AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Well, I don't – I mean, I don't know what's going to happen between us, obviously, and I don't want to – ”
I leaned forward and stopped her mid-sentence by pressing my lips against hers. She hesitated, at first, but then her lips parted for me, welcoming my tongue into her mouth. I took her face in my hands and pulled her closer to me, nibbling at her lower lip. Piper sighed, a content sound, as her fingers moved through my hair.
“Oh Shane,” she whimpered against my mouth.
“Yes?” I whispered.
“I've missed you,” she said. “So much.”
Tears were falling down her cheeks, and I wiped them away as best I could.
“I missed you too, Piper,” I said. “I hated leaving you, but always hoped to be back with you someday.”
“Me too,” she said, and the tears continued to fall. She was smiling though – they were happy tears.
I leaned in for another kiss, my cock pressing hard against my slacks. God, what I wouldn't give to have the place to myself tonight, to be able to take her into my bed and show her how much I'd missed her. Before our lips touched for the second time, however, Emily's voice interrupted us.
“Shane?” she asked. “Did you forget to pay the gas bill or something?”
Fuck. I pulled my hands away from Piper's face and placed them over mine instead.
“I'll handle it, Emily.”
“We don't have any hot water and I need to shower,”
“I'm sorry, not much I can do about it tonight,” I said.
I thought I had at least a couple more days to scrape together the cash, but I'd been wrong. Obviously. Shit. I hated that happened right in front of Piper too. Nolan and Emily started shouting at each other. Emily was pissed at me, Nolan was defending me. It seemed like it was an endless cycle of arguing, no matter what I did these days.
“I think that's my cue to get going,” Piper said softly. She gave me a quick peck on my lips. “But call me. Maybe we can meet over at my place next time.”
“That would be nice,” I said.
She ran her hands through my hair as she walked through the dining room, and I stood, following behind. Her tight little ass swished in the dress as she walked, and I couldn't take my eyes off her. She was stunning, every bit as beautiful as she'd been back then – if not more so.
When she glanced over her shoulder, it hit me that no, she was definitely hotter now. The new, curvier Piper was more gorgeous than I could have ever imagined. She smiled, knowing I was checking her out from behind. I just shrugged and gave her a smile.
“Call me,” she purred as she stepped through to door.
“I will.”
~ooo000ooo~
“You're sure there's nothing available?” I asked. “I mean, I'll do anything. No job is too small, right?”
I paced the living room of our shitty little apartment with the phone pressed to my ear, looking through the dirty, cracked window, to the parking lot below. More specifically, at my useless working car sitting there taunting me.
“I'm sorry, Mr. Jackson,” she replied. “We don't have anything available as of this moment. Maybe try us back in a few weeks and see if we have anything open then.”
I sighed. “Okay, thank you.”
I didn't have a few weeks – I was quickly running out of days. With the cupboards bare, the rent coming due, and the stack of bills on the table only getting thicker, things were looking bad. We'd already crossed grim and were quickly approaching dire.
Back in the day, I thought I knew what desperate was. I needed a new pair of jeans. I needed that girl's number. I needed a car. I needed things that now, with some perspective and hindsight, seem entirely frivolous. Stupid, even.
Yeah, the troubles of my youth in no way prepared me for that trials and tribulations of adulthood. Now that our parents were dead, and I was tasked with caring for two young kids – trying to keep a family together, a roof over our heads, the electricity on, and food in our bellies. – I knew what real troubles were.
Now, I knew what real desperation felt like.
