The Private Serials Box Set(86)
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 f*cking 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.