This'll be the last chapter in a while (I'm not too sure how long... maybe a month?).
I - of course - won't be abandoning the story, but, as you can imagine, I'm moving to a new city this Saturday, and won't have the amount of free time I've had over recent months.
Thanks for all the comments and support, and please keep letting me know what you think/would like me to include in the reviews.
Enjoy!
The brunette's alarm on her phone rings through the air, causing her to blindly grab her phone and hit the snooze button. Now awake due to the noise ringing so close to her ear, Alex checks the time on her phone, which reads 7:30 am, before turning her head to face her girlfriend, who obviously hadn't heard the noise, as she's still fast asleep with her face down into her pillow. Moving onto her back, the brunette goes to her camera roll, curious to browse through the evidence of their activities that took part in the early hours of the morning. As she goes to press play, ensuring her volume is turned off, an email notification appears at the top of her screen. Tapping the notification, the screen moves to her email app, to which she sees an email forwarded from Lorna from an employee at the photography company, whereby the promotional pictures were being sent over.
Opening the attachment, Alex eyes the images - most of which has her girlfriend as the model, and mentally chooses the ones she liked, as, explained by Lorna, the ones Alex picks will be used for the gym's advertisements. She flicks through the images and saves the ones of her girlfriend to her phone; the one where the blonde is in a sports bra lifting a weight, revealing her tensed abs, is - unsurprisingly - her favourite of the collection.
The brunette feels a weight shift next to her; subsequently feeling a leg hook over her naked hip and a hand land on her abdominal region, she turns her head to see blue, tired eyes struggling to open.
"Turn that light off," Piper says as she tucks her head into Alex's armpit.
"It's just my phone, Pipes."
"Lower the brightness then," the blonde adds, almost as though stating the obvious, while Alex, smirking to herself, instead locks the phone and puts it back onto the nightstand. Turning onto her side, she lets out a sharp wince when she lands on her left shoulder.
"Al, are you okay?" Piper asks with a hint of worry, lifting her head up.
"Yeah. I probably just slept weirdly." Alex replies, genuinely not knowing why she felt that sudden pang of discomfort. "How are you feeling? You okay?"
"A little sore," the blonde honestly says, voicing a feeling she noticed as soon as she had earlier hooked her leg over her girlfriend's hip, "but it was totally worth it."
"Yeah, it was," Alex smiles, leaning forward to peck Piper on the lips.
"What time is it?"
"Nearly 7:45. I can drop you in today. I think we'll be late if we want to walk," Alex answers, knowing they both start work at 9 and it doesn't seem like they're getting up anytime soon.
"Thanks, Al," Piper replies, running her fingers over the woman before her's jawline.
"Oh and the pictures from the other day came in," Alex says, raising her hand and using her thumb to point behind her head towards her phone.
"Were they good enough for you?"
"Perfect. Great spank bank material."
"Alex!" Piper says, poking her girlfriend's nose. "That's not I meant."
"I'm just kidding," Alex says, trying to catch the blonde's finger between her teeth. "They're great, thanks. Just what we needed."
"I'd think you have enough spank bank material after last night," Piper digresses slightly, referring to the video on Alex's phone. "Were you just watching it?" she goes on to ask, knowing it's a possibility.
"I was going to look through it, but the pictures came through, so no. No I wasn't."
"Just as long as no one else sees it. Maybe move it to a spare, empty USB you have or something?"
"You sound awfully experienced in this field, Ms Chapman," Alex probes, teasing her girlfriend.
"Shut up," Piper replies, kissing Alex one last time before turning back to the other side of the bed, getting up to head for the bathroom.
Alex, meanwhile, turns back towards her nightstand and hangs her legs over the side of the bed, again wincing at the movement, I can't be that sore, she thinks to herself as she tries to eliminate the reasons as to why her body aches so much, considering their more… adult activities were mainly inflicted upon Piper.
A short while later, the blonde returns to the bedroom, still very much naked, and sees her girlfriend is no longer in the room. What she does see, however, immediately causes a concern, because as she looks over at the bed, she can identify spatters of blood on the white sheet. Thoughts regarding if herself or Alex may have leaked in the night is out of the question - being that they had both already had their periods about a week ago, so the blonde is left stunned, as she turns to grab an oversized t-shirt that sits on the top of the brunette's cabinet opposite the bed.
Before she gets the chance to leave the room, Alex walks back in, naked apart from her boyshorts that she must have put on, carrying in two mugs of coffee. The brunette walks past the blonde, and as Piper turns her head to follow her girlfriend's movements, her eyes widen; the answers to the many questions forming in her mind are answered - for the moment, anyway.
"Fuck, Alex, I'm so sorry."
"What are you talking about?" Alex asks, putting the two mugs down onto the side table. The audible wince when she leans over slightly isn't lost on the blonde.
"I hurt you."
"You didn't hurt me, Piper."
"Then why are you walking around like you're 90 and stiffening up every time you go to do something."
"It's nothing."
"Well from the look of your body and the splats of blood on the bed sheets, it doesn't look like nothing to me," Piper says, now looking at Alex's torso.
The brunette, confused as to what Piper's talking about, follows the movement of her eyes and looks down at her torso. Across her abdominal region and breasts are pink marks that obviously came from fingernails, along with a few light scratches. Alex fondly remembers Piper's hands roaming her body as she rode her - what must have been - a few hours ago, and while she initially found the thought hot, she remembers the sharp stings of - enjoyable at the time - pain that would shoot down her back during their first sound of sex the late evening prior. Rushing to the mirror on the wall opposite the bed, Alex turns her body to the side, twisting and turning to assess the condition of her back.
She immediately discovers the source of her discomfort, as from her shoulders down to the the centre of her back lies harsh scratch marks - ones that have nothing compared to the small marks on her front.
"Fucking hell, Piper," Alex voices as she tentatively tries to touch some of the marks.
"I'm so sorry, Al. I couldn't help it. Where else am I going to put my hands?"
"Well maybe cut your fucking nails next time," Alex shouts, not meaning to sound as harsh as she did. "Am I bleeding?" she asks, turning her back to Piper.
"No," the blonde answers, scanning her girlfriend's raw looking back. "Just a few specks of dried blood."
"Is it all over the sheets?" Alex asks, moving to help the blonde move the duvet out of the way, but her question is quickly answered when the small stains on the white sheet comes into view. "Well it could have been a lot worse."
"Al-"
"Hey, I'm kidding. I like that you enjoyed last night. I now have a reminder of my birthday," Alex says, moving to wrap her arms around Piper's waist, "That doesn't mean I'm not going to be punishing you for it."
"P-punishing me?" Piper asks, eyes widening.
"Well if you can't keep your hands to yourself, I'll just have to tie them up."
Piper moans out at the imagery Alex created, and when she looks into her girlfriend's dark, lust-filled eyes, the blonde attacks the brunette's lips, groaning at the contact. The kiss soon turns passionate, but as Piper goes to put her hands on Alex's shoulders, the brunette breaks away.
"Shoulders!" she grimaces.
"Oh shit! I'm so sorry, Al."
"You'll be the death of me, Pipes," Alex comments, chuckling as she pulls away to go to the bathroom, before concluding: "I'll go and grab the aloe vera… you might be needing some concealer for work though."
Moving closer to the mirror, the blonde sees a series of dark hickeys along her neck and across her collarbone - something that she doesn't normally mind coming from Alex, but she sighs, knowing Polly will be quizzing her for details as well as giving her shit for her appearance.
"So, how was last night, Vause?" Nicky asks, walking into Alex's office with the newly printed advertisement leaflets.
"Good thanks," Alex replies nonchalantly, not wanting her best friend to pester her like she normally does.
"Just good?"
"Don't you have better things to be doing than quizzing me, Nic?"
"Well, I thought it would have been more than good, considering you turned up late this morning, and you can barely move without acting like you've got a shovel up your ass."
"I'm moving perfectly fine."
"Yeah, okay. 'Moving perfectly fine' my ass… or your ass, considering your one is lying," the wild-haired woman adds, while waving the pictures in Alex's face. "Where do you want these?"
"In the front."
"What about the back," Nicky asks, winking as she delivered the double entendre.
Alex, knowing the real meaning of her friend's question, doesn't give a verbal answer as she exits the office, leaving behind her laughing best friend.
Throughout the day, Alex is swarmed with work, and with the very little amount of sleep she got the night before, she can feel her eyes wanting to close over and her eyes tearing up due to her frequent spells of yawning.
Checking her phone for messages, Alex sees a text from Piper telling her that she just bought a USB stick - something that makes the brunette chuckle, while feeling a sense of relief wash over her at the fact that she doesn't feel worried every time she presses a button on her phone out of fear that she's accidentally going to leak their intimate video.
Alex replies puts her phone into her back pocket as she heads to the staff bathroom with her bottle of aloe vera. Locking herself in a cubicle, she takes off her t-shirt and takes her phone back out to use it as a mirror. She applies the aloe vera to her back and snaps a picture to send to Piper, anticipating her reply.
Piper, rushing into her office at PoPi, throws her bag onto the sofa, and logs into her emails, knowing she needs to send an important email regarding their Christmas sales.
The blonde arrived to work 20 minutes late, despite being given a lift from Alex, and so far she's managed to avoid Polly's questions, but she knows they will inevitably catch up on her, especially as today is the day they're both taking part in a conference call regarding setting up a second shop in another location, meaning their other employees are responsible for the day's sales.
After rushing to the mirror on her office wall, Piper puts on her blazer and straightens her shirt underneath, wanting to feel professional for the awaiting call. She goes to Polly's office and meets her in the room, where she is setting up the phone for the conference call.
"Good thing this is happening over the phone," Polly says to her best friend, yet not looking up from the phone.
"Why's that?" Piper asks, sitting down next to Polly on an empty chair by the phone on her desk.
"Have you seen yourself this morning?" Polly asks, now looking up with a grin before continuing. "You turn up late from your girlfriend's car, you just put on half of your work clothes a few minutes ago, and you have concealer all over your neck that's too light for your skin tone.
Piper, while placing a hand on her neck - almost as though thinking back to how she got the marks to begin with, internally scauls herself for using Alex's concealer as a cover-up despite it being a few shades lighter than her own. She goes on to try and explain herself without giving away any extreme details: "You know it was Alex's birthday yesterday, Polly. I stayed over at hers."
"Jesus, I don't even know if I want to know why you look the way you do this morning," the brunette says, laughing, yet quickly gives in and goes against her previous statement. "How was it?"
"Gosh it was so good, Pol. It's like I can never get enough of her; last night we… we experimented a little more than normal."
"You experimented? Oh, Piper don't tell me you had a threesome. No, you wouldn't do that… You took it up the ass?!"
"What the fuck, Polly? No!" Piper shouts. "God no," she goes on to chuckle, "we used a toy."
"Ohh," Polly voices, tilting her head back in understanding, "and how was that?"
"Don't get me started. Just thinking about it is getting me going again," Piper replies, probably too honestly compared to what Polly was expecting.
"Save that for later because even though I love you and all, Pipes, I don't love you like that."
"The feeling's returned," Piper smiles, happy that she can be so open with her best friend.
"Good - I don't ever want Alex to beat the shit out of me."
"How about you? How're things with Pete?" Piper asks, crossing her right leg over her left.
"They're great. We're coming up to 2 years together - and he's never shown any interest in fucking me in the ass, for which I am grateful," the brunette adds while standing up from her chair.
"Well, you never know - he may just be saving that hole for marriage," Piper wittily replies, to which she receives an unimpressed glare as Polly quickly rushes out the room, announcing that she needs to go to the bathroom.
The blonde sits back and smiles to herself, amused at how her life has changed over the last 7 months. Her relationship with her family is improving as they seem to show their approval towards Alex; her relationship with Alex is flourishing, whereby she finds herself loving something new about the brunette everyday, and her business is running at an unprecedented level of success to the extent where the opportunity to open a new store is on the horizon.
Several hours later, the pair are sitting in a local coffee shop having finished their conference call. The digital meeting went better than they expected, and given the vast profits they have made over Christmas, the chances of being able to afford a new space are looking very likely.
"I don't know, Pol, it needs to be somewhat local," Piper says, putting her empty coffee cup down onto the table, "I've made myself a good life here. I'm not moving away from that."
"Okay - you don't want to move and I certainly don't want to move either, but the only somewhat local places I've seen available so far are down shitty streets that are either next to a rundown pet store, or a building that looks like it's hosting a secret crystal meth lab. What the fuck are we going to do?"
"We can always hire someone else to take over the new store?"
"Piper, where are we going to find someone that knows what to do?"
"Pol, it's hardly rocket science. We managed to train all of our employees what to do within two weeks. Some of them might want to transfer over - I mean, the commute here isn't exactly ideal for a few of them, so the new space might be better," Piper reasons, knowing that at least 2 of their current 4 extra employees have a lengthy commute to get to work.
"We can only ask them," Polly agrees, feeling swayed by Piper's proposal.
"Why don't we go and drink something a little stronger?" Piper suggests, checking her watch and seeing it's 3pm as she gets up from her chair seeing Polly has now finished her small drink, the perfect time to start drinking, the blonde thinks to herself.
"I'm fine with just coffee, Piper," Polly answers while also standing up next to her best friend.
Piper eyes the brunette suspiciously, Polly never turns down a drink. "You never pass up on an opportunity to have a drink. What's happened? You suddenly going on a juice cleanse? You've realised that vodka actually tastes like paint stripper? Or, better yet, you're pregnant!" Piper finishes off while laughing, but at seeing the sheepish look from her best friend, the blonde's eyes widen and her jaw drops. "You're pregnant? Oh my God, Polly, how far along are you?!"
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you yet, but we wanted to wait for our first scan… so yeah, I am pregnant: 11 weeks," Polly says excitedly, mirroring Piper's wide smile. "You're the first to know."
"Was it planned?"
"Well, we've spoken about having kids, which I honestly thought would come after marriage, but where's the fun in tradition?"
"So that's why you've been running to the bathroom so often. Morning sickness that bad?"
"Oh it's a real bitch," Polly laughs, "but I can't wait to be a mom."
Giving her best friend a hug, Piper leans into Polly's ear, telling her "I'm so happy for you; you're going to be a great mom."
The two, having already paid for their drinks at the till when they bought them, take the 5 minute walk back to PoPi, where the two discuss whether it would be wise to put the additional location move on the back-burner with Polly's pregnancy. They re-enter the store, mutually deciding to leave that conversation for another day when they have more time, and as Piper greets her fellow employee behind the desk, she is told that a woman in the shop was looking for her.
Turning to see who the customer could be, Piper's eyes widen as a tall brunette - similar height to her own - is over by the soap shelves. She immediately recognises the woman's dark hair and her mannerisms - all of which run parallel to the ones of her girlfriend, and it's in this moment of realisation that Piper knows she can't mess up… the moment she finally meets Alex's mother in person.