“You know how I feel about you, Piper,” he finally said, covering my hands with his.
“I don’t want you to feel tied down.” I took a chance and looked at him then.
“I don’t feel tied down.” He brought my hand up to his mouth, the scruff of his beard tickling my knuckles. “I want this. I want you. I want her. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t be in your car about to drive us to our house. Unless the house is yours and you just want me as a random hookup. Or some stranger who sleeps on your couch. I am pretty handy, so I can help with fixing up the place if needed too.”
“How about a babysitter?” I laughed lightly.
“That works.” He chuckled, lowering our joined hands to my lap. As quickly as the humor fell between us, it soon disappeared.
We had a lot to work through.
I just hoped both of us were patient enough for it.
Piper
Once we pulled up in front of my house, my heart started racing. I had only ever lived with my best friends. Never a guy. Before Jaron, I never even spent the night with a guy. It’s not that anyone I had been with never tried; it just wasn’t my thing. It didn’t feel right. I didn’t want the guys to feel like I was hinting for more when I wasn’t. But then Jaron came along and even though it only happened once, sleeping beside him felt natural. When I woke up the next morning, I realized that, and it scared me.
Now that Jaron was going to be living with me, even though I knew from the very beginning that it was a possibility, I never thought he would actually stay.
“You’re not mad?” I asked, waiting for my dad to blow a fuse.
He raised an eyebrow. “Why would I be mad?”
“Well, I’ve had a baby before marriage and…and Jaron and I could possibly move in together once he’s out.”
My dad sighed, placing his mug of coffee on the table in front of him. “Listen, I like Jaron. He was raised well and has a good head on his shoulders. He’s a better man than I ever could be and I’m glad that he’s yours. And what he did for you…” He shook his head. “That’s love, kiddo.”
“This is your place?” Jaron asked, slowing the car down.
“It is. But I guess it’s ours now. I moved in about six months into my pregnancy. My parents had been saving money for me to go back to school but that never happened. They gave me the money anyway and I used it as a down payment. It’s small but it’s perfect.”
“How small?” Jaron asked, pulling the car into the driveway.
“There’s a master bedroom, Brynn’s room, a smaller room that I’m just using for storage right now but would like to turn it into a library one day. It also has two bathrooms. It does have a finished basement though and…I actually have a surprise for you,” I said, leaving the car.
Jaron left the vehicle shortly after. “You have a surprise for me?”
“I do. The guys helped me set it up. It’s nothing big but I thought it would make you feel more at home.” The back of my neck heated. It wasn’t much but I wanted to do everything I could to make Jaron feel better, knowing the time he spent in jail messed with him.
I opened the back door and leaned in to get Brynn out of her car seat. Once she was in my arms, I grabbed the diaper bag and kicked the door closed. Heading up the sidewalk to the house, I stopped at the base of the front steps. Glancing over my shoulder, I found Jaron standing with his hands in his pockets, staring up at the house.
“Take your time, Jaron,” I told him. “There’s no rush. For anything.”
***
(Jaron)
I watched Piper take Brynn into the house. As much as I wanted to follow her, as much as I wanted her back in my arms, something was off. I couldn’t figure out what it was. But maybe she was right. There was no rush. Although I wasn’t a patient person, not everything needed to feel normal right away.
The house looked small from the outside, but I couldn’t wait to make it a home with Piper and our daughter.
Taking a deep breath, I headed toward the house and followed Piper inside. I shut the door behind me, taking in every inch that lay before me. She was right. The house was small. But I liked it. It was perfect.
As soon as you entered, you were brought to an open concept which held the living room and dining room. The kitchen was off to the right with an island separating it from the rest of the large room. You also had to walk up two steps to reach it.
“I like it,” I finally said.
Piper placed Brynn in her playpen and turned to me. “Yeah? It was fixed up a bit, but the backyard is huge. When Brynn gets older, she’ll love it.” She walked to the large patio door leading out to the back of the house.
I joined her, standing behind her and following her gaze. There was a sandbox, a swing set, and a shed. “It needs a pool.”
Piper looked up at me. “I agree but I can’t maintain it myself. That’s why I haven’t gotten one yet.”
“I can do it.”
She stared at me. “Really?”
“Why not?” But I knew the reason she was questioning me. We never did put a label on what we were doing. Hell, I never even wanted kids but when I found out she was pregnant with my baby, I wanted to fuck more babies into her. She had been the only one who could ever reach a part of me I never wanted to give to anyone else and I could never thank her enough for that.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked, her voice lowering.
I pinched her chin, placing a soft peck on her forehead, nose, and then I hesitated before placing one on her mouth.
Her breath caught. Snaking her arms around my neck, she pulled me closer.
Wrapping my hand in her hair, I pulled her head back and deepened the kiss. This, this right here was the reason I survived. With her mouth fused to mine, it was the only thing I had been itching to come home to. Beside our daughter, Piper was my very existence.
She was the reason I made it out of jail alive.
She was the reason I didn’t give up.
She was the reason I lived.
I swallowed her moan, taking in every inch of her mouth. Her breaths were mine. I consumed and breathed her in, reveling in the way she felt in my arms after all of our time apart.
Piper broke the kiss, leaning her head to the side, her chest rising and falling.
I took that as a hint and brushed my mouth up the length of her neck.
“Jaron,” she whispered.
“Yeah,” I murmured against her throat.
“We can’t.”
“I know.” But it didn’t mean I couldn’t tease us a little. Running my hand down her back, I cupped her ass and pulled her flush against me. Making sure to push every inch of me into her, I wanted her to feel how my body reacted to hers. I didn’t want her to doubt for one single second that I didn’t want her as much as she wanted me.
“God,” she panted. “It’s been way too long.”
“It has.” I scraped my teeth along the length of her jaw. “I’m going to have so much fun getting reacquainted with your body.”
“When Brynn goes to bed, we can…we can continue,” Piper suggested softly.
I responded by placing a peck on her nose but we both knew that we needed to wait. Didn’t we? Wouldn’t it be too soon to jump right back into bed when that started our problem in the first place?