“No need.” His lips curled into a dashing smile which made her want to kiss him senseless. No. They were up in the air, for goodness’ sake. They exited yet another ball of clouds and emerged inside the clear blue sky. Elucidation reached her mind.
“Did you always fear flying?”
She pressed her lips together. “No.” Even though it wasn’t cold, she braced herself. “When I was nine…I flew by myself for the first time, to spend my summer vacation with my Nana. My parents were separating.”
He nodded. “I’m sorry.”
“They both wanted to see me off at the airport, which turned into the worst idea ever. They had this big argument on the way there, and in the car I just couldn’t wait to get inside the airplane.” She appreciated his encouraging silence. “I wanted to run. Then once the plane took off, I was all alone. And I knew it wasn’t just temporary.”
“Where are they now?”
“Dad remarried. Mom dated someone for a while, but it’s over. They both live in Florida, with a comfortable four hundred miles in between.”
“And you were very close to your grandmother.” The nostalgia in his voice was as if he had known Nana. Or perhaps just remembered what Penny had told him about her. No. He couldn’t. It’d been way too long, back when all he wanted was to get in her pants.
Much like now.
“She gave me stability when I needed it.”
He seemed lost in thought for a moment. “Do you still need stability?”
“If that’s all I wanted I would have married Darren. I don’t want to settle just because I’m thirty. Marriage shouldn’t be that way.” She looked straight into his eyes, and his nod didn’t offer her any explanation. “I take it you don’t want commitment?” She assumed nonchalantly.
He cleared his throat. “I guess it’s been like that.”
“It looks to me like it was your choice to avoid commitment.”
He groaned, and she saw his lips tighten through the opening of his helmet.
“I just prefer things a certain way. Everything that love involves…putting someone else first, the responsibility…love. I’ve done all of that already at an early age.” Although a cool detachment sharpened his voice, he kept his fingers busy by touching some buttons on the console.
“But you never married.”
“That’s true.” Although he stiffened his chest, his feet moved around the pedal, as if he sought for a way out of the situation. “My dad died when I was fifteen, here in Hawaii. My mother couldn’t take all the memories. So we packed and left for New York, the three of us.”
“Three?”
He cleared his throat. “My younger brother Bertrand. He had Down Syndrome and congenital heart disease. But we did all we could and he lived eighteen years.”
Her body stilled, her mind trying to register the existence and death of his sibling. She remembered the colorful kid drawings she found in his closet, and her chest contracted. Poor Luc. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Touched by the strain in his voice, she stretched her hand to his. She entangled his fingers with hers. Luc, though, quickly withdrew his hand, and raised his fingers to scratch his chin.
“Luc, was he alive when I met you?”
“Yes, he died six months after we met.”
When they had gotten involved, he never talked much about family, thus she assumed he was an only child. She went for a summer trainee program, having met him during her first month and started dating him in the second. Usually they both worked long hours, so they’d settled for ordering Chinese or a light sightseeing around New York City when possible. She’d shared an apartment with a couple of roommates who also worked at the hotel, and Luc had said he lived with people, too. Since his apartment was located far from where they worked, they settled on meeting at hers.
“Why didn’t you ever tell me about him? I went through something too, remember?” The smell of home baked chocolate chip cookies, made from scratch, always came to mind whenever she thought of her lovely grandmother. “Only six months before we met. And I mentioned it to you a few times.”
“The couple of girls before you who knew, they either treated me like husband material because of how I helped care for my brother, or felt sorry for me. But not you. You took my mind off the rolling debt, hopeless disease, and family drama.”
She crossed her arms. “It’s nice to know I was a good distraction for you.”
He stared deep into her eyes, and lifted his hand to caress her chin. “You were more than that.”
Oh how easy would it be to just soak in his caress, as his finger pads brushed her sensitive skin with a tenderness that clogged her throat. Still, she needed to get things off her chest. He needed to know. “You didn’t make me feel like that at the end. You hurt me.”
The vein in his neck pulsated. “It was probably easier that way. What could I have offered you back then? I was a workaholic, with a sick brother, and a mother who depended on me for everything,” he said, his voice carried by emotion. “I blamed you for losing my opportunity to pitch. I had to blame someone. I’m sorry.”
Pain pierced his mismatched eyes. Penelope shifted in her tiny seat. It had been easier to agree to be his lover again at the waterfall. Her emotions had run wild and free, and she for once listened to what her body wanted.
Now, after his heartfelt apology, she was more scared than ever. Her heart thumped beats of fear and anxiety in staccato. Fear for her future. Anxiety for what was to come.
Her emotions had become vulnerable to him again. And this time, she couldn’t even blame him.
***
Luc paced in his suite. Heat throbbed in his veins each time he remembered their conversation in the helicopter, and the silence that descended afterward. He’d wanted to take her on a ride to help her overcome her fear, but as his feet had touched steady ground again, he was the one with dreadful thoughts on his mind.
She had already experienced settling for less with Darren. Was it fair for him to ask her to do the same? Was he a scoundrel for wanting her to warm his bed and fill his life while he figured out if he could go all the way with her?
All the way
. How did those three words even enter his mind?
Penny deserved better than him. She deserved a man who wanted her full on, without time to get used to the idea of commitment. His heart turned in his chest at the idea of giving her up. How could he without trying? Maybe it was too late for them. But it was too soon to say goodbye.
He’d told her he would pick her up at nine, to give them both enough time to shower and get ready for a dinner date. What he really wanted was to take her to his bedroom, where petals of red roses lay scattered from the adjoining door all the way to his bed. He could have arranged it, but he’d done it himself. Even the chocolate covered strawberries and vintage Taittinger in the fridge. He didn’t know where this road would take him with Penny Ashbrook. But this time he wanted to do things right.
Or as right as possible, he conceded as he ran his fingers through his hair. He glanced at the clock. Eight p.m. They could still go to dinner and do all the courtship shenanigans, but couldn’t they start early? He picked up the phone and called her room next door, commending himself for not just showing up when she could be freshly out of the shower. That would send his resolution out the window for sure.
No answer. He could hear the ringing.
Just as well, he told himself as he glanced at the starry night outside, and decided some fresh air would do him good. He walked to the French doors and cracked it opened just a bit. The white and gold drapes swayed.
He heard a clicking noise, and his gaze lasered in on the adjoining door. He’d kept his wide open, just as he had during the whole time she’d been his tempting neighbor. Wanting, no, hoping one day she’d give in.
And she did. A few feet from him, Penny Ashbrook stood, in a sinful turquoise mini-dress which embraced her curves like a lover’s hand. His gut clenched and he had to clear his throat a couple of times to push words out.
“I couldn’t wait.” Her coy smile didn’t match the sexy message in her beautiful eyes.
He glanced down her dress, bare knees, and stopped at a pair of black stilettos. “Patience is overrated, Penelope.”
Before he could plan it, he was already within touching distance of her.
***
A hard-to-contain thrill spread through Penny’s body. Inhibitions fled from her mind as he took her to his bed, and with the bedroom lightened by the moonlight shining outside, she held his stare the whole time. “By the way, I’m on the pill.” She wanted to take technicalities out of the way while she could still think straight. “And I’m safe.”
“Me too.” A smile spread across his face.
“Oh, you’re on the pill too?” She teased, her hand gliding over his collar.
“I’m safe.” He eased her down to the mattress. The tenderness in his eyes knotted her stomach. But tenderness alone stopped there, his hands perusing her body with urgency. She bucked against him, the need to have more, to do more, to feel more snaking up her body. With a quickened pulse, she pulled him to her and kissed him.
Oh, the kiss
. Years of distance, of time, of regret vanished somewhere in between the connection of their wet tongues, and the rumbling of their anxious limbs. She unsuccessfully tried to suppress a nervous chuckle when he removed the dress she’d spent long minutes ironing.
He groaned and contemplated her for a moment. The only sound apart from her heart, hammering its way out of her white lace bra, was the panting of their breaths. An animalistic desire glowed in his eyes, and hot liquid bubbled between her legs.
She licked her swollen lips with the tip of her tongue.
“Magnifique?”
She noticed that he stared at her chest.
“You’re all I want, Penelope.” His eyes found hers.
All he wanted…she didn’t even try to fight the warning alarm inside her, which reminded her that this was all temporary. He probably meant sexually. No. The warmth in his eyes, in his growing smile, on his skin as his fingertips outlined her breasts through the flimsy lace fabric…they all convinced her he yearned for her. He longed for her. No other woman would do for him, at least not right now.
Her nipples puckered painfully against the lacy fabric, begging for attention. She reached and snapped her bra open. Her breasts spilled out, full and heavy.
He covered her body with his, and with a tortured sigh started to give her nipples the attention they craved.
Oooh yes
. He dipped his head down, and the second the tip of his tongue flickered over her burgeoned nipple, her sex clenched. All the rest of her body followed. The anticipation for more built inside her. He cupped her breast, his mouth sucking on it, his teeth grazed over sensitized skin. Paradise had never seemed so close, and yet so far away.
When she touched him and her fingers found his long sleeved shirt, she realized he was still fully clothed. She looked for the buttons, her fingers clumsily biting into the material without success.
With a moan, she grabbed either side of his shirt and pulled it apart. Buttons snapped open.
“In a hurry, are we?” He chuckled and ceased contact with her breasts. He stood on his knees, and with a fluid movement took off his shirt.
She glanced at his fabulous chest, and ran her tongue over his neck. The sunny glow on his olive skin tasted like a warm Sunday afternoon at the beach. Salty, fresh, and filled with a powerful energy.
“In all fairness, it doesn’t look like I need much help ripping your pants,” she whispered in his ear, and felt him shiver when her fingers outlined his shaft, restrained by a needless black material.
She reached for his Italian leather belt, but he outmaneuvered her and unbuckled and unzipped his pants.
“Careful, Penelope. I might only last one second if you touch me.” He warned with a thread of pain.
“I’ve been waiting for that second,” she whispered, and immediately pressed her lips together so as not to let anything more intimidating out of her mouth.
To know he wanted her as much as she wanted him only fueled her further. He pushed his pants and black underwear down and she helped him, ignoring his plea. Once they pooled at his feet, he got out of them and out of his shoes at the same time. Wow… She could not stop herself from ogling his thick cock, even larger than she remembered. And throbbing with need. Throbbing for her.
“But I’m still dressed.” She scooted on the bed to push her panties down, but once his fingers covered hers, she let him do it. A trail of goose bumps followed his every caress all the way down to her ankles. He removed her panties, and she lifted one leg, to help him get rid of a shoe. He kissed her calf, and with a mischievous grin whispered, “The shoes stay.”
He lowered himself on her, and she bit down on her lower lip at the sight of him. A gorgeous, strong man, looking at her with fierce desire. She spread her legs slightly for him, with what she hoped was a blatant invitation in her eyes.
He thrust his length into her hot, moist walls. She grasped on his shoulders, and moaned. A sheath of sweat formed on his forehead, control hanging by a thread. He kissed her, and she nipped on his lip, their tongues imitating the movement of his cock inside her.
They rolled on the bed, and unsure if this had been her initiative or his, she found herself on top of him, both her legs straddling either side of his. She threw her head back, and thrills of pleasure began to form, and she leaned over him. All she saw was the gray fog in his eyes as he raised his head and began to suckle her breasts, alternating between them.
She moved away once, to tease, to hear him groan, and see his tongue searching for her nipple. Perhaps if she’d been stronger, she could do that again. However, his tongue on her felt too good to avoid.
He dropped his hand on her body, and soon his fingers began to play with her clit as she bucked faster. Her body was on the verge, pressurizing her insides the climax built with fiery intensity.
“Luc!” She screamed when he increased the pressure, to match her riding, and tides of pleasure overtook her, from top to bottom, making her convulse on top of him.