One Step After Another (The After Another Trilogy Book 1)

by Bethany-Kris

  Luca didn’t get the chance to tell Penny that, though, because in the next breath she was kissing him. Her lips locked against his as her fingernails dug into the sides of his hands almost painfully when his palms slid from her wrists to hold tight. His tongue flicked against the seam of her mouth, and when she opened to let him deeper, everything else faded away.

  His ability to breathe.

  Her words that hurt.

  The hallway around them.

  It all went away when he kissed her, letting go of her hands to drag his palms down the skin of her inner arms that felt like a patchwork from the multitude of scars. And yet, she was still as soft as silk, too. Her body arched into his, hiding nothing. Her thighs trembled when they opened to get more of him against her.

  He gave her that, too, driving their bodies together like the two of them were teenagers getting their first taste of something sinful. Grinding against her until his balls ached with the need for more, and she was panting into his kiss almost ready to plead.

  He doubted she would.

  She didn’t seem like the type to beg a man for anything, even her pleasure. Luca understood why and wouldn’t try to make her ... at least, not tonight. She could just take what she wanted from him instead, and he would be all too happy to give it to her.

  “Yo—take that shit out of the hallway, or I’m getting Freddie’s ass up here!”

  Penny’s teeth cut into Luca’s lower lip at the same time the warning rang out from down the hall. Her hands froze against his chest where she had started to pull at his shirt like she was going to rip it right off. Her stare flicked up to his, the amusement dancing there held no shame or embarrassment ... or control.

  Like him.

  All of this was just instinctual now.

  A need.

  “Hey, I said—”

  “Fuck off,” Luca snarled to the side.

  He didn’t look at the man—didn’t even see who it was. All it took was the press of his hand against Penny’s trim waist, and she slid to the side with him following right behind. She entered their room first, already pulling the tank top over her head before he had even closed the door with a slam that echoed. The button on his jeans snapped apart under his handling as she turned around.

  They were two steps apart.

  She closed it in a blink.

  There was no softness in what came next. Their kisses stung, and his teeth left marks behind on her white skin. She gave back the same roughness she found in him, uncaring how he hissed when she yanked his shirt off before dragging her sharp nails down the expanse of his chest. When the slip of a skirt she wore fell to the floor around her heels, Luca let out a whistle.

  “When did you take your panties off? How long were you walking around like that, Penny?”

  She grinned, her black bra the only thing keeping any part of her body covered. He couldn’t help but admire the sight of her when she took two steps back, stopping only when her legs hit the foot of the bed.

  “Since my shower,” she admitted.

  “Goddamn.”

  “We had to at least make it to the room, didn’t we?”

  Luca cocked a brow. “But did we?”

  “Stop talking, Luca,” she said, reaching up to unsnap the bra where the cups connected at the valley between her breasts, “and come fuck me.”

  So brazen.

  Sure.

  She knew what she wanted and that called to him more than anything else. There was nothing he found more attractive than that—shit, he got off on it, really.

  The bra came apart and slid down her arms, discarded to the floor. In nothing but black heels, she stood at the foot of the bed and waited. Her entire life and story stared back at him, he knew. An hourglass figure that before it had even developed had been used and abused many times over. The scars she had cut into herself to chase away the pain. A grown woman who had finally grown into someone he didn’t know at all.

  But he wanted to.

  God.

  He wanted to know her.

  “Now,” Penny demanded quietly despite her firm tone, kicking off her heels and losing four inches of height instantly. Not that it mattered—her legs were still a work of art that he wanted to get wrapped around his head while he tasted the bare heaven between her thighs.

  He wanted to keep staring—learning and appreciating. Committing her to his memory because hadn’t she already warned him what would happen after this? What was inevitable? But he wouldn’t waste time, either.

  Luca would take what he could get; anything she was willing to give.

  She reached for him when he stepped closer, the small space of the room closing around him as her hands slipped beneath his opened jeans. His mouth crashed against hers, tasting the heat on her tongue while her hands worked magic. She stroked him with one hand while her other pulled at his jeans until she had them down around his hips.

  Close, they were chaotic.

  Kisses that hurt and hands that ached. He couldn’t get enough of her. No matter how many times he felt her skin under his hands, finding she liked a tight squeeze rather than a soft touch, he only wanted more.

  Everything changed.

  Fast.

  Penny let his cock go just when his stomach had started to clench from the pressure she applied to his length with every tug. He barely had time to process the loss before she had twisted him around and his back hit the bed. For a seemingly little thing, she had strength.

  Or she knew how to move.

  Luca palmed her hips when she climbed on top of him. The flash of her sex had his mouth watering before she yanked his jeans and boxer-briefs low enough for his cock to spring free. Then she was grinding against him, the wet slit of her pussy a hot heaven to his senses. He held her too tight, he knew it. He couldn’t breathe with her rocking on him like she was. The almost feral sounds that clawed their way out of his chest wasn’t something he recognized.

  “How long’s it been?” she asked, leaning down so her mouth hovered over his. “How long has it been since somebody made you come, Luca? Could I do it like this—just rubbing on you, do you want me to?”

  Internally, the answers came too easily, but he couldn’t form the words. Penny’s tongue swept her bottom lip while one of her fingers traced a line down his clenching jaw. Every swivel of her hips while the satisfaction in her stare sharpened had his ecstasy skyrocketing. He urged her own by pulling her body harder against his, feeling how her wetness coated his dick more and more.

  “Could I?” she asked again, breathless and shaking.

  “After I taste you.”

  That had her stilling.

  Lifting a bit, too.

  Luca held her tight, refusing to let go of her gaze or her body when he murmured, “Let me taste you, Penny.”

  “I don’t ... I nev—”

  He flexed his hands, pushing her higher until she straddled his chest. “Let me.”

  She did, letting him adjust her until she was resting overtop his face, and he had the best view of her wet cunt. Just inches from his mouth, he could already smell the tartness of her sex and arousal; he could see it, too, glistening on pink flesh and a slit that clenched when a groan of approval pressed past his lips.

  He tasted her while he watched her up above; that first lick flooding his taste buds and making his mouth water. She shuddered. From her shoulders to the tips of her toes against the mattress. His second lick started at the soft fleshiness of her pussy right up to the tight bud of her clit.

  There, he sucked.

  Hard, long.

  “Jesus.”

  Her exclamation came with fingernails that dug into his scalp, pulling at the strands of his hair like she might rip them right out of his head. He didn’t mind. Something was new for her in this—he could tell. At least, in a willing way.

  That only made him hotter.

  Out of control, really.

  Like the rest of her, once he had indulged in a single taste, it just wasn’t enough. His
fingers dug into the firm roundness of her ass while he feasted. On her cunt, the flavor of her, and every little sound she made. It was all a drug. He wanted so much more. Another hit of her.

  He found that hit when he found the rhythm she responded to best, rapid snaps of his tongue under the hood of her clit that had her hips rocking into his mouth for more. She seemed surprised at how fast the orgasm came on, her eyes flying wide and nailing into his down below as her body tensed and the low, keening whine passed her parted lips.

  She whispered his name.

  “Luca.”

  It was the best thing he ever heard.

  Almost.

  He decided it was the second-best sound when even as she hadn’t stopped shaking, she slid down his body with a demand for, “More—make me come again.”

  Not I want to.

  Not that she would do it.

  She wanted it from him.

  He was being stupid, and he knew it because he thought about nothing but being buried inside of her. Even as they helped each other from what remained of their clothes, the last thing on his mind was being safe.

  Yeah.

  Stupid.

  He also didn’t care when she slid down his length and leaned in for a kiss. With the taste of her still on his lips, she licked it from his mouth while he filled her full. The tightness of her cunt, wet and hot around him, drove Luca to the edge of insanity in a split second.

  The long length of her white hair fell like a curtain over her bouncing tits with every lift and lower of her body. He found her hands with his own, weaving their fingers together when she straightened up and watched him down below.

  She was still clenching tight from her first orgasm; his cock worked into those tight muscles. He kept her arms high over her head with one hand while his other palmed her throat. She didn’t shy away from that, either, and then he could really pound into her.

  Those rising moans ...

  Every broken cry ...

  It was because of him.

  Luca knew it shouldn’t be—this wasn’t what he was supposed to be doing with Penny. He couldn’t even begin to fathom how he would tell his friend what he had done here.

  He also didn’t care.

  Not in that moment.

  How could he when he had this?

  “SUCCESS,” LUCA SAID as he slipped back into the room with a bottle of unopened vodka in hand. “I had to bribe the guy who handles the liquor but—”

  “I always wanted to come back.”

  The door closed under Luca’s hand, but he didn’t move away from it. Instead, he watched Penny from where she sat in the middle of the bed. The thin blanket pooled at her waist, doing nothing to hide the nakedness of her upper body. She didn’t seem to mind as she fingered the edge of the blanket, her brow drawn down in her thoughts.

  “Back here, you mean?”

  Because that’s what he hoped she meant.

  “I wanted to,” she said, making him hear what she was trying to say. “But it wasn’t supposed to happen. Or at least, that’s what I was always told. I gave up something to give something back ... I know it doesn’t make sense to you. Maybe you want to understand—”

  “All you have to do is tell me.”

  Penny shook her head. “Not when that means doing more damage, Luca. Not when it might mean ruining everything that’s got me to this point. I’m so close.”

  Anger at not knowing what she was trying to tell him rushed out of him when he snapped, “To what?”

  She didn’t reply.

  He should have expected that.

  “It won’t matter, will it?” she asked.

  Crossing the room, he tossed the small pint of vodka he’d managed to snatch from the downstairs to the bed. “Depends.”

  “If I ask you to stop again—if I tell you everything depends on you going away and staying there. It won’t matter. You can’t.”

  “I promised my friend to find you.”

  “And you have.”

  “But you’re not where you should be, Penny,” he said. “And you know that, too.”

  “I don’t belong anywhere now. I can’t.”

  “Tell me you don’t miss them. Say you don’t give a shit about the godson you left behind. Open that fucking mouth of yours and at least lie. If you can’t even do that, then why would I stop? I’ve gotten this far—”

  “But you won’t get more.”

  He didn’t understand.

  He also knew she wouldn’t explain.

  Penny looked up from the blanket, observing while he lingered at the end of the bed. There was something soft in her stare, but he found something else there, too. A longing, maybe. But for what, he didn’t know.

  “Come back to bed,” she said. “At least there’s this. We can have this.”

  Right.

  For now.

  16.

  Penny

  BEFORE, any physical intimacy Penny willingly had with a man would end the second it was over, and she got what she wanted from it. She didn’t linger; there was nothing to stay for, really. She expected her partners to do the same and not demand anything more.

  Everything was easier that way.

  It worked.

  Except with Luca ...

  While he seemed determined to remain with her until she forced his hand—and she couldn’t leave when she was ordered to wait for The League’s signal—she also didn’t mind his company. She was, however, too prideful to admit that the days following her falling into bed with him passed quicker because he was there.

  Because she couldn’t leave him alone.

  It was just ... too good.

  And wasn’t Penny allowed to indulge herself just once?

  Naked and unbothered next to her in the bed, she could feel Luca’s gaze watching her, but she refused to turn her head his way. Instead, she focused on the cracked plaster of the ceiling over top the bed while his fingers tapped a soothing beat to the inside of her elbow. Before long, she recognized the familiar tapping. It was like the notes he was pretending to play had started to take shape in her mind, ringing out with actual sound in her brain though no one else could hear it but her.

  The pianist in her was still alive and well. Her need for music had never dimmed as much as it just became secondary to everything else in her life over the years.

  “Rosalynn’s third stanza of what she called The Nineth Composition,” Penny said. “She played it in Australia at every show, right?”

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Luca’s grin. “She did. I’m not very good at piano, but I can at least play a little ... if I go slow.”

  That had her snorting.

  “What good is playing slow?”

  She felt him shrug as he shifted on the bed to rest his head in his hand, propped up higher so now she couldn’t pretend like she was unable to see him. While her body was made up of scars that told a tale she would rather not, his was not the same. A beautiful canvas of golden, tanned skin and a muscular form that deserved to be appreciated. There was something decadent about running her hands over his chest and arms; feeling his dark dusting of hair and the way his bands of muscles jumped at her touch like he needed it.

  She held back from reaching over to do just that—it would only lead them into another sweaty mess of tangled limbs, and she was trying to show some self-control.

  A joke, honestly.

  She wanted to fuck again and again. As soon as they were done. Day after day. Night in and night out. Self-control?

  What was that?

  “You still play?” he asked.

  Penny smiled. “Rarely.”

  “But you do.”

  The lump that formed in her throat was almost impossible to swallow. It was only there because of how easily she wanted to tell him the truth about the piano and why she played so infrequently now. He made her want to talk; that was dangerous.

  Still, Penny said, “I have a Baby Grand I can use whenever I want, but I don’t compose anymore. Not m
y own pieces, I mean. I haven’t played a show since ... before I tried to kill myself when I was sixteen. I don’t think—”

  She stopped talking when his fingers drifted lower on her arm, tracing the lines upon lines that made up her skin. Faded scars that had long turned white and the few, deeper ones that were still a pinkish-red tone. Most were raised and the ridges couldn’t be missed from how she had cut into the same lines again and again.

  “That still a thing?” Luca asked in a murmur.

  “What?”

  “Suicide. Attempts or otherwise. Curious.”

  He sounded like he was telling the truth. His expression gave nothing away to say he was lying or overthinking.

  Penny flicked a strand of white-blonde hair away from her face, muttering, “Considering I’ve had suicidal ideations since I was too young to even understand what I was thinking, that’s just a part of my brain. I’m wired like that, you know? Wired wro—”

  “Not wrong, Penny.”

  She laughed sharply. “You sound like Cree. Wanna shrink my head, too? They’ve all taken a shot at it, but I can’t promise it will get you anywhere.”

  Luca’s expression didn’t change to say anything she said interested him. No doubt, the man was soaking it all in, though. Planning how he might be able to use it in the future when he found himself chasing after her again.

  “And no,” she added quieter. “All those attempts were brought on by circumstance and situations at the time. Waking up every day and thinking what would it be like if I died today isn’t quite the same as making an active plan and trying to see it through, Luca.”

  “Hmm.”

  “What?”

  “How many times?”

  That had Penny frowning. “Why?”

  “Curious.”

  “About my suicide attempts?”

  Luca cleared his throat. “About everything. Anything.”

  “You shouldn’t ask—”

  “Why, because you actually want to answer? Because you like to talk to me as much as you like fucking me?”

  Penny dragged in a hard breath, hating how fast he had hit the nail right on the head. “Luca ...”

  “It’s only fair. You threw some baggage at my feet to unpack. I’m just handing some back, Penny.”