Chapter 14
Penelope
Some kids have stuffed animals or dolls they drag everywhere.
For me, it was a picture book about a little hermit crab. A simple kindergarten story—big, colorful illustrations, easy words—but I held onto it long past the age when I should’ve outgrown it. It traveled with me through the trials of our life on the road, wedged into backpacks, stuffed under motel pillows, tucked into the glovebox of the Ford Aerostar we sometimes lived out of.
I think the message was about growth and change. That moving forward didn’t have to be scary if you had friends. Harry, the hermit crab, met plenty of friends who helped colonize his shell. A starfish, an anemone, even a spiky sea urchin.
Except for me, friends never lasted long. No matter where we landed, my dad’s behavior always found a way to sabotage our stay, leaving us to pack up and start over. Again. And again.
But that little orange crab taught me something else: how to disappear. How to retreat whenever the world became too scary.
I would stare at its watercolor shell, tracing the spiral with my finger, imagining myself shrinking down, curling up inside it. If I focused hard enough, I could almost feel the smooth, domed walls around me, spinning deeper and deeper until the reality of my life faded.
Until I couldn’t hear my mother’s tense voice, pleading with my father to apologize to a boss, a landlord, a cop. To ask for his job back. To stop drinking.
Inside that shell, I was safe. I was small. And no one could find me.
I perfected that skill. Still use it. Even now, as a supposedly accomplished adult. When fear grips me. When the white noise becomes unbearable. When too many people want too much from me—decisions, choices, the next collection. Always the next collection.
It used to be spring-summer and fall-winter. Now it’s micro-seasons. Pressure to produce a new body of work. Every. Single. Week.
A never-ending churn of designs, pumped out at breakneck speed, keeping consumers craving the next thing before they’ve even worn the last. Just an endless flood of must-haves, dictated by whatever trend caught fire that week.
It’s brilliant. It’s ruthless. And for a mid-sized brand like mine, it’s a goddamn nightmare. How do you compete with companies that can sketch, manufacture, and ship an entire collection before I’ve even finalized a prototype?
How do you convince people to invest in well-crafted, intentional pieces when they’ve been trained to desire something newer, shinier, trendier every time they refresh their feed?
Fashion used to have a rhythm. Now it’s a sprint.
And my phone is a yellow-eyed demon, always watching, waiting, pouncing with more demands, more deadlines, more meetings, more opportunities .
Then all I want is to shrink, to fold myself into the smallest possible version of me. To sink down to the sandy bottom of my shell and disappear.
But then…there’s Tuck.
With him, I don’t shrink.
I don’t retreat.
Under his gaze, I expand . Stretch beyond the confines of my skin, become something more, something worthy, something infinitely desirable.
My cells plump with the rush of blood, the pulse of dopamine, the thrill of his touch.
With Tuck, my body transforms. It opens, it wants . This need isn’t soft or hesitant—it’s urgent, relentless, a force of nature. A drive to meld into him, to wrap around him, to take, and be taken.
Just to kiss him uncoils me…breaks me free from the hard shell I’ve spent my life escaping into. I bloom, unfurl, stretch outward, like a lotus flower turning toward the sun.
With him, I’m not a little crab clinging to a coral ledge. I’m something else entirely—drawn out, carried by the tide, surrendering to the pull of something vast and unknowable.
Now, in the dim hush of morning, he stirs beside me. Our limbs tangled like a drunk octopus. Arms, legs, even our fingers, knotted together. As if even in sleep, neither of us can bear to let go.
His breath tickles my ear, slow and warm, drumming a rhythm that hums in my bones. As ever, my body responds. The wetness returns between my thighs.
Take me, I’m yours.
Forget the sharp burn when I peed and the hint of new beard rash on my skin—evidence of the long night spent lost in him. Desire churns like a rising swell, an unstoppable current surging through my veins, sweeping me deeper, deeper. His fingers skim my skin, and I give myself over—wholly, helplessly, to their stroke, to the sleepy, hungry want awakening for more.
I moan, pressing into his touch, shamelessly signaling my need.
The flash of his wide smile fills my vision as he rises over me, effortlessly flipping me against the mattress.
Of all the ways we’ve had sex, somehow the simplicity of the missionary position in my childhood bed is what turns me on like crazy.
His face above mine, his dilating pupils darkening the blue of his eyes, his body poised between my legs, sets me alight. I twine my fingers around his tensed biceps, the pop of muscle making my mouth water.
Tuck slowly rubs against me, dips his head to my breast.
“Stop teasing. Fuck me.”
“Didn’t last night teach you anything?” he questions, returning his tongue to my erect nipple.
And the delicious pressure of his body revives the hellish pleasure of what came before this moment. Because last night ? It was brutally torturous. And incredibly hot.
Whenever I tried to rush things, Tuck would stop…pull back, slow everything down. First, in the kitchen, where he licked and probed me to the edge and back. Then on the sofa where I immediately straddled him, my breasts in his face, poised at last to fuck.
But no. He held off.
I submitted to the slow burn. After all, I love kissing him. And we’ve rarely had time for gloriously slow, skin-tingling make-out sessions. Falling away in deep, spiraling kisses so intense that my body dissolves into his, as stars burst and collapse and renew themselves throughout my body.
My desperation peaked again. I grabbed at him. But Tuck eluded me a third time.
So I attempted payback: climbing off him, kneeling at his feet.
No . He halted my next move, gripping my hair to prevent me from reaching my goal.
“What are you doing?” he demanded.
I sat back on my haunches, staring at the glistening hardness of my obvious intent.
“Answer me.” His voice was strong, rough .
I caught on to the game. And for a fleeting moment, I might not have played along. But that resistance evaporated against the surge of my body—my thighs gushing wetter, my nipples rock hard and eager, my skin vibrating with searing, driving lust.
“I want to suck your dick.”
“And what do we say, Penelope, when we want something?” He leaned forward, elbows to knees. “You have to ask nicely.”
Boy oh, boy —his commands just got me wetter.
“Tuck.” I pouted. “Can I please suck you off?”
He stroked his jaw, considering.
“ Please , Tuck.” All the playacting made me want him even more.
He relented. “Only if you promise something, Penelope. If I let you suck my cock, you’ll be good. You’ll follow all my instructions.”
“I promise.”
And holy exploding meteorites, taking him in my mouth as he gently stroked my hair got me insanely, uncontrollably, excruciatingly hot.
Right up till he fisted my hair and pulled me away.
“That’s enough. Get up.”
I stood.
“Turn around.”
I spun my back to him.
“Bend over.”
I leaned over the surface of the coffee table, my fingers imprinting on the glass surface.
Planting my legs, I curved my spine, waiting, hoping, aching for him to take me. Every sense strained to decipher the sounds and movement behind me. He retrieved his jeans from the floor, a rustling sound—a condom. Yes ! I thought. Now he really will fuck me.
Seconds stretched out like hours.
Then, at last! His hands gripping my hips, his feet nudging my legs apart.
I felt his hardness against my pulsing vagina. I backed onto him, my fingers slipping on the tabletop.
He retreated.
“ No !” I confronted him. “Don’t fucking stop—”
“Then do as you’re told. And apologize.” His sexy smirk made it all so much more intolerable.
I folded my arms, indignant. “And if I don’t? What will you do—spank me?”
The thought fired my imagination. And frantic with frustration, I grabbed an AARP magazine from the table, rolled it into a tight cylinder.
Because? Well…because his dominating teasing tactics had me riled. And I wanted to test just how far I could push him.
Tuck tightened his jaw.
“ Do it ,” he said. “Slap it across your ass.”
“I want you to do it.”
“Bad girls don’t get what they want.”
“I’m supposed to slap my own ass?” I scoffed.
“Start with your right cheek.”
I held his eyes. Then I slowly propped my right leg like an ’80s swimwear model, held the magazine aloft…
And the tension in the air, Tuck’s intent face, his erection…oh, god, I wanted it. I wanted him to lose control and take me. So I did a reverse golf swing and struck my ass cheek.
“Harder,” he urged, voice strained.
I did it again—with even more gusto…my boobs jigging, the pale curve of my bottom flushing pink.
“Again.”
I gripped the magazine tighter and struck higher.
“Okay. Stop.”
I flicked my eyes to his. Then I defied him to do it again. Hard enough that the magazine buckled against my skin.
“I said, stop!”
“Or what?” I challenged. “Are you going to send me to my room?”
Something flickered in Tuck’s eyes as he latched onto that idea.
“Exactly right, Penelope. Go straight to your room and get into bed. I don’t want to hear another sound from you. Got it?”
I nodded, playing submissive. My eyes on the prize of his hard cock.
But in the bedroom, I became uncertain. Pacing the floor, my body desperate for him. Then, I spied the virgin-white seersucker dress draped over my suitcase. I slipped it on and crawled into bed…waiting.
The agony of waiting!
Too long .
Did he go? He couldn’t have!
I lay there. Wanting so badly to be penetrated, it felt like my skin had shrunk, taut, straining for him. The walls of my vagina aching. Waiting, wanting, desperately needing to be fucked.
I fisted the sheets, trying to use the power of my mind to bring him to me.
Come on! Come and take me, I pleaded with the shadows. Come to me, Tuck .
Squeezing my thighs together. Fingering my wetness. Groaning like a sick animal.
Come on, Tuck, I urged in my mind. Stop playing .
A step at the door. At last!
His silhouette in the darkness.
My whimper of relief as he slowly came closer.
By now, I was fully in the game. Scared to make a sound in case he made me wait again.
Finally—the dip of the single mattress under his weight.
The covers shifting…lower…lower. His breath catching at the sight of my thin dress in the streaking moonlight. His hand. Sliding under the sheets. Pushing up my dress. Between my wet thighs.
His groan.
“ Please ,” I murmured. “Please, Tuck.”
The sheets—thrown away, cool air over my hot, yearning skin.
His hand capturing my wrists. Him mounting me. His weight pressing me down, squeezing out my breath as I flattened under him.
My wrists held firmly against the headboard, Tuck’s other hand pushing my legs apart.
Finally. Finally. Finally . His cock. His big, hard cock against my entrance.
“Please, please!” I begged.
“Shh, Baby,” he said soothingly, kissing the edges of my mouth.
Then, my explosive, raw scream as he thrust into me—hurriedly muffled as he pressed his hand to cover my mouth.
“Shh, Pen,” he rasped. “The window’s open.”
Like I care who heard us.
Like I could care about anything except him being inside me, driving into my core, filling me. Releasing me from the pain of not having him on top of me, deep and thick inside me.
I clung to him with every limb, every muscle, every tendon. Urging him deeper and deeper, harder and faster until I was rolling and spinning through the churning waves, splitting into particles, no longer one entity but an entire universe of pulsating matter.
And now, with morning light filling the room, I cling to him again. But this time, it’s gentler, slower, calmer. Sweeter .
He kisses my lips, my eyelids, my temples. And we lift together, ever upward, expanding into each other again…our molecules colliding, merging, dissolving into something weightless and infinite.
Until I’m spent. Blissfully spent.
I melt into the sheets, boneless, my breath still uneven. And Tuck, propped on his elbow, watches me with that lazy, satisfied grin.
“What?”
“You’re so beautiful, Pen.”
“Oh, god.” I groan, reaching for a pillow and pulling it over my face.
He tugs it free.
I grimace. “ Ugh —don’t remind me what I must look like. I just want to wallow in my pleasure zones a little longer.”
“What are you talking about?” He traces my cheek with a slow, reverent touch. “You’re adorable. Bedhead, sleepy eyes—”
My heart swells, but I roll my eyes. “Unshowered pits, smudged makeup…potential zit.”
He grins and, before I can react, buries his face against my armpit.
I squeal, laughing, then slap a hand over my mouth.
“Oops—too loud.” My gaze flicks toward the window as the memory floods in of Tuck, last night, his hand over my mouth, urging me to be quiet.
“It’s late,” he murmurs, lips grazing my ribs. “Mom and Dad are already at work.”
And just like that, reality seeps in.
We understand each other.
As much as I want to stay here, tangled in the sheets, basking in this rare, stolen morning, I know what this is. What it has to be.
A secret. A fleeting indulgence. Something that can’t survive outside the hush of this room.
What we have is silk—luxurious, intoxicating, but fragile. It decays under UV light. Its fibers, though deceptively strong, are vulnerable to carelessness. One snag, one exposed thread, and it unravels.
Our friends…his family…they’d pull at the seams, snaring us with their well-meaning concern or quiet disapproval. This just isn’t meant for the real world, for daylight, for our careers, for the way we clash outside of this bed.
So I keep us here.
In the dark.
Tuck and I.
Delicate, untouchable, secret .
And despite what he suggested about us being a real couple, I know the truth.
He knows it, too.
We’d never survive that.