The door of my Charger swung open, and Piper angrily got in. She used too much force putting her seatbelt on, and the only thing it did was make me laugh.
I loved seeing her like this. I loved getting a rise out of her. It excited me that she was all worked up again.
I quickly backed out of Eric’s drive and headed toward my house. Piper had no idea we were making a pit stop, but she’d soon find out.
The whistle of my turbo filled the air as I went around the bend in the road. Piper refused to look in my direction, so I laid it all out for her.
“Listen, I’m sorry.”
Her head snapped over to me, her hair whizzing past her face. “You are not!”
I shrugged slyly. “I mean, I am in a way. I was being selfish when I told the team to back off, and you didn’t deserve that. But you’re right. I’m more not sorry than I am.”
She crossed her arms over her chest, and my eyes dipped down. I swore, the inside of my Charger grew ten times hotter with my eyes on her.
Piper appeared to be letting her resolve fall, though. Her arms were crossed, sure, but her chest wasn’t rushing with hidden anger. She glanced out the side window, and I almost begged her to put her attention back on me. I wanted to feel the way I felt when her eyes found mine. But she was refusing to look, because if she did, she knew I’d see right through her facade. The guise she used was a poor attempt at concealing what she really felt.
I stared out the windshield, smiling on the inside. “You like it.”
Piper’s leg stopped bouncing, and when I looked back at her, I could see her eye peeking at me from the corner.
“You like the thought of me not wanting someone else to take you to the formal. You like that I wanted you to myself.”
Her neck started to get red, and it was all the confirmation I needed to keep going. My hand tightened on the steering wheel, and I threatened my dick to stop getting hard.
But fuck, did I want Piper in the worst of ways. And it was true. I did want her all to myself.
Piper’s demeanor changed fast. She was now staring at me, leaning a little bit closer to the center console. “Is that why you did it? So you could keep me all to yourself? Or is this just another twisted way to pick on me?”
My nostrils flared, and I had the urge to whip the car over to the brim and tell her every last thing that was going through my head. Of course I wanted her to myself.
“This isn’t me picking on you.”
“Isn’t that what you do, though? Get off on picking on me and getting me all riled up? You’ve only been doing it for months now. Flirting with girls and winking at me behind their backs.” She huffed and pulled herself away. “What are we? In elementary school? Picking on your crush.”
Oh, this was much more than a crush.
I swore under my breath as we began pulling through my gated neighborhood. The whistle of my turbo lessened as I crept past the large homes.
“What are we doing here? I thought you were taking me home.”
As soon as I pulled up into the empty garage, I put my Charger in park. “I need your help with something.”
She glanced around the garage. “Okay. What?”
“Come on. I’ll take you home right after so you can work on your paper.”
I climbed out of my Charger and waited for her to follow, knowing she would. I glanced at the time on my phone. My father was long gone now, and hopefully, Christian wasn’t coming home soon. But that was why I had Piper with me.
She could keep watch as I dug a little deeper into my parents' past, hopefully finding out something that would answer the questions constantly floating around in my head.
It was easy to get lost in Piper’s problems, and it was easy to bury myself in things that served as a distraction: girls, partying, racing. But I knew the time would soon come that I had to face my brother and dad. There would be many more slip-ups, and I couldn’t keep shit locked away forever. I did, however, need to get my head on straight. I needed to collect myself. I needed answers.
“What are we doing, Ollie?” Piper’s whisper floated throughout the hallway as she followed me past my bedroom and Christian’s.
I spun around quickly, startling her. “I’m taking you to bed; what does it look like?”
Her rosy lips parted instantaneously with the widening of her eyes. She tripped over her words. “You’re… Wh-wha…what?”