Chapter 24
I reach for the Pirate Duke, running my hands up under his shirt, pressing my palms against his hot chest. He groans deeply in my ear.
He jerks when my fingers brush his nipple.
I do it again, pinching. He gasps and runs his hand up over my breast, pulling the top of my bodice down, drawing me free of the cloth and testing the weight of me in his hand.
He returns the favor, pinching my nipple, wresting a breathless gasp of aching ecstasy from me.
I reach down and grab him firmly, loving the way he instinctively rubs against my hand.
He lifts his head, staring down at me with a fierce expression. “Fuck.”
I frown. I was expecting flowery prose. Something about me being a rose ripe for plucking, or some crap about wanting my nectar.
No, no, stop questioning. Stay in the dream.
He toys with my nipple again, wrenching a moan from me, and I’m pulled back into the moment, losing the thread of my thoughts.
He lowers his lips to my breast, watching me from the eye not covered by that black patch.
As he smiles, his face changes slightly.
His hair color becomes a touch darker, his uncovered eye shifting from green to a pewter-gray.
His lips are a breath away from mine, and then his mouth is on me, his wicked, wicked tongue drawing, pulling. I buck, opening my eyes and staring up at him as he grins at me.
Wait. Jack?
No, damn it. Stay in the moment. Stay in the dream. I reach for him again, rubbing—
A sound wakes me up.
I’ve moaned so loud and long that it penetrated the veil between my very raunchy dream and wakefulness. My eyes pop open as I remember who is in bed with me.
The sound awakens Jack, enough that he groggily opens his eyes. He smiles a slow, sexy, piratical grin. “Good morning. Told you you’re a moaner.”
He reaches for me, and I press a hand against his chest, my eyes as wide as my lids allow.
I see the split second when it dawns on him what is happening.
His lips draw closer. Another moan sounds, this time decidedly not from me.
Jack moves against my hand. Which is in his pants.
Wrapped around him. I register the velvet feel of him, the impressive shape, the damp tip, in the eye-blink before I jerk my hand away.
Oh my God.
We both roll onto our backs. He throws his arm over his eyes. I am a marble statue, barely breathing.
When a few minutes have passed, and I’m not even sure he’s still awake, I say, thickly, “Ah. So… About that. I thought I was dreaming…”
He hauls in a bucketful of air and releases it through the pursed O of his lips. I try not to look at the blanket bunched around his hips. When he finally speaks, his voice is sleep-deepened.
“I knew you wouldn’t be able to keep your hands to yourself.”
I cringe, my eyes locked on my shadowed ceiling.
“I know I’m irresistible, but—”
“Oh my God, don’t joke!” I shove at his arm, pushing it off his eyes.
He rolls over, pinning me partially under him.
He is dazzling in the pre-sunrise light.
The weight of him is delicious. His stomach is pressed to mine, skin to skin where my shirt has ridden up.
His leg rubs against mine, between mine.
Do we let this happen? I see my question reflected in his eyes. The world has narrowed to Jack. Every muscle is strained to the breaking point with want. I shift my leg, the one trapped between his, letting my thigh rub up, just a bit, against his erection. He hisses out a breath.
Jack drops his head. “You’re wiped out.”
“You’re exhausted,” I answer, and it feels like a pressure valve in my chest has been released.
“We’ve been burning the candle at both ends.”
“I read once that sleep deprivation mimics drunkenness. Bad decisions, you know?” My lips are dry. I can’t muster enough energy to take in as much air as I need. “What I said last night. It still applies.”
Jack tenses. “Yeah, don’t sweat it,” he says, his tone mild. He rolls away from me and sits on the side of the bed for a few seconds before launching himself up and out of the room, his impressive erection leading the way through his tented shorts like a phallic dousing rod.
I grab for his pillow and press it atop my face, breathing his scent in, shouting silently. What fresh hell…?
The faucet in Jack’s bathroom runs for a long while. He never comes back to bed.
And I never get back to sleep.
The guy in the cubicle next to mine drops something, and I recoil.
It’s been that way all morning. My brain and my body are treating all sudden sounds like pouncing rooftop assassins, temporarily yanking me from my shock-induced stupor.
My phone vibrates: Mom.
You didn’t call Brian. I texted him to ask.
Heat floods my body. She won’t stop. She doesn’t listen. I throw my phone on my desk, returning to the report I was running.
My phone rings. I barely glance at it, expecting it to be one of my mother’s famed technological double-taps. It is not.
Lucas Webb.
Butt-dial? Diatribe? Wondering why I, a peon who is friends with one of his costars, keeps reaching out as if we’re bosom buddies? Why is he calling me? I worry at my lip and sit back in my chair, debating whether or not to let him go to voicemail.
The ringing stops.
Another incoming call. Lucas Webb.
Mom isn’t the only one who won’t take no for an answer.
“Hello?” I half stand, looking around my cubicle to make sure there’s no one nearby to eavesdrop.
“Penelope,” Lucas says. My name comes out in three hard-fought syllables. His voice sounds like he’s talking through a mouthful of cotton balls.
“Lucas… H-how are you? How are you feeling?”
“Better. Listen, my agent didn’t grab the goddamn script when I was carted out of there. I think it’s still at your place. Can I come by?”
All of that, and he didn’t even get his script? Oof. “Oh. Wow… I haven’t seen it, but… Of course. Is after work okay?”
He agrees.
I rush out to meet Margie in the park for lunch, grateful she was free for a couple of hours, since she’s been so occupied with the commercial grind.
And she’s prompt for once, carrying two gigantic iced coffees in her hands.
I notice the people she passes noticing her.
People always give her an extra glance or two because she’s so incredibly stunning, but now I detect recognition in their gazes.
This show, Glass and Carter, is putting her on the map.
And I’ve ruined it.
I stand and hug her tightly. She squeezes me back, at first with one arm and then with both, her hands still clutching our coffees.
“I’ve said it before, but it’s been a minute since the last time: I’m so so so so so sorry about the show.”
I say all of this pressed into Margie’s bosom because she’s taller than me and practically on stilts. I don’t try to hide the tears lodged in my throat.
She laughs. “Shut up. Let’s sit.” I give her another squeeze, refusing to let go, and she waddle-walks me to a bench, standing there until I drop down. She hands me my coffee and then sits next to me, murmuring, “We’ve got an audience now, wackjob.”
I stare at her with wide puppy-dog eyes and take a long pull on my straw.
She sits back with a sigh. “Stop giving me that look. I don’t blame you for the thing with Lucas. Actually, I find that whole story fucking hilarious, except that…you know…my job’s in limbo. But it has never once crossed my mind to put that on you, so stop feeling bad.”
“I love you.”
Margie waves her free hand dismissively. “I love you, too. Now shut up about it, please? The cast’s meeting soon to discuss. Waiting on the showrunner to call us. Lucas has to have his jaw wired shut for at least six weeks. I don’t know. Whatever. It’ll be fine.”
“He called me. Lucas.”
Margie’s eyebrows shoot up, and I fill her in on his request.
“What else is going on with you?” she asks.
“Oh. You know.” Red hair equals no ability to repress blushes. God’s own lie detector. Or anxiety detector. Or heightened emotion detector. I’m a tomato.
“Christ, you’re extra today. What is it? What did you do?”
“I kind of, sort of, touched Jack’s wiener.”
Margie knows me. My silly antics kept her amused in college.
My babbling gives her life. Right now, she looks like the cackle she wants to release is warring with her shock that I’ve managed to surprise her.
She shakes her head, her face so blank I fucking know there’s a smile under the mask.
She studies the passing pedestrians, the sun-dappled green space around us, and then deadpans, “Start at the beginning.”
My tale of woe takes five minutes, and it’s another five until Margie stops laughing. When she finally does, I wish she hadn’t.
“You like him.”
“Yes.”
“You’re attracted to him.”
“He’s… Well… I mean… Yes.”
“You’re going to get with him.”
“Absolutely not.”
“You’re so annoying. You light up when you talk about him, Penny.
Even when you despised him, he challenged you, and you enjoyed it.
I could tell. Shhhh.” She holds up a hand.
“Let me finish. There is no way my friend Penelope would’ve been in a closet with a guy if she didn’t want him.
You’ve admitted you like him. That you’re attracted to him.
I don’t understand what the problem is. Explore it. ”
I set my drink down on the ground and press my thumbs into my eyes. “I want to, damn it.” The image of Jack hovering over me in bed makes me shiver. “But he’s buying his apartment. We’ll be neighbors for ages, possibly. You know things never last with me!”
“Could be something else for ages if you open yourself up.”
I pick up my coffee and nudge a rock with my shoe. “This is all because of La. You’re like those converts who start preaching the gospel to everyone. It’s the fucking worst.”
Margie swallows a smile, a blush high on her cheekbones.
She dated women in college, so this whole thing isn’t out of left field.
But her history, with both men and women, was always casual.
Margie isn’t a head-over-heels sort. Catching feelings was what other people did. Not Margie. Margie had fun.
“Never felt this way. Never will again. She’s a pisser, and a boss, and I want to carry her around in my pocket everywhere. So. Yeah. I’m screwed.”
Margie shrugs and sips her coffee. “Let me preach to you the word, Penelope. And the word is love.” She looks contemplative, puzzled even, for a second, as if even she can’t believe what she just said.
And then she gives a buoyant and beautifully ginormous smile in response to my expression.
“Holy shit, can you believe it? I’m in love. ”