Chapter 22
When their feet hit the upstairs hallway, Zander used his hands on Penny’s hips to guide her to his doorway, then pressed her against the wall for a long, lingering kiss. “Give me one second, okay?”
She nodded, eyes still a little glazy, like she was waking from a dream. Funny, since they’d been acting out his dream down there—undressing her, exploring her body, spreading her before him on the table. Making Penny come had been every bit as mind-altering as he’d expected.
He dropped a kiss to her forehead and slipped into his room, flipping switches and smoothing out the bedspread, and returned to her as quickly as he could. When he pulled her inside, he watched her face as she took it in.
Penny’s blue eyes twinkled as they reflected the strings of lights he’d hung on the walls and ceiling. He’d done his best to put some in clusters, imitating the—
“Fairy lights,” she said quietly. “It’s beautiful.”
He wrapped his arms around her bare waist, pressing his chest to her warm back. “I thought you’d like it. And lucky for both of us, I just got a new mattress. It’s the kind that expands when you open the box. Winter thought it was amazing.”
Penny laughed in his arms as he smoothed the golden waterfall of her hair to one side, exploring her neck for a slow kiss.
He lost himself again in the softness of her body, ignoring questions in his own head about why he’d buy himself a nice bed when his goal was to sell the house and get out, or why he’d invested in all the small improvements that made this whole place feel more like a home.
It was for Winter, he’d told himself with every step. And in this room, for Penny. To give her a taste of magic in her busy life.
Zander shuffled them toward the bed, but before he could toss Penny onto his brand-new navy comforter, she spun in his arms and began laying hot kisses along his neck, then trailed her tongue along his collarbone as her hands slid south to the waistband of his jeans.
The button popped open easily—no surprise, as Zander’s erection had been straining against it since she’d stepped out of her house earlier in that dress.
Penny pulled down the zipper and dipped her hand inside, pressing her palm against him through his boxers.
Zander shuddered as his knees went weak.
Penny’s fingers closed around him, giving him a soft squeeze over the fabric.
She moaned into his neck as she maneuvered inside his boxers to wrap her fingers around his full length.
Whatever flash of insecurity she’d had the other day was long gone, and she moved now with the confidence of a woman who regularly held bees in her bare hands.
But then she was out of his arms, dropping to her knees.
“Penny—”
“Let me.” She pulled at his jeans and boxers, bringing them to his ankles. “I want to learn how to make you feel good.”
It was a struggle to stay upright as he shucked off his clothes while Penny ran her curious fingers up and down him, but he managed. When her tongue stretched out to lick him experimentally, he had to weave his hands into her hair for grounding.
Her tongue danced around the head of his erection, barely flirting with the edge of his foreskin.
“That’s it,” he encouraged. “If you lick just under the foreskin, it feels really good.”
When she did, fireworks shot up his spine. His fingers played in her hair, staying gentle, making sure she had room to pull away. She covered his whole tip with her mouth as her hand gripped him, and when he responded with a light tug on her hair, she moaned loudly around his cock.
Everything she was doing felt so damn good, but he still noticed the concentrated furrowed line of her brow, her classic determination to do something to the best of her ability.
“Relax, baby,” he soothed, loving the way the pet name rolled off his tongue. “You’re doing so good. It all feels amazing. Fucking incredible.”
If the way she then took almost his full length into her mouth was any indication, the praise pleased her.
“Just like that.” Zander tried to keep talking, but forming words was hard when he was engulfed in the sweet heat of her mouth as she squeezed his base. “But I’m gonna come in your mouth if you keep it up.”
This earned him another moan that sent vibrations through his body, but she released him and looked up. The sight of Penny Becker’s blue eyes locked on him while she was on her knees almost sent him over the edge. “Don’t come yet. I want—”
He rubbed a thumb across her cheek as he studied her wet, swollen mouth. “You want what, Penny?”
He knew, but sometimes he was a selfish bastard, and he wanted to hear her say it.
But she only raised her eyebrows. “I thought you’d have me begging for it.”
With a growl he hardly recognized, Zander pulled her up and kissed her. “Get on the bed.”
When he turned back from his bag in the closet, condom in hand, she was spread out on her back, hands behind her head and a smile on her face.
The full view of her body—supple, soft, and strong as hell all at once—made him stumble.
He dropped the condom on the bed and crawled over her. “You ready to beg yet?”
Her body arched into him as she smiled. “Not quite.”
“So stubborn.” He tsked. “Almost like you already forgot how hard I made you come downstairs. Maybe I should remind you.”
He entered her with one, then two fingers, moving slowly to make sure her body would be ready to take him when she finally asked.
He used his other hand on her breasts, squeezing her nipples as she writhed beneath him, so entranced by her body and its reactions that he barely registered Penny reaching for the condom and tearing open the package.
He encircled her wrist and pinned it over her head, foil packet still in her fingers. “I think you’re forgetting something.”
Penny pouted defiantly, her full lower lip pushed out. “I don’t beg.”
Zander pulled the condom from her hand, ripped it open, and rolled it down on himself as she watched. When she snaked her tongue along her lip, he pumped his cock again for good measure, going impossibly harder as Penny’s eyes glazed at the sight.
“Tell me what you want,” he said gruffly, squeezing himself.
Her gaze flicked to his face with understanding. He didn’t just want to hear it, he needed to hear it. To know she was choosing this, choosing him. Her pout softened to a smile. “I want you inside me. Please. Please, Zander.”
Please, Zander. He wanted to hear it from her all night, breathless and on edge.
He rolled to his back, pulling Penny so that she was draped over him. “Ride me, Penny.”
Her chest heaving, Penny straddled him, taking him in hand. They both watched as she held him in place and lowered herself slowly.
Holy. Shit. She was so tight around him that Zander felt it all over his body, squeezing at his lungs and heart.
Penny closed her eyes and bit her lip, and Zander stopped her with a hand on her hip. “You okay? Go as slow as you need.”
“It’s so good,” she said dreamily. Her eyes opened to shine on him. “It’s so good, I want to go slow. Want to treasure it.”
Her body moved slowly over him, taking him in another inch.
Penny’s hair streamed over her shoulders as lights sparkled behind her.
It was beyond his imagining—that he’d have her like this at all, let alone here, fairies alight around her in a room he no longer recognized.
It suddenly seemed too much to hold, like it could crumble in his grip.
“I don’t deserve this,” Zander said quietly.
“You do.” Penny lowered herself farther. “You do.” Her hands went to his face, and she kissed him as she brought her body flush to his. “You do deserve this. So take it.”
And he did, thrusting his hips up into hers as he set their rhythm, lifting her and taking her deep, then rocking his hips against hers.
She was a vision, rising and falling on him, some kind of honey-blessed goddess.
“You feel,” he moaned, “so, so good.”
As Penny pressed her hands to her chest, Zander slid a hand between them, finding the ripe nub of her clit. She gasped as she hit his finger, again and again.
“Oh god,” she moaned. “Oh god, oh god.”
“Just like that.” He urged her on. “Use my hand, use my cock. Come for me like this.”
Her movements became more desperate as she chased her orgasm, grinding down on his fingers and rolling her hips.
“Zander.” Her head tipped back. “God, Zander.”
“I’ve got you, Penny. Come on, baby.”
He saw the climax on her face first, her expression going taut as she moaned his name. Then he felt it around his body, squeezing him, holding him tight as she rode it out.
But it was her eyes opening again, looking at him full of fucking wonder, that put Zander over the edge. He flipped them with ease and hooked an arm beneath Penny’s knee to open her wider, then drove into her.
She gasped a sharp “yes” with each thrust, her nails grappling for a grip on his back as he lost himself in her, burying his face in her hair as he came hard. He might have shouted her name, or a string of expletives, or a prayer. It was all lost in the bliss of his orgasm.
Zander gave himself the deep pleasure of relaxing over Penny for just a few seconds, then made sure to hold the condom in place as he rolled off. It was a damn pleasure to look over and see her flushed and relaxed, her entire body splayed like a happy starfish.
“Wow,” she said after a minute, turning to him with a lazy smile on her face. “I’d kind of built that up in my head, and I think it might have been as good in reality.”
“Might have been?” Zander climbed over her as she giggled, then showered her face and neck with kisses as she screeched. He let up only when she yelled, “Okay, it was better!”
He told Penny how to find the bathroom down the hall, then dealt with the condom.
After stepping into fresh boxer briefs and grabbing one of his most comfortable T-shirts in case Penny wanted it, he sat back on the bed, stupidly arranging himself to look dashing when she came into the room.
Soon she was back in the doorway, flushed and naked and biting her lip.
“So.” Her foot made circles on the old wood floor. “What happens now?”
“Whatever we want.” He stood and brought the shirt to her, pulling it over her head and arms. It was almost worth losing the sight of her incredible body to see her in his clothes.
“We’re defining what this looks like for the summer.
For my part, I hope you’ll spend the night.
Then I want to help you at the market. After that, I hope to see you as much as I can. ”
“You kind of have to see me a lot anyway, if you’re going to keep helping with the festival stuff.”
“Even better.” He wrapped Penny in a bear hug and threw them both down on the bed as she giggled. “I’m going to insist you eat dinner soon, but first I want to cuddle.”
Penny nestled against him. “You really are a softie underneath, just like Quinn said.”
“Geez, that woman. Giving away all my secrets.”
“How’s she been doing here with Mallory’s family?”
Zander reached for Penny’s hand and held it above them, tracing each of her fingers as he talked.
“She’s doing really well, actually. I thought she’d go bananas living with Mal’s parents, but being around them, feeling like a family, is giving her something she needs.
Something I’m not even sure I realized she was missing. ”
Quinn had always had rough edges, something that had drawn Zander to her in the first place.
And even here, with the summer sun tanning her cheeks as she worked from the Robinsons’ porch, Quinn was still Quinn—fierce and full of attitude.
But whether it was being in love with Mallory, or the copious amounts of Isaiah’s comfort food, his friend was blooming, and Zander was happy to see it.
It was almost like Sullivan’s Glen wasn’t the worst place on earth.
“The other day,” he said, staring at the outline of Penny’s hand against the backdrop of the fairy lights, “I went into the library to grab a book for Winter. Thought maybe he’d want to read about bees once he watched every YouTube video in existence. The same librarian was still there.”
“Patricia Hewing.”
“Good ol’ Miss Patricia. The minute I walked in, I knew she recognized me. I half expected her to throw me out.”
Penny gasped. “If she did, I will go down there and—”
“Simmer down, my little knight. She didn’t throw me out. She hugged me.”
Miss Patricia had pulled Zander into a hug much tighter than her wispy frame implied possible, leaving him nothing to do but pat her on a bony shoulder.
Much to Zander’s surprise, for every Brad in Sullivan’s Glen, there had been a Miss Patricia.
Someone who told Zander they were glad he was doing well, who said Winter was growing like a weed, or who asked after his mother, though he didn’t have much to report.
There’d even been an old man lingering at the hardware store whom Zander couldn’t place until he was reminded that they’d laid down a few tennis courts together in the neighboring town the summer Zander had managed to hold on to a job for an entire month.
“Nice to see you in one piece, son,” he’d said, patting Zander hard on the back. “Some of us are survivors, I reckon.”
Now, Penny threaded her fingers through his. “So what you’re saying is, this place isn’t the worst.”
“We-ell,” he said, dragging out the word. “I’m not ready to concede the point. But it did get markedly better tonight.”
“Oh yeah?” She rolled toward him, biting her lip. “What was the best part?”
He bopped her nose. “Definitely giving it to the latest Brad.”
She laughed. “I guess it’s fitting that you took out Brad Preston and I took out Brad Jeffries. Together, we’ve taken down the Brads!”
“King and queen of Sullivan’s Glen!” Zander proclaimed.
And even if it was a fantasy, for tonight, Zander let it feel true.