Crush on You
Page 19
He laughed. “You taste good,” he said, and then ran a finger down her pulsing skin to slide inside her. He pulled free to paint her own wetness over her bottom lip. “See?”
Her tongue reached for his finger and she tasted the creaminess of her own body. Another burn washed over her skin, and beneath her bra her nipples furled tighter, the lace of her bra rasping against the sensitive flesh. She wanted to be naked.
Only, oh wow, how arousing it was to be mostly dressed, and with a half-naked Penn Bennett between her thighs. She felt the silky ends of his hair caress the skin at the inside of her hipbones and then he was kissing her there, too, sucking again, little stinging kisses that made her jerk and shudder. It hurt, it didn’t. She wanted him to stop. She wanted him never to stop.
“Penn,” she whispered, closing her eyes.
“A little louder, honey,” he said.
But she’d given him so much already. Given him more of herself—like this, anyway—than she’d given anyone. To hang on to what little power she had in this circumstance—where he had all the moves and she had only the helpless reactions—then she was going to have to keep them as subdued as she could.
Just another security measure.
She opened her eyes to catch him watching her face. There was knowledge in his expression, another example of his expertise, and she could tell he thought he could break her. Make her beg, plead, show her passion with her voice. Be shattered by an orgasm.
His fingertip circled her clitoris. She caught her breath, caught the moan that wanted to break free, and hung on to her senses, even as he tried to make her release them with his mouth, his fingers, his intimate kisses that had her throbbing, pulsing, tingling. Everywhere.
She almost lost the game when he lifted his head, his beautiful mouth wet. His thumb rolled along the edge of his bottom lip and then he licked the moisture off it, as if to savor more of her taste. Her belly clenched. A moan welled in her throat.
Still watching her, he ran his tongue over his two longest fingers and slid them inside her body. Still silent, she bowed up and clenched hard on the delicious intrusion. Penn groaned.
“You’re killing me, baby,” he said.
She was the one dying. Any minute now he was going to break her self-imposed chains and then he’d know . . . he’d know . . .
There was nothing to know! She was an adult. This was sensual, sexual, not emotional and even the rookie could win the contest sometimes.
His fingers moved out, pushed in. She tried breathing with the rhythm, letting the pleasure roll over her in controlled waves. He slid deep, held, then drew his fingers out again, curling them to touch her in a new spot. An expert touch, one that had the climax waiting to pounce curling tighter and tighter, even as her restraint was raveling.
He was watching again . . . waiting to pounce, too, the minute her passion overtook her. When she gave voice to it, he’d win.
He couldn’t win. Alessandra reached for her neckline. She yanked on her dress, the skinny straps sliding down her arms so she could pull the bodice and strapless bra beneath her breasts. The bunched material plumped them high, her hard nipples standing hard. Penn froze.
She didn’t. Hoping he couldn’t see her that her fingers were trembling, she ran them over her hot skin, then cupped her palms around her flesh and thumbed her nipples. Under Penn’s fascinated stare, she pinched them as he had that night in her bedroom. The sensation arrowed down her body and she clenched tighter on Penn’s fingers.
“Oh, no, you don’t.” He shook his head, as if shaking himself awake. His fingers glided free of her and then he crawled up her body, pushing her hands away so that he could cup her breasts in his own.
She bit her lip. It was so much better to feel his workingman’s rough skin against her. He plumped them in his palms, then brought them closer together, to lick the top of one nipple and then the other. She writhed against the sleeping bag, and he threw a leg on top of her. The side of his jean-clad knee pressed against her mound, giving her a delicious weight to wiggle against.
Penn tightened his hands on her breasts, the touch firm as he brought both of them closer together. His shaggy hair tickled her flesh and she slid her fingers through it. He groaned, his knee pushing harder against her, just as he pushed her nipples closer toward her center and took both in his mouth. Sucked.
Her fingers bit into his scalp and every muscle in her body stiffened. Her hips pushed up, fighting the weight of his leg. He didn’t release it.
Or release her. Instead, his hands grew more insistent, cupping her harder even as the suction on her nipples increased. She felt the edge of his teeth at the base of the hard nubs and her breath held in her chest.
Her legs widened, his knee slid against her center and he pushed there, firm. The gentle bite on the base of her nipples sharpened, and then his tongue rubbed over their tips.
Her hips rose, her bare folds brushed the rough-soft denim, and she pushed against the steady pressure of his leg and . . .
Came.
Surprise stole her voice, her breath, her thoughts. She rode through the waves of bliss in spontaneous silence, not trying to win a contest, just trying to survive the sweet agony of it.
From far away she heard Penn curse. Then he was naked, over her, in her, his erection stretching her contracting inner muscles and giving her another wave of pleasure as they found something to wrap tight.
“Alessandra. Good. God, so good.” Penn was chanting as he drove inside the clasp of her body. She tilted her hips, and he rubbed against that special inner spot on every thrust. She was still quivering around him when he climaxed, again groaning her name.
He collapsed half-on, half-off her body, his cheek against her fanned hair. Pinning her, she thought with a smile.
Penning her in. Ha. Funny me.
She opened her mouth to share with him the pun, then the thought froze in her brain.
No, no. He hadn’t penned her. Not at all. After too many years, the Nun of Napa’s passion was free. Emotions were caught, but stored safely away from him.
Alessandra was safe, wasn’t she?
Her pulse was pounding with anxiety as her lover drew up on one elbow. He stared down at her, his gaze benign, then his eyes narrowed and his head tilted, as if he could read her apprehension on her face.
She swallowed, her vulnerability bringing her to the edge of tears.
Penn’s expression cleared. Grinning, he tweaked her nose between his thumb and forefinger. His smile turned more wicked as he raised his gaze skyward. “I’m blessed, for I have sinned with the best damned fuck in the universe.”
Oh, the rat. She shoved him off her, pretending to be mad as her pulse stuttered, steadied. The best damned fuck in the universe. Wouldn’t you know that Penn Bennett would be intuitive enough, and yes, raunchy enough, to say the right thing in the right moment.
A woman with a real heart might fall in love with him for that.
15
Penn shut himself inside the Tanti Baci cottage, testing the double-entry doors he’d just hung at the entrance. The place was reasonably protected now—and a security company would complete the job later in the week. No more nights on the floor in the bridal boudoir, though he was thinking of putting up a brass plaque to honor what he and Alessandra had accomplished there two nights before.
No ghosts had appeared, but he sure as hell had seen stars.
Was there a more frustrating and more fabulous fuck than Alessandra Baci, the Nun of Napa? She pretended to hate the four-letter word he’d used for her, but he’d seen that gleam in her eyes. All the good girls liked to get dirty now and then, even though she continued to stifle her responses. But a lady who hadn’t been laid since her teens was a special case.
A case he had a sudden hankering to attend to again, right this instant. While he’d spent another night in the cottage, last evening he’d been all alone. An affair to his mind didn’t add up to two nights and one interlude in her office. Maybe he needed to
explain that to her—all while he was kissing her until she was warm and wet and needy.
A little desperate himself, he yanked open the new door to go after her—and found himself face-to-face with Roger. Crap.
“Hey, Penn,” his friend said, a big ol’ grin stretching his thin face.
The big ol’ grin made it clear that Roger was seeing a few stars himself, meaning Penn had to make a decision. He’d been able to avoid it for the past couple of days. With the cottage in disarray, the Wedding Fever producer and Lana had taken off to a bed-and-breakfast in Sonoma County, giving Penn a reprieve. But if they were back—so was his dilemma.
Did he tell Roger that the woman who spread that wide smile over his face was likely to rob him blind?
“Everything all right?” Roger asked, stepping into the cottage.
“Yeah.”
“The place looks great.” He ran his hand over the back of one of the handmade Craftsman-styled benches that Alessandra had ordered and that had been delivered the day before. Their honey finish was just a shade lighter than the gleaming hardwood floor recently refinished.
“Yeah,” Penn said again, rubbing the back of his neck with his palm. “Did you, uh, have a good couple of days?”
“Lana loved a boutique she found in Healdsburg.”
“I’m sure she did.” Especially since it was most likely Penn’s money she was spending at the place. He hadn’t sicced the cops on Lana Lang because it had been so damn embarrassing just to think of how trusting he’d been that he couldn’t imagine actually telling the police that he’d been duped. What if word of that had gotten around L.A.? He’d called himself a fool and accepted his losses as the price of a lesson well learned, never considering she’d move on to someone else—especially someone he knew.
Shit. Fooled again.
Blowing out a long breath, he shut the door to the cottage, giving him and Roger privacy. “Listen, I’ve got something important—”
The door popped open. In platform shoes and a bustier that looked more like club-wear than wine country-wear, Lana entered. “Honey,” she said, her gaze lasering on Roger. “You got away from me.”
She swished past Penn to reach the other man’s side. Her hand found the crook of his arm and her mouth met the corner of Roger’s. At the kiss’s end, a faint smudge of her red lipstick remained, looking like she’d clipped the poor guy on the jaw.
The blow Penn had to deliver was going to be the one that really hurt. But hell, he couldn’t keep quiet, even if he had to do this in front of Lana herself. Steeling his spine, he shut the door once more, then turned toward the couple. “Roger—”
Click. That damn door, open again. With a growl of frustration, he spun around. There stood Alessandra, framed in the doorway, and he felt like he’d taken an uppercut.
He didn’t know what it was . . . the soft morning light surrounding her or maybe it was her looks in comparison to Lana’s. The slender blonde was a beauty, but the brunette in front of him was apricots and plums and the juiciest of peaches. Dressed in an orangey-gold cotton dress that halter-tied around her neck, fitted close at her waist, then billowed past her knees, she looked like summer. Behind her, the vineyard showed a bountiful green, but nothing could look more lush or beautiful than Alessandra herself.
She pushed a handful of her coffee-dark hair over her shoulder. “I . . . I’m sorry.” Her gaze darted from Penn to the couple. “Am I interrupting something?”
“Not at all,” he hastened to assure her. No way would he admit his idiocy in front of Alessandra. He glanced at Roger and Lana. “You remember—”
“The Nun of Napa!” Lana crowed the phrase. “We had dinner at Oliver’s last night after we returned to Edenville and heard all about you there.”
“Including the wedding that wasn’t,” Roger said quietly. “We’re sorry for your loss.”
And Penn was damn sorry the other man had brought it up. She was moving on from that time and from Saint Tommy—or shit, maybe she wasn’t, since as far as Penn could tell she wasn’t ready to stop keeping her affair with him a secret.
She barely looked at him as she stepped into the main room. “Thank you.” On strappy short-heeled sandals, she turned to regard the new doors. “These look good.”
And so did her small toes, gleaming with a color that matched her dress. Their appeal—her toes!—pulled him to her side. “You’re late this morning,” he said, his voice rougher than he intended.
Her gaze flew toward him, color rising on her throat. “Well . . . um . . .”
With his fingertip, he drew a line along the slope of her smooth shoulder. She was so lovely she made him ache from his molars to his soles. Without thinking, he moved in, wanting a taste of that sweet mouth. His palm circled her upper arm. “Baby,” he whispered.
Yet another shadow darkened the doorway. “Am I late?”
Sally Knowles, Saint Tommy’s mother. Penn’s hand dropped. Alessandra shifted out of his reach. “You’re right on time, Sally,” she said.
The older woman beamed at Penn. “We’re going over the decorations for Clare’s big day. It looks as if you’re finished with the cottage.”
“Just about,” he replied, then turned to the other two in the room. “Sally Knowles, this is Roger McCann and Lana Lang.”
“The ones I told you about—from Wedding Fever,” Alessandra added.
“Wedding Fever!” she exclaimed. “I’m such a fan of the show, particularly since my daughter Clare is getting married here in a few short days. The first wedding in the Tanti Baci cottage! Let me get your opinion . . .”
Apparently, assuming the couple were experts on marriage ceremonies, Sally waxed on about her plans. “Grapevine swags along the benches to frame the center aisle. We’re having real grape clusters—chardonnay, not that it matters, because at this time in the growing season even the cab grapes are pale green—wired to the vines along with white roses. Those are Clare’s colors—pale green and ivory.”
White rose petals would carpet the walkway to the front of the cottage and the flower girls would scatter red petals on their way up the aisle. A few fairy lights “of course” would light the room, even though it was an afternoon wedding. Besides the unity candle the bride and groom would light, there would be another candle as well.
“It’s to be in Tommy’s honor,” Sally said, her expression losing some of its excitement. “My son who died on his wedding day.”
“We heard about that,” Roger murmured, his forefinger rubbing over his chin. Penn had known him for long time, and there was something turning in the back of the man’s mind.
Sally spun toward Alessandra. “And we’ll have you light it, Allie.”
She started. “What? I thought Clare—”
“Being stubborn.” Sally waved a hand. “Following the bride’s processional and after the minister welcomes the guests, you’ll move to Tommy’s candle. It will be as if he’s right here with us.”
Christ. The stricken look on Alessandra’s face pierced Penn through the chest. Couldn’t she have a moment when she wasn’t Tommy’s girl? He moved toward her, thinking to offer her comfort, and maybe show Sally that the Nun of Napa had another man on her mind now.
“Lana . . .” The speculation in Roger’s voice halted his steps.
Oh no, Penn thought. He glanced back at his friend, who was clearly working on a plan. As one of the best of the production team at Build Me Up for the first three seasons, Roger had worn that exact same expression many times.
“Lana, see if you can get a hold of Dom and Kenny. That is—” Roger glanced at Sally and smiled.
Penn had forgotten his friend’s charming yet crafty smile.
Sally blinked. “That is?”
“If you think your daughter and her fiancé wouldn’t mind if we filmed the ceremony. We were planning a short segment on Tanti Baci, but if we stretch it we can give more attention to the winery and give our audience another tug to the heart by honoring Tommy’s memory.”
Swearing under his breath, Penn strode to her, catching sight of the tears in her eyes as she turned her back. With Sally involved in enthusiastic conversation with Roger and Lana, he took the chance to run his hand down the length of Alessandra’s long hair. “Honey . . .” he whispered.
“I’m fine,” she said, her voice tight, her back stiff. “This is great. Terrific publicity for Tanti Baci.”
His heart ached for her. What a good little soldier. “Are you sure? Look, I can talk to Roger . . . I’ll tell him . . .”
Oh, hell. He did have things to tell Roger—and now that was a much bigger problem.
If Alessandra was determined to go through with this filming, then he’d have to keep the truth about Lana to himself for a while longer. In reaction to the news, Roger might head back to L.A., and Penn wasn’t going to risk ruining this opportunity for Alessandra.
He’d do anything for her.
The thought startled him. What? Anything?
Dude, you’re surprised? a voice inside him said. Face it, you’d do anything for the girl because—
Alessandra suddenly swung to face him. Startled again, he stepped back, though he was damn glad of the interruption to that dangerous “because.”
“You should talk to someone, Penn,” she said, her voice low and insistent.
“What?”
Her hand grasped his. “And I don’t mean Roger. Life’s short, you know. Very, very short. If you care for her, if you love her, you should let her know.”
He did love her, damn it.
God. His heart pounded, thumping against his chest wall. He was in love. He was in love with Alessandra.
“Let Lana know, Penn.”
Let Lana know?
And then he understood, and oh, it was almost funny. Or completely screwed up. Because the woman he just realized he loved was convinced he cared for someone else. Alessandra was still squeezing his right hand so he used his left to cover his eyes. He couldn’t let her see.