I’m so achingly close to bursting out all my insane fantasies.
Is that what he’s talking about, kids and a marriage and a life together?
Or is he talking about the rush of finally finding somebody he’s interested in?
I can’t risk saying the wrong thing.
“I feel the same,” I whisper, warning myself to tread carefully. “The first time I saw you too, I knew there was something there. I knew it was… different. Not that I’ve got much experience. When we were, uh, intimate last night, that was the first time I’ve ever done anything. You’re the first person I’ve ever even kissed.”
For a second, I’m sure I’ve disappointed or angered him somehow.
His whole face tightens and he stares, unmoving.
But then slowly a smirk lifts his lips, giving me the sense he’s hiding some deeper emotion. Or maybe that’s just my hope, willing me to believe he feels exactly the same way I do.
But still, this is better than I could’ve hoped.
I’m the first woman he’s ever been attracted to. I’m the first woman to make him care.
I don’t contemplate that he might be lying, and not just because he swore on his mother. It’s the way he looks at me, every signal he’s giving me with his body, his scent, his everything rings true.
“She’s still so bitter,” I murmur.
Preston nods. “You have to understand, it was a shitty thing, what I did. I moved in with her because I thought that was the done thing. I hoped the feelings would come later. And then I stopped trying. She attempted to… you know, initiate intimacy with me. But I could never bring myself to do it. Because I didn’t care about her. How fucked is that? Nobody forced me to move in with her.”
I wrap my hand around his clenched fist, squeezing gently. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. It was almost ten years ago. And it’s not like you did anything unforgivable. It sounds like you’ve learned from your mistake too.”
“I have.” He unclenches his fist, holding my hand, enveloping mine with his warmth. “That’s why I waited after we broke up. I was ready to wait for the rest of my life. I was ready to never find somebody. And then you walked into that elevator and everything changed.”
I want to be with you forever. I want your babies. It’ll sound crazy, Preston, but my womb aches for it.
Suddenly the idea of stamping down on this to keep a job I hate seems ludicrous. But it doesn’t change the fact I need to pay my rent.
Preston might want me. And I might have changed things for him. But that doesn’t mean he’s going to spontaneously ask me to move in with him, that he’s going to take care of all my financial difficulties.
“Are you still interested?” he asks, an uncertain note in his voice.
I almost scream yes.
“What? Yeah, of course, I am. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I’m a forty-two year old virgin, Penny. I doubt many women would want that.”
I laugh, waving my other hand at him. “You’re celibate out of choice because you were waiting for the right person. That doesn’t make me think any less of you. It makes me feel special.”
My belly flips when I realize what I’ve implied.
That we’re going to have sex.
He notes it too, his eyes widening a fraction, his lips turning from smirking to flat and serious.
“Let’s get going,” he says. “I want to show you something.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Preston
We’ve made so much progress in such a short time. But it doesn’t feel like a short time, not with Penny, not with the lust and the emotion constantly beaming between us.
I told her some of how I feel, letting her know she’s special, that she’s the only one for me. I was completely honest about Lena, telling her the full truth, leaving nothing out.
As we drive through the city, I look over at my woman.
“What?” She laughs. “You keep looking at me.”
“I can’t help it. I’m thinking of yesterday, how perfect you looked when you came for me. Goddamn, Penny, you were amazing. I’m going crazy just thinking about it.”
She flushes, the corners of her lips twitching in a smile. “I guess it makes more sense now.”
“What does?”
“I thought, for a little while, that maybe you were so forward because you’d done that sort of thing before.”
“But it was the opposite,” I go on, shaking my head. “I’ve never felt anything like that. It was like I wasn’t even in control. Even now, I have to focus not to steer the car clear off the road. You’re addictive, Penny.”
She places her hand on my thigh and my cock jerks in my pants. My shaft couldn’t be harder, precome leaks endlessly out of me, my balls full as my seed demands to know what the holdup is.
It’s like my body is talking to me.