The Private Serials Box Set (34 page)

   “Preston, this is ridiculous,” she laughed, kicking.  Lena was a strong woman.  She ran regularly and took care of her body.  But compared to me, she was slight, and she stood no chance against my arms when they wanted her close.  One hand reached out and opened the door to my apartment and once we were inside, I used a foot to slam it shut, wasting no time walking back to the bedroom.

   “I missed you when I woke this morning to an empty bed,” I said after I laid her down and covered her with my body.  She was breathing hard, but it wasn’t from her run; it was her body reacting to mine.

   “I didn’t want to wake you,” she whispered.  “You looked so peaceful.”

   My eyes ran over her face, trying to read her expression.  I’d had a hard time being away from her since I’d come here.  At night, my body wound itself around her, my arms and legs sought her out, making sure she was next to me while I slept.  She’d probably wanted a few minutes alone; a few minutes where I wasn’t claiming her with my hands or holding her to me in my sleep.

   My eyes roamed over her face, trying to read her expression, trying to figure out where her head was at.  Lena had always been forthcoming with me, never shied away from telling me what I wanted to know—sometimes I just had to ask.

   “Is it difficult to be around me so much?  Would you rather go back to staying in the apartment with Piper?”  Ever since we’d reconciled, she’d been staying with me in the apartment Parker had originally taken.  Sam and Piper were staying in the two bedroom. I’d ambushed her.  Shown up when she thought she’d gotten rid of me forever, and I’d practically held her captive since.  I knew I was clinging to her, knew I was keeping her close, trying desperately to make up for the two months I had been away.

   Her brow furrowed at my words and confusion became evident in her expression.

   “Why would I want to move back into that apartment?  I want to be with you.”  She sounded convincing.  In fact, she sounded almost a little offended I’d asked.

   “We’ve been together almost every spare moment since last week.  I just want to make sure you aren’t feeling smothered or in need of some space.”

   “I had two months of space that I didn’t want to begin with.”  Her hands moved around my waist and up my back, urging me closer to her.  “I want to be with you.  It was just a jog.”

   She was right, I was being paranoid, but I would give her anything she wanted.  I pressed my lips to hers, kissing her lightly, not entirely finished with our conversation.

   “I just want you to be happy,” I said, my mouth just a breath away from hers.

   “I’m happiest when I’m with you,” she breathed, her words making me lighter somehow.  We’d met in a very unconventional way, started a ridiculously unconventional relationship, and then everything had gone to shit.  She’d been convinced I was the worst man on the planet and there were times I worried her mind was still tainted with those thoughts of me—consciously or not.  But I exhaled a sigh of relief at her words, my forehead falling gently to meet hers.

   “Same goes, sweetheart.”

   “Preston?”

   I lifted my head to look at her.  “Yeah?”

   “One of two things needs to happen here.  You either need to take my clothes off me and follow through with your threat, or I need to take a shower.”

   A slow smile crept across my face and I leaned back so I was sitting on my ankles, her legs spread out around me.  Her body was flushed from her run, a pink hue stretching from her chest up her neck.  She bit her bottom lip, waiting for me to decide what I would do with her.  To her.  I reached behind me to grasp her ankle, bending her knee and pulling her foot in front of me.  I removed her shoe and sock, then placed her foot back down and did the same with her other leg.  She squirmed a little each time I removed her sock and I assumed she was ticklish, storing that information away for another day.

   Once her legs were bare, I bent lower and put my mouth on the skin just below her sports bra, my tongue darting out, eager to taste the salt on her skin.  She hummed as my mouth moved lower, stopping just above her shorts.  Goose bumps broke out over the soft skin of her stomach and I smiled against her, my mind drifting back to the first time I saw her body and knew she’d be mine.

***

   When I’d purchased my baby, my brand-new jet-black souped-up Lotus, I’d imagined myself in lots of scenarios.  Sure, I was a private investigator, but the job was less glamorous than one might imagine.  I spent more time tailing old married men than gangsters or criminals.  The color of the car came in handy at night, but I had to be creative to utilize the speed and sexiness of it.  I might have been guilty of happening upon street races or driving recklessly late at night, just to feel like I was using the car to its full potential.  But sitting outside of a bar, waiting for some poor unsuspecting woman, was only made better by the car I was sitting in.

   This wasn’t my usual job. No.  I had always kept my professional and private lives separate.  No need mixing the two and creating unnecessary messes.  But I’d do anything for Piper.  Even if it meant seducing a woman.  Even if it meant having my picture taken while I was inside of her—job’s terms, not mine.  It was a very specific job.  Not just “sleep with the target.”  No, it was unusually more in-depth than that.  More like, “sleep with target in her own bed, allow photographs to be taken in which it’s obvious and undeniable that sexual intercourse is occurring, deliver images to target’s husband.”  What kind of man wants that type of explicit photographic evidence?

   As if I couldn’t get more confused about why a man would want someone to
purposefully
sleep with his wife, she appeared in front of the bar and I was speechless.  Her long, black-as-night hair was tied up high, but still hung to the middle of her back.  The knee-length skirt hugged her slim thighs as she walked toward the doors, and her sky-high heels made what I could see of her legs look fucking fantastic.

   As she reached to pull the door open, she turned toward my car, her eyes scanning the sidewalk, and I knew—from that instant—my life had just been hijacked by a woman I was hired to ruin.  Never before had I felt such instant ownership over anyone, but she belonged to me.  The way she put herself together, the way she tried to portray herself to the outside world, was a juxtaposition to the softness of her face.  Her outfit, so stark and cold, hell, even her hair was tight and unobtainable.  But her face, it was searching for something, longing and hope prevalent in her expression.  She needed someone to help her and I’d be damned if it was anyone but me.  In that moment she became my exclusive property.

Chapter Two

   I woke to the sound of the front door opening and then closing, and my body shot up from the bed, my instincts taking over.  I reached for the gun in the drawer of my bedside table, my fingers nearly on it when I heard Piper’s voice.

   “Preston,” she shouted, “are you here?”

   I shut the drawer and sighed heavily as my hand ran over my face, my heart pounding.  I looked at Lena; she was still asleep.  Usually I’d marvel at her ability to sleep through the ruckus, but we’d spent hours earlier wearing each other out in bed, so I understood how she was dead to the world.  I stood up, grabbing my jogging shorts from the floor where Lena had thrown them after taking them off me, and pulled them on before heading into the living room.

   “Preston?” Piper called out again just as I entered the room.

   “Shhhh,” I hushed her quietly, my finger to my lips.  “Lena is sleeping,” I said, walking past her into the kitchen and flipping the switch on the coffee maker.

   “It’s the middle of the afternoon,” she said, her voice teasing. I could hear the smile on her face, and could tell by the tone of her voice she knew we’d been in bed all day and Lena was sleeping off sex.

   I turned toward her.  “And your point is?”

   “I don’t really have one,” she said, laughing.  “Just giving you a hard time.”  She came up next to me and took the coffee from my hands, finishing the task for me.  Piper had always been louder than I was, more expressive, more forthcoming.  I was the quiet one, the one who was thoughtfully silent.  Most of the time, at least when we were younger, we were thinking the same thing, our minds always on the same page, but she was just more vocal about everything.  There were advantages to being a twin, but those came with disadvantages as well.  Even so, I wouldn’t trade her for the world.  Having a twin was like having a built-in best friend for life.

   “What have you and Sam been up to?  Did you beat her to the shower?”  I leaned back against the counter, crossing my arms over my chest.

   Piper let out a loud and humor-filled, “Ha!” and continued to prep the coffee then reached into the cupboard to grab two mugs.  “She couldn’t have beat a snail.  She was literally crawling to the apartment.”  She put the mugs down, closed the cupboard door, and then turned to face me.  “I know you and Lena are deep in the honeymoon phase of being reunited, but I’m starting to miss you both.”

   Piper’s brown eyes met mine and I couldn’t ignore the sadness I saw there, the loneliness.  We’d spent a year or so apart—her in NYC while I was in Oregon—but separation for us was never easy.  And now, not being separated physically but having my time taken away from her, well, I could understand how she felt.  We weren’t children, we could handle our emotions just fine, but there was something special about being a twin.  Another dimension of connection that I was sure regular siblings didn’t feel.  I missed my brothers, but not the same way I missed Piper.

   I opened my arms to her and she wasted no time stepping into my embrace.  I wrapped my arms around her shoulders and felt her sigh against me, relaxing into the hug.  We stayed that way for a long moment, then she pulled back and resumed her stance across the small kitchen, watching the coffee drip into the pot.

   “How long will you and Lena stay here?”

   My hand came up and rubbed the stubble on the underside of my chin.  “I don’t know.  As long as she wants, I suppose.  I’m not in any hurry to leave and she’s the one who’s made a life here.”  I shrugged.  “If I want her to stay with me, I’ve got to make it easy for her.  She deserves at least that.”

   Piper nodded.  “She’s lucky to have you,” she said with a smile, even if it was a little sad.  I tucked her sadness away in my mind, wanting to help, but not knowing what I could do for her.  I’d done everything I could think of, everything in my power, and it seemed like her happiness going forward was in her own hands.

   “How long will you stay here?”

   She shrugged.  “Sam has invited me to stay with her in Portland.  You know, just until I can get back on my feet.”

   In the two months I was separated from Lena, Sam had been an invaluable ally to me.  Sure, at first she’d literally tried to maim me, but after I convinced her I had been set up and only wanted to help Lena, she’d come around and become a friend.  “Sam’s great.”

   “Yeah,” she said.

   “You know Parker would take you in, or even Mom and Dad.  You could even stay at my place. I’m not sure when I’ll be back, but you’d have privacy there.”  And I could keep track of her using the surveillance equipment that’d been installed.

   She shook her head.  “Parker is almost as overprotective as you are and would make my life hell if I lived there.  And you know how Ma is.  She’d try to set me up with all of her friends’ single sons, she’d start forcing me to go to all of her social functions—it would be embarrassing.  Besides, I get along with Sam.  Plus, I think she feels a little lonely without Lena around all the time anymore.”

   I’d never force Lena to go back to Portland, but if she could get past the idea that Portland held all the terrible memories of Derrek, I feel like there was a lot of
good
there, that we could be happy there again.

   “Lena has to be comfortable wherever she is and I won’t force her to go back there if it’s not what she wants.”

   “No, of course not,” Piper said quickly.  “I guess I just wish all the good parts of my new life could all be together.  You and Lena, Sam, my independence,” she said with a small grin.  “I know I came here to help you keep tabs on her, but I really care about Lena.”

   “I know, Piper,” I said.  “And she knows it too.  She’ll miss you when you leave.”

   She smiled at my words, but the smile didn’t reach her eyes.  “Can we all do dinner tonight?  Maybe one of those fun luaus?  I know Sam really wants to go to one before she leaves and it would be great to spend an evening all together.”

   “I don’t see why not.  Sounds like fun.”  I gave her a smile and then stepped forward to pour some coffee into my waiting mug.  I poured Piper’s too, and then reached into the refrigerator and handed her the creamer I knew she wanted.  When both our coffees were just the way we liked them, we walked silently onto the attached balcony overlooking the ocean.  It was just early afternoon, but the heat was already making the air muggy.  We sat down next to each other and looked out to the ocean.  My hand found hers and we sat in silence, just content to be near each other.

   After nearly thirty minutes of silent contentment, Piper finally asked the question I knew had been burning in her mind since she walked into the apartment.

   “Do you think we’ll ever be together again, like, in the same state, for good?”

   I gave her hand a squeeze before pulling mine away, using both hands to bring my coffee mug to my lips, trying to piece together an answer for her.

   “In a perfect world Lena would choose to go back to Portland and we could all be in the same city.  But I don’t know if she’ll ever want to go back, and I’m not willing to pressure her about it.”  I took another sip, still not looking over at Piper, knowing her face would be sad yet strong.  “If I were her, I probably wouldn’t want to go back there.  I have to support that if I want her to stay with me.”

  “Do you remember being young and being captivated by magnets?  Remember how they either stuck together with so much force you could hardly pull them apart, or they repelled each other and you couldn’t get them to touch if you tried?”