27. Anthony
twenty-seven
anthony
Two minutes ago, I was an exhausted mess, a battery at two-percent. The moment Penelope leaned against the wall, I got a second wind. And the second she let me pull her into my lap, I became supercharged.
Except now that I have her here, I don’t know what to do with my hands. I’ve played this moment over in my head a million times, but now that we’re here, I’m like a frozen ball of potential energy. Do I hold her here? Wrap my arms around her? Hold her tight and refuse to let her go? She perches on my thigh, kind of awkwardly, like neither of us knows quite what to do next.
God bless Aaron’s cousin, who comes bumbling past us, tipping her into the cradle of my lap accidentally.
He tosses a quick, “Sorry, man!” over his shoulder. I am not sorry in the slightest. Because Penelope doesn’t move. Sure, she stiffens, but so do I. It takes a few moments after the shock for her to loosen, melting tentatively until she’s comfortable. As soon as she does that, I feel confident enough to cradle her body, leaving my hands to rest beside us on the seat.
All of a sudden, Aaron’s amplified voice cuts through the living room—somebody gave him a microphone. I crack a smile, and Penelope jostles in my lap with my laughter, which she echoes.
“That man does not need a microphone,” she giggles.
“No. No he does not. But it’s his party. Let him have his fun.”
He’s announcing the sign-up for karaoke, and a line forms as he and his bride to be flick through the songs.
“They remind me of that couple on the beach in Florida.”
“You mean the guy who followed his girlfriend around like she had him on a leash?” she chuckles.
“Yep.”
Pen giggles, then sighs, relaxing a little more into my embrace. I inch my fingers higher, cupping my own thighs, but letting my thumbs rest on hers.
“People watching with you was fun,” she says quietly, like she doesn’t want to admit it.
“We wrote some pretty good stories.”
“I wonder how ‘sex in the hot tub’ couple is doing. I think about them a lot.”
“Oh, God . I thought I’d scrubbed them from my brain,” I groan, resting my forehead on her shoulder.
“Sorry. Poor baby. Not into exhibitionism. I almost forgot,” she teases.
My muscles tense, including the ones in the dumb organ between my legs. I try to scootch back, but she follows, keeping us melded together in that chair in the far corner of Aaron and Lucy’s living room.
Game on?
I don’t know if I can let myself go there again. What happened in the shower was a one time thing. Friends helping friends.
So why is her ass scooting backwards on my lap?
I nuzzle my forehead against her bare skin, where her skimpy little top is teasing me with the fact that she probably isn’t wearing a bra.
“Excuse me for not wanting the night workers at the resort to see my dick,” I mumble into her shoulder.
“Why do you think I kept it in my mouth for so long?” she giggles—but also, doesn’t? Her voice has that timbre again, the one that tastes of dangerous decisions I want to deep dive into.
I groan again, then inch my hand up onto her thigh and squeeze.
“I’m trying so bad to be good, Pen. Why do you have to make it so hard?”
“Oh, it’s hard ?”
She rotates her butt in my lap, right up against my swelling dick, and I swear I could come right now in these gym shorts. Gripping her thigh, I perch my chin on her shoulder and press my mouth to her ear, echoing the same words I asked her on the beach.
“How much have you had to drink?”
Her breath hitches.
“Just the one,” she pants. “I, uh… Booze makes me sleepy. You know that.”
I do . Because she fell asleep on my chest that night, and then fought with me the whole walk back to our hotel that it was because of the beers, and not the two orgasms I gave her.
Scanning the rest of the room tells me that one—we’re in a dark corner, and two—everyone else is otherwise occupied. Enough so that I can reach my hand down her thigh to find the high slit of her skirt I’d noticed earlier in the evening. Her bare skin is heaven on my fingertips. I tickle my fingers up and down her right thigh, her left still firmly in my grasp with my thumb running circles over the inside. Her breathing deepens, then quickens, like it can’t quite make heads or tails of what’s about to happen.
Neither can I.
Until her head tilts back, lulling slightly against my shoulder.
“Anthony, please .”
It’s an alarm in my ears, and when I see someone’s head turn, I freak. We are in a room full of people—several of which we know . But the guy who looked in this direction turns the other way, smiling when he recognizes who he was looking for. Right at that moment, the karaoke machine starts up, and I inch my foot onto the accelerator.
“Shh. Quiet, Penelope Jayne. I know how loud you can be, but do you want the rest of our friends to?”
I wait on bated breath after I foolishly let that stupid question exit my mouth.
It could very well ruin everything.
Her ass in my lap and my hand up the front of her skirt and her shallow breaths and her heart that beats so deeply I can feel it through her back where she’s resting up against my chest. All because I just reminded her that we’re in a room full of people, and not within the walls of the cozy little secret escape we’ve made for ourselves.
With my fingers stilled on her upper thigh, I wait. I can hear the hamster on the wheel in her head turning over the bass of the party’s music, and I pray that, for once, it’s not about to flee.
I inhale in tandem with her, syncing up the beats of our hearts as I feel her breathe once, twice, three times.
Her bottom shifts, and I’m about to shackle my arm around her waist and plead with her not to go, when I realize that she’s sinking against me. Parting her legs. Slyly wrapping her hand around my exposed forearm and pressing it more deeply beneath her skirt, then shifting the skirt so that it covers the space between us.
Oh. The light is GREEN.
Resting my chin on her shoulder, I let my fingers slide home and vow to keep my dumb mouth shut for the duration of this flight.
All thought of staying quiet becomes an immediate battle, because my girl is soaked, and it’s pure and utter torture not to tell her. I harden my jaw and run the pads of my fingers along the drenched band of her thong, tug it forward, and let it snap. She squirms in my lap, but doesn’t tell me to stop. I do it again, peering over her shoulder to watch as she tries to keep her face impassive, but I can see it in her eyes—the moment that piece of fabric snugs against her poor clit. What I wouldn’t give to be at home in her bed right now instead of in a room full of people.
People who aren’t paying a lick of attention .
The song on the karaoke machine amplifies to a Disney duet, and the moment Aaron pulls his bride-to-be front and center, we are the least of everyone’s worries. I have approximately three minutes to make her come, but more importantly, to make her want to follow me into bed as soon as we get home.
It could be plenty of time, or just not enough. I pray for the former.
Banding my arm tighter across her waist, I yank her underwear out of the way and press my two middle fingers to her clit. She immediately swallows a grunt and presses her inner thighs together. I work quick circles over the swollen bundle, remembering exactly how she liked it quick and hard.
God, how could I forget?
It’s not like that one time we had together isn’t on a constant loop in the back of my mind twenty-four-seven or something.
She squeezes me tightly, her nails pressing into my forearm, and I quicken my pace. With my chin resting on her shoulder, I fight every urge within me to whisper sweet and dirty nothings into her ear; to press my lips to her soft, sweet tasting skin; to turn her in my lap and worship her the way she deserves to be.
To apologize for all of my wrongs, and do everything to make them right.
It’s like trying to cap a bonfire with a shot glass of water, but I damn well do it.
Somehow, being in a room full of people makes it easier.
I can’t put my eyes or my mouth on her. For all intents and purposes, I’m supposed to pretend she’s just using my lap as a chair because we ran out of them, instead of dripping down my fingers.
Although, the fact that Pen is writhing on my lap on the precipice of coming all over my hand in a room full of people only reminds me of how, the last time I made her come like this, we were on a public beach.
Second to remind me of that night is the way a small little mouse-like sound comes out of her.
I’ve been with her twice, and I already know that’s a plead for more. I shift the hand on her waist subtly to her thigh as I scan the room. With everyone’s focus on the bride and groom to be as they hit the bridge of A Whole New World, I steal a moment to trace the tip of my nose over the shell of her ear as I whisper, “Think you can be a good girl and come quiet for me?”
The breathy, “Yes,” has my two middle fingers slipping from her clit to her opening. I have to stifle my own moan as I slide back into her sweet heaven. But the song is wrapping up, and I don’t trust the rest of the party, let alone the next sixty seconds that we have.
“Hold on tight, boss.”
I grind the base of my hand over her clit as my fingers fuck her fast. She’s so slick, so swollen, that I know this won’t last long at all. I love it and hate it. But not as much as I love the cheers from the rest of the room that are perfectly timed with the clenching of her pussy on my fingers, giving me the perfect opportunity to press my mouth to her ear again.
“You gonna give me this cum, Penny Layne? Come on, baby, you know you want to.” I quicken my fingers, put more pressure on her clit, and steal a long kiss behind her ear. “My girl loves coming while other people are around, doesn’t she? A room full of people who have no idea how much your pussy loves my fingers except me. Now come for your man, Penelope Jayne.”
I don’t know what makes me harder: The fact that she listens, or the fact that her whispered moan as she comes is my name.
“Anthony.”
Not Ant. Not bug up my ass .
Anthony .
It would be terrible if I came in my pants too, right?
I have to, have to concentrate on something else.
And if I learned anything about Penelope Barker in our former life, it’s that she is nothing if not an over achiever. I do a quick inventory of the room, and when it’s clear that the next song has started and absolutely no one is paying us any attention and that her orgasm is clearly taking its sweet time, I bite her ear lobe, quicken my fingers, and growl, “I want two.”
She gives it to me before the chorus of the next song has even hit. I can hear how wet she is, can feel it on my hand, and wonder just how much of a mess she’d make if I asked for another. Except, I don’t have to.
“Can we… I…”
She turns in my lap, my fingers still slowly milking her last orgasm inside her, and gives me those eyes I could never say no to.
“I’m going to head out first and start my car.”
“I came with Claire,” she says. “I’ll clean up in the bathroom and meet you?”
I push on her clit, and she squeezes my arm.
“Don’t you dare clean up my mess. That’s for me to deal with. Give me ten minutes and meet me in the truck.”
She nods, and as I slip my hand from her skirt, find Aaron and Lucy to tell them that I’m heading out and thank them for the evening, I send up a prayer that I won’t screw this up again.