16. Pen
16
PEN
S omething had shifted inside me after dinner at the lodge. Lake and I had lazed around when he was home the next couple of weeks, watching movies and just talking — catching up on everything and nothing. He surprised me with breakfast in bed and hot chocolate by the fire with matching reindeer socks and new best friend mugs he picked up in town. It was cathartic, just like dinner had been, and it was a start, but it wasn’t everything .
I’d used the time I was alone to take a hard look at my life, at the person I’d become and the one I want to be in Wintervale—the one I want people to know as I replant my roots here.
We spent Christmas with Oma and his family, and I’d gotten a secondhand account of how his cousin Reid’s boyfriend, Harlan, had to grovel to win him back. Lake had told me how Harlan had called them for help and how he’d had to hold Beau back after hearing Harlan had broken Reid’s heart.
The Beau that had wanted to wage violence had been nothing but sweet to Indie—something that made her giggly and starry-eyed every time we had a video chat. I still didn’t know Beau well enough to tease him, but if this continued between them, I wouldn’t be able to resist.
Gossip about my botched wedding still flitted through town, and that wouldn’t change—not for a while. I thought that would bother me but whatever negativity someone wanted to throw my way would be no match for the bone-deep relief I feel not being Mrs. Carter Hanes.
“Goddammit, Penelope,” Lake growls, startling me. I spin to face him, clutching the towel knotted between my breasts, my hair still wet from my shower.
“Jesus, you scared me.” I motion toward the microwave. “I had to heat up my coffee.”
More rejection letters required more coffee, and I’d been so focused, I forgot to get dressed first.
“In a towel?” he sighs, averting his gaze and making me snicker.
We hadn’t adhered to the Christmas sex date, instead watching it come and go, both of us waiting for something.
There was plenty of kissing, cuddling, and a fair amount of groping, but I hadn’t taken it any further and neither had he. The frenzy of the wedding and the aftermath still lingered in the periphery, but I also liked getting to know Lake again.
I knew the boy who picked me up from school the day he got his license to get ice cream, the one who taught me how to ski, and the one who wasn’t afraid to be a goofball if it got me to laugh.
So many days we’d be up early and home late, absolutely filthy from being outside. Oma would just shake her head and feed us both before sending Lake home.
But we hadn’t been those kids in a long time.
Lake’s dreams had changed and so had mine, but we’d still ended up here.
Together.
The main difference now being instead of wanting a lick of his ice cream, I want to lick him.
“I could just drop the towel if you’d like that better.” He makes a strangled sound, pinching the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. “I don’t get what the big deal is; you’ve seen me in a bathing suit.”
“It’s different, Pen.”
“Why?”
“Because I know everything about you. I know that you love the smell of a spring rain and chocolate croissants. I know you’d rather watch the same movie over and over than go see a new one. I know you became someone different when you left and it’s fucking incredible seeing the real you come back to Wintervale,”—I swallow hard as he holds my gaze—“but I don’t know how you like to be touched. I don’t know what gets you there fast or slow or how you feel…what you sound like when you’re about to come.”
“Oh…”
“We put the brakes on orgasms and I’m completely fine with that but, Baby, the only thing separating me from your naked body is that towel.” He takes a step back as he runs his hand through his hair. “ That’s the big deal.”
I feel the heat from his gaze, and his words creep from my chest all the way up to my face. He’s never looked at me like this—hungry and dangerous and wow.
But he’s never been able to either.
“I didn’t mean to tease you,” I say, the words quiet and breathy as the microwave dings again.
“I’m glad you’re comfortable here. I want you to be comfortable here.”
“Just with clothes on,” I murmur, my lips lifting on one side.
“No, see, that’s the problem; I want you just like this.”
“I didn’t know you were such a masochist.”
“Me either,” he grunts, opening the little door and depositing my mug on the counter. “Let me take you out tonight.”
“Like on a date?”
“Yeah, like a date.”
“I don’t put out on the first date,” I tell him, cocking my hip and pushing my chest out.
“We’ll see,” he replies, his tone suggestive as his eyes sweep over me and I like it. I like the way he looks at me and the way my body feels like a zap of electricity is coursing through my veins.
“I guess we will.”