“You don’t need to panic,” I tell her.
She folds her arms, pouty, making me think of the way she’d look as I slid my engorged head between her lips…
Fuck, stop. But I can’t help it, even now. She triggers something too deep to deny.
“That’s easy for you to say.”
Actually, it isn’t, but I can’t explain why without going into the messiness of it. It isn’t just my claim on her. It’s the other thing too, the part of this I’ve never explained to anyone, not in concrete terms. I didn’t even tell Lena why, and she, of all people, deserved an explanation.
But she was nothing, as cruel as that is to think, nothing compared to my Penny.
How would Penny react?
“I’ll try not to push you too hard next time,” I say, barely holding back a feral note in my voice. “But I can’t promise anything.”
“So…So there’s going to be a next time?” she asks hesitantly.
I glance over at her, sparkling in her silver dress, cheeks flushed in her adorable just-Penny way.
“Yes,” I say. “There is. Even if I have to kidnap you.”
She giggles, as though I’m joking, as though she thinks there’s anything that would stop me from making her mine.
We drive in companionable silence for a time.
“I need to tell you something,” she says, as we get closer to her apartment building. “But I want to tell you… and then go. I don’t want to wait to see your reaction. I know that’s immature. It’s pretty much the opposite of what I’d tell my readers. But, well, there it is.”
Bringing the car to a stop, I turn to her, eyebrow arched. “Tell me what?”
She’s so full of energy, rubbing her hands up and down her thighs. She wouldn’t do that if she knew how close I was to grabbing her and dragging her into my lap.
I want to kiss away whatever she’s going to tell me.
I want to throw her onto the backseat and tear her dress off, rip her panties away, and take her.
I wonder if she’s still wet.
Closing my eyes for a moment, I banish those thoughts. Or try to.
It feels more impossible every moment like there’s no way I could stop thinking about my woman like this.
“I mean it,” she says. “I’m going to say it, and then run.”
I smirk. “What if I lock the door?”
“Please,” she says, not taking the bait. “I know it’s silly. But I can’t stay to see your reaction. I just can’t.”
I reach over and touch her hand softly. It takes everything I have not to slide my hand higher, but I manage it by focusing on the pain in her expression.
“I understand,” I tell her. “I’d never force you to do anything you’re not comfortable with.”
This is the truth. Even if I’m all instinct where my Penny is concerned, there’s no way I’d push myself on her. Even with the burning need inside of me, the nonstop desire, the way my head swims every time I so much as glance at her.
She lets my hand go, reaching for the door handle.
She wasn’t kidding. She’s really going to make a run for it.
Taking a breath, she glances at me, then over at her apartment building.
“I’m a virgin,” she says, and then she throws the door open.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Penny
“You just left?” Juliana says.
I cradle my hands around my mug of coffee, blowing on the rising steam. The office is filled with bustling noise beyond the break room, but we’re alone, free to discuss yesterday’s date.
I’ve filled Juliana in, including revealing I’m a virgin.
“Yes.” I swallow. “I warned him before I did it, so it wasn’t a complete dick move.”
Juliana frowns. “And let me guess… you spent the rest of the night wondering what he thinks, what he would’ve said?”
I laugh grimly. “Yeah.”
“And I bet you checked your phone about a hundred times.”
I nod. That’s probably an understatement. After explaining to Casey what happened, she told me to call him so I didn’t have to suffer the suspense. But he didn’t text or call me all night, so all I could do was lay there and let my mind fill with all the horrible possibilities.
“I shouldn’t have told him that way,” I murmur. “Maybe I shouldn’t have told him at all. But after what we did…”
I didn’t go into detail about the way his hand bewitched me, sliding up between my legs and pressing down hard, possessively, until I felt like I had no choice but to melt for him. That moment is just for us, but I did fill Juliana in on some of what happened.
“You thought he’d want to take it further.”
“Exactly.”
“And you don’t want that?”
I shake my head, but not as a no to her question.
It’s more like I’m shaking my head against the very concept I couldn’t want Preston Packer. It’s that I want him too much, even dreaming up scenarios where I’m pregnant after our first time together.