Breathe With Me (The Breathe Series Book 3)

by Wendy L. Wilson

  Piper threads herself to my side naturally, as if we’ve never been apart a day in our lives. I stay put, and of course, glance up at her dad to see if I’m getting the traditional, get-your-paws-off-my-daughter look. Luckily, he doesn’t pay any mind. He’s way too caught up in learning the details of his younger sister’s life.

  Pete didn’t know all about why his sister left the nest and unfortunately his father has been hell bent on keeping a lid on it as well, but enough was pieced together to learn that she was discarded after she found out she was pregnant. However, from Pete’s point of view he was told his sister ran off with her high school sweetheart. He last saw her when she was sixteen. When Judd broke the news to him of her death, I think all of us wished we could shrink down and leave the room. It was clear that he had missed his sister all of these years, but the mist of water that filled his eyes soon evaporated as he came to the conclusion that left behind in his little sis’ absence were three boys which he had never had the pleasure to get to know.

  “So,” I lean towards Piper, speaking in a quiet tone so that I don’t interrupt the excitable conversation going back and forth between Judd, Pete and Jake. Today’s visit is full of smiles and reminiscing, and they all deserve this. “Grandpa told me that apparently, your dad and my dad didn’t like to play nice back in the day. There was some squabble over a girl and I guess they sworn enemies forever,” I snicker, dramatizing my words like there may be a shootout at sunset between the two.

  “Whoa…” Pete’s voice kicks up a notch and projects in my direction, getting our attention. Damn, I do not know how to keep shit quiet. “It was not over a girl; it was over my sister. He had the hots for Hailey and I just thought…” he looks down, then over to Judd and back to us. Judd grits his teeth as if hearing that his mom was desirable back then, hits a sour note. “Well, I thought he was arrogant and didn’t want him around my little sister. He had a bad rep and I knew how my mom was with that stuff.”

  I raise my eyes and look at Judd. “Arrogant, imagine that…my father, really?” I say sarcastically, in complete agreement of his assessment.

  Judd snickers and they return to their back and forth, did-you-know-this chatter. Myself, I’m about ready to abandon the family talk and spend some alone time with Piper.

  Glancing past the clock that reads a little past 7:00, I look out the window at the dark night and sigh about the half hour drive still ahead of me.

  “So what would you say if I suggest both of us ditching the family reunion and heading back to my place to…” slowly letting a smirk rise over my lips and across my cheeks, I add the part of that suggestion that I usually leave out, but not tonight. “…for the night?”

  Her head snaps to attention, and the abruptness of it is so noticeable to me, that I immediately glance at her dad to make sure that my whisper didn’t come out in my regular voice for all ears to hear. I clamp my jaw down expecting to find all eyes on us with expectant expressions and probably a shitty ass grin from Jake and Judd, but fortunately, their idle conversation has them all fully engrossed.

  “Ok,” her calm, quiet voice reaches me before I can look back, but that word has me spinning my neck her way so fast that it may possibly pop right off.

  Our eyes meet and there is no maybe, or hesitation or even nervousness in hers…just a simple ok with something I’m thrilled to see; excitement. I do not think I can get to the door fast enough.

  After what seemed to be a ten-second flee from her house, that had to be noticeable by everyone, plus a thirty-minute drive home, which I believe I shaved down to about twenty, we get to my apartment and speed upstairs.

  “Evan…” she laughs, clinging tight to my hand as I fumble for my keys. “Is there some movie on that we’re going to miss or do you just have to pee really bad?”

  Shoving the door open finally, I turn my head slowly, rather proud of her sarcasm, suddenly dumbfounded on whether I should just throw her down as soon as we walk inside. I sure the hell hope she wasn’t being serious though. She looks at me with a slightly held back grin and a sparkle in her dark eyes, but I play it cool, remaining nonchalant as if I haven’t a care in the world; especially one where I have years of pent up sexual frustration for her, that is currently beating its fists across my pelvis region and begging to come out to play.

  “Just glad to have you to myself.” Come to think of it maybe I should‘ve peed before we left. At this point, I’d practically have to stand on my head to make sure I aimed that sucker straight.

  Pulling her along on my heels, I make a beeline for the couch and plop down. To hell with any more talk and I’m definitely not in the least concerned with what could be on TV. Piper drapes her body across the couch with her legs lazily flung over my lap; in an instant my body’s on alert. Placing my hand gently at her kneecap, I run my eyes up the length of her legs starting at her ankles, all the way up before pausing at her thigh. To hell with this. Reaching forward, I slip my fingers into the belt loops of her jeans to pull her onto my lap. She laughs, shifting and wiggling as I tug her, enticing a whole lot more stimulation beneath my jeans than she’s bargaining for. She finds a comfortable spot, settling down with her legs folded calf against thigh, but I can’t help the grin that creeps across my face as her eyes widen and she stares right at me. With anyone else, and given her past trauma, I’d bite my tongue on this one, but this is Piper; we’ve never been that way with each other. I say what’s on my mind and she’s come to expect that from me.

  “Oh, don’t act like you haven’t felt that before,” I chuckle, raising my eyebrows mischievously.

  A small smile instantly tugs at the corner of her lips, but the sexiest thing of all is the slight tent of pink in her cheeks that flame all the way around the contours of her face as she tries to hide her embarrassment.

  “Don’t worry it won’t bite…” pulsing my eyebrows, I pause and she grins as I finish my statement in an over-the-top alluring tone that nearly makes me crack up. “…hard.”

  Her hand comes up and she bursts out laughing as she smacks my chest. I catch her hand, using it as leverage to pull her closer until my lips are on hers, tasting what I’ve been craving all afternoon. A needy, impulsive desire sparks in my chest, practically igniting a hump reflex in my hips as I shift toward her in a rhythmic motion that matches the steady and tender pulse of my tongue.

  Closing my eyes, I’m zoned in on the kicked-up pace of my breaths, the rapid beat of my heart and the sweet satisfying touch of her lips against mine. One of my hands sits uselessly against her clothing, still clasped in her belt loop, while the other remains at my side. This is where we usually put on the brakes, however, my engine is revved up and my brakes are so erect, I think it would take an army to stop me now.

  Slowly opening one eye, I take in Piper’s demeanor, but as her tongue caresses mine and her lips pucker, and as needy sighs slip out of her mouth every few seconds, I realize it’s really not needed; she may want this as bad as I do.

  I pull away just enough to be able to say two words, “You ok?” They aren’t necessary seeing as she was just about to burn a hole through my jeans too, but I ask anyways. I need to always walk softly when it comes to moving too fast with her, and this is definitely moving fast. In the last month we haven’t so much as made it to second base and here I am fantasizing of how good sliding into home plate will feel with her body crushed up against mine.

  She gulps down a few shallow breaths, her chest moving in and out, like it’s beckoning for me to dive in. Spreading out my fingers as my hand rests at my side, I fight the urge to go for a rather large feel up.

  “Yeah, I’m ok,” she gets out with a heavy-winded gasp. “Are you?” Her eyes flick down before meeting back up with my gaze.

  I want to laugh, in fact my lungs burn with the desire to crack up, but this is not the damn time for laughing and playing; I’m on a hell of a mission and I need to keep my head in it.

  “Ohhh, I’m good.” I raise my brows, putting forth my best
serious tone while gulping down that little voice that’s saying, maybe we should just wait. Screw that voice. “Will you feel comfortable if we go in my room?”

  Drum roll. This will be the deciding factor, because even if I get the slightest idea that she is hesitant, I will not push it; I won’t. I may be eager as hell and about to get a serious groin injury if I get any more turned on, but this has to be completely ok with her.

  She doesn’t say a word, and a tinge of dread fills my heart thinking this is the end of the road for today; all I’m getting tonight is a whole lot of snuggling and a serious case of blue balls, but before I can even finish my thought, she is off of my lap with a smile and a slow backwards, sexy-as-all-get-out trip into my bedroom with her eyes locked on me. Holy shit, it’s happening!

  I bolt upright, practically face planting into the coffee table. I don’t even wait for her as my feet lead me blazing past her and right to the bed. The only dilemma on my mind now is, do I start the show without her by throwing myself onto the bed, like here I am, come get me or do I rip off my clothes like a horny teenager and wait for her to take matters into her hands, at her own pace. Oh geez, that sounds good.

  “Evan…Evan!”

  Shaking my head, I look around. I’m frozen right beside the bed, with my hands securely holding all of my assets. Piper stands in front of me with a silly grin on her face. I keep my hand right where it is, the tightness of my jeans about to cut off my circulation to all of my lower extremities if I don’t let the beast out of its cage soon. Raising my brows to let her know I’m now back on Earth rather than drifting off to Planet Boning, I hold back my smile and wait to see what she has to say.

  “Ummm, are we…”

  She looks around, her eyes searching my unmade bed, then running down to my hand. Ok, I can’t hold it back; I snicker, releasing my hand and bringing it up to the small dip at the side of her waist. She shivers beneath my touch and all humor is set aside.

  “Don’t worry, I think we can warm the room up pretty quick.”

  Her eyes widen impishly; I take that as a green light as I move my hand straight across to the center of her back, joined by my other so I can slowly but surely pull her sweater up. I’m always careful to keep my hands away from her hips after we figured out that is what triggers her black outs. Squeezing my eyes shut, I push that thought away and nudge my chin forward. I reopen them, staring into her eyes, to search for any signs of distress or freak out.

  No sooner than the sweet, moist flesh of her bottom lip is between my lips, I reach my hands beneath her sweater, making a steady incline to the hooks of her bra. It may be backwards to keep her clothes on and take her bra off, but I figure it may keep her a bit more comfortable and help us ease into it. A short trembling gasp escapes her and my fingers stop, holding the straps of her bra in my fingertips, which I already spectacularly unhooked, like it was second nature.

  I pull away, again….

  “You ok?” I huff out in her face, unable to keep my ragged breathing under control.

  At this point, testosterone is blazing through my body and I can barely hold back. Piper nods, bringing her hands up between us and shuffling them around inside her sweater. I watch, my hand still remaining under her shirt and holding tight to the back of her bra, but as soon as the delicate threads of fabric get pulled from my hand, I know what she’s doing. Oh yes!

  All I really want to do is pull her sweater off, fall back on the bed and let her press those puppies all over me. I’d also like to thank her, because back when we were younger, those things were under lock and key for the longest time. I could understand why, but it didn’t dampen my urge to see them any less. I even tried to convince her that all boobs were just fat and that maybe, just maybe I could give them the proper exercise that was required if she let me fondle them for a bit; no dice.

  Keeping my hands at her back, I wait, all the excitement in my body rushing below the waist right where I thought I could not swell any further; I was wrong. A slight rustling sound as she pulls the bra out from beneath her sweater and a subtle tap on the top of my shoe as it gets dropped to the floor, is all it takes before my hands are burning a path back to the front of her waist. I make sure to skim over every bit of soft delicate skin as I can possibly touch until they rest below the prize. Still wishing her sweater was out of the way, I look at Piper, pausing, but no sign of this stopping; those are up for the grabbing.

  Her eyes glimmer as she looks back at me, fearless and ready. Me too. Quirking my brows, my fingertips move, quickly reaching their destination. Taking as much as I can into my hand and nearly ending it all as her nipple skims my palm, I release a lungful of air and quietly mumble, “Boy have they missed me.”

  Piper’s nervous grin grows to the point of spilling into laughter, but a shaky breath tells me that her nerves may be pushing away all humor.

  “I meant that in all seriousness.” I slowly bring my hand up to join the other, this one also getting to indulge in the pleasure of touching every inch of skin that it can, as I move my fingers over each rib as if they were keys on a piano before scooping up another warm, soft handful of flesh.

  “They have been aching for me to touch them again. I know these things,” I inform her.

  Keeping my face serious, I slowly and reluctantly use my wrists to lift her sweater so that I can visually devour her. I stay a few inches away so that we can take baby steps, but still looking as I raise it further up her body. This is actually the furthest we’ve gotten the entire month we’ve been dating.

  She moves her arms as if she may pull it off, but I’m getting anxious. I cut the chitter-chatter, not making a sound as I slowly spin her around as if we are slow dancing, then carefully ease ourselves down onto the bed. As my right knee sinks into the soft mattress, she slowly scoots onto her back, grazing my inner thigh with hers. We never lose momentum and as always my ears stay locked in on the picked-up sounds of her breaths. As our bodies find a comfortable spot, forming an indention into the pillow top section of the mattress, I mold my lips back to hers with my hand soon finding its own resting place which seems to have been designed to fit it like a glove.

  Her hands trail my back, tugging and pulling me against her and my lips know absolutely no boundaries as they fall from the corner of her mouth to her jaw onto her neck. A small whimper greets my ears as my pelvis shifts and moves against her in a hungry plea to have the rest of our clothes off.

  “Ah…”

  I move my face away from her delectable skin as I hear a tone in her reaction that sounds a bit different than pleasure.

  My chest expands on a deep breath. “Are you ok?”

  Normally, I wouldn’t ask her this half a dozen times, however, this is like starting over with her; approaching it all as if it were our first time again. Back when I was inexperienced and new to it all, plus with her delicate situation, I always worried about doing anything without her ok first. That’s when we really got things straight between us and I realized that she didn’t need me to change how I was; she just wanted me to go about it naturally so that I wasn’t drawing up bad memories. This is different; if I, for even a second, think that she is in distress or wanting to stop, I stop.

  Smacking her lips together on a heavy gulp as if she’s thirsty, she wiggles against me with a bit of a pained expression. I lift my weight off of her a bit, looking down between us as she readjusts her position.

  “I’m sorry… It’s just…” she stops talking, sucking her bottom lip in between her teeth, a nervous habit she’s had for as long as I can remember. “Your jeans were just…” She presses her lips together and looks at me hesitant to finish; she doesn’t have to.

  “Oh shit I’m sorry.” I grit my teeth, realizing that I was probably damn near rubbing her raw with the way I was dry humping her like an over-eager dog in heat. Glancing down, and gently lowering myself back down onto her, I shift to the side so that I’m not bearing all of my weight on her. “Is this all right?”

  She
nods, and for a moment the only thing circling in my head is let’s get right back to where we were, but I have a better idea. Scooting back in a flash, I bolt to my feet, keeping my eyes on her as I slowly lower my hands to come up with a better solution for both of our problems. My jeans are about to cut off the blood flow to the rest of my body, and they’re obviously not aiding in any sense of pleasure for her if they’re about to give her a rug burn. Besides, this way it’ll cut out any hazards of me starting a fire; that would really put a kink in the intense moment that we have here.

  Piper keeps her eyes glued on me, glancing down to my hands as I unfasten my button, lower my zipper and shove my jeans to the floor as if the fire has already started. No sense in drawing it out; I’m not looking for a new profession as a stripper and I’m sure as shit not taking my pants off for sex appeal. Using my toes, I shove off both of my shoes, then step on my pant legs one at a time to pull them off in two tugs.

  I flick my eyes back to her, raising my brows mischievously with plenty of ideas for my next move, but for the first time, probably ever, I’m at a complete loss of whether I should continue. Normally I’d be like a damn magician in this sort of situation, snapping my fingers and all of our clothes would drop to the floor so that we could get the real party started. However, this is her; this is us.