Chapter 17 Penny
Penny
We do the awkward dance of getting cleaned up and dressed in silence, and find ourselves back on the couch in the living room, where I look at the man sitting beside me.
I don’t know who he is.
He grunts and growls like Griffin. He basically pushed my hand out of the way so he could swipe at my center with a warm rag himself and pulled my sweatshirt over my head like I was incapable of dressing myself.
And he looks like Griffin, with blond hair that’s currently sex tousled, scruff on his jaw that I can feel the delicious burn of on my thighs, and dark-brown eyes that are uncharacteristically soft.
He’s shirtless, so I can see his broad shoulders and the tattoos on his biceps that I’ve long wondered the story of but never dared to ask.
His jeans are unbuttoned, showing the tease of a happy trail that disappears behind the zipper, and his bare feet are propped on the edge of the coffee table.
He looks like a model shooting an editorial ad for some designer cologne or maybe a Stars of Hockey calendar.
He’d be January, like a frozen lake, solid ice on the surface, but the coldness covers a deep, hot spring of raging waters I never knew existed.
So yeah, very much like Griffin—stoic and detached but also .
. . nice? That’s so weird, and if there’s one thing I’m an expert in, it’s weirdness.
It’s gotta be the orgasm. That’s the only explanation.
My pussy’s so good that it turned a monster into a man in—checking my invisible watch—twenty-seven minutes.
Was that really all it was? Less than a half hour of desperate, wild, spontaneous sex that has forever changed my expectations of what sex can be? Apparently so. Because I’m not the same Penny from a half hour ago either.
His voice breaks the silence of the room, low and almost amused. “I can hear you freaking out.”
“Pshaw, me? I’m not freaking out. You’re freaking out.
No big deal. Just a bit of wienering, some totally normal sexing between two people who apparently don’t hate each other as much as we thought.
Unless that was hate sex? Was it? I’ve never done that before.
Might have to think a bit before I rate it, since I don’t have anything to compare it to.
” I nibble my bottom lip, thinking. “In the moment, nine-point-four. Being passionately swept away, eaten out, and roughly fucked on a kitchen counter are definite wins. I can see what all the gossip is about where you’re concerned.
” I give him a thumbs-up, nodding knowingly.
“After? I’ve gotta say, maybe a seven-point-eight because this is hella awkward. Should I go? I should go.”
I make a move to get up from the couch, and Griffin stops me, basically clotheslining me back into the cozy embrace of the leather. “Penelope.”
“That’s my name, don’t wear it out. Ha ha.” I don’t laugh, I literally say the words.
He stares at me flatly like he doesn’t even have the words to express how exasperated he is with me.
With this whole thing. Finally, he mumbles, “I’m sorry.
I knew better, knew that was a bad idea.
I’m usually better at restraining myself, but spending all this time together is messing with my head.
” He taps on his temple. No, it’s too hard to be a tap.
He hits at his temple like he’s punishing himself.
“Gotta say, the rating is gonna fall to a six-point-seven if you keep saying fucking me was a bad idea. That’s not exactly what girls like to hear when your cum is still inside me.”
He moves so fast that I don’t have time to react.
One second, I’m sitting on the couch, and the next, he’s jerked me into his lap in one smooth move, settling me over him like I weigh nothing with my legs folded beneath me on either side of his hips.
I have a split-second thought of saying, Yeehaw, cowboy, but like he knows it’s my newly discovered kryptonite, his hand wraps around my throat again.
Every thought banging around in my head—and there are a lot of them right now—simply ceases to exist when he touches me like this.
Eyes fixed on mine, he silently demands my full attention.
“A bad idea for you. It was my every fantasy come to life. But I’m a bad idea for you.”
Wait.
Gruff, snappish tone aside, that sounded sweet. Like he’s not wishing to turn back time and undo what we did because it was a mistake, but that he’s worried about me. Yet he’s scowling at me like I broke his favorite hockey stick.
If mixed signals were a person, there would be flashing neon signs over Griffin.
One thing I do know for sure is that no one tells Penelope Lee what to do. I’ve fought that battle enough in my lifetime, with people thinking I can’t handle my own business, my own dating life, my own life period. But I can, I have, and I do.
I push his hand from my throat, not wanting him to have any semblance of control over what I’m going to say next, totally as my damn self.
“How’s about you let me make my own decisions—good, bad, or otherwise—and stop trying to make them for me?
How about that, hmm?” He’s close enough that I could kiss him, but instead of finding his lips, I intentionally aim for his nose, placing the softest boop of a kiss there.
It’s teasing, lighter than the dark, heavy place he’s trying to take this to, which is why I do it, secretly afraid he might be right about the whole bad-decision thing.
He is my brother’s best friend. And doesn’t exactly have a history of treating me well, so that’s not gonna go over easily. Not with Dominic, but more importantly, not with me. He’s got some ’splaining to do.
He crinkles his nose, then swipes a finger across the tip.
“Are you wiping off my kiss or rubbing it in? Answer carefully.”
His answering glare is all too familiar. I can feel the judgment, the accusation, the virtual name-calling—bratty, annoying, unwanted. I’ve felt and heard it too many times, basically every time we’re in the same room.
“You always act like you don’t want me around, but then you recite exactly what I was wearing the day we met. Those are some serious contradictions. Care to explain?”
“Not particularly.” His eyes drift to the side like he’s trying to avoid a conversation that I suspect is getting too close to the danger zone in his mind. His stupidly, sweetly, messed-up mind.
But I have a trick up my own sleeve. Or at least an idea of one. I grab his jaw in my hand, turning his face back to mine. His nostrils flare, and I know I’ve got him. “Explain it anyway. For me.”
“Fuck.”
He lifts me, dropping me back on the couch before getting up. Pacing across the living room, he runs his fingers through his hair in frustration. Looking everywhere but at me, he mumbles, “I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“Do you hate me as much as you act like you do? It’s a simple yes-or-no question.”
His laugh is a bitter, mirthless huff. “That is not simple.”
Staring at his back as he makes another lap across the floor, I don’t move. I don’t breathe. I sure as shit don’t ask again. Because while not a yes or no, his answer is crystal clear.
I thought I knew who Griffin Mahoney is, but I don’t think I know at all.
The image I’ve had of him is the man he wanted me to see, but I suspect the real Griffin Mahoney is an entirely different man, one I could like.
But I’m not going to beg him to want me, to like me, and definitely not force him to admit to the barest minimum of non-hate.
I have some pride. Or I did before it took that nuclear missile–level hit right to target center.
“I think you might’ve been right earlier.
We should’ve pretended the kiss never happened.
Then whatever this was wouldn’t have happened.
It’s not too late, though. We can still course correct.
Let’s just pretend it was a little oopsie, like you fell dick first into me and we accidentally ended up puzzle-pieced together.
Whoops!” Getting up from the couch, I reach for my shoes, slipping them on as quickly as possible.
“It’ll make family dinners awkward as hell, but that won’t even be that different.
You can do your customary frowny-face thing like you wish I wasn’t there, and I’ll annoy you by breathing wrong or whatever it is I do that bothers you. ”
I want him to stop me. Deep down, I know that’s what I’m hoping for. It’d be a sign that I haven’t totally fucked up my life in a newly spectacular way. But he doesn’t.
I get all the way to the door before he says a word.
“I won’t let dinners be uncomfortable for you.”
Yeah, as if that’s the major issue here. Not the rest of this whole debacle.
And to think, just this morning, my biggest problem was a damn ring. Now? I’ve managed to implode my whole life with what amounts to be both the best and worst sex I’ve ever had. How ridiculous is that?
I know everything happens for a reason, but c’mon, universe . . . what the fuck?
Glancing over my shoulder, I snipe, “How are you gonna do that? Your usual glare-and-growl show over Mom’s infamous spaghetti and meatballs isn’t gonna cut it when you’ve been guts deep inside me.”
“Goddamn it, Penny! Fine, then I won’t go anymore. Is that what you want?” he shouts, his hands thrown up in what looks like exasperated surrender.
I whirl, feet planted and arms crossed over my chest, doing my best Griffin impersonation and not answering the question.
Shaking his head, he declares, “I was fine without them before, and I’ll be fine without them again. I’ll lose the only family I’ve ever had, my best friend, and you in one fell swoop. It was bound to happen eventually anyway. It’s what I deserve.”
“Oh, quit with the poor-me pity party.” I play the tiniest violin with my thumb and index finger. “Come to dinner, don’t come to dinner, do whatever the hell you want. You’re a big boy, so fucking act like one.”
“I’m fucking trying!” he roars. “I’ve been trying my hardest for five years, doing the one and only thing Dominic asked of me.” He holds up a finger, then points it at me. “Stay away from you. I couldn’t even do that right.” His shoulders fall as his gaze drops to the floor.
“You’re right about one thing.”
He doesn’t lift his face, but he looks up through his lashes at me. “What?”
“You do deserve to lose me. You’ve treated me like shit, and even if it was some noble gesture to respect Dom’s wishes, it still felt shitty. He told me once that any man worthy of me wouldn’t be scared of him. He’s not always the best brother, but in this, I guess he was right.”
With that, I open the door and walk out, leaving it wide open behind me. Not so he’ll chase me but so he’ll have to be the one to close the door on whatever this could’ve been. If it could’ve been something at all.