Chapter 36
Thirty-Six
Pen
When morning comes, I don’t ask August about his strange mood the night before.
It might be cowardly, but all our family is here.
I’d rather leave it for now. At any rate, he’s his normal self when we wake.
By that, I mean I’m woken with slow, searching kisses, his large hand gently cupping my cheek, stroking my neck and shoulder as if he can’t believe he’s found me here in his bed.
His voice, gravelly with sleep and soft with tenderness, tickles my ear. “Do you know how beautiful you are?” Kisses pepper my temple, the crest of my cheek. “Do you have any idea?”
I shiver, snuggling into him. “Not a clue. Tell me more.”
An easy chuckle vibrates against my neck as he nuzzles it. “How about I show you?”
Those talented hands of his sneak beneath the down quilt to find the hem of my nightshirt.
“I don’t know,” I whisper at his ear. “Our parents are here.” I suck the tender lobe, knowing he’ll shudder in pleasure.
“I can be quiet.” Gently he eases my shirt upward, slides his hand under my panties. “Can you?”
My breath hitches. He’s too good at this, circling and stroking just enough to make me hot. Not enough to get me off. The perfect tease. Liquid pleasure flows like molten gold through my veins. Shivery rivers of desire run along my skin.
August’s mouth finds mine. We kiss soft, slow, hard, deep, exchanging breaths that become more agitated and needy. All the while he slowly fingers my clit, his movements hampered by the tightness of my panties. Whimpering, I lift my hips in entreaty. I feel him smile against my lips.
“You want it,” he whispers.
“Yes.” There’s no hesitation now.
A nip on my lower lip. “You gonna be a good girl and stay silent?”
I’m panting now, breasts swollen and hot, rubbing against the shirt bunched around me, rubbing against his hard chest. Washes of balmy heat flow over me.
“I’ll be the best girl,” I plead, clutching his neck, pulling him closer.
August grunts, dragging my panties down with rough uncoordinated moves.
When they’re around my ankles, I kick them away, and he rolls in between my spread thighs.
His mouth captures mine with quiet desperation, then he’s yanking my shirt free.
Our struggles are silent but for the rustling of the covers and the panting of our breath.
He dips down, sucks an aching nipple in deep.
I bite my lip, my hands tangling in his damp hair.
His gaze finds mine as his cock sinks into me.
I feel it with my whole body. Every time.
The thick, stiff invasion that seems to push so deep I must bear down, push back.
Every time. When I whimper and writhe, he gentles me with kisses, sweet murmurs as he begins to thrust that big dick I love so much. In. Out.
“There you go,” he whispers, working me. “You’re doing so good, being so quiet for me.”
The low encouragement makes me clench with deep pulses of heat.
Here, in this moment, I’ll do whatever he asks of me and beg for more.
Our gazes lock as we take each other. The look in his eyes, molten silver beneath lowered lids, as if he’s burning for me.
As if I’m his world. My belly clenches so tightly it’s almost painful.
August. I mouth his name, unable to speak. But he hears it.
As if weak with lust, his head dips, our mouths brushing, exchanging air as his thrusts go harder, deeper. “Pen.” He shivers, rotates his hips in that small urgent circle that makes me whine with need.
“I’m not going to last.” Breath catches in my throat. “You’re so . . .”
“You’re taking me so well.” He adjusts his angle, finding a spot that feels so good, I sob into his panting mouth.
“Shhhh . . .” he says.
Thick slabs of muscle tremble along his back.
I slide my hands down to the hard rise of his ass and squeeze.
It’s his turn to moan, tilting his head so he can bury it in the curve of my neck.
We’re torturing each other now, and I love it.
His teeth sink oh so gently into the meat of my neck, and his hand moves to cup my breast. I’m close, so close.
I know he is too. He’s becoming messy with it, using short, brutal thrusts. I love this part.
And when he finds my nipple and plucks it, I break apart.
He holds me there, letting me shake and come, my lips pressed to his shoulder to keep it in. A moment later, he follows me, and it’s my turn to hold him close.
We stay like that for a while. Until the sounds of the house waking, our family talking and fixing breakfast, makes us stir.
Slowly, as if he’s lost all strength, August eases to the side, slipping free. He gathers me close and sets my head on his damp shoulder where his heart thrums against his chest. Gentle hands stroke my hair.
When he speaks, it almost sounds overloud in the contented quiet. “I had every intention of taking my time with you. But you were too soft and delicious. And my will is weak.”
“Hmm.” I nuzzle the small oval of his nipple. “We’ll just have to try again later.”
August clutches the mass of my hair and turns toward me. “I vote for now.”
“There’s that stamina I love so much.”
He pauses, gaze colliding with mine. His expression is strange, piercing but also hesitant. “Do you?”
The intensity of his tone catches me off guard, but before I can answer, March’s voice booms from the other side of door. “Oi! Are you two up?”
With a noise of annoyance, August glares at the door. “If we weren’t, that would do it.”
“Good. We got pancakes up in ten!”
“March!” comes his mother’s aggravated voice. “Leave them alone.”
“I left them alone all morning!”
August groans and flops back on the bed. “It’s eight thirty, asshole!” he yells to the celling.
“Language, August,” his mom calls back, her voice muted by distance.
I bite my lip and fight a laugh. “Do you think they heard?”
“No,” August says empathically, and reaches for me again.
“Yes,” March says, clearly against the door.
Embarrassment bursts hotly over my body and I duck beneath the covers, as August wings a pillow at the door and tells his brother to get lost. March leaves with gleeful chuckles.
“He’s just messing with us,” August says.
I take in his sex-flushed skin and messy hair that sticks up at all angles. He’s relaxed against the pillows, a lascivious glint in his eye. I return it with a look of warning.
“Nope. Not again until we’re home.” With a yelp, I jump out of bed and high-step it to the bathroom before he can grab me. “I mean it, Pickle.”
Again, August groans and drops back against the bed dramatically. “I’m gonna kill him.”
“We can get March together,” I tell him from the safety of the bathroom doorway. “It can be one of those couples’ activities advice columns are always going on about doing.”
A brilliant grin lights up August’s face. “Penelope Morrow, I fucking adore you.”
“I can’t believe you stood at their door and harassed them to get up.” June stabs a sausage and shakes her head. “You’re such a brat.”
“Hey!” March gives his best “innocent yet outraged at the accusation” face. Not that anyone buys it.
May narrows her eyes. “Ma, are you certain March isn’t the baby in the family? I have doubts.”
Margo chuckles and sips her coffee—a pointed gesture of refusing to answer that has March scowling. But there’s humor in his eyes as he looks at her before addressing his sisters.
“Every family vacation we’ve had, this—” he points his fork at August “—assho—er, aspirational player, wakes me up at the butt crack of dawn to go jogging.” He takes a bite of apple pancake. “Payback was in order.”
“Just remember, little bro, one day it’ll be you.
” August leans back in his seat. We’ve been at the table for all of ten minutes and his plate is already cleared.
The man can eat after a workout, even if that workout is me.
I unfortunately blush like one of the guilty.
While August idly plays with the ends of my hair, unrepentant.
“You keep saying that like it will make it come true.” March salutes him with a sausage. “Not gonna happen.”
My mom laughs lightly and pats March’s shoulder as she walks by on her way to the sink. She’s wearing a fabulous scarlet silk muumuu embroidered with fireworks bursts of hot pink chrysanthemums. She pulls it off with effortless elegance. If I wore that, I’d look like a walking tea cozy.
“You haven’t watched enough theater if you’re saying those famous last words.” She rinses her glass and sets it in the dishwasher. “August, dear, that green smoothie was lovely.”
He made it for her when Mom announced she was off complex carbs for the duration of her upcoming play.
“I’ll give you the recipe.”
She rests a hip against the counter, clear Lucite bangles on her wrists clinking musically, and her attention homes in on August’s fingers carding through my hair. A speculative light enters her eyes. “I can’t quite get over seeing the two of you together. It never even occurred to me—”
“Mom.”
August’s hand stills in my hair, then slips to my shoulder.
Mom gives me an innocent look. “I’m only trying to explain that it’s a bit of a shock seeing you together.”
As if we didn’t know. Her continuous “shock” has moved from irritating to insulting. Temper rises like a geyser. August’s warm hand curls over the back of my neck, the edge of his thumb stroking my pulse. He must feel it beating in agitation, for he strokes it again as if to soothe.
“I agree,” Margo says, jumping to Mom’s defense. “It’s a trip to see. From adolescence on, they were barely in the same room together without one of them soon leaving it.”
“Exactly! Frankly, I thought they hated each other. Pen, at the very least, professed total indifference—”
“And this,” June announces sotto voce, “is the downside of your mothers being best friends.”
“They’ll just have to get used to it, won’t they?” August says with deceptive ease. His gaze, however, is hard with warning.
His mother’s expression softens as she reaches over the table to touch his arm. “We’re looking forward to that, Augie.”
“Hear! Hear!” my mom says, waving a hand as though she holds a scepter.
I’m still irked and feel massively exposed, but Neil comes into the kitchen with a troubled expression. Oddly, his gaze goes straight to me before winging to August and then his wife.
“I think you should come and see this,” he says to the room. He glances at my mom and then me again. The concern in his face sets off my own. At my neck, August’s hand clenches just once, and I know he’s noticed as well.
Quietly, we rise and go into the great room where Jan is standing in front of the massive TV set on pause. Jan’s gaze darts to mine and holds the same queer look his dad had. Without comment, he lifts the remote and hits the jump rewind button.
The program cues up to a group of reporters shoving phones and cameras in a man’s face to get a sound bite. My insides lurch with a great heave.
It’s strange seeing my father, even if it’s on a television screen. I haven’t laid eyes on him in years. He looks the same. A little grayer but the same. Hugh Grant in Bridget Jones’s Diary level of smarm, gracefully aging boyish good looks. To this day, I can’t watch those movies.
“Is it true you and your daughter are estranged?” someone asks.
Blood rushes in my ears as my body goes cold. Vaguely, I’m aware of August holding my hand tight. But I can’t focus on anything other than my father, and the sound of his smug voice.
“I’ve reached out many times. Sadly, my daughter is more interested in fame than family.”
A punch of hot rage has me swaying. I tighten my core and clench my jaw. My ears buzz so loudly now, I only hear snatches of the conversation.
“Marriage. Sure.”
“You sound a bit dubious there. Care to explain?”
He makes a face like a doubtful duck. “My daughter and August Luck never even liked each other. Now they’re in love?
” A shake of the head. “She inherited an estate she can’t afford the taxes on.
Now she’s marrying Luck and all the money that comes with him.
Something to think about, is all I’m saying. ”
All the blood leaves my head, gushing toward my feet.
“Where is this estate?”
“Los Angeles, California. Where the stars are, and Luck plays. It used to be called Merry Place. Look it up.”
On a breath, I close my eyes. I won’t cry. I’m too angry.
I won’t cry in anger either.
He doesn’t deserve it.
The TV clicks off. Silence is a winter coat tossed on my head.
I lick my dry lips, swallow thickly. I’m encased in ice. “Now they’ll know where I live.”
“We live.” August’s low but firm voice drifts over me. “I’m with you, Pen. You’re not going to be alone in this.”
In my mind’s eye I keep replaying that small glimpse of my father. Of his cutting, snide words. He didn’t care about me at all. He simply wanted to make me look bad.
God. He took it all away: my plans, my pride.
“I’m not sure renting will be feasible anymore,” I say behind the dark safety of my closed eyes. If I don’t open them, I don’t have to make it truly real. “Security and all that. What if someone goes snooping? I’ll have to be there—”
“Fuck the rentals. Pen, talk to me.”
August’s harsh reply has my eyes snapping open, and with it the floodgates. Rage rushes in. “Fuck them? I am counting on them to earn those taxes.”
He flinches. “You know I’m not belittling that. Don’t try to say differently. I’m only trying to help.”
“Well, this isn’t it.”
Just beyond him, our families hover. They all saw. They all heard. All of it.
Oily humiliation slides down my skin. It’s so thick and heavy, my shoulders sag.
Every one of them is trying hard to convey sympathy but not pity.
But it’s there. How could it not be? My father, the one man who should by all rights love and protect his child, sold me out for a couple of pathetic minutes of attention.
August steps close, reaching out to take my hand. He’s making it worse. He’s making me the center of it all. I can’t . . .
My feet stumble as I back up.
He frowns in confusion. “Pen—”
“No. Stop. I don’t want to fight.”
“I don’t either.”
“I need to calm down.” I want away. Away. I can’t be here, in this spotlight. I need to get away.
August lowers his hands as though facing a wild thing and swallows thickly. “Okay.”
But he doesn’t go. He just stands there. They’re all just standing there. Watching me.
My skin crawls.
“Alone.” I hold up a hand, warding him off. “I need to be alone for a while. Please, August. Just . . . go out or something.”
“Or something.” He blows out a hard breath. “Sure, Pen.”
I can’t stay another second. Biting my lip to keep from crying, I flee the room.