by Holly Hart
Penny’s expression shifts. It’s a tiny change, and one that I only pick up because I’m losing myself in her eyes. A second ago, I thought I saw distrust on her face. Now it’s interest.
“Lucky?” She whispers. “That’s interesting. Not a lot of men in your position would admit that, I don’t think.”
“What?” I chuckle. “Like Landon Winchester? I swear, in that guy’s mind he’s the Son, the Father and the Holy Spirit all rolled up into one blonde haired, blue-eyed model’s body.”
“He’s an asshole,” Penny spits with surprising venom.
“I’m glad you agree. The way Landon sees it, every bit of success he’s had is his right. It’s not about luck with him, it’s that he’s worked hard, and that the people he ground into dust beneath him deserved to fail.”
“And you?” Penny asks.
I shrug. “I’ve been lucky,” I say freely. “I’ll admit that to anyone who asks. You don’t make it to where I am in the world without more than a ladle-full of luck. I’ve had more than enough for a hundred men.”
Penny relaxes a little. “So, tell me about yourself, Mr. Lucky.”
I do. I don’t know why, but I do. I open myself up in a way I’ve never done before – not with anyone. When you get to where I have in the world, you have to close yourself off, or open yourself up for attack.
“I was a wild child,” I say. “I grew up on the streets of New York. My mom and dad didn’t check in on me much. They died in a car wreck when I was about twelve years old, but I wasn’t upset.”
Penny flinches.
I hold my hand up, thinking I know why. “We weren’t close,” I say. “They didn’t care much about me, not beyond the checks they got from the state, anyway.”
“It’s your family, I guess,” Penny says doubtfully.
“So this foster family took me in – an Irish couple, as Catholic as they were generous. They raised me from twelve to eighteen.”
“And they changed you? Helped you settle down?”
I let out a deep, booming laugh. “No way. I swear; I tested mom’s patience to the limit. My foster mom, I mean. She was in and out of the principal’s office more than his damn secretary!”
“Then … what?” Penny frowns. “How did an orphan kid from the streets of New York end up as one of its most powerful men?”
I close my eyes. “There was this girl,” I say. “Molly. God, for a troubled kid like me, she was like cocaine. She had tattoos all down her side, a lip piercing, silver bars through both nipples –.”
Penny clears her throat.
“Sorry –,” I say hurriedly. “But you get the picture.”
“I think so,” Penny smiles uncertainly.
“Anyway,” I said. “Molly Jones was the business. Let me tell you, I’ve rarely met a girl like her.”
Penny’s eyes cloud over, but I wave the thought away. “I wouldn’t worry,” I say. “She was off the rails. We drank together, smoked together, fucked all over town. She was the last thing a kid like me needed. We played hooky, we rode the subway without paying, shoplifted, drank some more. You get the picture.”
“You already said that…” Penny says, but she can’t hide the interest in her eyes. She shifts her weight forward.
“And then…” I say, losing myself in the memory.
“Molly disappeared. Just like that,” I click my fingers. “She was gone. Fuck, I’ve never missed a girl like I missed her. I didn’t see her for seven months. I got a job – dead-end kind of thing, behind a register, but it didn’t last long. None of them did. I started messing about with computers. Didn’t try hard, but goddamn I was good.”
“And then?” Penny whispers. I can tell she’s figured out – most of it, anyway.
“I never did see Molly again. But one day mom rang me, told me I needed to swing by the house. I’ve never heard her voice like that. Let me tell you, you don’t mess with an Irish lady going through the menopause…”
“And that’s when you found Tilly,” Penny whispers.
I nod. “She was wrapped up in some ratty old thrift-shop baby clothes. Molly dropped her off with mom and dad; then she ran. But I’ve never seen anything as beautiful as Tilly’s face in my entire life.”
I look up. Penny’s face is suddenly just inches from mine. She looks entranced by the story, spellbound by my words. She bites her lip.
Then I do something I don’t regret one little bit.
Chapter Fifteen
Penny
Charlie leans forward and kisses me. I’m asking for it. I really am. I’m leaning forward, practically vibrating with energy.
I wish I knew whether this man has any idea what effect he has on me.
He winds me up and flicks me out like a freaking yo-yo, then pulls me back in when I least expect it. I’m charged with electricity. This whole room is charged with electricity. I feel like whatever I do, something’s going to spark. Something’s going to burn.
I think it’s going to be me.
I kiss him back. I kiss him like he’s the last man left on earth, the only man I’ve ever wanted to taste. In truth, he is.
Maybe I needed to walk a mile over hot coals to discover the man who’s lurking inside. Maybe this – this kiss – means more because of what it represents.
Charlie pulls back.
He takes my bottom lip with him, scraping his teeth on it before letting it go. It hurts, but it’s a good kind of pain. I brush my lip with my fingers.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I should’ve asked.”
I sit there, still vibrating. That kiss did nothing to calm the flames burning inside me. Charlie lit the match, and then turned away – not bothering to look at the explosion.
My chest heaves and falls. My breath is ragged. I press my legs together.
Suddenly there’s only one thing on my mind, and it isn’t telling Charlie why I came back. All conscious thought disappears from my mind. It’s replaced by pure, unadulterated lust. I can’t help myself. I become more than a girl and less all at once. I’m driven by sex: by the smell of Charlie’s cologne, by the taste of him that lingers on my lips.
“Don’t apologize,” I say. My voice is hoarse and longing.
“But after last night –,” Charlie says.
I squeeze my eyes shut. God, this man couldn’t be more perfect. It’s as if someone went into a lab and combined every element of perfection into one man.
“Last night was different,” I whisper.
“Different how?” he murmurs back.
Different because I wasn’t ready, I don’t say.
But that is the truth. Right now I feel different. I don’t believe Charlie is the one who ordered the surveillance on me. If he is, then he’s an incredibly impressive liar. But I don’t detect any hint of malice in him.
I’ve barely met the man, and yet I know him. After hearing him talking to his daughter, just now, I know he wouldn’t do a thing like that. One question lingers in my mind: if not Charlie, then who?
But that’s a question for another time. Any time, really; just not now.
“Stop talking,” I growl.
I lean forward, and bring my lips to his. I trace my tongue along Charlie’s bottom lip, and cling to his body. He tastes like cinnamon and brown sugar.
But he doesn’t kiss me back.
“Penny –,” Charlie says.
He’s holding back, I can feel it. He’s quivering with excitement, and yet somehow he’s exerting a level of control over his urges that is completely beyond me. I’ve given in to my lust. I let it wash over me like a wave at the beach.
It’s irresistible, not that I tried.
“Charlie,” I say, and bite his lip. Hard. It’s payback, but of a kind that’s carefully calculated to push him over the edge. “Shut up and fuck me, will you?”
Charlie freezes.
I press my body against him, and I feel his heart beat thud inside his chest. I feel the outline of his thick chest muscles against my breasts; I
feel the heat of his body rippling against me. If I died here and now, I’d die happy.
“You’re sure?”
I shake my head. I look Charlie in the eye, and I don’t let go.
“I’m not sure. I’m ready.”
I don’t know what’s happening to me, but I’m more than willing to surf this wave. I’ve lived a lifetime of unhappiness in only nineteen years. I’ve lived through family illness, and huddling on a sidewalk.
I’ve seen men give in to drink, and women to drugs. I’ve seen human beings copulate like animals beneath an underpass. All that time, I held onto the one thing that was mine – and mine alone – to give –
– my virginity.
“Jesus, Penny,” Charlie groans. “You’re something, you know that?”
Apparently what I said was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Charlie grabs me and rolls me over, so that he’s on top. The blinds over the windows are still pulled down low, and the room’s only lit by the dull glow from the idling television. It’s the only light we need.
Charlie caresses me with rough hands. He unbuttons my top, and in seconds it’s on the floor. Suddenly this is moving faster than I could have anticipated.
It’s faster than I can stop. But I don’t want to.
My skin is on fire. It feels like waves of flames are rippling against me, like hot wax is dripping down from above. Charlie layers a stream of kisses down my front. He starts at my lips, circles my neck, and kisses his way down my stomach.
I flinch. God, it feels so good. I want to give in. I want to feel Charlie’s tongue between my legs. I want to feel those things I’ve dreamt about for so long.
“Charlie,” I whisper. “Wait…”
Charlie pulls back, concern pooling in his icy gray eyes. Except, right now, they aren’t icy. They are burning up with desire: for me.
He steals the breath clean out of my lungs as I meet his gaze. I’m struck dumb. I can’t speak, think, or even breathe for the sight of him.
“What is it?” Charlie asks.
He speaks in a throaty, concerned voice. It’s the strangest thing – he makes me want to strip the clothes from his back, to leave red scratch marks down his spine… and it also makes me melt inside.
“Just –,” I stammer. “Just go slow.”
Charlie doesn’t reply. Not with words, anyway. His expression changes back from worry to lust. He pushes me back down against the sofa, straddles the top of me.
“I’ll go slow,” he growls. “So slow you’ll beg me to stop torturing you. So slow you’ll press your legs together to try and hasten your orgasm, and I’ll tear them right back apart. You’re going to come, Penny. Come so hard you won’t be able to walk straight for a week.”
“Yes,” I murmur. “Please.”
Charlie’s words fill me with a thrill I’ve never experienced. He makes me feel dirty, wanton – makes me desire nothing more than to be used.
I don’t feel clean, not after what I’ve got planned for Charlie’s fortune – whether I go through with my theft or not. In a way, this is like punishment for something I’ve not even done.
I deserve it.
I deserve everything he’ll give me.
And none of it.
Charlie’s hands drop to my waist. He unbuckles the woven belt that circles my hips, and whips it out of the loops that hold it, one arm bulging beneath his crisp white shirt.
“Tell me what you want first,” Charlie says. His eyes surf my skin. I can feel the heat of his gaze – and the weight. It’s like a herd of charging buffalo riding my skin.
“What?” I pant.
“You heard me,” he says. “Tell me where you want me to touch you.”
Charlie speaks with rough, forceful sincerity.
It’s hard – but it’s also terrifying. He’s making me someone I’m not – not yet, at least. He’s making me his little slut. I know that Charlie Thorne would never put it that way. In his perfectly tailored suits and his crisp white shirts, those kinds of words would never roll off his tongue.
But it’s the truth.
And it’s what I want.
“I want you inside me,” I moan as Charlie drags his fingernails down the front of my body. “Now. I don’t want anything else.”
That’s a lie. I want so much more than that. I want everything that Charlie can – and will – give me. And I want it now. I don’t want his tongue between my legs, his fingers. I’m soaking wet already; as wet as I’ve ever been – no, make that more.
“You’re the boss,” Charlie smirks.
He pulls my jeans down my legs, ripping them past my ankles. I have the craziest thought out of nowhere.
Maybe I could hire Charlie full-time to undress me – not for sex, just when I struggle to get out of my jeans, and have to hop around on one foot. It would save me minutes every day: hours every week; days every month;…
And then the heat between my legs sweeps the silliness from my mind.
Charlie grabs me by the back of my neck and pulls me up. He slips his other hand around my torso and unclips my bra. It joins the quickly growing pile of clothing scattered around the penthouse floor.
The air kisses my skin, and then Charlie does as well. I moan with approval.
Charlie drags my panties off. I need to buy something sexier, something that doesn’t scream Plain Jane, but now’s not the time. I press my legs together, trying to hide the fact that I still haven’t shaved the red bush between my legs.
I’m not used to this new world where I have to keep myself trimmed. I went nineteen years without anyone ever seeing me naked – anyone other than me, anyway. It’s hard to get my head around.
“Don’t do that,” Charlie growls.
He drags his finger up my soaking slit, then brings it his mouth and tastes it – looking me directly in the eye. “I want you – all of you. Don’t fight me.”
After hearing those words, I melt. How can I do anything else? The embarrassment about my landscaping fades away, replaced by a surging tidal wave of desire.
Charlie pushes me back.
I collide with the couch, and the air gets forced out of my lungs. I struggle for breath, but Charlie doesn’t give me a chance to recover. He leans forward, pressing his mouth against mine, and pushes my legs apart with his free hand.
He enters me with one long, thick finger. I tip my head back and moan, Charlie doesn’t stop. He lays a trail of kisses down my neck.
“Jesus, you’re wet,” he says with pleased surprise.
“For you –,” I whisper.
I don’t even know what I’m saying. Nerve endings are firing pleasure at me from every inch of my body. Not at once, but from every place Charlie’s hands roam: which is everywhere; and, all at once.
“Unbutton my shirt,” Charlie commands.
I hesitate before doing exactly as he orders. I swallow, and reach up, tussling clumsily with the ivory buttons. I gasp as I reveal Charlie’s chest. It’s as perfect as I remember: maybe more so.
He shrugs the shirt off, and unbuckles his belt himself. He levers his body up, and I finish the job by kicking his pants to the floor. His cock hangs between us. It’s thick, thicker than I ever imagined possible, and long.
“Can I…” I whisper. “Can I touch it?”
Charlie beams, as though I offered him the greatest present in the world. “You’re the boss,” he says again.
I reach out and touch a man’s penis for the first time in my life. It’s not what I expected. I don’t know what I did expect, but it wasn’t this. Charlie’s cock is rock hard, and burning hot. I play with it with wondrous desire.
“Softly,” he whispers, closing his eyes. I do as Charlie orders, tracing my fingers up and down his shaft.
“You like it?” He growls. His eyes spring open. I nod wordlessly.
He smirks. “It likes you.”
Charlie presses his mouth on mine one last time, and lowers himself toward me. I hear a crinkle, and a condom appears from God kno
ws where. I’m glad. I didn’t want to have to ask. But Charlie’s clearly an expert. That’s good, I think.
My chest rises and falls quickly. I can’t claim that I’m not nervous, not anymore. I’m practically sweating!
“I’ll stop the second you tell me too,” Charlie says.
Then I feel the heat of his fingers on my inner thigh. I squeeze my eyes shut and bite my lip. All of a sudden I’m stricken with worry. What if there’s something wrong with me? What if it hurts too much? Maybe I should tell Charlie to stop… Say I’m not ready?
“I’m nervous, Charlie,” I whisper.
“I know. It will be worth it, I promise.”
“It had better –”
It is.
I moan. “Be…”
I feel the heat radiating off Charlie’s cock between my legs. It’s like an iron taken straight out of the fire. He pushes into me – just an inch – not even: a fraction of an inch inside me. I don’t know where Charlie’s heat ends and mine begins.
It feels amazing. He feels amazing.
Charlie’s barely inside me, and yet this is already better than I could have imagined. Better than I ever dreamed.
And then Charlie’s huge, thick cock meets a resistance inside me. It’s just a pressure at first, and then my eyes spring open as I realize what’s about to happen. I’m about to lose my virginity – for good. Once Charlie takes me, I’ll never be able to go back to the girl I was.
I search Charlie’s face, and see a look of pure, unadulterated lust. For a second I don’t know whether he’ll succumb to his deepest desires, and use me, then leave me. I don’t know where the fear comes from – perhaps the deepest part of me.
But Charlie’s not like that.
“Are you sure you’re ready?” He says. His voice is low, gruff – a throaty growl that has me purring with delight.
“For you.”
I am. It’s true. I’m finally ready for a man to take me, to make me a woman. And not just any man. Charlie Thorne. My husband.
“Look at me,” Charlie whispers. He rests his palm on my left cheek and stares me directly in the eyes.
