Page 43 of Holding Penalty

I take the bouquet in both hands and snap it in half. I brush past Piper into the apartment, making a beeline for the trash can. I shove the broken flowers in, but that’s not enough. I don’t want anything that came from him to be in this space. I pull out the mostly filled trash bag and tie it up.

“Anything else that needs to go down?” I ask Piper.

Amusement flashes in her eyes. “Uh … the recycling?”

I look to the floor and see a cardboard box filled with glass and plastic bottles. I pick it up. “Okay. Anything else?”

“We’re getting a new refrigerator tomorrow. Could you take the old one down?”

I look at the appliance. It’s a big model for this small apartment. “Yeah, sure. Next trip up. I’m getting rid of the flowers first.”

Laughter sputters from her, and she leans against the closed door. “I’m kidding, Nash. You don’t need to lug down the freaking refrigerator.”

“I don’t mind.”

Her eyes roll. “I’m joking. We’re not getting a new refrigerator. I just wanted to see if you’d do it.”

I give her a look. “My wife likes to tease me, huh?”

Wrong choice of words. Suddenly I can’t get the idea out of my head of her teasing me in a very different way. And when that thought shifts to me teasing her, making her ask—beg—for something I’m bringing her right to the edge of but denying her, my face turns hot.

“I’ll be right back,” I push the words out, hurrying to take out the trash.

When I get back to the apartment, it feels like I take a sledgehammer shot to the chest. Because the first thing I see when I open the door is Piper bent over, pulling something out from underneath the kitchen sink. She’s not in her dress yet, just wearing a pair of athletic shorts and a t-shirt.

The way those shorts frame her heart-shaped ass as she bends over has me seeing stars.

She straightens up, and a modicum of sense returns to my brain. It was a trash bag she was reaching for, to replace the one I just took out. I stride across the tiny living room and take it from her hands.

“Let me,” I say. “I took out the trash, I can put the new bag in. You get ready.”

In my peripheral vision, I see Piper lean her hip against the counter and fold her arms over her chest. “You like to do things for people, don’t you? Is that your love language, Nash?”

My lips bunch. “What is this, some social media personality quiz? Put your dress on, we’ll be late.”

She’s still looking at me in a way that makes me feel like she’s seeing too much.

“Okay, Mr. Acts of Service,” she mocks playfully.

“I don’t even know what that means,” I grumble.

She goes back to her bedroom—or her sister’s bedroom, I guess—to get changed. I haven’t seen or heard her sister, so I guess she must be out. While I wait, I kick my shoes off and lie on the couch.

The couch where she’s been sleeping.

The thought makes a bulge appear in my pants, and I don’t do as much as I should to fight it. I can still hear Piper getting ready in the other room, so I irresponsibly let my imagination wander.

Sweet notes of vanilla and cinnamon dance in my nose when I nestle my head into the throw pillow. Is that scent from Piper’s hair when she lies down to sleep at night? It must be.

Piper should be sleeping in a bed at night, not on this couch. But not too big of a bed. Not so big that I couldn’t pull in a breath of this scent if I were sleeping next to her. Not so big that I wouldn’t feel her warmth at my side. Not so big that I couldn’t stretch out my arm and wrap it around her when I roll over in the morning.

In fact, the bed in my room would be just about the perfect size.

No one’s slept in that bed but me. I only bought that house after Bridgett. The thought of one solitary groove forming right in the middle of that mattress suddenly strikes me as sad.

It’s a good thing that dose of self-pity deflates my cock, because I hear Piper’s footsteps at the edge of the couch. She gasps, and I open my eyes just in time to see her tripping.

She crashes on top of me, and when her curves mold against my body and my hands shoot to her waist to catch her, it feels like my brain melts in my head.