Chapter 59
DARCY
Pennand I played a couple card rounds and drank more of the wine than we probably should have. I was definitely feeling the effects, thankfully not as much as I had been the night at the Alehouse, but enough that I felt comfortable and brave with my inhibitions lowered. There was no little voice in the back of my head nagging at me to stay away from Penn, which was good, because I would have ignored it anyway. Seeing the tops of his underwear peeking from his jeans made me want to see the rest of them tonight.
Hello, Calvin Klein.
Penn’s eyes were slightly bloodshot, a goofy grin plastered on his face as he scooted back on the couch after I beat him in a round of Go Fish. He rubbed his hands over his eyes.
“I like how competitive you are,” he said.
I shied away. “Sorry, sometimes it’s a little much, but my family has always competed over everything. My brother and I would even compete over who could poop the fastest.” I immediately shot my hand over my mouth. I stayed still, as though if I didn’t move a single muscle, not even my eyelids for blinking, he would forget what I just said.
Penn started to laugh. He was laughing so hard that he had to lean forward, his face turning red. His laugh instantly made me start to chuckle, and I covered my face with the blanket from the back of the couch.
“Oh my God. I can’t believe I just told you that.” I peeked from under the blanket. “Okay now. Stop laughing!” I whined. “Delete! Delete!”
“I’m sorry,” he continued, “I can’t stop!”
I got up and leaned over him, playfully wrestling with him on the couch. “Forget you heard that!” I said, still hitting him on his back with a throw pillow as he shielded himself. Penn turned around on the couch, and I was draped over him, my arms on either side of his head.
Our laughing slowed, quieted, and after a moment, it was just the two of us, staring at each other, breathing heavily.
I liked the way he looked at me.
He looked at me like he really saw me, like he wanted to know me. He stared at me like he wasn’t afraid of me or my brash and loud personality. It was as though he didn’t care that I was stubborn and unruly, something that had often been viewed as a major character flaw. I didn’t think any guy in the world had ever looked at me like that before, like they welcomed my chaos.
Then without a second thought, Penn grabbed me by the neck and pulled me into him.
We didn’t stop kissing until we were both undressed, and he had flipped me under him, his lips on my neck.
“Are you sure?” he asked me, those blue eyes soaking into me.
I nodded, my hips arching to meet him. “Yes. Are you?”
Penn smiled. “Oh, hell yes.”
I woke up the next morning, still naked, lying across Penn on the couch. My head was on him, hair draped across us, and I could feel the rhythmic breathing of his bare chest. I peeked under the small throw blanket we had over us and raised my eyebrows when I realized he, too, was still naked.
“Find what you were looking for?”
“No. I mean, yes. Well, I wasn’t exactly—” I stopped and gazed up. Penn had his arms behind his head and a grin across his face. I sat up, pulling most of the blanket with me and covering my chest, chuckling slightly. I tucked some of my hair behind my ear. “This kind of complicates things, doesn’t it?”
I saw Penn’s face fall flat. “Do you regret it?”
“What?” I asked. “This?” I gestured between the two of us.
“Yeah. Me, you . . . last night . . . us?”
I brushed his hair from his eyes. I thought about the question he had asked me and what my answer was, and I knew I should be honest. The truth was there were a lot of things I regretted. I regretted that I had played this game with him, that I had tried to drive him out of town, that I had inevitably started to fall for him.
I needed to tell him, to come clean, to let him know I had not entirely been myself throughout our time together. I needed to tell him the truth.
I bent down, kissing his lips gently and letting my body lay over his. But this was the only truth I could give him right now.
“No, I don’t regret it at all.”
Penn traced his fingers over my cheek and down my neck, along my collarbone. “Good. Because neither do I.”