Chapter 30
Penny heard Zander before she saw him. His heavy footfalls were unmistakable, just like the kick in her heartbeat whenever she recognized them.
After leaving her mother’s house, Penny went for a walk, weaving between trees and pausing to touch each trunk and drag her fingers across the bark. Then she drew a hot bath and sat in it until her skin was red, looking back at the day through the steam rising from the water.
Penny knew this was a before-and-after day: one of those rare moments when life turns a clear corner, like the first time Penny held her own bee frame in her hands, or when she told Henry not to come back to Sullivan’s Glen.
But the scary, exciting thing about those days is not yet knowing what comes after.
After throwing on a tank top and her most comfortable terry-cloth shorts, Penny sat on the porch with a cup of tea to listen to song sparrows as they trilled from the trees. She tried to relax, but her whole system felt primed and jittery, ringing like a bell.
Zander appeared from behind her house, hands tucked into the front pockets of his jeans, face flushed. He was so beautiful—a gentle bear in the woods, smiling at her shyly in the sunshine.
“Hey.”
“Hi.” She sucked in a shaky breath and stood, leaving her mug on the porch.
Zander stayed in the clearing, simply looking at her.
His gaze started curiously—a scan to see that she was all right and in one piece—but soon melted into something else.
Something that burned at the edges of her senses as he wet his lower lip.
Something that sent that bell inside her clanging as his chest rose and fell.
Penny stepped off the porch, drawn to Zander with a force that would have terrified her if she’d had any other day. But she’d had this day, a before-and-after day, and he’d made it possible. He’d given her just what she needed.
She saw it all reflected in Zander, who watched her fiercely as his long strides ate up the ground between them. A wild energy flashed in his eyes that sent goose bumps up Penny’s arms.
Without a word, he wrapped an arm around her waist and tugged her roughly into his body.
She braced her palms against his chest as his mouth landed hard on hers, taking everything she could give.
When she gasped, he slid his tongue between her lips hungrily, groaning into her mouth as his wide hands wrapped around her ribs.
Zander’s mouth trailed along her jaw. “I want to know how it went with your mom and grandma. I want to know everything. I want to know how else I can help, but fuck, Penny, right now I need—”
The end of his sentence was muffled as his teeth dragged the strap of her tank top off her shoulder.
Penny fisted one hand in Zander’s hair. “If you want to know how else to help,” she gasped, “this is really helping.”
His mouth closed on hers again as Zander walked her backward, his hands sliding up and down her back and over her ass. Soon she was pressed against a tree, bark rough on her back.
He loomed over her, one hand pinning her wrists overhead as the other cupped a breast, pushing it up from below so she almost spilled out of her bra.
“Fuck,” he growled. “When my hands are on you I can’t think a single sane thought. I just want to take.” Proving it, he bent his head to the rise of her breast, sucking hard enough to leave a mark.
Penny wanted his marks all over her. Wanted Zander to take and take until she couldn’t think or worry about anything except his hands on her.
Zander kissed her deeply again, then pulled back and nodded to where his hand encircled her wrists. “This okay?”
Penny nodded, breathing hard. “It’s good. So good.” She steadied her gaze on his, letting herself sink into the deep warmth of his gaze. “I need this. Need you.”
A swallow moved down his throat like a boulder. “Say that again.”
“I need you, Zander.”
His eyes closed briefly, but he opened them again to stare at her darkly. “I need to get you inside and on a bed, now.” His hands went to her ass as he hoisted her up to his waist. “Hold on, Penny.”
She wrapped her arms and legs around him as Zander stomped through the trees to her cabin, holding her tightly. His mouth worked magic on her neck as he got the door open and laid her on the bed.
He kneeled over her, breathing hard. As his eyes raked over her body, Zander tugged off his shirt and popped open the straining button of his jeans, then cupped the long ridge of his erection.
Penny released a long whimper as she watched him, unable to tear her eyes away as he dragged down his zipper.
“You like watching me, baby?”
His voice was rough like the bark of the tree. She wanted to rub her whole body against it.
Zander curled his fingers around himself over his boxers as he leaned over Penny, sliding one hand up her bare thigh. His fingers moved easily under the bottom hem of her shorts, brushing over her soaked underwear before maneuvering the fabric aside.
“Fuck my life, Penny.” Zander sank a finger into her as she moaned. “You get wet for me so fast. You need me this badly?”
He released himself to tug down on her tank top and bra, exposing her breasts and nipples. He swore again as his mouth descended on her, using his tongue and teeth, the thrilling ridge of his erection grinding where she was aching for him, making her moan.
“Please, Zander.” Penny rolled her hips up, trying to reach for his pants.
“Say it again. Beg for it. Tell me what you need.”
“You, I need you. Please get inside me.”
There was the creak of the nightstand and the tear of the condom packet. Then Zander was back on his knees, tugging Penny’s pants and underwear off and tossing them on the floor. He shoved his jeans below his ass and began rolling on the condom.
“Wish we didn’t need that,” Penny heard herself saying. “Wish I could feel you. Just you.”
Zander squeezed the base of his cock. “Shit, Penny. You’d want that?”
She wanted to be as close to Zander as possible, like he was the solution to this empty ringing, the roots that would hold her to the ground. Her teeth bruised her bottom lip as she nodded. “Yes.”
His jaw clenched. “We can’t. You told me that the first time. I’m not crossing your boundaries in the heat of the moment, as much as I fucking want to.”
“I know. I know, I just wish—”
She wished for so many things. For a miraculous solution to her money problems, for a different set of choices these past years, and for this connection with Zander to not be temporary.
His mouth came back to hers, kissing her deeply as he seated himself inside her in one thrust, filling her perfectly.
“Imagine I’m bare. Just my cock sliding into you. Nothing between us. Just you and me, Penny. Just you and me.”
Zander worked her ruthlessly, opening her up with an elbow hooked around her knee and grunting with every thrust. Penny’s hands scraped at his back as she tried to get closer, pull him deeper.
When he pulled out of her abruptly, Penny cried out. But then his hands went to her hips, flipping her over and tugging her up to him.
“Don’t stop,” she gasped.
He slid back inside her easily, the angle from behind letting him hit a spot deep inside her.
Zander sucked roughly on her neck as a hand snaked across her stomach and between her legs. “Love being inside you, Penny. Feels like coming home.”
He didn’t ease her into her orgasm but took her directly to the brink. His fingers thrummed against her as he fucked her hard, until Penny was trembling and moaning and coming undone beneath him.
Zander followed fast, fusing himself to her and crying out her name like a prayer.
He dropped kisses across her shoulders before rolling to the side as Penny let herself sink into the mattress, blissfully boneless.
A few seconds later Zander sank back into the bed and rubbed small circles on her back. “Penny.” His hand paused, his breath caught, then he continued. “I don’t want this to end when I go back to Boston.”
She rolled to face him. “What?”
Zander cupped her face with one hand and held her gaze. “That’s what I came to tell you. I want to figure this out. I want to try, I want to be with you. Whatever that looks like.”
Her heart threatened to beat out of her chest, but her head was spinning. “Where is this coming from?”
His thumb stroked just under her eye. “You know where it’s coming from, baby. We always said this was real, and I know you feel it, too.”
“I do. Of course I do, but—” Penny shook her head. “We said real, but temporary. That’s what we agreed. That’s what makes sense.”
Zander’s eyes closed for a moment, then opened with clarity and determination. “When you were with your family, I finally went into my papou’s room.”
“Zander.” She stroked a hand down his arm. “How did that feel?”
“Pretty fucked-up, to be honest. It left me with a lot of questions, and I went to talk to your grandma, to ask her about him.”
“Gosh.” Penny couldn’t help a small laugh. “It’s been kind of a big day.”
His fingers still held her face gently. “We ended up talking about regret. How I regret not coming back to see him, and how there’s nothing I can do to change that.”
Penny scooted closer. “Oh, sweetheart.”
The slip of the name, one she’d never used with him, sparked a smile on Zander’s face.
“Your grandma said all we can do sometimes is prevent more regrets from forming.” His gaze held her tightly.
“And I realized that if I walk away from this like we planned, if I don’t try, I’ll always regret it. I don’t want to live with that.”
It was romantic, and sweet, and honest, and everything Penny had wanted to hear. The confirmation that she wasn’t the only one dreading their separation, not the only one thinking dangerously about a future she couldn’t have. But it didn’t change the facts.
“What would that even look like?” she asked.
He gave a small shrug. “I don’t know. I do know it’s a five-hour drive, and I’ll make it as often as I can. I know I’d fucking love to have you in my little apartment in Boston anytime. I know it would be worth it, Penny. This is special. This isn’t something people get a lot of chances at.”
“I know.” She pulled at the comforter, drawing it over them together.
This was what she wanted—the two of them tucked together, Zander at her side.
But Penny didn’t live by wants. She lived by seasons and market prices and nectar flow, by the demands of the real world.
“What would the endgame be?” she asked. “My soul is in this place, and your whole life is in Boston.”
His free hand raked through his hair as he frowned.
“I don’t know. I can’t promise you it will be easy, and I can’t see into the future.
It’s probably a terrible idea, but we’re good at those, right?
All I know is that if I didn’t tell you how much I’ve come to fucking—” His eyes closed as he let out a breath.
“How much you mean to me, how much I want to keep you in my life, I would regret it every day.”
People did long-distance as a stopgap, but there was no future in which he and Penny lived in the same place.
And she had so much to do here, waiting to see if the Honey Festival would be the Hail Mary she needed, figuring out what other options might keep her mom and grandma in their home if it didn’t.
She wouldn’t be doing it alone, but he could never be the partner here that she dreamed about.
“Zander, I don’t see how—”
“Don’t answer now,” he interrupted, perhaps seeing the conflicted resolve in her expression. “It’s been a hell of a day, especially for you. I wouldn’t have even brought it up, but I just…” He sighed. “Let’s get through the next few days, make it through the festival, and go from there.”
Penny swallowed hard, knowing they were just kicking the can down the road. But then Zander brushed his fingers over her lips, her cheeks, along the fall of her eyelashes, and kicking that can didn’t seem so bad.
“Please, Penny,” he whispered. “Give me this. Think about it.”
If it was in her power, Penny would give Zander Bouras the whole world, so she gave him this much.
“Okay,” she whispered back. “I’ll think about it.”