Magnificent Bastard

by Lili Valente

  The white, sleeveless gown is silk and chiffon and hugs her breasts before falling in asymmetrical waves around her knees. She’s paired it with white kitten heels that emphasize the strong, sculpted curves of her calves and pearl chandelier earrings that peek through her dark hair as she flips it over her shoulder.

  “This is the last one. I know it won’t work,” she says, tugging at the hem. “But I figured I’d show it to you anyway.”

  “Why won’t it work?” I set my drink on the coffee table and stand as she moves into the room. “It’s gorgeous. You look beautiful.”

  “It’s white,” she says with a nervous laugh. “I can’t wear white. I’m not the bride.”

  “You can’t wear white at the wedding.” I motion for her to turn and she does, proving she looks just as stunning from the back. “But this will be perfect for the rehearsal dinner. The night before the wedding, you’ll remind Phillip of the beauty he could have had on his arm if he hadn’t been such a fool.”

  She turns back to me, a troubled look on her face. “I don’t really blame him. I mean, I blame him for using me to get to my mom and lying to me and playing ugly games with my head, but he’s not the one who broke my heart the most.”

  I nod. “I figured.”

  “You did?” She tilts her head back, curious brown eyes finding mine.

  “My dad left when I was twelve. For the first few months he would still come to my baseball games and pick me up from school once or twice a week, but eventually, he lost interest.” I shrug. “By the time I was thirteen I saw him maybe once a month and he was usually after money to support his Percocet habit. By the time I graduated, we hadn’t talked in years. I have no idea where he is now.”

  Penny’s brow furrows. “I’m sorry. I never knew my dad, but I know fathers are important. Especially to sons.”

  “It’s all right. I got over it a long time ago.” I smile as I reach up, brushing a few stray hairs back to join the rest of the waves tumbling over her shoulders. Her hair is as soft as I imagined it would be. “Just wanted you to know that I get it. The way it hurts when one of the two people in the world, who are supposed to be on your team more than anyone else, decide they don’t give a shit about your feelings.”

  “Thanks,” she says, the wrinkle between her brows deepening. “Do you really think we can pull this off?”

  I nod reassuringly. “Not a doubt in my mind.”

  “But I’m so bad at pretending.” She nibbles her bottom lip. “And my mother and Phillip are both actors. They are exceedingly good liars and like most exceedingly good liars they are very good at sensing when other people are lying.”

  “Relax.” I bring my hands to her shoulders, gently kneading the knots there, ignoring the warm buzz of pleasure that hums up my arms. It just feels so good to touch her. So weirdly…right. “You might be new to this, but I’ve fooled evil exes dozens of times.”

  “But not with me,” she frets, clearly working her way into a full-blown panic attack. “Maybe we should just go as friends.”

  “Stop this. Right now.” I move my hands to grip her upper arms and lean down until my eyes are level with hers. “You don’t want to go as friends. If you did, you wouldn’t have booked us both into the same cottage in Southampton.”

  One cottage, with one queen-sized bed, that I’m doing my best not to think too much about. Spending four nights in a tiny cottage with Penny is going to be torture. Even if I take the couch and give her the bed, I’m never going to be able to forget that a woman who affects me like no other in recent memory is half naked and only a few steps away in the other room.

  “You’re right, I don’t.” Her tongue sweeps across her lips, sending another sizzle of awareness flooding through me against my will. “But now that you’re here I can’t imagine doing it. Especially not in public, in front of my mother and Phillip and everyone else.”

  I shake my head, fighting to keep my gaze from dropping to her lips. “Doing what?”

  “This.” Before I realize what’s on her fretful mind, she throws her arms around my neck, pushes up on tiptoe, and presses her lips to mine.

  And then suddenly, I’m kissing Penny.

  Really kissing her.

  This is no friendly peck or tentative exploration. The second her lips touch mine, electricity forks through my body and my blood ignites.

  I’ve wanted to do this since the second I laid eyes on this woman, and maybe even before. I would be lying if I said there weren’t times when I was reading one of Penny’s e-mails or texts—the flirty ones that made me laugh or the ones where she just got me, in a way not many people ever have—that I didn’t wonder what it might be like to kiss the smart mouth behind those words.

  And now she’s pressed against me with her breasts flush against my chest and her lips hot and urgent against mine, silently begging me to show her that I know what I’m doing, and there’s no way I’m going to let her down.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  My tongue slides across the seam of her mouth, slipping between her parted lips and stroking against hers. She tastes like sugar and lemons and all things clean, good, and wholesome, but there’s nothing wholesome about the way her kiss affects me. Two seconds in and my cock is rock hard and pulsing inside my jeans, straining against the fabric in an attempt to get closer to the sinfully hot woman in my arms.

  But I don’t cup her ass and pull her closer to where I ache.

  I mold my palms to her ribs and hold her tight, maintaining the last few inches of distance between her hips and mine.

  This is a kiss with built-in boundaries, a kiss meant to promise far more than it will ever deliver.

  I will never cup her breasts in my hands or tease her nipples with my fingers. I will never spread her thighs and kiss her where she’s salty and wet or hear her cry out as she comes on my mouth, begging me to put my cock where my tongue is. I will never feel her legs locked around my hips or her heels digging into my ass as I thrust inside her heat, fucking us both into the happiest place on earth.

  But that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy this moment, this kiss, her taste, and the perfect way her lips slide against mine.

  I drive my hand into her hair, fisting my fingers in the thick, silky strands, taking control as I ratchet this up to the next level. I shift the angle of my lips, gaining deeper access to the sweetness of her mouth. She makes a soft, needy sound that is so honest, so hungry, and so exactly what I’m feeling that my control begins to slip.

  The kiss grows hotter, wilder until our teeth are grinding together through our lips and I’m fucking her mouth with my tongue and I’m so turned on I don’t realize I’ve let my hands move down to squeeze her ass until it’s too late.

  By the time my logical mind shouts for me to step away from my client, employee, and friend—three very good reasons not to let this woman know I’ve got a hard-on for her that won’t quit—I’ve already hauled her hips to mine.

  She groans against my lips, her breath coming fast as she wraps one leg around my waist. And then she rocks against me, and suddenly I’m two steps away from an ugly fall and not certain I’ll be able to drag myself away from the edge.

  If I let myself pull Penny down to the couch and fuck her through our clothes, I know it won’t stop there. It won’t stop until that little white dress is off and her panties are on the floor and I’m actually fucking her. Jeans off, boxers gone, cock hot and hard and sliding inside one of my best friends.

  If this goes even one step further, I won’t be able to stop.

  Professional rules and personal ethics won’t matter. All that will matter is getting between Penny’s legs and making her come on my cock again and again until I go inside her so hard I see stars.

  She rocks against me as her tongue dances with mine, each movement promising we would fit together with absolute perfection, and my heart blazes inside my chest. I swear I can feel the heat of her pussy through my clothes and I can’t remember ever wanting to be inside someone the way I
want to be inside Penny.

  The rules, asshole. They’re there for a reason.

  Abort mission. Abort!

  Pull away from this woman right now before you set a bomb to explode in both of your lives.

  The inner voice is right—maddening as all hell, but totally fucking right.

  With the self-control of a monk or a ninja or someone capable of eating only half a container of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, I rip my mouth from Penny’s and stagger back a step. Then another. And then one more because shit all I want to do is reach out and pull her back into my arms and straight into her bedroom.

  She’s breathing fast and so am I, and for a moment, we both stand there staring at each other. She looks shell-shocked and I know I’m not pulling off anything resembling calm, cool, or collected, but I can’t think of a thing to say.

  My brain has shut down and all I can hear is the racing of my pulse in my ears. Though I’m sure the Incredible Bulk would be letting loose a steady stream of profanity if he could speak. I can’t remember the last time I was this worked up, and I have never, I repeat never, gotten that close to dry humping a client.

  “Convincing,” Penny finally says in a breathy voice, her head nodding loosely. “That was very convincing.”

  “Good.” I clench my jaw, willing my raging erection to dial it back a notch, but I’m too far gone.

  “So I guess that part will be fine.” She swallows, blinks, and then swallows again as her gaze drifts from my eyes to my chest and then continues the journey south.

  Shit!

  “It will all be fine.” I grab my jacket from the back of the armchair, using it as a shield to conceal my suffering, throbbing, desperate condition as I back toward the door. “Just meet me at the Good Bakery in the Chelsea Market at ten a.m. tomorrow. We’ll grab a late breakfast and coffee and then go shopping for armor for the rest of the week. With any luck, we’ll be done by two or three and you’ll still have plenty of time to come home and pack.”

  “Okay,” she says, eyes flicking back to mine. “Are you leaving?”

  “I should get home before it’s too late.”

  “But you just got here.” She takes a step toward me that I counter with another step back. I can’t let her get any closer, can’t let her lavender and sugar cookie smell start swirling through my head, or there’s no way I’m making it out of here without breaking the rules. “And the pizza hasn’t been delivered yet.”

  “Sorry, I’m just beat. We’ve evaluated the clothing situation; there will be time for everything else later.” I reach for the door but pause before jerking it open and fleeing into the night.

  She still looks worried and I can’t walk out on a client, or a friend, without putting her mind at ease.

  “And seriously, don’t stress,” I say, forcing a smile. “This will be the easiest job I’ve pulled in months. I’ll get to spend the week hanging out with a friend, eat too much wedding food, and make a couple of assholes feel terrible about themselves. Sounds like my kind of vacation.”

  Her lips quirk. “Well, at least you won’t have to do any of the usual detective or hacker stuff. I don’t want to air my mom’s dirty laundry or get Phillip arrested. I just want to be able to keep my chin up during all the stupid festivities.”

  I meet her gaze and hold it as I promise, “And you will. By the time we head back to the city, every woman at that wedding will wish she was you.”

  Penny’s cheeks flush and her chest rises and falls and I’m forced to exert another Herculean amount of will power to keep my gaze from drifting to places it shouldn’t.

  But it’s worth it to see the look in her eyes as she says, “Thank you, Bash.”

  “You’re welcome, Penny.” I smile, a real one this time because I can see that I’ve made someone I care about very happy, and then I finally make my escape.

  I pound down the stairs and out into the cool spring evening and set off at a jog toward the subway, hoping that putting some distance between us will help me forget how right it felt to have Penny’s body pressed tight to mine.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  From the e-mail archives of Sebastian “Bash” Prince and Penny Pickett

  From: MagnificentBastard1

  To: Penny4YourLobsterPot

  Re: This e-mail address

  Okay, I give,

  What’s with the lobster pot in the e-mail, buttercup? Are you from Maine? Did you grow up a lobster farmer’s daughter? Or do you just have an inordinately strong love for large saltwater crustaceans?

  Bash, who is bored and drinking alone because Aidan is working and you refuse to get out of your house and come enjoy the happiest of hours.

  From: Penny4YourLobsterPot

  To: Magnificent Bastard1

  Re: This e-mail address

  If I told you, I’d have to kill you.

  Sincerely, Penny

  p.s. Just say the word and I’ll share the new password for your LetsGoLove account. I’m sure there are some mildly psychotic women in Manhattan you haven’t been out on a date with yet.

  Text from Bash to Penny: :p :p :p :p

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  When I get home, I head straight to the shower even though I showered less than five hours ago and I certainly didn’t work up a sweat riding the train to and from Brooklyn.

  But I need something to take the edge off.

  Even after the walk to the subway station from Penny’s place, a twenty-minute train ride, and another ten-minute walk to my own apartment, I’m still hard. Every time my erection starts to subside, my glutton-for-punishment brain flashes back to the feel of Penny’s leg wrapped around my waist and her pussy rubbing against my cock and I’m right back where I started—hard, aching, frustrated, and desperate to come, preferably inside my assistant.

  It’s wrong.

  It’s so, so wrong, and the thoughts buzzing through my brain, the ones that wonder if Penny was as turned on as I was and if she laid down on her comfy blue couch and slipped her hand down the front of her panties after I left, are not helping me regain control.

  I should not be thinking about Penny getting herself off, one hand rolling her nipples while the other strokes the slick flesh between her legs. I should be thinking about something else, anything else.

  Or more accurately, anyone else.

  Even if I can’t help having sex on the brain, I could certainly shift the direction of my thoughts. I’ve got plenty of spank bank material stored up. I’ve even got a sex tape or two lurking in the depths of my hard drive. Betsy, the woman I dated last summer, had a thing for watching homemade porn. We made our first video on our second date and by the time we went our separate ways a few weeks later, I had close to three hours of high definition fucking shot from every angle in my bedroom.

  I could have some hot and filthy material pulled up on my laptop in a few minutes. But I don’t want to jerk off to the sight of Betsy’s ass rippling while she rides me reverse cowgirl.

  I want Penny’s dark eyes flashing as I spread her legs and settle between them. I want to imagine the way her pretty face would twist with desire as I go to work, driving my tongue deep into her pussy as I reach up to tease her nipples between my fingers. I want to hear her calling my name in her sweet and sexy voice as she comes on my mouth and feel her hands clawing at my shoulders as she begs me to fuck her.

  I want it so bad that as I step into the shower and take my cock in my hand, I swear I can almost see her standing in front of me, her chest rising and falling the way it was when I left her apartment.

  But this time, she isn’t wearing a dress. She’s naked, her full breasts bared to my gaze, her dusky nipples pulled tight, and the look in her eyes leaving no doubt how much she wants me.

  “Please, Bash,” she breathes, her fingers trailing down my chest. “I want you inside of me. I want it so much.”

  “How much?” I palm her breasts, rubbing my thumbs across her puckered tips. She gasps and arches into my touch as her hands continue
their journey south.

  “It’s pretty much all I can think about.” She wraps her fingers around my shaft and strokes me up and down, drawing a groan from low in my throat. “I’m so wet for you. Feel.”

  Penny takes my hand and guides it between her legs before her attention returns to my cock.

  “Damn,” I curse, my breath hitching as I let my fingers glide through her slick flesh, teasing through her folds before I bring two fingers to her entrance and push inside.

  Her head falls back with a sigh as I finger fuck her, granting me a heart-stopping view of her nipples only inches away from my chest. “I can’t wait to be with you. I seriously can’t wait, Bash. If you make me, I’m going to go out of my mind.”

  “I won’t make you wait, sweetheart.” I’m panting now, breath rasping in and out and my dick leaking pre-come into her hand as she jerks me off, just as desperate to fuck as she is. “Come here.”

  A second later, I’ve picked her up, hitched her curvy legs around my waist, pressed her back against the slick wall of the shower and shoved my aching cock into where she is so hot and wet I’m pretty sure I’ve died and gone to heaven.

  “Fuck, Penny.” I groan against her mouth as I push deeper. “We should have been doing this months ago, years ago.”

  “Yes, fuck, yes,” she agrees as I begin to move, sliding in and out while she rocks against me, taking more of me with every thrust. “You’re so fucking good, you’re going to make me come so hard. So fucking hard!”

  Fantasy Penny drops the eff bomb way more often than Reality Penny, but it doesn’t matter. By the time my phone starts to ring, blaring like a foghorn from where it rests on the back of the toilet, I’m so turned on I’m seconds away from coming hard enough to drown a small country.

  There’s no way I’m stopping to answer the phone. Whoever’s calling is just going to have to leave a fucking message.

  I pump into my own hand, trying to recapture the feeling of being inside Penny’s slick, tight pussy, but I’ve lost her. I come staring down into one unblinking eye instead of Penny’s soulful brown ones.