Our eyes lock, and he immediately slings the shirt back on.
For the kids—before they notice that something weird is going on between us—I ask him, “How was your day?”
“Busy, surprisingly.” He answers with a neutral tone, the same tone he puts on when he’s speaking to someone he doesn’t know well. “I saved a man from a stream. Cut someone out of a car.”
My eyebrows rise on their own accord.
“My friends all think you’re cool.” Ellie looks up from her homework with a smile.
“So do mine,” Sonny adds. “I want to be a firefighter someday.”
“Someday, yes.” Caleb forces a chuckle—something that sounds like it takes great effort. He opens up the oven and finds the dinner I left him. “Hart, you didn’t have to?—”
“I know.” I try not to sound too spiteful in front of the kids. “But there were leftovers.”
He sits down at the table, knife and fork in hand, and catches my eyes while the kids are busy with homework. “How did you get these two monkeys to be so quiet?” he whispers.
“Magic.” I stand from the chair. He doesn’t get to make small talk with me when he’s making me feel like crap. When, for all I know, he could be lying about work running late. “I’m gonna take a shower.”
Caleb glances up at me from the table, his eyes wide, like he’s picturing me naked and dripping wet. I feel his eyes on me as I retreat upstairs.
The distance thing is getting kinda repetitive.
But I’m only living here temporarily. Soon, it won’t feel as hard to keep distance. It’ll come naturally.
I disappear into my room. I wasn’t lying about the shower, but I need to take care of something else first. My pussy is burning once again with need from the way Caleb scanned his eyes up and down my body.
I go to close the drapes…
And that’s when I feel like something is incredibly off.
The car parked on the roadside shouldn’t be anything out of the ordinary. But it is. I don’t recognize the model or the registration plate. When you’ve lived in a town as small as this your entire life, you learn to memorize cars and who they belong to.
And I have never seen this one before.
It’s probably just somebody traveling through,I remind myself.A lot of people take rest breaks here on their road trips up to Canada.
I close the drapes, but something still feels off. The desire to finger-fuck myself is gone.
Why does it feel like I’m being watched?
14
CALEB
I’mup in the study completing paperwork. There’s a never-ending amount, but I’m determined to finish tonight.
It doesn’t help that Piper’s bedroom is opposite the study. The only way I can effectively get her out of my head is if I’m cutting someone out of a car. And that isn’t happening very often around here.
I’m three case files away from finishing when the door finally opens, and like a moth to a flame, I turn around and see her.
She’s in borrowed clothes. I gave her a handful of sweats when she first moved in, but she prefers to wear clothes given to her by Jess.
“You’re working,” she states. “It’s late.”
“It’s hardly work.” I swivel around in the chair and regard her. Tired face—still just as beautiful. Long brown hair cascades down her shoulders. I like it best when she wears it natural, and when her eyes have a hint of tiredness to them. It reminds me that she feels comfortable enough to walk around my house unguarded.
Physically, of course.
