by Eden Butler
I’d been in the middle of helping Maddox and his kid brother Keene finish up the molding building on the front porch but dropped the nail gun on the steps when she called to me. They watched me go, but unlike most of the crew kept their attention on their work and not on what me and Piper did.
“Yeah. What you got, yázhí?” I said, wincing when the pet name slipped out. I glanced to the men on the porch, then to Piper, who wore a bright pink flush over her cheeks but didn’t slow my steps.
She brushed her ponytail off her shoulder, chin lifted like the small embarrassment was nothing to her, before she held out two samples to me. One a dark walnut, the other honey pine. “The distributor called to let us know the manufacturer discontinued that pretty hickory I wanted. We have to pick something else. Sam and I aren’t on the same page about which one looks best.”
The samples were about a foot each in diameter and as I grabbed for them, our fingers touched, my gaze snapped to that sweet smile and the pink color that darkened over her skin at the contact.
It took effort not to kiss her right then with little care over who watched or what the hell they’d say.
“Well, which one do you like?”
She clicked her tongue, letting the smile lower. “Eddie, that’s hardly fair. You have to give me your opinion and it can’t be influenced by mine.”
“Who says it would be?”
Piper laughed, lowering her voice. “If I tell you which Sam likes you’re gonna pick the opposite one. I’m not blind. I know you don’t like him.”
I pushed an exaggerated frown across my face, pretending to be offend. “Miss Warren, how dare you. I am a professional…”
“Uh huh…that’s a load of crap, and we both know it.” She tapped her nails against the wood, bringing my attention away from her smile and back on the sample. “Come on now, I’ve got to place this order this afternoon.”
The walnut was about the same color as her eyes. I’d also remembered how Piper favored the same walnut color in the fixtures around her small apartment and in the planters she’d picked out for the greenhouse. Hell, even when we walked along the shoreline in Point Reyes, it was that same colored dark walnut driftwood or water-smooth rocks that grabbed her attention. It wasn’t hard to guess which she’d favor.
“The walnut.” I thumped the sample, shooting her a wink. “Matches your eyes.” The sweet smile came back again and so did the blush, and I moved closer, almost daring to kiss her right then, right there. Looked to me like she wanted that same thing. Piper took a step, let her hand rest against my arm, but then the sound of wheels popping on gravel broke us apart and we stepped away from each other. We had to at least pretend to be professionals during working hours.
My mood fractured when I spotted Sam getting out of the passenger’s side of Mr. Warren’s Cadillac and both men shot me a glare that would have cut me to the bone if they’d been lit with the same fire those looks threatened.
“Daddy?” Piper said, moving down the steps to greet her father.
“Piper Grace,” Mr. Warren said, his arms extended to greet his daughter with a hug. She accepted the gesture, oblivious when the man’s stare shot over her shoulder to deliver a death stare to me.
Let the asshole give me whatever look he wanted. I was used to it. It was the same look I’d been getting from men like him since I was a kid. But where this man was concerned, me and my family were the lowest of the low. We’d somehow managed to steal his golden boy. That was unforgiveable.
“Hey, boss,” Maddox said, pulling my attention away from Piper and her father. I turned to the man, answering the question he asked, but kept a side-eye to the driveway, to Piper and her father and how Sam stood between them; and my ear alert when they both tried to convince her a more suitable crew might be better.
“They should have been done by now,” Mr. Warren said, standing in front of the Victorian with his arms crossed and his attention on the roof, likely scanning the moldings and trim work my guys had spent nearly three weeks hanging. “Really, Piper, I know a contractor that could have all the work done in two weeks.”
“I tried to explain this to her, Mr. Warren.” Sam’s voice was soft, apologetic, but weak. Like he didn’t want to sound like the sniveling weasel he was.
“I’ll call him. Give me a second. This is not good.” Mr. Warren pulled out his cell and scrolled across the screen as Sam stood at his side.
It took Piper several seconds as it looked like she tried to school her temper and the idiots in front of her pointed at the Victorian, motioning to areas that weren’t completed or hadn’t been started. Saying shit that was pointless or blatantly wrong.
“She wouldn’t know, would she?” Mr. Warren told Sam, jerking his head at the roof, pulling the phone to his ear.
“Well, no. I suppose not,” Sam answered, avoiding the look Piper gave him.
It pissed me off to hear them talk around her like she didn’t know what she was doing. As though she’d made bad choices and they doubted her competence. Like she hadn’t spent most of her high school years working for her granny, learning the business, being schooled on upkeep to old places like this, how to maintain them, how to hire workers, not to mention the things Alex had told her about this project in particular. I was two seconds away from stepping off the porch and getting right in their faces, but I knew enough about women, and Piper herself, to understand that she didn’t need me to fight her battles.
“If you two are done,” she told them, her hand held up. “I don’t need a new crew or a new contractor.”
“Listen, sweetheart—” Mr. Warren tried, cutting off her explanation, but went quiet when his daughter shook her head.
“No, Dad. I’m not going to listen. This is my business. Paid for by my savings and my inheritance that Granny left to me, not you. I secured the investors. I met with the business managers and even if you don’t want to hear it, Alex and I and now Ed and I have a firm plan on the design I want and how to implement it.
“We’re off our schedule by two weeks because of shipping issues and because Sam here isn’t around helping out as much as he should. Not because of the crew.” She took a breath, squaring her shoulders when her friend’s eyes widened and he stepped back, tucking his head down like he didn’t have the nerve to look at her. Then, Piper grabbed her father’s arm, pulling him away from Sam, closer toward the porch.
I only caught every other word she spoke. Something about his dislike for Evie and her family. The words “hard worker” and “good man.” It was really her body language that left no doubts in my mind that she was defending the people she cared about—how tight she kept the set of her shoulders and the quickness of the finger pointed she did as she went on fussing at the old man like he was a kid and not her father. And one of those people she seemed to be defending was me. That twisted something inside me I hadn’t expected. Had me wanting to slug that old asshole and kiss the breath out of his daughter all in equal measure.
Then, just as quickly as it started, she was through with him, dropping her father’s arm, Piper turned, walking back to the porch she tossed over her shoulder, “Bye, Daddy. Have a good afternoon.”
She didn’t pause as she moved up the steps and back into the house. The screen door slammed and bounced against the frame, and I stood, the nail gun in my hand as Sam pointed to Mr. Warren and the old man stared at me. I didn’t frown. I didn’t glare. Pride filled me up from the inside, and the only thing I could do was smile at that asshole and get back to work.
The B&B would have the finest front desk of any place that had ever welcomed an overnight guest. Nearly five feet long with a half-dozen cabriolet legs and embellished with barley twists around the half-moon top, the antique desk was something Piper had inherited from her grandmother and was the focal point of the lobby I’d been working on for nearly two weeks.
The room was ornate but cozy, with all the original woodwork freshly stained and the new lush runners on the stairs just nailed down and rea
dy for cleaning. The crew had been gone nearly two hours, and I’d almost finished up with the trim along the back wall housing the cubie cabinet for the room keys. The work was slow and tedious, drilling in each room number brass plate to the cabinet frame, but it kept my mind off Piper and the temper that had taken her out of the Victorian three hours before without a backward glance at anyone of us before she hopped in her Jeep and tore down Main Street.
Despite the shit show he’d caused, Sam saw fit to blame her bad mood on me.
“If you’d finished up when you were supposed to—”
“You know what, asshole? You can stop right there.” This time, I wouldn’t let him have the last word.
He paused mid-step in the center of the lobby, dropping his hands to his side like my insult had released some of the air puffing up that ego of his. “I’m not the one who brought her old man over here to bully her into finding a new contractor.” He tried to talk over me, tried to step right to me, but I took that moment to stand up from where I’d been squatting next to the bottom row of cabinets and turned, placing my drill onto the drop-cloth draped over that expensive front desk. “I’m not the one talking down at her like she hasn’t got a damn clue what she’s doing.” I took another step toward him, and the man moved back. “And I’m not the one trying to get in the middle of anything that she wants because I can’t handle the fact that she doesn’t want me.”
“You have no idea what she wants,” he tried, his face red and splotchy, but his tone sharp, threatening.
“I know it ain’t you.”
He wanted to hit me. I saw that clear in the watery glint wetting his eyes and the fist at his side. He’d get away with it, too. Ol’ Uncle Dexter wouldn’t bat an eye if anyone claimed Sam took a swing at me. But Sam was all piss and wind. He was bluster and rage. He had no follow-through. The guy curled his lips, insults and venom hiding behind his thick tongue before he turned and hauled ass out of the lobby, heading off the site. I’d made enemies before. It wasn’t hard to do when you’re the lone man refusing to toe the line. But Sam Travis gave me a look I’d never forget. One that put me on my guard.
It was nearing eight o’clock before I finished the work on the cabinet and the heat forced me out of the Victorian and onto the back of the property to dunk my head and my long hair under the hose. I tugged off my T-shirt, thankful for the breeze that had begun to circle around me as I pulled my hair free from my braid and let the water run through my thick hair and over my face. It took a good ten minutes to work the spray through my scalp, and when I was done I shut off the faucet and gathered my hair, twisting it, combing it with my fingers before I stretched, loving the feel of the water over my bare chest and the wind that hit me.
“Now that is a sight,” I heard, turning to find Piper leaning against the back porch, a bag in her arms and the scent of Juno’s shrimp tacos.
My mouth watered, and I grinned when she glanced at the porch. “Dinner?”
But she didn’t return the smile. Didn’t do much else but get busy setting us up to eat and that did something to me. Something that put me in a mood that seemed to match hers.
Piper had let me kiss her. She’d kissed me back. But there hadn’t been a lot of time we’d spent alone. I’d been staying in a small cabin on my grandparents’ property and my Shímasani was nosy. Piper was uncomfortable with her thinking badly if she spent the night. She lived in a complex owned by her uncle and our weekend trips to the coast were always spent looking for that crater or exhausting ourselves on the beach. There was never any energy left for much more than crashing when we wrapped up our day. Besides, she was twenty, inching toward twenty-one. Still young. Still a little scared, and I understood that.
From what Evie and Alex had told me, Piper’s crush had been long and lengthy and I’d taken advantage of it. I knew what everyone thought of me. I knew those fences would likely never be truly mended. I didn’t want to mess this up. She wasn’t a back of my pickup kind of girl. She deserved more. Better. Piper was my brother-in-law’s sister. I couldn’t rush into this.
But there wasn’t a moment I was around her that I hadn’t wanted to touch her. Hold her, kiss her until we were both stupid from it. And right then, with her fussing with a drop-cloth to make up some semblance of a place for us to eat, with the wind cooling my skin and her stoic expression and the anger bubbling inside her from the shit show the day had been, I couldn’t fight the urge.
She stood, nodding toward the tacos she’d unbagged and placed on the clean drop cloth before she looked up at me, tilting her head to watch me when I moved in front of her. Piper didn’t respond, didn’t do much else but keep her attention on me as I touched her face, my fingers over her forehead, my thumbs resting against her cheeks to lift her head toward me.
“Eddie,” she started, sounding confused, breathless. Then that noise went still, like her breathing, as I took her lips.
She tasted like whiskey, sweet and savory, warm and rich. Piper held onto me, with her fingers curled in my belt loops and her breath bursting out heavy against my still-wet face the deeper I took our kiss.
My chest was damp from the hose and the closer she pulled at me, her thin pullover absorbed the wetness. But, hell, the way she bit into her bottom lip, how she took in deep, sharp breaths, how her touching me the way she was—her nails gliding up my arms, hesitating at my hair before she stopped, told me enough about Piper and what she wanted. She held back, unsure, and my chest tightened at the thought. She remembered. She knew. Most women wouldn’t, but Piper knew not to just grab at my hair. She respected me. Respected who I was. I took her by the wrists, inhaling as she held her breath when I moved her fingers through my long hair, between the loop of wet cords, her pants growing wilder and the low sweet noises she made working a small desperation inside me that made thought and control slip right out of my reach.
“Piper…” I tried, pushing her back, a little drunk on the taste of her, a little desperate to keep her close. “We should…”
“No,” she said, tightening her grip on my hair. The look she gave me wasn’t stoic anymore.
I could read so much in the glint working in her dark eyes. Most of it would normally send me packing, but with her, there was nothing to fear.
“Ed…I like the way you kiss me.”
“I like the way you taste.” When she tugged on my neck, I relented, letting her have my lips, easing us down onto the porch, forgetting the food and everything but how good she felt sitting on top of me with her legs around my hips and her fingers in my hair. Everything inside me was electrified. My heart, my chest, the thinning breath fanning from my mouth and every time Piper’s warm, soft tongue touched mine, when her hips moved us closer and closer together, I thought I’d combust, shatter into pieces from the sensation she worked in me.
“Please…don’t stop…” she whispered, her mouth on my neck, teeth sliding against my ear.
Those flashes of memory, of her as a kid, so young, innocent, got chipped away by the vision of her on the beach in her suit, her body curved and luscious. It disappeared with the feel of her round ass under my hands as she moved on top of me, the hot, soft glide of her tongue along my neck and her breasts pressing into my skin harder, surer each time I kissed her.
Piper’s voice rumbled and whined when I tugged on her hair, teasing her bottom lip, sucking it into my mouth before I looked up at her, pressing my hand to the center of her back wanting her closer, wanting her to feel how hard I was, how much I wanted her. And that whine became a moan, and a shudder that left her panting as she moved against me, her eyes dark now, unblinking as she rocked her hips, slow and sweet; an erotic pantomime of how she’d move when I was inside her.
Control left me. Sense vacated my head, and I moved us in a flash, turning her onto her back, holding her head to rest on my palm, her body on the free space of that drop cloth. Her long hair was fanned out across that fabric and my chest tightened as I watched, not knowing if any of this made sense. Not knowing i
f I had the strength to stop touching her once I started.
“Baby…this might not be a good idea…”
She grabbed my belt loop, pulling me close, and when I brushed against her, my cock throbbed as I touched her warm, teasing center.
“It’s a real good idea,” she said, looping her leg around me so I couldn’t pull away from her.
Her lips were wet, and I had to stop myself from taking them as I looked down at her, every part of me aching to taste her. “Are you sure this isn’t because of your bad day…”
“Ed.” She went still. “I’ve loved you since I was a kid. That’s not gonna change now.” Then Piper grabbed my face pulling me close, kissing me so soundly that I went breathless. Her words stole all thought from me. I wasn’t a kid, and I hadn’t been innocent for a long damn time. But I’d never loved anyone before.
Piper Warren had twisted my world upside down. In a few short months she’d made me smile. She made me laugh. She made this place something I thought it never would be again for me—home. But the words I wanted to say froze inside me, locked tight behind the worry that I’d never measure up; that somehow, some way, I’d do what I always did. Mess this up.
“It’s okay,” she told me, her touch sweet, her voice low and kind. “You don’t have to say it back.”
I meant it. God knew I did, but the moment passed and right then I wouldn’t spoil this.
“I can show you.” I took the surprise on Piper’s face for the opportunity it was.
She relaxed against the floor when I kissed her, arching up, bending her body into me, giving, opening when I moved my mouth down her neck to kiss each spot of pale skin I found as I lowered her shirt.
“You’re soft here,” I said, kissing her collarbone, pulling up her shirt, taking it over her head. She shuddered, exhaling as she gripped my hair again, pressing me against her as I pushed down her bra and found her round, pink nipples. “And here, Nizhóní. So soft here.”
