Page 23 of Story Of My Heart

“Like this, yeah.” Her hips slide back against me in a fluid motion that throws me off guard, sheathing me entirely inside her and stopping once her ass is flat against me.

Piper. You are the most singularly incredible woman I’ve ever encountered, is what I want to say. Instead, I end up just whimpering her name as she starts to thrust backward against me. I can’t believe how many years we’ve spent not doing this. I scrabble for purchase, grabbing at her hips so that I can start fucking her instead of the other way around. There’s an awkward moment where our rhythm isn’t quite lining up, but then we fall in sync, and the contact starts making this delicious wet slapping noise that makes my own toes curl and my body feel like it’s going to turn inside out.

“Harder,” she bites out, reaching between her legs. “And hold me so I can touch myself.”

Her confidence takes me even higher into euphoria. I take more of her weight with my hands, trying to look anywhere but directly at her, because I know if I do I will come right then and there. I need to hang in there long enough for her to get where she’s going, or it’ll be the kiss on the bridge all over again. I start thinking about the punch list, and food costs, and the party barge. But then I start thinking about how good she looked in that white dress, and how the neckline was low enough that I could slip one of her tits out into my hand if I wanted to, and if she wears it again I could push it up over her hips and fuck her in it, and I know the boat was pretty big but I never checked to see if it had a bathroom—

“Can you concentrate for a second?” Piper moans beneath me. The fact that she can tell that I’m not paying attention even when she isn’t looking at me, and is currently spearing herself onto my erection, does something to my heart that I don’t want to examine. “We need to start practicing your dirty talk, Tate. That’s super important to most women. Tell me how good it feels. Tell me how good I feel.”

“Piper, this is genuinely the best sex I’ve ever had in my life.” I can’t believe I’ve strung out that many words together, let alone in the correct order and with the right meaning. “You feel incredible. Tight. Wet. You feel perfect. You’re perfect. You’re probably going to kill me with how your pussy is strangling my cock.”

We move together seamlessly, as if choreographed by fate itself. It’s as though we’ve danced this dance a thousand times before—no stumbles, no hesitations. With Piper, everything clicks into place, each moment unfolding like a scene from a movie starring older versions of us. She’s both a familiar song whose notes I know by heart and a new creation that leaves me guessing. Each touch, a spark; every glance, a story waiting to be told.

Her thrusts against me grow erratic, and she pushes her face down into the pillow, letting out a dull scream. It’s the green light I’ve been waiting for as my body takes over, and I’m not far behind, driving myself in and out of her with abandon, before I seize up in an orgasm of my own. Harder. Faster. More. My entire body feels like an overtaxed circuit right before a fuse blows as the tension builds, and I worry for a second that I might black out, my vision dimming as I empty myself with a groan. The muscles in my body tighten as Piper cries out, the bliss ripping us apart as we shatter at once, sweat slicked and trembling. We both stay still for a moment, unsure of what to do next, breathing heavily in the silent cabin.

“Good practice,” I mutter, wiping a bead of sweat from my brow before it starts to run down the side of my face. “I really think we needed that.”

“You think?” Piper adds with a laugh. “They say when you’re learning a new skill, it’s better to practice a little bit every day.”

“Well. You know where to find me,” I say with a wink, before heading to the bathroom to clean myself up. As the afterglow starts to wear off, I have to fight the urge to worry that we’ve crossed a line we won’t come back from. She’s my Piper. I know she can handle it.

I’m just a little worried about myself.

As the cold water splashes over my face, washing away the remnants of our ‘practice,’ a profound realization settles in. There’s a line drawn in the sand now—before Piper and after her. Everything feels irrevocably altered, like I’ve stepped through a door and the path behind me has vanished. I’m not sure how to navigate this new landscape where every thought, every pulse of my heart seems to echo her name. How do I reconcile the man I was with the one she’s unknowingly shaping? The starkness of this change terrifies me, yet there’s an undeniable thrill in the uncertainty, a sense of being truly alive that I hadn’t known was missing until now.

Staring at my reflection, the water dripping from my jawline, a flicker of fear sparks within me. What if I fall for her? The thought hits like a punch to the gut, the possibility looming like a shadow over every smile, every touch. And worse, what if she leaves? The mere idea sends a shiver down my spine. After the last heartbreak, the one that nearly broke me, I’m not sure I could navigate through the wreckage of another. How do you brace for a storm when it’s already raging in your chest? The fear of another broken heart, possibly by the hands of the one person who’s come to mean more than I ever expected, is almost too much to bear.

We crossed the line, and I feel like someone plugged my body into a live socket. Even looking at Piper is like lightning bolting through my nervous system, like a fucking current beneath my skin. And I want more. So much more. If I have to label it as practice, so the emotions don’t grow too big, that’s what I’ll do.

But that’s not what it will be. At least not for me.

And one thing I know for sure, I’m never, ever going to forget how she tasted shattering across my tongue like she belonged to me.

Chapter Twelve

Piper

I don’t know what I expected Tate to be doing when I came out of the shower, but sitting on the sofa, giving his full attention to his programming was not anywhere on the list. I hadn’t anticipated him to suddenly become the most affectionate person alive, but the casual nod and small wave that he gives me when we make eye contact does nothing to make me feel more comfortable about the way I acted just half an hour earlier. We’re supposed to be meeting Fallon over at the VFW this afternoon, and I had initially been concerned that we wouldn’t be able to keep our hands off of each other. Now, I’m concerned that we won’t seem together at all.

Like all of that practicing was for nothing in the end. And if it ends up changing everything between us, where does that leave things?

He keeps his distance while we get ready to go, acting as if nothing more has happened between us than a handshake or a well behaved game of Scrabble. He certainly isn’t acting like I have beard burn between my thighs right now, or like I made him whimper when my pussy strangled his cock as I came for the third time.

The car ride from the resort to meeting up with Fallon passes the same way as the car ride down from the city. Tate ignores me and just scrolls on his phone. I could build a time machine and go back an entire week, and there would be no difference between this Tate and that one. And isn’t this what I asked for when we talked about boundaries? What I all but demanded? I don’t regret the sex, not at all. It was fantastic, and it worked. I’m not the sort of person who would let myself do something I didn’t totally want to do. But this hot and cold routine is starting to leave me with a bad taste in my mouth.

He gives me exactly what I ask for—distance, boundaries, a clear-cut line drawn so sharply between us that I might as well have used a ruler. And yet, as we slide down the road, miles ticking by with only the soft hum of the engine, a gnawing frustration stirs inside me. It’s ironic, really. Women often complain that men never listen, never give us what we want. But here I am, handed precisely what I demanded from Tate, and it feels like I’m swallowing sand. Turns out, getting what you want can be just as thorny as not getting it at all.

Although, I know Tate better than anyone, and I know he takes things literally. I’m the one who told him that nothing could change between us. Just because he’s acting this way, doesn’t mean he’s not feeling anything inside. I guess I can keep playing the part, but what happens when we go home? Will Tate just swing back up to his penthouse and shut the door, sending me an Edible Arrangement to congratulate me on a job well done and a spectacular couple of orgasms, never to speak of this again? This means something to me, and I thought from the way he touched me that it meant something to him, too. I’m getting the feeling that I was wrong, and that I’m the one who’s going to get their heart broken.

Even though I tried to compartmentalize this situation before we took it to the next level, it’s the definition of complicated.

I put aside my hurt feelings as we pull up to the local VFW, a nondescript brick building with a neatly manicured lawn. A painstakingly hand painted sign stands out front, with a phone number to call for hall rentals. It’s hard for me to imagine Tate in a place like this, but he must have come to events here as a kid. Thinking about a younger version of him, coming here to meet Santa or buy a pancake breakfast, twists something in my heart. I feel myself getting a little weepy over it, and I shake it off as fast as I can. I’ve never been one for public displays of emotion, definitely not in front of people I don’t know well, and certainly not in front of my boss’s kid sister. Especially one who is as invested in our relationship as Fallon is. I remember our Team Piper conversation earlier and cringe inwardly.

I’m not even sure I’m on Team Piper.

“Let’s go over this again.” I turn to Tate, letting the car idle as we wait for Fallon to finish parking hers.

“Do we have to?” He unbuckles his seatbelt and leans against the window, rolling his eyes. “We’ve gone over it five times today.”

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