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This can’t be a one night thing. I won’t survive it.
So: ground rules. I can do this. I can control myself long enough to set terms.
Fuck.
I exit the bathroom much slower than I entered it, my heart drumming against my rib cage. My throat is thick. My tongue feels too heavy in my mouth, and my hot skin is over sensitized beneath my remaining clothes, jolting at every brush of fabric.
Penny smiles at me from the center of the bed, holding out a hand. She’s buck naked, and she looks like every teenage fantasy I ever had rolled into one. “Come here.”
Lord, have mercy on my soul.
“Wait.” Penny’s smile falters as I linger in the bathroom doorway, desperately trying to marshal my final brain cells. I need to say this right. Need to make her understand. “I should be clear about something first.”
She sits up, looking worried. “Okay…”
Here goes.
“This isn’t casual.” I clear my throat. “Not for me, anyway. This is—serious. More serious than I’ve ever felt about anything, Penny. And I know it’s terribly unfashionable these days to want a commitment, especially only after a kiss or two, but the thing is, I’m not sure I’d survive touching you once and then losing you. So unless you feel at least a fraction of that… unless you can see us together years from now, unless you can at least picture it…”
“Oh, I can picture it.” Penny kneels up, her usual mischievous smile gone. She looks deadly serious right now, and god, I love her for that. She reaches for me again, and my heart leaps in my chest, because she’s so beautiful there, all smooth skin and freckles, sheets pooling around her knees. Her messy brown hair tumbles over both shoulders. “Believe me, I can picture it. I’ve already chosen the song for the first dance at our wedding.”
“You have?” I’m struck dumb. “Which is it?”
“The one from the attic, obviously.” Penny wiggles her fingers, impatient, and I trip forward across the rug in a daze. “It can’t be that hard to track it down. We could even go back up there and check the record player if we need to.”
She’s honestly thought about this.
She sees it too. Sees us too.
Thank god.
This truly is the best night of my life. And when I reach the side of the bed and Penny’s hand smooths over my chest… my heart shudders with relief.
She’s mine. This beautiful, morbid angel is mine.
Five
Penny
When I stripped naked and posed on the bed like a renaissance painting a few minutes ago, I felt like kind of a dumbass. I’ve never given my body much thought before tonight, but suddenly with Arthur scrubbing his hands in the en suite, getting ready to touch me, I was all-too aware of my small boobs and jutting hip bones. My puffy nipples and the freckles that have somehow spread everywhere. The dark curls between my thighs.
Would Arthur rather I’d shaved down there? Did he prefer curvier women? Did my pose look as unnatural as it felt? I lay there rigid, my thoughts chasing in circles.
But all those fears flew out of my brain the second he stepped through the bathroom door, hungry eyes roaming over me like a starving man greeting a feast.
Then came his confession. The words that are fixed in my memory, and thank god for that because I need to cross stitch them on a pillow or something, stat.
This is serious.
More serious than I’ve ever felt about anything, Penny.
Well, ditto—and thank god for that.
Now he’s finally here, finally at the bedside, looming over me with fond, ravenous eyes, and when I touch Arthur’s chest, his muscles tense up and quiver. He stares down at me without blinking. His chest rises and falls as he breathes.
“You’re warm,” I murmur, stroking my hand down his bare stomach. Dark hair dusts his chests and trails all the way down his abs, disappearing beneath the waistband of his pants. This man is slender and surprisingly well-muscled for a writer. “You’re burning up.”
“That’s putting it lightly.” His fingertips find my hip, and I suck in a sharp breath.
