Page 40 of Broken on the Mountain
Maybe if I'menough, she'll choose me.
I stand and shake it off. This isn't about my mother packing up my sister and leaving me behind. This isn't about proving I'm worth keeping around despite all my failures.
This is just... making the most of the two days I have with the most beautiful smile I've ever seen.
I grab a Sharpie and crouch by the top dresser drawer.
In neat block letters, I write:Weekend Occupancy Only.
It's a joke. A callback to our rules. A wish for something more permanent that I'm too chicken to say out loud.
But I leave it, anyway and add the finishing touches to my apartment.
A fresh toothbrush in the bathroom cup and a sticky note on the mirror:Welcome home, Piper.
I take a breath and stare out the window. The pot pie rests on a cooling rack, golden crust glistening. She'll be here any minute now. I crack the window and let the cool mountain air sweep through, just as a car door slams downstairs.
I look down and see Brooke's car.She's here!
I'm at the door before Brooke's engine even cuts out. Before the knock. Before anything.
The handle turns under my palm and there she is…Piper Whitman.
Her cheeks flushed pink from the cold, platinum hair wind-tossed and falling loose around her shoulders, those new hiking boots already laced up like she belongs here. Like she never left.
"Hi, Mountain Man."
Her voice is breathless, warm, everything I've been replaying in my head for five days straight.
"Christ." The word scrapes out rough, my smile pulling wide. "I forgot how damn beautiful you are, Chicago."
She steps inside, close enough that I catch her floral scent that makes my head spin all over again. "Don't call me that anymore."
Fuck. Yes.
I kiss her before the door even shuts. Joyful and hungry and desperate, backing us inside until we're hidden from the world. She laughs against my mouth, the sound vibrating through my chest as my heart damn near explodes with joy.
"Is that pot pie?" Piper mumbles against my mouth.
"Not now." I grip her hips, lift her just enough to make her gasp. "After."
Her designer jacket slides off, hits the floor with a soft thump. My hands bracket her thighs, fingers digging into denim, cock already hard and straining.
She grabs my shoulders, moans into my mouth and drags me closer, tongue swirling over mine with the kind of kisses that erase the wasted week we just shared.
She's here. She's really here.
Relief and want and pure lust collide until I can't tell where one ends and the other begins. Her nails scrape my scalp. My thumb finds bare skin where her shirt rides up. Every breath tastes like the first time again.
I break just long enough to press my forehead to hers, voice wrecked. "You're mine."
"All weekend long." She bites my lower lip and giggles. "Take me to the bedroom."
Chapter Nine
Piper
My hands dive under Chase’s shirt, fingers raking over the hard lines of his abdomen, hungry for skin.
