Chapter 5
Jenna
I ’m trying to keep a smile on my face because yeah, people are not being very covert in snapping pictures of me on their phones.
My back is to the wall and my Diet Coke is sweating in my hand, a lot like me.
The music is too loud, the bar is too packed.
My manager, agent and the entire crew are pissed off at me for not bending to their will today, so they’re pointedly ignoring me. Loneliness weighs me down. So far down.
There is a group of men on the other side of the bar making no mystery of their interest. One of them looks directly at me now and adjusts his crotch, and my scalp prickles with apprehension.
How many times can I be put into these kinds of situations before something irreversibly bad happens?
At least when I’m in Los Angeles, I have bodyguards, but they didn’t come on this trip.
Being in a remote mountain town, Dustin didn’t think they would be necessary.
I should go back to my trailer.
No.
Someone is going to follow me.
I feel it in my bones…and those bones start to shake.
I want to go home.
You don’t have a home.
At least, not a place that truly feels like one.
I close my eyes and remember the safety and strength of Penn’s arms around me, wrapping me in flannel and holding me to his massive chest. That felt like home.
But I guess I was wrong.
When I open my eyes again, Crotch Grabber has broken from the pack and is cutting through the crowded bar like a shark, veering in my direction.
I pray that my manager notices what's happening and intercepts the guy, but he's already had three drinks and isn’t cognizant of his surroundings.
I press my back harder into the wall, my heart cramming into my throat as he gets closer—
“Hey,” snaps the bartender to my left. “Penn Holland said she’s off limits.”
Crotch Grabber stops in his tracks, some of the color draining from his face. “Ah, hell. Penn said that?”
“Did I stutter, boy?”
A sob of relief wells in my throat as my pursuer turns around and slinks back to his group of friends. The bartender nods at me warmly and walks away. And I practically break into a tap-dancing number, my chest squeezing like a fist around a soaked sponge.
Penn Holland said she’s off limits.
A sound leaves my mouth that I can only describe as a giggle-gasp, my hands pressing to my stomach to calm the butterflies. He made me off limits. He thought about me. He guards me better in his absence than any of these people on my payroll.
He’s my Daddy.
As if I willed him to appear, the door of the bar slams open, bashing off the adjacent wall, and there is my magnificent lumberjack, outlined in a combination of moonlight and neon, courtesy of the Coors Light sign blinking in the window.
He sweeps everyone in the room with a murderous glance, cracking his knuckles against a giant palm, that chest—which I know to be covered in glorious black hair—heaving with irritation.
My sex wells with moisture and soaks my panties before he’s taken one step.
I’m hot. I’m hot everywhere.
It takes all my self-control not to run across the bar and leap into his arms, but…
No.
No, I came on way too strong earlier.
I’d only just met the man, and I asked him to be part of my life! Hello? Could I give off any more of a psycho, wanna-be girlfriend vibe? I made it clear I wanted something serious from him, which only led to him leaving. Therefore, I can’t do that again.
Play it cool.
You just want a fling.
At least, that’s what I’ll let him think.
Honestly, though, if a fling is all Penn can offer me, I’ll take that, too. There’s virtually zero chance of me finding another man who has this effect on my body. Another man who makes me want to offer up my virginity on a silver Tiffany platter.
Penn has almost reached my side of the bar, and I tug anxiously on my skirt, shifting in my high heels. No idea what to do with my hands. So awkward.
You’re an actress. Act like you’re cool.
I swallow a pinecone. “Well,” I say, striving for breezy. “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, he walks into mine.”
He stops in front of me, raising an eyebrow.
Idiot. “I quote Casablanca when I’ve had too much caffeine.”
He grunts. “You planning on being this fucking cute all night?”
A giddy sensation ripples through me. “Is that going to be a problem for you?”
That sharp gaze sweeps down to the hem of my miniskirt. “Yup.”
My tummy freefalls, like I just dropped from the highest height of a roller coaster. “Too bad, I guess,” I say, totally breathless. “Hi.”
“Hi.”
Drag me out of here into the dark and use me. Any part of me. Use it.
Can’t say that out loud, can I?
“Get up,” Penn says, yanking the closest crew member off his stool, tossing him to the side.
“Weren’t you taught to offer a lady your seat?
” He hauls the stool out and angles it into the corner.
Then he picks me up and settles me onto the warm leather, blocking me from the rest of the patrons. “There, baby. You’re okay now.”
I hiccup once and dive into his welcome flannel chest, twining my arms around his tree-trunk waist. Not playing it cool at all . Whimpering my pent-up fear into the hard wall of his body, letting him absorb the feeling and replace it with security.
“You smell like the forest,” I sigh.
He clears his throat. “That’s where I spend most of my time.”
“Because you love being a lumberjack? Or is it just a job?”
“Nah, I love it. Giving the trees a noble send-off. Knowing they’re going to be immortalized in someone’s home or framing a piece of art in a museum. Planting the next generation in the earth and watching them stretch for the sky. It’s humbling.”
My pulse skips. “That’s beautiful, Penn.”
He grunts.
“Where is your daughter tonight?”
“Babysitter,” he answers, rubbing my back. “She can stay there as long as it takes to get you home safely, Jenna. But goddamn, you shouldn’t be here in the first place. It’s obvious you’re not comfortable.”
I soak up his intuitiveness. His care. “They’ve been bringing me to parties and clubs and bars since I was fifteen. I saw a lot of things I was too young to see.” I swallow. “I guess I should be grateful I never got used to them. Being uncomfortable means I’m not numb. Yet.”
“ Fifteen? ” Penn turns his head long enough to pin someone with a look of pure malice. “I’ll be having a word with your manager while you’re in town.”
Why do I get the feeling that “have a word” means physical harm?
I tip my head back all the way, the ends of my hair tickling the small of my back.
“Okay. But you should know that…I could fire my manager tomorrow and I’d end up with someone else just like him.
This is the industry. Young girls are expected to be savvy enough to fend for themselves.
There’s no instruction manual. We’re just…
thrown into the lion’s den. And we’re only taught to do one thing—get the part.
By any means necessary. Stay relevant. Be seen a certain way.
Be seen at all. The things that used to ground us slowly begin to fade away until we forget what it’s like to be grounded at all. ”
His fingers push into my hair to massage my scalp. “What kind of things used to ground you, Jenna?”
“Old movies. The treehouse in my backyard growing up. Cup stacking.”
Penn’s lips quirk at one end. “Cup stacking?”
“I was really good,” I whisper wistfully.
“Hmm.”
He’s looking at my mouth, and I can’t help it, I open my thighs a little on the stool, my eyes fairly glazing over when he inches his big hips between them. Even if he’s grumbling and shaking his head, as if he knows our proximity is a bad idea.
“What grounds you, Penn?”
“Splitting logs. A big Sunday breakfast. My kid.”
“What’s her name?” I ask.
“Erin. We were having a tic-tac-toe marathon when Zander called and told me you were in here, looking like a deer in the headlights.”
“I often do.” I wet my lips, scooting a little closer to the edge of the stool and watching his eyes darken. “I heard the bartender tell someone I’m off limits. That Penn Holland said so.” I reach between us and play with the button of his jeans. “Am I off limits to everyone but you, Daddy?”
His thick chest shudders up and down. “Don’t do this to me in public, baby.”
“Only in private?”
He swallows heavily, his hesitation plain.
Play it cool. Don’t come on too strong again.
“I was a little…overwrought earlier. My emotions were all over the place and I might have m-made you think I wanted something serious. Like a relationship.” I tease the line of his zipper with the tip of my index finger, tracing the gigantic bulge all the way down to the root, setting his teeth on edge.
“But all I really need is one memorable night.” I shake my hair back. “Don’t you want to give that to me?”
He snags my wrist before I can give his arousal a full-on massage. “Goddammit, Jenna. You are—”
“Too young. I know. I can’t help that.” Straightening as much as I can, I let a warm breath out against his hard mouth. “Can’t you turn off the lights and try not to think about the year on my driver’s license?”
A strangled moan comes from deep in his chest. “Baby, if we were to fuck, every light in the house would be on.” He gives a sharp shake of his head. “If I was to keep the lights off, it would be for your benefit. Not mine.”
My brow knits. “What does that mean?”
He huffs a humorless laugh. “You might catch a glimpse of this old, battle-scarred bull pumping for broke between those toned thighs and wonder what the hell you were thinking.”
The raw image projected by those words causes me to gasp and tingle, another round of dampness soaking into my already sodden panties. “Don’t say things like that to me unless you’re going to do them,” I say haltingly. “Was your ex-wife the same age as you?”
He’s as caught off guard by the subject change as I am. “A year older, actually,” he says slowly. With caution. “An appropriate age.”
Red flashes in my vision. “ Wow. Good for her .”
I glare up at him like a petulant brat, trying to twist away.
I’m not sure how this jealousy snuck up on me so fast, but it’s potent and biting.
Impossible to overcome, too, so I slide off the stool, fully intending to stomp out of the bar like a child—but Penn’s giant hands lock around my hips, and my ass is slapped back down onto the seat with no warning and no nonsense, his forehead plastering itself to mine.
“You stay where I put you, little girl. Is that understood?”
“Yes, Daddy,” I sob, shaking uncontrollably on the stool.
Need this. Need this. Need this.
“I’ve never wanted anyone the way I want you.
Never been this hard, this horny. Never needed to hold someone almost as badly as I need to fuck ’em.
” He fists my hair and tugs it back, baring his teeth against the underside of my chin.
“You’ve obsessed me top to bottom in a matter of fucking hours.
I’m losing it over you. Is that what you need to hear? ”
My nod is vigorous, my fists twisting in the front of his flannel. “Yes. More.”
“You want me to bring you back to your frilly pink trailer and give you a spanking for trying to storm off on me?” I can’t even answer, my intimate muscles are twisted up so tight, so I just moan, my neck basically powerless.
“Because God help me, I am dying to yank up the back of that dick tease skirt and give it a backhand.”
“I can’t feel my legs,” I whimper.
“Don’t worry, little girl. I’ll carry you.”
And that’s exactly what he does. I’m carried out of the bar in a sea of lifted phones that are no doubt recording me, while I’m being whisked away by a much older, much bigger lumberjack.
I have the presence of mind to bury my face in his neck, so it won’t be seen, ignoring the alarmed calls of my name coming from my manager.
But there’s nothing but this.
Nothing but him. Penn Holland.
This man who balances domination and affection as if he was given the exact recipe to my libido. When I need to be manhandled, he does it. When I seek reassurance, he gives it. When I’m scared, he calms me. Protects me.
I won’t survive without him.
But I might only get one night.
I’ll worry about a potential goodbye tomorrow.
Tonight, I’ll think of nothing but giving myself to Penn.
My body. My soul. My heart.
And praying he doesn’t shatter the latter.