and shot from Piper’s father’s mouth.
“Get your fucking hands off my daughter!”
“Whoa!” I screamed when that asshole took a swing at me. I ducked, holding up my left hand, shooting a look at Piper to make sure she was out of his way. When I spotted her in the corner of the room hustling back into her clothes, I focused back on her old man who was darting straight toward me. “Back the hell up.”
He took another swing at me, his movements sloppy but strong, and I managed to deflect again, before I spotted Piper moving toward us, her hands uplifted. “Stay back. I don’t want you getting hit.”
“Don’t you tell her what to do, you piece of shit. Piper Grace come here to me right this instant!”
“Dad! Please.” She finished tugging down her tank, and I took the opportunity to grab my jeans, getting them on faster than I ever had before.
“How could you let this…this…boy touch you?” He lunged for me, but I slipped out of his way, wincing when the old man crashed into Piper’s bedside table.
“That’s enough,” I told him, my temper flaring. “Calm down.”
“Don’t you talk to me like that, you little shit.” He scrambled to his feet, holding onto the bookshelf behind him for leverage. “I was an officer…”
“Yeah, well, you’re not now.”
Mr. Warren took two steps, his strides long, and he crowded me, but I didn’t move. I’d seen the man do this before. Use his height and position in town to intimidate. I wasn’t one to scare easily and he was a full two inches shorter than me. When crowding me didn’t work, the old asshole’s temper seemed to get the better of him and he tried pushing me, one finger aiming for my shoulder which I caught before he could make contact.
“I’m only going to tell you one time. Back the hell up before you hurt yourself.”
“Are you threatening me?”
“Dad, listen to yourself,” Piper said, coming to my side. She didn’t react when I moved my arm in front of her, just in case her father lost hold of his senses and started lashing out. I wasn’t going to apologize if he threw a punch and it landed anywhere near her. Then we’d have a real problem. Piper gripped my arm, pulling on it before she looked at me. “He has a heart condition. Please don’t…”
“I’m not gonna touch him,” I told her, my gaze right on her father’s face.
“Damn right you’re not.”
“Man, calm the hell down.”
“Dad…you’ve got to settle—”
“Piper,” he barked. His face had gone red and from the looks of his skin and the blotches on his cheeks, I’d guess his blood pressure was skyrocketing. Didn’t stop him from issuing commandments to his grown daughter. “Get your things. You’re coming home with me. We’ll call Erin and get a cruiser here…”
“For what? Daddy, Eddie and I love each other. We’re in a relationship.”
If the blood pressure was gonna spike, that would have been the point. The old man seemed to deflate, like someone had taken a meat tenderizer and smashed his balloon-shaped heart to pieces. Whatever he thought about his daughter, he must have never believed she’d lowered herself quite as low as falling for the likes of me.
Warren stepped back and curled his top lip before he shook his head like he wouldn’t have even the idea of his sweet girl in the same room with me much less in love with me.
“No. No, I won’t have that. Not you too. It’s not enough that…that…family has taken my son. I will not have them take my daughter too.”
“No one is taking me anywhere,” Piper said, coming to my side. Her voice had gotten as loud as her father’s.
“Watch how you speak about my people.”
He ignored me and focused on Piper’s hand and how she curled her fingers around my wrist.
“Ed…”
“No, I don’t appreciate his attitude,” I told her. “We’ve done nothing to him or your family. My grandparents have done nothing but be respectful to everyone in this town. You got no right to speak about them that way.”
“I will speak to them however—”
“No,” I said, stepping up to him. My hands were around his collar before I realized what I was doing. “You damn well will not. Not if you want to stay upright.”
“Eddie, please!”
“Piper…” Warren yelled, shifting his gaze from me to his daughter, but his voice remained calm. “Tell him to leave.”
“Daddy, don’t make me choose.” She tried to pry us apart, tried and failed to get between us. “I can’t do that.”
“Fine. Fine then, young lady.” Warren jerked back, slapping my hand away before he moved out of the room and down the hall. Piper didn’t follow. She tried to pretend she wasn’t upset. She tried to make like her father’s anger hadn’t done something to her but when the front door opened and slammed shut, when the only thing that sounded outside of the apartment was the squeal of tires from what I’d guess was a custom Cadillac, then Piper’s pretending ended.
“Nizhóní…” I started, ignoring her when she shook her head. She didn’t fight me when I grabbed her. She took the comfort I gave her and spent the rest of the night with her face buried on my shoulder crying herself to sleep.
Eddie
One Week Later
The Grass is Blue
“I swear, I can’t catch a damn break.” For the first time since we started this job, I had my doubts I could swing it in time.
With Piper at my side and her eyes wet, looking ready to spill over, it took everything in me not to puke right on the bundle of warped lobby floors. They were buckled and twisted, left that way from what looked like an entire week’s worth of water damage.
“I don’t understand…” I said, bending down for the third time, my knife against the loosened flooring to access the water damage. It ran up the wall, but only toward the side that hit near the bathroom plumbing. “It was fine yesterday and the day before that. I checked. Maddox checked…”
One glance at Piper, her catching the look I gave, and she chewed on her bottom lip, a clear sign to me that she was sucking up whatever heartache she felt to save face for me. I hated when she did that. But I knew the woman. If she was gonna cry, it wouldn’t be here. Not in front of the crew. Not two weeks before the opening. But, hell, I might.
“I checked and double
checked the lines.” I stood, keeping my voice low and my fingers on her hand. The guilt felt thick, twisted in my throat, threatening to choke me. “There are no leaks, baby, I swear.”
I wanted to gut myself. I wanted to take to the top of the Victorian and swan dive off. The entire lobby floor was ruined. Two weeks until the opening. Two weeks until the festival and I had to replace the entire fucking lobby floor because of more water damage.
“This isn’t your fault,” Piper said, curling next to me with her arms around my waist.
When I glanced down at her, lifting an arm around her shoulder, expecting a side-eye that told me she was lying through her teeth, I was happy to spot the sweet, honest grin she always gave me.
“You don’t think?”
“Nah,” she said, smoothing a hand up my chest. “I’m pretty sure the place is haunted.”
My laugh was quick, honest, and I pulled her in for a hug. “That might make more sense to me than the shit that’s been going on here.” I shook my head, walking around the buckled floors, shooting up a grateful prayer that none of the wall molding had been affected. “I don’t get it.”
“Is there anything you can do?”
I tore off my ballcap and scrubbed a hand over my face, staring at the damage. A list of names hopped through my head, assholes I’d pissed off. People who hated me. That was a long list. But would they screw Piper over to spite me? It didn’t seem likely.
“I can work something out.” Shooting a glance at Piper, I didn’t miss the way she pulled her face away from me or how she tried to hide the worry I spotted in her expression. “Hey,” I told her, moving to her side. “Don’t worry about it.”
“I’m not,” she lied, moving her chin up.
“Yeah, you are,” I told her, turning her around to face me. “You’d be a fool if you weren’t. Hell, I am, but we can fix this. I promise you, we’ll fix this in time.” When those big green eyes hit me, something in my chest splintered and I realized there wasn’t much I wouldn’t do for this woman. “You have my word, I’ll make this right.”
She moved up on her toes to kiss me, but jumped back when Sam’s loud throat clearing sounded behind her. “Any news?” he said, looking around the floor. If I didn’t know any better I’d almost believe that asshole was giddy. Must have gotten the deputy to be extra friendly last night.
“I’m working on it,” I told him, glancing at the bags in his hands.
“Presently?” he asked, his attention moving to my fingers resting on Piper’s hip.
“What do you need, Sam?” Piper’s voice sounded tired and sharp.
“Deposits?” He motioned with the bank bag and Piper nodded.
“I won’t have time to go to the bank until this afternoon. Just put them on my desk. No one will be around today except us until Ed finishes up with this.”
Sam moved into the office on the other side of the lobby and Piper shot in a two finger salute, turning to face me. “Which reminds me, I’ve got a meeting with the investors.” She made a face, but managed a weak smile for me. “I’m not gonna tell them anything about the floors until you know more. Think you can figure out how bad this is by tomorrow?”
“Yeah. That won’t be a problem.”
“Okay, baby. I gotta go. It’s a lunch meeting so I won’t be back until later. You want me to pick up something for you?”
“No, I’m gonna go to Denton to grab a few of Alex’s crew and help me knock this out. I’ll see you tonight.” I let Piper get two feet away from me before I pulled her back, holding onto her waist before I kissed her. Her smile was so sweet, the kiss so warm Sam’s stomping feet as he left the lobby barely registered.
“By the way…I want to give you something tonight.” She didn’t remember, that much I knew. Piper was bad with dates. She’d have no idea what I was cooking up. But the slow, drunk-looking grin she gave me told there were other things she wanted from me too. “Well, that, always, but something else. Come out to my place at nine. Okay, Nizhóní?”
She squeezed my ass, lifting up to kiss me. “I’ll be there.”
It took me most of the day and half of Alex’s crew and a few more of my mine still working on the finishing touches to the Victorina, but the floor was gutted, repaired and drying out by the end of the day. The line had been cut and I placed a call to a buddy of mine who did inspections and owned a plumbing business that could give the pipes a thorough examination before we started laying the flooring tomorrow.
It was nearly seven by the time I made it home, and I didn’t have much time to shower and make dinner, so I did my best with the leftover frybread and three sisters soup my grandmother had stuffed in my freezer and set out a blanket, some candles and wine on the deck in the back of my cabin and strung up the fairy lights Piper always told me I needed out here, making sure the place didn’t look a wreck and wasn’t covered with an inch of dirt or dust.
By the time her Jeep pulled into my make-shift drive, the record player was singing a low, sweet and bluesy song, and I paused my soda-only rule to have a glass of wine with my girl, opening the bottle, ready to pour.
Piper wasn’t a fussy woman. She didn’t go in for fancy clothes or a lot of makeup, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t a knockout in a simple sundress and pair of boots. She wore her hair in curls around her face and a little shine on her lips, and I caught the slightest hint of that rosemary and mint coming off her skin when she moved up the drive and headed toward the back deck, stopping short to find me relaxed against the black wicker club chair my Shímasani had cleaned up and helped me restore when I recovered it from Good Will a few weeks back.
Piper stopped, shooting her eyebrows up, her gaze moving from me, to the table with the wine and covered dishes, complete with flowers, to the record player pumping that low, soft music from the open doors at the back before she glanced at the fairy lights overhead.
“What is all this?”
“You didn’t remember,” I said, standing to greet her. She took the kiss I planted on her cheek, but kept her back straight, looking curious, a little worried, when I brought her to the table and pulled the chair out for her. “Come on. Sit.”
“Is this your Shímasani’s papusas and sister’s soup?” When I grinned, Piper released a moan, her eyes going wide. Again, she looked up, her stomach distracting her curiosity enough that she relaxed and took a bite of the food when I pulled the lid from the plate. “Cherry and tomato sauce?”
“Pickled cabbage but no cilantro. I picked it out because I know you hate it.”
“You really do love me.”
“The most,” I said through a laugh when she downed a forkful. Piper let me wipe her mouth, but ignored how I stared at her, how wide my smile was until I spoke again, bringing her back to the reason for the dinner in the first place. “I knew you didn’t remember,” I told her, digging into my dish.
She held her fork, but didn’t eat, moving her elbows onto the table. Her smile lowered when she seemed to realize I wasn’t teasing her. “Oh, God…what didn’t I remember?”
I gave it a few seconds, torturing her with silence and my arms crossed over my chest before Piper dropped her fork and moved to my lap, curling her arms around my neck. “Eddie…what is it? You know I’m crap at remembering dates.”
“You are.”
She poked my shoulder when I laughed, letting me hold her against me when she tried stabbing me against with her long finger.
“I was counting on it, actually.”
“Tell me.” Her small body moved easily against mine, like water over glass and I closed my eyes, enjoying the comfort that moved between us. It had never been this good with any woman before. Never this sweet. That should have scared me. Should have made me wanna run. So why wasn’t I?
“Fine then,” I said, tugging her closer up my body with a hand on the curve of her round ass. “Six months ago tonight, you kissed me on my sister’s porch swing.”
“I did not kiss you.” Her tone was amused, a little insu
lted, like I’d planned.
“You did.” My grip tightened around her, would keep that way no matter how she wiggled. “Well, you asked me to kiss you.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“It is. Almost.”
When she tried poking me again, I nipped at her finger, taking her hand away to pull her close enough to steal a kiss, silencing her pretend insult and the claim that she hadn’t gotten things rolling that night out on Evie’s front porch.
“Well,” she finally said, coming up for air, “I didn’t say I didn’t want you to kiss me.”
“We both know you did.”
“So did you.”
The small shrug had Piper grinning, had her shifting over my lap again and I rubbed my face, knowing if I didn’t hurry this along, she’d distract me and the gift I’d gotten her would go straight out of my head.
“If you remember, there was a lot of kissing being done that night,” she said, moving her hips, one leg slipping over so that she straddled me. “We didn’t stay at Evie’s long.”
“No…” I grunted, moving my hand to her hips and the flash of memory shot through my head, of me and Piper kissing in a position a lot like this one outside on my deck. If Tasso hadn’t thundered to the barn ten minutes later there would have been a hell of a lot more than kissing happening that first night.
If I didn’t stop those sweet wiggling hips, there’d be much of the same right now.
“Stop,” I told her, laughing at the pout on her face when I pulled her arms from my neck. “I got something for you.”
“Uh huh and I’m trying to get at it.”
“Patience, Yázhí.”
She went still when I pulled the small box from my shirt pocket and handed it over, her expression open, surprised.
“Ed…what did you do?” she said, reaching for the long, velvet box when I offered it.
“Just a little something.”
It wasn’t, actually. It wasn’t little at all. It had cost me a bigger chunk of my savings than I wanted to admit, but I’d seen it at the jewelry store in Deaton and knew it was for Piper.