by Aly Martinez
Our breathing was labored.
Our skin was damp.
And I had no doubt the drumming of our hearts could be heard on the first floor.
“Wow,” she breathed, her eyes still closed.
“Agreed,” I rasped, ghosting one last kiss over her lips. “That was by far the hottest forehead kiss I’ve ever given.”
She giggled and cuddled closer, nuzzling her face against my chest. “I’m pretty sure you missed my forehead completely.”
“Did I? I’ve always been shit at anatomy.”
“That explains why I’m still wearing pants.”
“Smartass.” I tickled her side, causing a brilliant laugh to spring from her throat. I couldn’t have stopped my smile if I’d tried. Not that I was trying anymore.
She wiggled in protest as I folded her in my arms and held her tight. My fingers played up and down her sides like she was a grand piano, her laugh being my first—and greatest—symphony.
“Penn!” she screamed, writhing against me.
“Cora!” I mocked.
And then, like a poacher, I closed my eyes and absorbed every ounce of warmth Cora was offering.
Because, soon enough, it would be gone.
Just like me.
Cora
“Oh God!” I cried, falling over to the side, barely able to save my beer. I was in my hallway and thankfully already sitting down, so it was a short trip to the wood floor.
Penn was in the bathroom, his position mirroring mine except, rather than being dead from embarrassment, he had a wrench in his hand and was doubled over in laughter.
“Stop laughing!” Two words I’d never thought I’d say to him. A river of beer later, I had to repeat myself. “Stop laughing!”
That night, I’d eaten Thai food for the very first time. This being after Penn and I had put our shirts back on—a sight I’d seriously lamented as the fabric stole my favorite view. The man was gorgeous in clothes. But shirtless? His cut pecs covered in a light smattering of hair and a six-pack trailing down to meet a mouthwatering V that disappeared below the low-hanging denim at his trim waist? He was downright edible.
And while the Toolbox Thai had actually been delicious, I would have way rather feasted on Penn.
That damn second of hesitation had foiled it all. It was a gut reaction that had been programmed into me over the years. For the women in the building, sex was a paycheck. A means to an end. A way of life.
But, for me, sex was nothing more than a weapon in my arsenal.
A bargaining chip.
A last-ditch resource to stay alive.
But one kiss and I wanted it to be different again.
However, despite the fact that I’d thrown every please-God-get-me-naked signal I knew, including a few I made up on the fly, Penn had stuck to his guns and kissed me senseless in a very PG-13 version of what I truly wanted.
Not that I was complaining or anything. He was talented in the mouth department.
After Thai food and a sizable amount of self-reflection, I’d taken a step outside of my comfort zone and offered Penn one of my coveted cupcakes. It had been hard, but my manners had finally won out. I’d never been so relieved or genuinely puzzled in my life when he’d refused, stating that he wasn’t big on sweets. I should have known after seeing the thick muscles hugging his frame, but come on. Who hated sweets? The disgust on my face must have been obvious, because he’d chuckled, shaking his head before planting a kiss on my lips and saying, “But I’d love to watch you eat a cupcake, Cora.”
I’d retorted, “I didn’t know you could get creepier, Penn.” But I’d said it while peeling the wrapper off three layers of chocolate and then shoving it into my mouth, bordering between ladylike and a lion attacking a gazelle on The Discovery Channel.
After the cupcake massacre and a lot of laughs, we’d broken into the beer.
Penn creeped hard during this time, his hip leaning against the counter, his legs crossed at the ankle, his arms over his chest, his eyes sparkling with mischief as the tiniest of smirks pulled at his lips.
We talked for over an hour. Eventually, the conversation moved to the hall (me) and the bathroom (him), where he’d started the monumental task of putting my bathroom back together, but he didn’t stop creeping.
More than once, I’d caught his hooded gaze glued to my legs, my breasts, or my throat. Gorgeous.
I decided right then and there that Penn Walker could creep on me any day of the week.
And I would creep on him while he creeped on me, and together, we could be the creepiest creeping couple who ever creeped. I believe those had been my exact words to him while I was sitting on the floor when, suddenly, I’d laughed so hard I’d snorted.
Thus taking us back to me folding over on the wood floor, rescuing my beer, and dying of embarrassment.
Penn’s laughter got louder as he approached. I rolled flat to my back and opened my eyes in time to see him crawling on his hands and knees to hover above me. He plucked the beer from my grip and set it somewhere nearby, and then his weight settled on top of me.
Head to toe.
Chest to chest.
His mouth was gloriously close as he asked, “Are you drunk?”
I scoffed. “Lie. And no.”
“You laugh so hard you snort often?”
“Lie. And yes.”
He grinned, wide and toothy. It was by far the least attractive smile I had ever seen him wear and it still made my pulse spike.
“I love when you laugh,” he whispered before sweeping his lips across mine.
I lifted my head to keep contact, but he was gone. “I love that you actually know how to laugh. I was worried for a while there. All the stoic silences were really throwing me off.”
I got another kiss.
“It’s getting late. I should probably get going.”
“Noooo,” I whined, the heat from my flush, drunk cheeks spreading across the rest of my body. Arching my back, I pressed my breasts against his chest. “You could stay. The girls should be back soon, but they won’t bother us if we’re in my room. And if you’re just going to sit in the hall all night, watching me, you might as well do it up close and personal.”
“That would make it easier.”
I slid my hand around his back and under his shirt. “I promise to wear pants.”
“I can’t make that same promise, Cora.”
I nipped at his bottom lip. “Okay, so pants optional. We’ll see how it goes.”
“I can tell you how it’s gonna go.” He returned my nip. “It’s not.”
I exaggerated a pout.
He kissed it away. “Stop giving me hell, woman. I’m pretending to be a gentleman here.”
I huffed and rolled my eyes. “Fine, but if you ask me, this seems like a gross misuse of your cold, hard cash. The girls aren’t even back yet.”
Smooth and completely unhindered by the alcohol, he climbed to his feet. I attempted to follow him, but I did it fully affected by the alcohol and without a graceful bone in my body.
“Whoa!” He caught my arm when the floor started to rise toward me. “How much did you drink?”
I clung to his strong arm only partially for balance. “Apparently, more than I should have. Though this totally explains the snort.”
“Come here,” he mumbled, scooping me off my feet with an arm under my knees.
“Wow,” I breathed. “You weren’t lying about the gentleman bit.”
He walked the short distance to my bedroom door and jutted his chin at it. “Open it. I’ll hang until the girls get back. But it’s probably safest for your skull if we get you horizontal again.”
I beamed up at him. “Really?”
“Yeah. You’re drunk on, like, two tablespoons of beer. Someone’s got to keep an eye on you until your parents get back.”
I slapped his chest. “I meant about you staying. But, for the record, I had four full beers, thank you very much.”
“Four beers isn’t helping
your case. But yeah, Cora, I’ll stay for a little while longer.”
Victory sang in my veins.
I was nowhere near ready for it to be over.
For one night, everything outside of my apartment had disappeared.
Marcos.
Dante.
Manuel.
Even Nic.
My whole wretched life faded into the background.
For one night, I’d talked and laughed with a gorgeous, kind, and thoughtful man.
For one night, responsibility hadn’t been suffocating me.
For one freaking night, I had been free.
Tracing the curve of his lip, I whispered, “Truth or lie?”
“Truth.”
“I could get used to doing this with you.”
His eyes flashed dark and a shadow passed over his face. “Please don’t.”
I frowned, alarm bells screaming in the back of my mind.
But before I had the chance to question his odd answer, he ordered, “Get the door, baby.”
Baby. Le sigh.
I was smiling all over again.
I twisted the lock and pushed it open. Penn didn’t make it one step over the threshold before he fired off a string of muttered expletives.
“This is your room?”
“No, this is the Taj Mahal. My room is the twenty-seventh door on the left.”
He glared down at me, completely unimpressed by my joke, but I was drunk and hadn’t slurred a single word. I was crazy impressed and burst into a loud fit of laughter.
“It’s carpet,” he announced as if I hadn’t lived there for over a decade.
“Excellent observation.” More giggling.
More glaring. “Why?”
I wiggled in his arms, and he caught the hint and set me on my feet. “Why what?”
“Your entire house has wood. Why the hell do you have carpet in here?”
Very aware that his eyes were following me, I put some extra sway in my step as I sauntered to the bed and promptly collapsed.
“And she sleeps on a fucking mattress on the floor,” he bit out. “Jesus, fucking, Christ.”
With a curled lip, I lifted my head off the pillow and slowly glanced over my shoulder, a mouthful of attitude ready to go. It died on my tongue when I found him still standing on the wrong side of the doorway, a haunted pallor coloring his face.
I sat up. “Penn?”
He drew in a pained breath, the muscles in his neck straining, his hands opening and closing at his sides as though he were about to go into battle, but his gaze was locked on the floor. “I’m ripping up this goddamn carpet.”
My chest tightened as memories of him telling me why’d he torn up the carpet in Angela’s apartment flashed through my drunken mind. “Shit.”
I ached for him. It had been thirteen years, and if I could avoid walking on a sidewalk, I did. Because when I looked down at the cracks in the concrete, I never saw anything but Nic’s blood.
I nodded immediately. “Okay.”
Tilting his head from side to side, he cracked his neck, and, then in a voice filled with emotional gravel, he started with, “I can’t… It’s too—”
I rose to my knees. “Penn, honey. I said okay. Trust me, I get it. Rip it up. Whatever you need to do for you. You do it, okay?”
The color returned to his face as the most brilliant gratitude flittered through his eyes.
And then it was my turn to be surprised.
He walked inside, turning to the door as he shut it. “And I’m gonna fix your bed.”
In the grand scheme of things, it was small. He’d done a lot for me in the short time he’d been there. But that? For a girl like me? Well, that one meant a lot.
Chills detonated across my skin. “What did you say?” My damn nose started stinging again, and then it was all about the blink.
He scowled at the floor as he walked toward me. “A bed. You need one. I’ll get a frame set up. New mattress and box spring. This damn carpet has to go first. I’ll put some wood down. See if I can match the rest of the—” He abruptly stopped at the foot of my bed. “Shit… Are you crying?”
I shook my head. But I totally was.
“Cora, baby,” he whispered, dropping his knees to the mattress before pulling me into his arms.
Barely holding myself together, I went willingly. He settled on his side, then juggled me until I was facing him and resting on his arm.
Kissing my forehead, he rumbled, “What’s going on in that head of yours?”
I hadn’t cried in front of anyone in over a decade. And, damn it, I’d done it twice just that night. I let out a groan and tried to swipe under my eyes. “Just another allergic reaction.”
“About the carpet or the bed?”
“About you caring where I sleep.”
His brows pinched together. “Of course I care. Why wouldn’t I?”
I peered up at him, my vision swimming with unshed tears. “Because no one ever has. I take care of people, Penn. They don’t take care of me.”
Another one of his shadows flashed through his features. I couldn’t figure out if those happened when he was trying to cover his true emotions or when they finally escaped his walls. With his next words, I stopped caring.
“You’ve given enough. Now, you need to learn how to take,” he stated as fact. “If I can do something to make your life even a fraction easier, I’m gonna do it. Whether it be something small like a bed or changing the bald tires you got on your car. Or something big like dealing with those piece-of-shit Guerreros—I’m gonna handle it.”
“Why?” I croaked.
His forehead crinkled. “Why do you always ask me why? Is it so unfathomable to you that someone would actually want to help you?”
“Yes!” I exclaimed, sitting up. I crisscrossed my legs and faced him. “That doesn’t happen for me. If I want something done, I find a way to make it happen. If there isn’t a way, I find a way to make one. Don’t get me wrong. I’m grateful. So damn grateful for everything you’ve done, right down to you sitting here, having this conversation with me.” I sucked in a shaky breath. “But I’m going to be honest: I don’t know what to do with all of this. Two weeks ago, I didn’t know you existed. Two days ago, you were avoiding me like the plague. Now, you’re vowing to buy me a new bed? They aren’t cheap, Penn. Do you even have money for that?”
“I got a little put away. Worked my ass off for it too. That means I get to spend it however I see fit. Like on a bed for a good woman who deserves a decent night of sleep more than anyone I’ve ever met.”
Stunned into silence, I could do nothing but stare at him.
He thought I was a good woman.
I mean, I was. I knew that to the core of my soul. But hearing it again after all those years? That hit me deep. It was a gift all of its own.
“You…” I shook my head, unable to trust my voice.
“And, now, she’s in shock,” he mumbled, rolling to his back, taking me down with him. “Two weeks ago, I wasn’t sure I existed, either. Two days ago, I was struggling with how I felt about you. Though it seems we got that figured out.” He kissed the top of my head. “Two minutes ago, you told me I could rip out the carpet in your bedroom because you recognized that it was important to me. You gave me that, Cora. No questions asked. No explanation needed. This is me giving something back to you. And dry up the tears, because it’s not exactly a grand act of heroism like saving the population of humpback whales. I’m simply helping you get a bed that isn’t on the floor.” He groaned and shifted to the left. “And one that doesn’t have a broken spring in the middle of it.”
Note to self: Hide my accounting textbook somewhere else.
With my heart soaring, the strangest feeling took up root inside me. I couldn’t pinpoint it. But I thought it might have been akin to the feeling of a massive boulder being lifted off my shoulders. Whatever it was, with one hundred percent certainty, Penn had been the one to take it from me.
Sniffling, I
cuddled into his side, allowing my tense body to relax as I curled around him. “Have you given a lot of thought to saving humpback whales?”
“Not for a second. Though, if you find it on your list of needs, I’ll give it a little more.”
The tears came back, but for once in my life, they weren’t because I was sad, or overwhelmed, or trapped in a life I so desperately wanted to escape.
For the first time in, well, forever, I didn’t want to be anywhere else.
Smiling, I squeezed him tight and tangled our legs together. “If you keep this up, I’m going to go broke cooking you thank-you dinners.”
He chuckled but said no more.
Eventually, I fell asleep—not staring up at Nic’s stars, but rather tracing the black ink on Penn’s forearm and listening to the strong and steady rhythm of his heart.
Some hours later, he woke me with peppered kisses over my face and asked me to lock the door behind him.
Then the girls started calling to check in—chaos finding me all over again.
But for those hours wrapped safe in his arms, the calm had been intoxicating.
One I could easily get addicted to, whether he wanted me to or not.
And, lucky for me, Penn didn’t seem to heed his own advice about not getting used to being with me, either. Because, after the night of Maury Poppins and Toolbox Thai food, there weren’t many nights where Penn wasn’t in my bed.
Cora
“Mmm,” I purred as he kissed down my chest. “Take it off.”
We were on week two of Penn ignoring my sexual pleas—and I was going insane.
Every night, we made out like teenagers. But like the good teenagers with good parents who filled their heads with fears about getting pregnant from oral sex.
Penn never went below the belt, which was nice a week ago. Now, it was obnoxious.
“Slow, Cora,” he murmured.
“One of these days, I’m going to spontaneously combust.”
“Far as I know, that has never actually happened to a person.”
I arched off the bed. “Then I guess you’ll have the privilege of witnessing a scientific phenomenon. Congratulations.”
