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Penelope hesitates, then shrugs. “I don’t know.”
We’re dancing around our words, waiting for the other person to speak. The more time I spend with Penelope, the surer I become that she’s the most incredible woman I’m ever going to meet. There’s no one else that comes close. And if she’s telling me she feels the same way…
…well, that would be worth anything. It would be worth giving up my place in my father’s company. Worth turning my back on business. Worth shedding the identity I’ve crafted as a businessman.
Being with Penelope would overtake all those things in an instant. I could wake up next to her every morning and capture her lips between mine. I could do all the things I’ve dreamed of doing to her with my hands and tongue and lips. I could see her smiles and try to make her laugh every day, just to watch the way it brightens her face.
“Do you want kids?” Penelope asks in the silence. Her head is still resting on my shoulder, but I can feel tension mounting in her body.
I suck in a breath, letting it out slowly. “No.”
Turning to stare at me, she arches her brows. “Really?”
“I always thought I’d end up alone.”
“That’s sad.”
“Thanks.” I grin.
“So you never wanted to have kids?”
I shake my head. “Don’t think I’d be any good at it.”
Penelope searches my face, shifting her gaze from one eye to the other. Her brows tug together as her lips part, as if she’s trying to draw the truth out of me. Seemingly satisfied with what she sees, she rests her head against my shoulder again. “So…my issues…You wouldn’t mind?”
“Are you asking if I’ll be your boyfriend?” I can’t keep the grin from my voice.
“I’m the Queen, Asher. It doesn’t work that way.”
“How does it work?”
“I…” Penelope inhales, shaking her head. “I don’t know. I’ve never done this before.”
“I don’t want to jeopardize your reputation.”
“And I don’t want to hurt yours either,” she says.
“But this feels…”
“Real,” she finishes, glancing up at me.
A lightning bolt passes through my chest, and suddenly it’s hard to speak. Emotion chokes me, making my pulse quicken and my throat constrict. I never thought I’d meet someone who accepts me for who I am. To be honest, I never thought I’d let anyone close enough to really know me.
But Penelope knows. She’s wriggled her way under my skin and made me rethink everything I used to believe mattered to me. Since we left Stirling, I haven’t thought about work once. I haven’t thought about my father, or the merger, or the mine.
I’ve been totally consumed by Penelope. I’ve been…happy.
As a lump lodges itself in my throat, I sweep my fingers over Pen’s cheek. I can’t speak because I’m afraid it’ll come out as a croak. I don’t have the words to tell her how I feel, because I don’t even understand it myself. It feels like I’m ready to leave everything behind for her. To disappear into this northern land and leave my whole world in the past without another look.
I’m ready to give her my all.
When my lips touch hers, she lets out a delicious, soft moan. I gobble it up like a man starved, then sweep my tongue into her mouth. Within seconds, our kiss is ravenous. Demanding. Her fingers curl into my shirt, fisting it as she swings a leg over my lap. I drop my lips to her neck, her breasts, and back up to her lips. I kiss her like she’s my sustenance. Like I need her to live.
In a way, that’s how it feels.
Isn’t she the one who said this felt real? We’re two people who’d been resigned to a lonely life. We were so convinced that love and life and happiness were closed off to us, that seeing the possibility of actually having it seems like a gift from the divine.
As Penelope grinds her core against mine in the light of the fading sunset, my whole body lights up with the strength of my emotion.
