Crush on You

by Christie Ridgway

  Maybe it was just her, but Alessandra thought Penn cooled a little at the praise of his “good works” and “fine judgment.” But he was smiling now as the mother-of-the-bride wrote out the deposit check and then shook hands with Alessandra. He swept the ladies out of her office with more of his high-profile charm.

  Then he shut the door, leaving the two of them facing each other, alone. His shoulders against the paneled wood, he gazed at her, his expression unreadable.

  Alessandra crossed her arms over her chest and fought the urge to have a little cry. Now that she had Mama’s signature on the contract, a headache was throbbing at the base of her skull. Good God, that was close. Word was out about the Tanti Baci financial problems and she’d nearly lost a booking due to the rumors.

  And this infuriating man—the one she’d promised herself she’d never speak to again—wouldn’t go away and stay away. “Good-bye, Penn.”

  “Not so fast.”

  Well, it had been worth a try. She sighed. “I suppose you expect me to thank you for that.”

  He gave her one of his happy grins—the kind he saved for nails sold in brown bags and ogling her backside. “I’m not saying I saved you, but I did help you get the gig.”

  “Listen, Penn,” she said, steel in her voice. “Believe me when I say I don’t—and won’t ever—need you to save me.”

  His happy smile turned seductive as he pushed off the closed door. “On the contrary, little nun,” he said, gesturing at the shelves of cake toppers as he came closer. “Someone needs to save you from drowning in all this gooey ‘I do’ garbage and redirect your attention to what we both know you really want—getting it on.”

  As Penn approached the young beauty across the office floor, alarm crossed her exotic face. He’d never seen anyone with such an enticing combination of features: golden skin, golden-brown eyes with an alluring tilt at their outside corners, the small, yet full mouth that was doll- like in its lush prettiness. Alessandra Baci, the tragic, virtuous baby bride who inspired in him so many devilish ideas of sin.

  And now he was ready to take up where they’d left off the night before.

  Her voice rose as he took another step forward. “What are you doing?”

  He paused, frowning. “Don’t we have—”

  “We have nothing.”

  Penn sighed. He supposed he should have known “taking up” wouldn’t be easy, and the fire in her eyes confirmed it. Out of caution, he left a couple of feet between them. The Nun of Napa had a temper, he’d seen evidence of that more than once. “Look, I’m sorry about last night. The time got away from me. I had to go out for drinks with this guy I know from L.A., and once there I was hailed by a friendly group intent upon welcoming me into their ‘lucky sperm’ club. That was a little weird, but Liam and Seth were at the table so I thought I was safe. A few bottles later . . . well, I only know somebody’s driver got us home.”

  She was shaking her head. “A night out with the lucky spermers.”

  His sperm wasn’t feeling too lucky at the moment, not with that mutinous lower lip of hers in such evidence. “I didn’t really get it,” he admitted.

  “It’s a reference to the generations in the valley who didn’t actually earn their wealth, just inherited it. You’re fortunate offspring.”

  He bristled. “I’ve worked plenty damn hard in my life. Nobody ever gave me anything.”

  “That was before . . . now, you’re lucky.”

  The notion pissed him off, and the look on Alessandra’s face and the vestiges of a mild hangover didn’t help his mood. “You, too.”

  She shook her head again. “The Bacis have no wealth to pass on. We’re cash poor. Sure, we could sell off what’s been in our family for a hundred years, but then we couldn’t afford to pay our debts and start over anywhere near Edenville.”

  Penn rolled his shoulders, as much uncomfortable with the idea of the Baci sisters giving up their legacy as his new status as someone “lucky.” He took another step forward, determined again to pick up where they’d left off. “I don’t want to talk right now.”

  She threw up a hand. “We’re certainly not doing anything other than talk.”

  Catching her fingers, he softened his voice. “Conversation is not on our agenda, honey.”

  “Neither is anything else.” She tried tugging her fingers free of his.

  He held them tighter. “C’mon.” It was no surprise that she was pissed at him, but it wasn’t as if he’d intended last evening to go as it had. On his way out of the party, Rocky Reed had dropped Lana’s name and Penn had been obligated to exercise a little damage control in the form of Johnny Walker Black on ice. It had been necessary to convince the little prick that the woman calling into his radio show about her relationship with Penn was better ignored.

  Christ Almighty, but the alternative made him break out in a cold sweat. He’d put up with a lot in his life but he couldn’t imagine anything worse than looking like a fool in public.

  “Penn . . .” the Nun of Napa said, warning in her voice.

  “Alessandra,” he mimicked, drawing her closer to him, even as she still resisted. Fire sparked between their bodies, and it put thoughts of everything else out of his head. Last night they’d been a dozen yards from a crowded party and he’d been so lost in lust he’d nearly had her naked. Remembering how it was, the material of her dress bunched in his fists and the sweet, fruity taste of her in his mouth, his blood slowed to a thick chug through his veins.

  Her body brushed against him and desire coiled in his belly. Already his balls were drawing tight. “We have unfinished business.” He drew a jerky breath into his lungs and even that felt hot. It was time to taste her, touch her, let the combustion he’d been barely controlling explode. “Honey, let’s not waste time with you being mad.”

  “I’m not one of your groupies,” she said hotly, but the anger in her voice was belied by the sudden shine of tears in her eyes. “You stood me up.”

  Penn froze, her words echoing in his head. You stood me up.

  He wasn’t the only one who didn’t appreciate feeling the fool, he realized. Alessandra wasn’t so much angry as she was hurt because she thought he’d rejected her. That he’d found her . . . what? Forgettable?

  A wash of unfamiliar tenderness cooled the burn of his blood. It was foreign enough to unsettle him, but still he dropped her hand to curve his palms around her small face. The kiss he placed on her forehead was more uncle-to-niece than lover-to-lover. “I’m an ass.”

  “I thought we established that several days ago.”

  Even hurt, she could administer a sting. “Ouch.” He placed another kiss on her forehead.

  She broke from his hold to glare at him from two feet away. “Listen, Daddy Warbucks, Little Orphan Annie doesn’t need any more of your generosity.”

  Huffing out a sigh, he glared back. No doubt about it, he sucked at this tenderness thing. “You’re a pain, do you know that?”

  “An inconvenience to you, anyway,” she said, snotty as all get-out. “Do I have to say it again? Go away, Penn.”

  He took a step forward. “That’s not what you were telling me last night. Then I think it was,” he lowered his voice to a husky whisper, “ ‘Do me, Penn. Please, Penn. I’ve got to have your hands all over me, Penn.’”

  Outrage washed color over her face. “I said no such thing, you egotistical moron.”

  “That’s e gotistical-moron-I-want-to-have-a-secret-affair-with to you,” he shot back, realizing that the “secret” aspect of the whole thing was still grating on him. Maybe there was a reason besides Rocky and the lucky spermers that he hadn’t made it to Alessandra’s place the night before.

  Not that he was backing down now. He stepped forward again, reaching for her at the same moment.

  Her hand came up and back and he recognized a girly slap when he saw one coming. Tenderness evaporated. He caught her wrist just as the momentum of her swinging arm brought her toward him. Their bodies slammed together.<
br />
  Their mouths fused.

  Her taste burst against his tongue as he thrust inside her lips. She was slick and sweet and they moaned together, a sound both frustrated and needy. Her arms twined his neck. He slid his hands down her back and then up again, his touch eager, his need insatiable.

  He had to feel her, feed on her, find satisfaction. Now. Now. Now.

  Some sensible part of his brain applauded his actions. Yes, it urged. Get this eruption out of the way and then there’d be no need for an affair, secret or otherwise. Surely this once would burn the want right out of them.

  His right hand palmed her breast while his other drew up the back of her warm thigh. Her hem rode high with his wrist and as he slanted his mouth over hers, his fingertips breached the waistband of her panties.

  Bikinis. Slinky, silky, bikinis.

  His hand squeezed the cheek of her ass as her nipple pebbled against his other palm. Alessandra was crowding closer, the soft pad of her mons riding the ridge of his hard cock, and he grunted at the goodness of it.

  This would do it. This would have to do it.

  Something that felt this incendiary was too dangerous to risk a second time, let alone for longer term.

  Her small hand was yanking up the tail of his shirt. Then it was branding the skin of his belly, causing goose bumps to break out across his ribs. For the first time in memory, he felt his own nipples tighten into hard points as a hot shudder crawled down his back.

  Even this one time might kill him.

  He shoved down her panties, then he boosted her up, her naked little ass in the palm of his hand. Still rubbing his tongue against hers, he opened his eyes so he could find her desk. He perched her there, almost coming in his pants as he watched her bright white bikinis slide down her legs to catch on her ankles above her businesslike high heels.

  Breaking the kiss, he lifted his head. Her eyes were closed, feathery lashes against her flushed cheeks, her swollen and pink mouth raising toward his. He sucked on her upper lip as he pushed up the front of her skirt.

  His heaving chest seized. Holy Mother of . . . The Nun of Napa was rated X where it counted, her female folds completely exposed to his gaze. “Bare,” she’d teased him at the party, and that’s what she was. Bare and swollen. So pretty. He lightly traced the line between those naked lips with his forefinger, opening them to release a slick wetness that made a hot shudder roll once again down his spine.

  “Alessandra,” he said against her mouth, the syllables like a succession of kisses. He pushed his hand against her inner thighs, widening them, preparing her for a deeper touch. Then he gave her a harder kiss at the same time as his thumb rolled over her clitoris and his middle finger found the snug wet pocket of her body.

  She stiffened.

  Penn made a sound at the back of his throat that was supposed to be soothing, even as he hardened the kiss. Reaching deeper inside her, he stroked in and out and then nudged her clitoris again. Her tense body tightened, he kissed, he stroked, he nudged once more, and then . . .

  Her hips jerked once and her eyes flew open.

  Holy Mother, he thought again. She took off, just with that, her body bowing, her inner muscles gripping his finger in an unmistakable rhythm.

  His mouth lifted from hers as she came against his hand in silent pleasure, her body releasing only small, stiff tremors. Stunned, Penn watched her ride through the last of her orgasm. He’d never known a woman to come with such quiet or with such agonizing restraint.

  That tender feeling washed over him again—and it scared the hell out of him.

  He backed away the instant her tiny shudders abated, gritting his teeth against the pain of leaving her wet inner clasp. His cock clamored for its release, but a wise voice inside told him that finding his own little death wouldn’t be the ending he was seeking to this.

  “I . . .” He lifted his hand, scenting the air with Alessandra’s arousal. It made him take another hasty step back before he did something stupid like fall to his knees between hers in order to taste the flavor of that sweet perfume.

  On her desk, her phone rang.

  She jolted, blinking, and he realized she was yet to come out of her post-orgasmic state. That weird tenderness welled inside him again and he quickly helped her off the desk and then drew up her panties.

  The phone pealed insistently.

  He went all Daddy Warbucks once more and kissed her forehead before lifting the receiver and putting it in her hand. Then he made a casual spin and left her office, whistling “The sun’ll come out tomorrow,” despite the sudden sense that the forecast for his own near future was gloomy, with a chance of trouble ahead.

  8

  Penn returned to the Bennett home that afternoon sweaty, dirty, and feeling downright mean. Alessandra had never showed up at the cottage—good—but he couldn’t get her out of his mind—bad, very bad.

  He didn’t know what the hell he was doing with her.

  And as he climbed the steps to the Bennett villa, he didn’t know what the hell he was doing here, either. He ran into the housekeeper, Charlene, in the spacious foyer. She mentioned something about the dinner she was leaving in the kitchen for them and also that Liam and Seth were both out in the vineyard acres adjoining the house. There were other acres owned by the family in different parts of the valley, places Penn had yet to visit.

  That he’d never visit, he decided, as he started the shower in the granite-and-mirrors bathroom. The tub was a sunken affair, something a Roman might appreciate, but Christ, Penn was a kid from a one-bedroom apartment in the San Fernando Valley. This wasn’t his place.

  To paraphrase The Beatles, it was time for Penn to get back to where he belonged.

  Clean, and in jeans, a T-shirt, and flip-flops, he hurried downstairs to give the news to Liam and Seth. Yeah, he hadn’t finished the Baci cottage, and yeah, there were things left incomplete between himself and his father’s legitimate sons, but he didn’t owe a thing to anybody. Not really. That was the upside to the situation. He was the bastard, right? He might as well go right ahead and act like one.

  The huge house was empty, though. The housekeeper had left for the evening but his brothers hadn’t come in from the vines. He stood in the opulent game room for a moment, shaking his head at how different it was from his beachside place in Malibu, and his need to escape deepened. He headed back outside.

  The temperature was still warm, the lowering sun turning the afternoon light the pale gold of chardonnay. The earth held onto the daytime heat with a greedy grasp and it seeped through the leather soles of his sandals as he headed for the barn behind the house. There, one of the workers directed Penn to an all-terrain vehicle that was used to travel through the vines and pointed to where he’d likely find the other two men.

  The sooner he told Liam and Seth, the sooner he could start for southern California. Alessandra’s face popped into his head, but he refused to feel guilty—or think about breaking the news to her. Let the Bennett brothers tell her he’d let her down.

  Something told him she wouldn’t be surprised.

  He refused to feel bad about that, either.

  A short ride on the ATV lifted his mood some. He was a guy, wasn’t he, and four fat wheels plus thrumming engine plus the straight, narrow tracks between the grapevines equaled boyish fun. Seth seemed to agree as Penn came to a halt behind the younger man in a similar vehicle. His grin was wide, even through the dust cloud created by Penn’s sudden stop.

  “Bro!” he called out.

  Penn pretended he didn’t hear the familial greeting. Probably every guy was a “bro” in Seth’s book, anyway. “Where’s Liam?” he asked. He only wanted to go through this one time.

  “Right here.” The older Bennett was crouching to inspect something on a nearby vine. “What’s up?” he asked, straightening.

  Seth snapped his fingers before Penn could reply. “I’ve been meaning to get some info from you. You have a lawyer, right?”

  “Yeah,” he answered,
but cautiously. He didn’t like the look on Seth’s face. While Penn had a lawyer, an agent, and an accountant, all supposed to be looking out for him, recent experience told him that no one truly stood between him and stupid-ass mistakes. “What do you want her for?”

  “I assume your attorney will be handling the inheritance issues for you,” Seth said.

  Yeah, Penn really didn’t like where this was going. “Look, let’s be clear about something. I don’t want anything from Calvin Bennett. I never have.”

  Liam and Seth didn’t say a word.

  Penn pushed his hands through his hair, then sighed, his gaze roaming the vines arranged like disciplined rows of soldiers ordered to stand with arms outstretched. They extended forever, it seemed—a startling view for an urban kid more familiar with houses arranged shoulder to shoulder and cars idling bumper to bumper.

  “This isn’t my place,” he said, trying to explain.

  “Of course it is,” Liam replied, his voice mild. “You’re a Bennett.”

  “I didn’t want to be,” he confessed. “I couldn’t understand why my last name was different than my mother’s and I would have changed it, except,” Christ, this sounded stupid, but it was true, “Penn Penn was ridiculous.”

  Seth’s mouth twitched. “Penn is your mother’s last name, I take it.”

  “Yeah.” And he could have changed that, too, he supposed, renamed himself Miles Smith or Reginald Jones, but that would have been like erasing Debbie Penn from his life and she’d been a nice woman. A loving mother. A person sucked in by a good sob story, but who was Penn to criticize that? “She had the proverbial heart of gold.”

  When the other two men didn’t say anything, he found himself getting defensive. “Look, your father apparently was a temporary regular at the bar where she worked. I suppose he gave her the usual ‘unfulfilled before now,’ and ‘never felt like this before,’ what-have-you. When she found out she was pregnant, he stuck around for a few more months. Long enough to get his name on the birth certificate, though he was gone by the time she could go back to cocktail waitressing.”