First Time: Ian's Story (First Time (Ian) Book 1) (7 page)

“
Technically you brought it
up, by running into me in the park on Sunday. So, are you
religious? ‘Not religious but spiritual’? Are you a
druid?”

“
No. I wanted to be a druid,
but I just couldn’t get past the human sacrifice.” She reached into
the bag and brought out a nectarine. “I’m not religious. Or
spiritual. I wasn’t raised in a religious family, so it never
occurred to me to pick up a faith. I went to bible camp with my
best friend when we were in high school, but it didn’t change
anything. But I am
very
superstitious.”

“
That’s fair. At least
you’re not a godless Protestant,” I said, and when she gave me a
puzzled look, I added, “Catholic joke.”

“
Right, because of Henry the
Eighth,” she said, in the sort of polite way someone dismisses a
joke they don’t get. She shined the nectarine on her skirt like it
was an apple. I watched her bring the fruit to her mouth,
captivated by those pretty pink lips sucking away the juice as she
took a bite.

“
Sure, yeah.” I cleared my
throat. “Are there any more items on the list we haven’t
covered?”

“
Pets.” She shrugged. “It
says guys don’t like hearing about our cats on first dates. That’s
rude. It’s not like every woman who has a cat is a cat
lady.”

“
I have a cat, and I’m not a
cat lady. Of course, I’m not a woman, either.” Maybe this was why
it said not to talk about pets on a first date. I couldn’t have
been the only man in the world who owned a cat of his own free
will, but I was certainly the only one I knew of.

“
You have a cat?” Her eyes
lit up. “I love cats!” Her expression immediately fell. “Which is
probably the exact reaction ‘don’t talk about pets’ was warning you
about.”

“
Ambrose is a great cat. And
I’m not just saying that. He’s never once peed in my shoes.” I
looked down at my shirt self-consciously and picked a long gray
hair from it, hopefully surreptitiously. “Except for the shedding.
I could do without all the fucking shedding.”

“
Hey, you used the f-word!”
She sounded like she was congratulating me for overcoming some kind
of obstacle.

Still, I felt the need to apologize. “I’m
sorry. I do curse a lot. It’s something I should work on.”

“
No, it’s fine! I think it’s
a sign that you’re loosening up. Maybe all the taboo topics did you
some good.” She dropped her phone to the blanket. She took another
bite from her nectarine and sucked some juice off the tip of her
middle finger. God, she had to know she was doing that, didn’t she?
There was no way she could walk around without knowing how
stunningly sexy she was when she did things like that. “So. Do you
feel any better, now that we’ve made all the mistakes?”

Considering what I’d learned about her… “I
do. Honestly, I don’t know why they say not to talk about these
things on first dates. It would get a lot out of the way right at
the start.”

“
But imagine if we’d had
this conversation on our first date.” She arched an eyebrow. “At
the restaurant. Where you wanted to kill an octopus.”

“
The octopus was probably
already dead. I didn’t realize you were so passionate about them. I
didn’t realize anyone was that passionate about them.” The memory
of her tattoo confession came to the front of my brain and lodged
there. Since we’d already talked about God and sex, tattoos weren’t
likely to be off-limits, were they? “Speaking of which… I have to
know where the tattoo is.”

“
You don’t have to know,”
she countered dryly. “But if you
want
to know…”

She smoothed her skirt, her other hand still
occupied with the nectarine. I took the free hand and held it
between my own. Her chest rose with a quick breath, and her pupils
dilated a little as we made deep eye contact. Her lips parted.

“
Penny,” I said, struggling
to keep a straight face. “May I please know where the octopus
tattoo is?”

She laughed and pushed my hands away. “Yes,
fine. It’s on my right hip, in front. And it’s about the size of a
fifty-cent piece.”

Now that I could somewhat imagine it, I
wished I hadn’t asked. All I could think about was the shadow of a
little octopus tattoo peeking above the line of a pair of white
cotton panties. I mentally revised them to pink lace, to lessen the
perversion factor, and it still didn’t stop me from imagining
dragging those panties down and kissing the illustration on her
hipbone before heading farther south, while her back arched and her
belly quivered…

“
Do you have any tattoos?”
she asked, tilting her head as she regarded me. “You seem like the
type.”

“
There’s a type?” I hated to
disappoint her. “No, no tattoos. I’ve never felt the
urge.”

“
Here I was, imagining that
under your suits and ties you were hiding some sexy bad boy past.”
She took a last, dainty bite from the nectarine and wadded a napkin
around the stone.

“
The extent of my sexy bad
boy past are some very stupid pranks I pulled in college.” And
forty years of sexual deviance. Probably better not to bring that
up.

She leaned back on her hands and looked up
at the sky. “This was a perfect idea. Even if it’s a little
crowded.”

“
Is it?” I looked around us.
Another couple sat on the grass not far from us, drawing Belvedere
Castle in their sketchbooks. On the other side, two young
mothers—or nannies, you could never tell in New York—helped their
babies stand on the grass. Paths were crowded with cyclists and
foot traffic. Yet I hadn’t seen any of it. I’d been too focused on
Penny.

“
Yeah. I just noticed,
myself. I guess I was so caught up in—” She motioned to the basket
between us. “Here.” She picked it up and moved it, then scooted
closer. “We still have room to stretch out. I want to do something
I haven’t done in a really long time. Since Pennsylvania,
actually.”

Through various wiggles and shimmies, she
ended up lying across the blanket, her skirt neatly tucked around
her legs, her hands folded over her stomach. She looked to me, then
nodded up at the sky dotted with thick, fluffy clouds. “You have to
look up.”

This was a cause for mild panic. I’d never
checked in a mirror, but I was sure lying down wasn’t my most
flattering angle. Still, I did as I was told and settled down
beside her, far too conscious about my stomach. After this, I was
going to join a gym, and that was final. “I assume we’re looking
for shapes.”

“
Yes. And then I’m going to
judge whether or not you’re a weirdo or a pervert based on the
shapes you see,” she said with a content little sigh. Her arm shot
up, and she practically shouted, “Oh my gosh, that one looks like
boobs!”

“
I was going to say an ice
cream sundae, but look who’s the pervert now.” I tilted my head.
“The sky today looks like something out of a cartoon.”

“
Those are cumulus clouds,”
she explained, then said, “Sorry. I didn’t mean to sound like a
know-it-all.”

I turned my head to look at her. “You don’t
sound like a know-it-all. But you do apparently know it all. First
octopuses, now this?”

“
Octopods,” she corrected
me. She winced and didn’t face me. “Sometimes I can be overbearing,
I know.”

The casual nature of her
apology gave me a clue that she might be used to begging
forgiveness for her intelligence. And she
was
intelligent, almost
intimidatingly so. Which was probably why she felt the need to
apologize.

Who had made her feel like that in her past?
The shitty ex-boyfriend? Her parents? Looking at her, I couldn’t
imagine why someone would want to dim the light she exuded.

“
Hey, no. Don’t do that,” I
said, and she finally turned her face my way. I pushed up on my
elbows, praying she didn’t hear how loudly my shoulder cracked, and
said, “There’s nothing wrong with being smart, Penny. Jesus, I’m
fifty-three, and I didn’t know what that kind of cloud was. I don’t
remember what any of the clouds are. I would have said
cumulonimbus.”

“
Nimbus is only added if
there’s precipitation involved,” she said, and caught her bottom
lip between her teeth as if to shut herself up.

My desire to touch her presented itself in a
physical and a psychological ache. I wanted to do something to make
her feel less lonely than she looked in that moment. The smile she
gave me was forced, as though she were braced for rejection.

“
Penny…” There wasn’t any
reason to dance around what I wanted to ask her. “Can I kiss
you?”

Her chest rose, suspended on a breath she’d
taken but didn’t release. She nodded slowly. “Yes, please.”

Yes,
please
. Those words did something to me.
Something I definitely couldn’t act on in a public park. I rolled
to my side and brought one arm over her waist, propping myself on
my elbow to lean over her. Her eyes were wide, the pupils nearly
obscuring the brown of her irises. Her lips parted, and her hand
came up to rest on my shoulder as our mouths touched. And that was
all it was, at first, and all I had meant it to be. Just a touch,
just to test the waters. And it would have been enough; her lips
were as soft as silk, and I could have coasted on the memory of
that sensation for some time. But she lifted her head and opened
her mouth beneath mine. What the fuck was I was expected to do at
that point?

Her tongue slipped against my bottom lip.
She tasted like the nectarine she’d just eaten, and I wanted more.
I stroked my tongue against hers, and her hand came up to sink into
my hair.

I loved first kisses, the pop and fizzles of
your nervous system blasting sensation through your body from your
mouth to your genitals, the overwhelming nervous feeling in your
gut warring with the endorphins flooding your brain in celebration.
And this one…oh, this one was perfect.

“
Excuse me!”

Penny jerked her head away, and I looked up.
The young mothers sitting nearby were glaring at us in disgust.
Penny sat up, her face bright red, and reached to adjust her
ponytail.

I needed to adjust something, as well, but
not with the yoga pants mafia staring at me. I sat up and hoped my
cock was keeping a low profile.

“
Excuse you,” I said,
nodding toward Penny. “The lady and I were occupied.”

“
Maybe you shouldn’t be
occupied with
that
in public.” The woman who’d interrupted us had sandy blond
hair pulled up in a bun and a black tank top that said
serenity
across her
chest. She was the least serene looking person I could
imagine.

“
Maybe you should mind your
own business.” It was the kindest response I could think
of.

The second woman got to her feet, hefting
her baby onto her hip. The first woman followed suit, angrily
collecting her diaper bag from the grass. The second mother leaned
over to strap her baby into its ridiculously oversized stroller—it
was the M1-fucking-Abrams of strollers—and turned her head to snap
at me, “You’re old enough to be her father. You should be ashamed
of yourself.”

Ah, fuck.
It wasn’t that I hadn’t thought of what Penny and
I looked like together. I’d agonized over that awful run-in with
the law last week and come to the conclusion that any time I went
out with her, people would assume she was an extramarital
acquaintance of some form, or worse, that she was my daughter. In
theory, it hadn’t seemed like more than an annoyance. I’d forgotten
to factor in the number of assholes in New York and how upfront
they could be about their rudeness. I couldn’t trust my tempter
enough to let myself speak; I didn’t want to go my dinger in front
of two babies and a woman I very much wanted to kiss
again.

I didn’t have to.

With a sharp turn of her
head, Penny fixed them with the coldest narrow-eyed glare I’d ever
seen. It was like something out of
Orange
is the New Black
. I was actually frightened
on behalf of those terrible women. “Take your ugly babies and fuck
off.”

Holy…mother.
I almost crossed myself.

I thought the women were going to ignite
with their fury, but it was more an anger of the paralyzing
variety. They didn’t sputter or try to say anything further, and
within seconds, they disappeared into the foot traffic on the
path.

“
Well,” I finally said,
slightly afraid she would bite my head off, too.

She covered her face with her hands. “I
am…so sorry, that was totally inappropriate and immature.”

“
Well, you didn’t have to
insult their babies. That was a bit over the top.” I reached out
and stroked the backs of my curved fingers down her arm. “But if
this is something…ah.” There was no delicate way to broach the
subject. “I know we just met, and this is our second date, but I’m
hoping there will be more in the future. And if there are, people
are going to comment on the age difference.”

“
I know.” She rubbed her
arms, a self-conscious move, I assumed, since it wasn’t cold out,
at all. “And I know people will be rude, because people are people.
But I like you, Ian. I want to go out with you again. I want to
make out with you again,” she added with a laugh.

“
Well, I’m not going to turn
you down.” My throat went dry, and I tried to clear it. “And I like
you, too. Just so we’re even on that score.”