Chapter Seventeen
Pippa stretched next to Phi on the Diva’s huge bed. Toiles cherubs cavorted on the canopy above their heads.
“I didn’t know she cared.” Pippa slurred the words a little. She and Phi had limped upstairs with another pitcher of Manhattans.
Phi heaved a big sigh. “Of course she cared, darling. It can’t be easy living under the shadow of your younger sister.”
“Say what?” Pippa turned her head to stare at Phi. “I think you’ve got that the wrong way round. I was always in Laura’s shadow.”
“Really.” Phi raised her eyebrow. Except the makeup had smudged the eyebrow pencil and it went a bit demented on the end. They’d shaved Phi’s eyebrows off when she was younger and her brows had never grown back again. “Laura was such a quiet, contained child and then you came along.”
Quiet, contained, and perfect. Their mother’s little darling. Oh God, she was pathetic. Still resenting her sister for being her mother’s favorite at thirty-two. Maybe she needed a good round of therapy to get the hell over herself.
“You were a firecracker from the moment you opened your eyes.” Phi gave her deep, throaty chuckle. “All wild red hair and big sparkly eyes. You walked before your first birthday and spoke before any of us were ready for it. Laura was a quiet child, unassuming. She got lost in the background.”
Pippa shook her head. That couldn’t be right. Years of teachers asking her if she was Laura’s little sister, expecting her to be the same and then bemoaning the fact that she wasn’t.
“No, Phi. Laura was the star. Who was homecoming queen? Laura.” She took a sip of her Manhattan. “Who was captain of the cheerleaders? Laura. Most popular? Laura. Spring Carnival princess two years in a row? Laura.”
And who made Mom quietly glow with pride. Laura.
Phi snorted. “Who created an uproar that went all the way to the county education department when she wrote an article on teen pregnancy in the Falls Crier?”
“Okay, that was me but—”
“Normally they give the front page to the prom queen, but that year they didn’t.” Phi took a sip of her Manhattan. “The prom queen was relegated to a tiny picture in the corner, while her younger sister took lead article.”
She’d forgotten about that. It had been a great article though. “Okay, that one time.”
“Who was voted most likely to succeed?”
“Laura—”
“Was voted most likely to marry and stay in Ghost Falls.” Phi finished her sentence for her. “You don’t see it, darling girl, because you are always surging forward with your eyes on the next mountain. I was the same, so don’t even think of arguing with me.” Phi grabbed Pippa’s hand and folded it in hers on her chest. “We have a light inside us, Pippa. We were born reaching for the stars and we spend our lives trying.”
“My star fell.” Pippa finished her third Manhattan, or maybe her fourth.
“And mine burned out.” Phi’s chest heaved up and down on a sigh. “But we still had it, that one glittering, beautiful moment when the world lay at our feet. Laura has never had that.”
“She never wanted it.”
Phi huffed a soft laugh. “Maybe not, but it still doesn’t stop her from envying it.”
Pippa felt a twinge of sympathy for her sister. When she looked at Laura, all she saw was a mother in command of two great children, with a wonderful dentist husband who kept them all more than comfortable. She tilted her head to the side. What if she looked at it from a different angle? Maybe Laura was not so content with her perfect life. From this angle, the toile cherubs looked like they were peeping up the lady’s skirt. They were peeping up her skirt.
“I need you to listen to me, Agrippina.”
“I’m right here.”
Phi pinched Pippa’s fingers between her own. “Really listen, you hardheaded minx.”
“Okay.” Phi’s voice had grown very serious. There weren’t many times when Phi dropped all the drama, and when they happened, it was worth listening.
“I had a wonderful career,” Phi said. “I lived a life so full, I have more stories than I have time to tell them.”
Pippa turned her head to Phi. A soft smile played across her grandmother’s face. “It was glorious. The fame, the money, the men.” She gave Pippa a nudge and a wink. “But I fucked up.”
“Phi, it creeps me out when you swear.”
“Get over it.” Phi’s grip tightened on her fingers. “I was so wrapped up and warm in my glowing light, I left my little girl out in the cold.” A tear snaked down Phi’s weathered cheek. “She needed her mother and I was off being fabulous for the rest of the world.”
“You said Mom didn’t want to come with you.”
“I convinced myself of that.” Another tear traced through Phi’s heavy foundation. “Because it put a hitch in my gallop to have a young child trailing behind me. I told myself that she was better off with her father, he could take better care of her. It was only later. Much later. When Laura came along, I saw what I’d done.”
“Phi, you’ve never told me any of this.”
“I don’t like to think about this.” Phi sniffed and smeared makeup over her cheek as she wiped. “I moved back here to try to make a connection, but it was too late then. Emily was all grown up and she had Laura. Then, you were born.” Phi smiled. “And I saw a chance to do it all again. Do better this time. Be the mother I could have been to Emily.” The smile faded off her face. “But that was even more of a snarl, because Emily feels as if I have taken you away from her. After Mark left”—Phi shrugged—“we all became even more entrenched in our roles.”
“He left because he was weak and pathetic. And Mom and I never got on, not like you and I do.” Pippa pictured her mother’s face. Laura’s angry accusations rattled around in the back of her mind. There was enough truth in them to make her fidget.
“Now I see you making the same mistakes, my sweet protégée. You have your eyes on your star and it has given you tunnel vision. Look around you, Pippa. You have been given this chance to reevaluate and take stock. Before you charge blindly after your light for a second time, take a breath, have a good look around, and see if you can do anything different.”
Pippa sucked in a breath and let Phi’s words join the swelling chorus in her head. A soft snore from Phi provided a welcome distraction. She eased the empty glass from Phi’s hand and put it on the tray. She didn’t feel tipsy anymore, just sad.
Pippa covered Phi in her cerise satin throw and took the tray back down to the kitchen. Maybe one of those times when she’d asked Phi to come to a school event, she might have asked her mother instead. For sure, she could have sent her mother a Mother’s Day card. Except Emily had never seemed that interested. Emily always looked so contained without her, as if her younger daughter was a foreign and frightening land. What if it was more a case of her younger daughter had opened an old wound and made it bleed?
Sure, she could blame Emily and say she was the mother, and she should have known better. Except Emily had been young when she had her children. Pippa was ten when her mother was thirty-two. Did she have the maturity at thirty-two she expected her mother to display?
This family shit was messing with her head.
She needed a distraction.
* * *
A couple of Manhattans over the limit, Pippa caught a ride with the kid who worked in the stable. She forgot his first name almost immediately, but got that he was a member of the Barrows brood. He was sweet, though, and knew the way to Matt’s house. Good thing, too, because she hadn’t paid of lot of attention to where Matt went the other night.
Matt sat on a bench on the porch with his feet propped on the railing. As she stepped out of the car, he lowered his beer and gave her his big, Matt smile.
Right there was exactly what she needed. Pippa jogged up the garden path and took the porch stairs at a leap. Until she asked the Barrows kid to bring her here, she hadn’t even known this was what she needed. Pippa walked straight up to Matt and straddled his lap.
He tensed, and then his arms came around her back.
Pippa tucked her head into the crook of his neck and took a deep breath of Matt.
“And hello to you, too.” His deep voice rumbled through her ear.
“Hi.” He was big and warm and Pippa relaxed against him.
He stroked her back. “Bad day?”
“Uh-huh.” She nodded and pressed her nose into his neck. “You smell . . . perfect.” Earthy and warm with a trace of something woodsy. It beat the hell out of all the expensive aftershaves and colognes that surrounded her in LA. He smelled real.
“Your nose must be blocked, because I was working on-site all day.” Matt took a pull on his beer and offered her the bottle.
Pippa shook her head. “I’m already a few Manhattans down.”
“Hence Wheeler Barrows driving you over here.”
“Wheeler?” Pippa popped her head up to look at him. “They named that kid Wheeler Barrows?”
The corners of his eyes crinkled as he grinned at her. “All the other Barrows kids have a name that starts with B. I guess they got creative with him.”
That was Ghost Falls for you. Pippa tucked her head back in its happy spot.
“Are you gonna tell me what’s wrong?” His hands cupped her butt.
Rehashing her day was about as appealing as getting off his lap. As in, not at all what she had in mind.
His thighs were hard beneath hers and heat came off his broad chest and soaked through the fabric of her shirt. “Tell me about your day instead.”
“Okay.” Her head rose and fell as he took a breath. Pippa snuggled closer and wedged her arms into the small gap left between his lower spine and the back of the seat. “Isaac is still MIA. Eric had a text from him to say he was alive, but my mother is freaking out.” Figures. “Not so much about Isaac going missing, as the fact that he texted Eric and not her. I managed to get the plumber back on-site today, and the slippery bastard is trying to tell me he’s not going to finish on time.”
“What did you say?” This felt nice. A sort of how-was-your-day-dear type of nice. She could have this, for this short moment.
“I told him he would finish on time if he ever wanted to work one of my jobs again.”
She’d have guessed something along those lines. Behind Matt’s easygoing exterior lay forged steel. It made her feel safe when she was with him.
He took another pull on his beer.
She caught the subtle waft of hops as he blew out a breath. “I also spoke to Jo today. She’s not sure she wants to get married.”
“Yeah, I picked that up from her.” This was Jo’s show; Pippa wasn’t going to out the girl until Jo was ready to do it herself.
“At least that butt-ugly dress is gone,” Matt said.
Pippa caught a stirring against her spread thighs. “Matt?”
“Yes.”
“Are you getting wood?”
“Yup.” He tightened his hands on her ass. “It happens when you straddle my lap.”
A delicious shiver snaked right through the core of her. Her nipples tingled with a new set of possibilities. Pippa tilted her hips forward and brushed his erection.
Matt hissed in a breath. “That’s not helping.”
“Are you getting harder?”
“Yup.”
“Then it’s doing exactly what I want it to do.” Pippa flicked her tongue over the skin of his neck. He tasted salty and hot to the touch.
He slid his hands under her skirt to grab her butt cheeks, bare on either side of her thong.
Heat built beneath her skin. She needed this, and her clamoring libido yelled at her to get on with it. Pippa looked up at him. “Wanna mess around?”
“And more.” He slid a finger under the string of her thong. His eyes glowed darker and hotter.
His erection prodded her thigh. Damn, she could do him right here on this porch.
He pressed her forward to rock her against him. “Mrs. Parsons is peering around her lounge curtains. Why don’t we take this inside?”
“Yes, please.”
Matt’s beer bottle clattered to the porch as he stood with her still in his arms.
Pippa wrapped her legs around his waist and held on. “I like this whole alpha man thing you have going on here.”
Matt kicked the door shut behind him. “Then you’re really gonna like what I do to you next.”
“Yeah?”
“Oh, yeah.”
Their mouths were close enough for his breath to wash hot over her lips. The tiny space between them tingled with possibilities that made Pippa tense in his arms. She wanted to kiss him, but the suspense was making her so hot, a pulse throbbed between her legs.
His face was tight with lust, his eyes burning holes into her.
He’d barely touched her and she was so wet and horny she didn’t know if they were going to make it up those stairs.
“I liked what you did the other night just fine.”
Muscle bunched between her thighs and under her hands as he climbed the stairs. “I left a few things out.”
“You did?” His breath came faster now. Pippa’s pulse pounded in response. “What things?”
“I need to know how you taste.” His fingers brushed under her thong, slipping easily through her wet heat. Her core throbbed in response to his words. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
Shit, this man was going to talk her into an orgasm.
“Yes.”
He dropped her on the bed and Pippa fell with her skirt up and legs splayed.
Matt’s scorching gaze cataloged every inch of her. He caught the edge of her panties and tugged them down her legs. “Let me see you.”
Pippa dropped her thighs open on a soft moan. She’d never done this for another man, but the look in Matt’s eyes was hotter than hell. It made her feel like she was his next breath.
Matt stroked the rigid line of his cock through his jeans. “Wider.”
Pippa parted her legs until she was fully on display for him.
Matt sucked in a breath and dropped to his knees beside the bed. Big, rough hands gripped her hips and dragged her onto the wet, seeking suck of his mouth.
“Oh God.” Pippa arched into the first swipe of his tongue over her folds. Her clitoris ached and swelled for his touch.
He hummed against her and it nearly pushed her over the edge. Long fingers parted her as he laved her. He took his time, driving her nuts with his tongue and teeth until she was a writhing, panting mess. Her hands grabbed hanks of his hair as her hips jerked against the rhythm of his mouth.
“I want you to come.” He swirled his tongue around her clit and then sucked.
Pippa went screaming over the edge, her back arching and her fingers digging into his scalp. She stopped breathing as her orgasm rocked through her entire body.
“Damn.” It was the first word she was able to speak. She lay spread over his bed like a rag doll wrung limp by what he’d done to her.
Matt stood and stripped off his shirt.
Pippa propped herself on her elbows to get a better look at the beautiful ridges and lines of his body. He shucked his jeans and underpants and knelt on the bed between her legs. His hard cock almost touched his belly button as he smoothed a condom over his length.
Shit, if she’d known what Matt was capable of she might have delayed leaving Ghost Falls. Or at least made more of an effort to get him into bed sooner.
Pippa needed full body contact with all that naked flesh. With a quick tug, her shirt came off followed by her bra. Matt helped her wriggle out of her skirt.
He fisted his erection and leaned down, one hand beside her head. Slowly, he guided his cock inside her.
Pippa stretched around him, his slow pace nearly driving her nuts as he worked himself in.
He dropped his gaze to watch her take him. His jaw clenched so tight, the muscles along his shoulders and biceps flexed.
Too slow. Pippa wrapped her thighs around his hips and tilted her hips.
With a soft hiss, he slid all the way home. “Jesus, Pippa. Don’t move.”
To hell with that. Pippa wanted to move, wanted to drive him crazy.
He withdrew and angled his hips and Pippa jerked in response. Heat coiled in her belly as he drove into her, stroking her where she needed him. She’d never come from penetration alone, but she could feel it building with each thrust.
He held his body rigid, the fight for control all over his tight features.
It made her crazy to know she did this to him. Matt was straining to hold himself back until he made her come again. He increased his speed, his breath coming in soft grunts above her.
Her orgasm built slower than the last one, spreading from where his cock touched and up through her belly. Her nipples jutted hard as her breasts bobbed with each thrust. The need to come swept through her, tightening her walls around him.
“That’s it, baby.” He worked his cock deep into her.
Pippa exploded around him, her body arching off the bed.
He let go, pounding into her until he came with a shout.
Slick with sweat, his forehead pressed against her. Their panting breath mingled as he gently brought her down, fucking her slowly until the last aftershocks receded.
Matt rolled onto his back and took her with him. He slipped out of her as she nestled in the crook of his shoulder.
She felt every inch of his slick skin against hers, registered the slowing pulse of his heart right through to her spine. The connection was otherworldly, intense and a little bit scary.
He rolled, taking her over onto her back, and lay beside her. His big hands stroked the damp hair off her face. Something flickered through his eyes as he stared into hers. Something she sensed neither of them wanted to acknowledge. “I’ll be right back.”
She watched his tight ass as he walked into the bathroom to get rid of the condom.
Pippa stared at the ceiling. That had been incredible, mind-blowing, and more than sex. Matt Evans had rocked her world, again. Except there wasn’t any room in her life for world-rocking right now. She needed to get her shit sorted and claw back the ground Ray had cost her.
Matt slid back into bed, tucking them both beneath the covers. He turned her on her side and tugged her into the crook of his big body.
She should say something, crack a joke, lighten the mood, but she had nothing.
His arm curled around her, keeping her close to him. “Stay,” he whispered against her ear.
“Is that part of keeping things light?”
“Sure.” His hand spanned the small of her back. “Everybody has to sleep sometime.”
Part of her brain mumbled about what a bad, bad idea this was. The rest of her didn’t care. “Okay.”
Matt’s breath deepened, and his muscles relaxed into sleep.
Pippa stared at the play of evening light through his bedroom blinds.
Shit. She was in so much trouble.