28. Penelope
twenty-eight
penelope
I cannot believe I just sat on Anthony Ellis’s lap and humped his hand like we were two horny teenagers at a basement party.
And yet, here I am, sneaking out of my friend’s bachelorette party because he told me to meet him in the truck so he could take me home for more.
It took next to nothing for Lucy and Aaron to let me leave. By the time Ant and I made our daring escape, it was nearing midnight anyway. People were already trickling out—unless they were waiting in line for the karaoke machine. I even saw Juliet and Sam starting to gather their things as I was heading out the door.
Which means my escape had to be all the sneakier. Claire already gave me the raised brow when I told her I was hitching a ride home with my roomie.
The moment I sit in the passenger seat of Ant’s car, I am overwhelmed by two things—the scent of cedar and jasmine, and the possessive grip on my thigh. I buckle, and the moment I turn to face him, he grips my cheek with his other hand.
“Wait. Not here. People could see us.”
His forward momentum halts, stopping us from starting a kiss that I know would’ve ended me. But as he pulls back, letting the hand on my face slip, the one on my thigh digs in, his fingerprints trying to tattoo themselves as bruises, as brands. What captures me the most is the expression cemented on his face.
He hasn’t had more than two beers tonight, and somehow, his eyes are drunk, lids heavy, that turquoise color dark and thick, disappearing by the second as his pupils rake over me and grow. His lips part, as if parched, longing for a taste— of me? He has to shake his head before gripping the steering wheel, peeling out of the curb spot, and turning us onto the main drag of Lucy and Aaron’s neighborhood.
We’re silent. Save for the heavy breaths that threaten to fog up the car windows, it’s just me and Ant and the road beneath his tires and his hand on my thigh. Suddenly, I’m desperate to feel him. My thighs are still quivering from the way he’d demanded not one, but two orgasms from me—in the middle of our friends’ living room, no less. I haven’t felt him, really felt him for almost two years, and yet he’s gotten to put his hands on me twice in the last month?
If I don’t get to feel him soon, I might pass away.
My hand darts across the center console and immediately connects with the lap of his gym shorts, where his erection is proudly stiff and sky high. I moan. I couldn’t at all while he’d fingered me in his lap, but in the cabin of his car, all of my desperate noises are fair game, and I am more than desperate for his taste. As soon as I wrap my fingers around his shaft in a tight fist and stroke once upward, he slams on the brakes.
“Stop,” he grunts. Ant wraps his hand around my fist and tries to make me, but I squeeze, and he purrs and gives in for a hot second. “No, Penelope, stop .”
“Why?” I whine. “You’ve gotten to touch me twice now. I want to?—"
He groans, then peels my hand off of him and peers around. I didn’t even bother to check where the hell we were when he stopped, but we are, in fact, at a stop sign, with no oncoming traffic. Ant cups my face, tucks the stray hair behind my ears, and runs his thumbs roughly over my cheeks.
“Listen to me, Penelope Jayne. I am getting you home safely before you so much as get near my cock. You and my pussy are passenger princesses. Now be a good girl and spread those legs so I can give you a third before we get home and make it to bed.”
And boy does he. I’m surprised he got me out of the front seat.
But we do. Make it out of the car. Into the house. With no hurried scrambling. No kissing. No fumbling of the silly costumes we donned. We’re quiet. Shy, almost. I wonder if he’s thinking the same thing I am. That if we mess this up again, it will ruin me.
Will it ruin him too?
“So. Uh…”
Ant, shirtless with mussed hair, extends both arms to clap his hands, smooshes his palms together, and glances awkwardly around the dining room. We’re equidistant from both bedrooms, standing in limbo. His somber eyes find mine.
“What do you want to happen here, boss? You’re calling the shots.”
Is this his way out? If I say I don’t want to, it’s on me, and not him. My brain starts to pretzel into all of the ways that he could be manipulating me again, until I flick my gaze up to his.
Whatever words he spoke could never match the desperation on his face. On his body. He is restraining himself, so much so that the veins in his forearms are visible. I want to trace them to make sure this is real.
I want this. Regardless of if it’s right or if it’s wrong or if we’re going to crash and burn again, my body calls out to his like we’re magnetically charged. In the end, I can’t resist.
“I want this,” I nod, unmoving. “What about you?”
He takes a step forward, then another, before hurriedly closing the gap between us to grasp my head in both hands. His voice drops to that molasses severity that I can taste.
“I want this . I want you .”
Shakily, I nod.
He kisses me, and it’s like the constellations I compared him to once upon a midnight sky have all been replaced with him . He kisses me like he’s trying to erase all of the ways we did this wrong, and prove to me that he can replace them.
He kisses me like he has something to prove.
And I’m not sure if I can handle that.
But the way he kisses me makes my brain begin to melt, makes my neurons fire on one cylinder set to Anthony , and I have no choice but to let them lead.
Our hands start to bolden, his tightening into my hair while mine land on his hips, squeezing the material of his waistband.
“Fuck.” He kisses me. “ Fuck, ” he kisses me again, then, “Hold on, baby, I don’t…”
That baby freezes my veins and reignites them with a line of fire. It’s the second time he’s called me that tonight. I’m usually against all of his silly little nicknames, but this one makes me feel like I might be his. He peppers one more bruising kiss to my lips before pulling away.
“We have to slow down. I don’t have any condoms.” He shakes his head, the coarseness of his headband brushing my forehead as he curves his thumbs gently against my ears. “I didn’t uh… Didn’t exactly expect this would happen.”
“You didn’t think you’d have anyone over while we lived together?” My subconscious asks more than me, because in the back of my mind, I’m still questioning if he wants sex or me. But the moment his eyes harden, the second his grip turns bruising and he slides his foot between my spread ones and closes the fraction of space between us to none, I have my answer.
“No. It’s you or nothing, Penelope.”
I whimper, then pull away, walking toward my bedroom.
“I may have some in my room. Are you coming?”
When I glance over my shoulder, he looks both relieved and stunned. I have to pretend that the collapse in his chest, the way he deflates in relief like a popped balloon before following me urgently, isn’t as desperate as it seems.
But the way he grabs my hand to pull me to him, the way that Anthony Ellis threads his fingers through the hair at my nape, pulls tight, and stares so deeply into my eyes I can see all the way down to the soul he bared to me that night on the beach, makes me think again.
He kisses me slowly, tentatively, soft pecks as if he’s testing my boundaries to see if I’ll reconsider. The most striking is that his eyes stay open. His lashes flutter softly against mine with each brush of our lips, making this moment somehow more intimate. On the third exploring kiss, I move to fist his shirt, and remember that he isn’t wearing one only when I meet his bare skin. Still, I let my fingers spread wide, running over the defined dips and deep valleys that he’s been working on during those long gym mornings. Little fires burn in my wake, and then, he’s had enough.
“ Fuck , P,” Ant gasps, roping one arm around my body. He lofts me against him, adjusting the grip on my hair to tilt my head to the side as his tongue slips past my lips. I gasp, then moan against the glide.
It’s like that one moment catapults the intensity. We both become frantic. I reach for the waistband of his gym shorts at the same moment that Anthony’s hand sneaks up the back of my shirt, groaning when he realizes I’m not wearing a bra, before he lifts the shirt up over my head. His lips and tongue begin to map my neck, and my hands explore the expanse of skin I’ve only ever laid eyes on. When he sucks lightly against the base of my throat, I cry out, and slide my hand around his shaft. There’s a wet spot through the cotton, and I start to drop to my knees right there.
“Uh uh,” he pants, tugging me up beneath my arms. He kisses me, like he can’t possibly speak more words without tasting my lips first.
“You said I could?—”
“Listen to me, Penelope Jayne. I have been dreaming of you for two years. If you so much as breathe near my cock, this is going to be over before it starts.”
He cups both sides of my head, teasing my scalp with those magical massaging fingers of his. I can’t decide if my brain melting is a result of that, or two years still ringing in my head. Either way, I’m reduced to nodding.
“Okay?” he asks. I press up and kiss him in answer, whimpering as I slide my tongue to meet his. “Okay.”
We stumble to my bed, and I kick my skirt to the floor. I land flat on my back, wearing only my thong, and get a show while Ant strips off his boxer briefs—that have space ships on them. I can’t stifle my laugh. And I’m so glad I don’t. Because the way that Anthony Ellis smiles down on me, with carefree illumination, makes my soul feel like it’s stitching itself back to life.
“You making fun of my space ships?”
“Well, I’m not laughing at anything else down there,” I tease, blushing when he bites his bottom lip and wraps a fist around himself. His eyes pinch closed and he whines, tipping his head back.
“ Shit . I told you.” He chuckles, shaking his head before crawling over me on all fours. He dips down to press a long, bruising kiss to my lips. “Mind if I spend a little time on you first?”
“Not at all.”
He grins down wickedly.
“Good. Because I’ve been dying to taste you everywhere.”
“Oh? Everywhere?” I tease him, lifting my brow.
His tongue darts out as his eyes flick up to mine.
“From the place this beautiful blush starts to wherever it ends.”
And he makes so good on that promise.
By the time he’s teased me down to my breasts, I’m panting, and my thong is definitely ruined.
“These tits, Penelope…” Ant shakes his head, then props himself up on his knees so that he can cup them both, squeezing so that they fill both of his hands and then some. “We’re going to be best friends.”
I don’t even have the time to giggle, because his tongue flutters over my swollen nipple, and whatever sounds were planning to come out are reduced to moans. One of my hands threads through my hair and the other through his. On his, I tug. And when he bites down before sucking? Good God , I could come just from that.
“Never forgot how loud you were,” he grunts, blowing over my nipple before licking a trail to the other. “You can be louder now. There isn’t anybody around.”
He sucks my other nipple between his lips, does that fluttery thing with his tongue, and I obey. It’s so good. So good that I’m grinding my unattended pussy against his abs for any sort of friction. And he isn’t stopping me. Instead, he just keeps kissing and sucking and pinching and fluttering his tongue against my breasts. It is exquisite torture. And I think I might just come from it.
“Ant… Anthony, I… Fuck , don’t stop.”
This has never happened. He’s only playing with my tits for crying out loud. But it sneaks up on me out of nowhere. Fireworks take off, and my body vibrates. I grip his hair, holding him to me. I have to say, the man takes direction very well, because his fluttering tongue and his pinching fingers don’t stop—in fact, he only intensifies the motions once he realizes what’s happening. By the time I come down, my skin is tingly. I collapse against my pillow, panting.
I blink back into focus to see Anthony wearing a smug grin, my breast still lightly gripped in one palm while the other is reaching up to cup my face. His fingers wander into my hair, massaging again in that gentle lulling motion.
“Did you just…”
“Mhm.” I nod drunkenly, biting the inside of my bottom lip. My hand is still mussed in his hair, and I rub my fingers through it aimlessly.
“ Shit .”
Ant shakes his head, an exasperated smile painting his expression in technicolor.
We giggle. It’s so weird. Laughing during sex. But I can’t help it. And that scares me.
“I wonder how wet that made you,” he says, and all laughter is gone as he slides down my body, licking his lips like he’s excited to taste me. He gets one long, thorough lick in when I tighten the grip in his hair and pull him back up for a hungry kiss.
“Wet enough,” I sigh, licking against his lips until he lets me in. I reach down for his hand and guide it between my legs where we both gasp. His hot breath against my mouth only makes me squirm beneath him more, especially when his tongue swirls around mine at the exact moment that his fingers nudge my drenched thong to the side to slip inside me.
“Anthony, please .”
“Please what, boss?”
We kiss sloppily, and his smile turns teasingly against mine.
This is it. The moment my head has imagined and my heart has longed for. If I cross this line and he breaks my heart again, there is no coming back. But just like the last time, my heart wins out.
Because my head isn’t screaming warning signs. In fact, it’s playing a highlight reel of just how good Ant has been these last few months. Like a go-ahead sign that we’re all on the same page: head, heart, body, soul.
I sit up, bringing him with me. His palms dent the mattress on either side of my hips as I twist my body to the bedside table where I pull out an unopened box of condoms. He slips off my thong as I do. When I bring one between us, he gazes at me in question.
“Just in case,” I say, ripping the foil open and tossing the wrapper to the ground. I reach between us and stroke his cock from root to tip—if I can’t play with him now, I at least deserve this touch—before rolling it on.
This up close view of his face grants me permission into every crease, every smile line, every contortion when I stroke him. I wish I could take a picture. When he’s fully sheathed, he blinks down at me.
“In case of…?”
He leaves his Us? unspoken.
I nod, then cup both of his cheeks, searing his lips to mine in a possessive way that I haven’t allowed myself to acknowledge since I thought he would be mine. When I pull back, I can see in his eyes that he gets it.
I’ve been waiting for you this whole time .
When he flips our position so that I’m sitting on top, I wonder if this could be the turning of the tides.