“Good to see you again,” I said ambiguously.
“You too, but I’m surprised. I mean, after going down on a waffle cone for you earlier, I figured you would have had plenty of me to last.”
A laugh burst out of me. “Oh, I have a feeling your kind of ice cream is the kind you can’t get enough of.”
She shrugged and brought her drink to her lips. “It’s been said.” She watched me for a second again. “So what’s your story, Bodie?”
“I just moved here from LA.”
“For a job?”
“You could say that. I’m a software engineer.”
She laughed. “Wow, not what I would have guessed.”
“Oh?”
Penny dramatically looked me up and down. “Hmm. I’d say … personal trainer. No, no. That hunky moving company I always see commercials for.”
“Manly Movers?”
She lit up and snapped. “Yes! You definitely look like the Manly Mover type. All those muscles.”
I chuckled. “That’s super sexist.”
“Male model. That would have done too.”
I couldn’t stop smiling, and I hated thinking that my dimple was on display. “I guess I should be flattered that you think I’m hot enough to be a male model.”
Her eyes twinkled. “Oh, you definitely are.”
“How about you? What do you do? Where are you from?” I asked, baiting her.
“I’m a tattoo artist,” she offered but didn’t elaborate, and I sensed a story there. “I’ve lived in New York since I graduated high school, but I grew up in Santa Cruz.”
“Me too.”
Her eyes widened, and she smiled. “No way. I went to Loma Vista. What a small world.”
She still hadn’t figured it out, and I found myself grinning like an idiot, wondering how long it would take her to put it together.
“Ever surf?” I asked.
She laughed. “No way. Sharks.”
“That’s what my buddy Phil says too.”
She glanced behind me, twiddling her fingers, presumably at Jude and Phil. “So, you’re a twin, huh?”
I nodded and took a sip of my Maker’s as “Rock the Casbah” kicked off, and everyone around us started bouncing and dancing. “Since birth.”
She laughed. “What a win for the universe that there would be two of you.”
“Double your pleasure, double your fun.”
That caught her off guard, and her bottom lip slipped between her teeth as a flush rose on her cheeks.
Just like that, I had one objective, and it began and ended with her lips.
“Although I should tell you now,” I stepped closer, slipping into her space, and her eyes widened, pupils dilating as she leaned into me, “I don’t like to share.”
The tip of her pink tongue darted out to wet her lips, and her eyes were locked on to my mouth.
“Are you thinking about kissing me?” I asked.
She shook her head, though her eyes didn’t stray. “No, I’m thinking about what your dick looks like.”
I laughed from way down deep in my belly, shocked in the best way and turned on in the worst. And as the ocean of people waved around us, she rose up on her tiptoes, grabbed a handful of my T-shirt, and pulled.
I caught the smallest breath — a surprised, satisfied gasp — just before our lips met, and fireworks exploded in my brain. The kiss wasn’t soft or sweet; it was strong and determined, those red, red lips pressing against mine, opening to let me into her hot mouth, her tongue finding mine like she’d been looking for it her whole life.
The surprise left me as quickly as it had hit, and I leaned into her, my free arm winding around her back to press her body against mine. There wasn’t an inch of space between us, and all the while, our mouths worked each other’s in a long dance that left my heart chugging like a freight train in my chest.
She pulled away, her lips swollen and eyes lust-drunk as they met mine and held them while she kicked back her drink and grabbed my hand.
“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” she said.
And I smirked, breathless. “Your place or mine?”
Mr. Diddle
For the record, I had every intention of telling her who I was.
It was just that I was so caught up in her as we hurried back to my apartment that my brain had short-circuited, thinking only from my raging hard-on in my pants. I didn’t have time to consider what it meant or what would happen, and I didn’t have the will to break whatever trance I’d found myself in.
I should have been surprised to have her by my side. I should have been confused about how I’d ended up with Penny’s hand in mine. But wondering felt like the absolute first and last thing I should be doing, so I didn’t. And as I towed her toward my apartment, I was unable to consider anything other than the feeling of her fingers twined in mine and the sight of her smiling up at me, eyes shining and hot.