“Excuse me?” Mother gasped. Her eyes bulged a little. She was going to go nuclear mode, just like she did when a store wouldn’t accept a return.
“No, excuse you.” Ian pointed a finger at her. Red was creeping up his neck above his collar. “I’ve never in my life seen a parent treat their own child like this. Look at her. She’s beaten down, and you’re enjoying it.”
“Look here,” my father started, but Ian held up a hand.
“I’ve looked. And I’ve seen enough. For fuck’s sake, you’re like a pair of fairy tale monsters.” He turned to me. “Penny. I love you. And I’m sorry to make a spectacle. But I can’t be here for this. You’re welcome to come with me.”
I looked from him to my parents and back, my mouth open. I was helpless to say anything. What if I made my parents mad? I’d already disappointed them so much in my life.
He must have surmised an answer in my pleading expression, but I didn’t know how, since I hadn’t made a decision, myself.
Ian held up one hand and backed away. “Call me when you’re ready to talk about this.” He turned to my parents, a muscle ticking in his jaw. “Enjoy your evening torturing your daughter.”
Stony silence fell over the table. Both my mother and my father glared at me, their expressions screaming triumphantly that they’d expected this to be a disaster, and it had been. And, while my pain tightened into a hard little ball in my chest, I realized that the only person in this room tonight who truly cared about me at all had just walked out the door.
I stood and knocked my chair over. “Oh, poop!” I bent down and picked it up, grabbing my purse as I righted it.
“Sit down, Penny!” my mother ordered. I didn’t listen. I didn’t care if they never spoke to me again. Keeping them wasn’t worth letting Ian go. I ran toward the door.
My heart pounded but not from exertion. From the fear that he was walking away, and that if I didn’t catch him before he got in his car, that would be it. No phone call would ever erase the memory of me choosing those assholes over him. And after he’d defended me.
I plunged out the door. Ian was walking down the sidewalk, fast, but before I could say anything, he turned abruptly and headed back. His eyes were down, so for a second he didn’t see me. When he did, anger and apology warred on his face. Apology won out, but as he tried to speak, I cut him off. “No. No, let me say what I want to say first, okay?”
He’d turned around because he’d been coming back for me. That was all that mattered.
I wanted to jump into his arms, but an invisible force field of shame stopped me. “What you did for me tonight… No one in my life has ever stuck up for me the way you just did. No one has made me feel…” Tears filled my eyes. He’d done all that, and I’d seriously almost stayed in my seat there in the restaurant. “No one has ever made me feel so loved and so safe…”
“Hey, hey,” he said, taking me in his arms right there, despite the stares of the couple passing us to go into the restaurant. “You don’t deserve to be treated the way they treated you in there. And they don’t deserve you. You are so much more than a bank account or a job.”
He stepped back and put his hands on my shoulders. “You’re Penny-Fucking-Parker, all right? A whole person who has thoughts and feelings and ideas that impress me every day. God handed them a gift when he gave you to them, and they’re fucking miserable and ungrateful for it? Fuck them. I love you. And I want you to love you as much as I do.”
I knew Ian was religious, but he’d never really brought it up strongly. The fact that he would now made me believe him, more so than I might have before. And it was strangely humbling.
“Come on,” he said, putting his arm around my shoulder. “We still need dinner, and you need cheering up. I’ve got an idea.”
We walked to his car and drove away in relative silence. I thought of my parents back at that restaurant, what they must be saying.
I bet they were arguing with the waiter about not paying for any of the food we’d ordered. That made me absurdly happy.
After a few blocks, I realized Ian was driving toward my neighborhood. “Are you expecting me to cook for you at my place?” I teased, the anxiety in my chest easing somewhat.
“I thought that you could use some profound spiritual guidance.” He didn’t say any more, but as soon as we turned onto the street, I knew where he was taking me. It was the little Chinese takeout place where we’d bought our illicit picnic on our first date.
“They do have the best fortune cookies,” I said, and I laughed, because if I didn’t, I was going to start crying all over again.
We ordered, and I didn’t go for the guaranteed breath killers this time. When they gave us our food, Ian suggested, “How about we take this back to my place? I have something I want to show you.”
“Okay. But first.” I reached in the bag and pulled out our fortune cookies. “Let’s see what these say.”
We sat in the car with the engine idling, and Ian cracked into his cookie first. He read it and laughed. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
“What does it say?” I asked, and he handed it to me, a huge grin on his face. I looked down and read aloud, “‘An unexpected relationship will become permanent.’ You planted this!”
“I swear I didn’t. But I’m not complaining about the contents.” He nodded toward mine. “Go on.”
I opened mine and fished out the paper. “‘Stop searching forever. Happiness is just next to you.’”
My heart ached.
“You know, we’re going to have to stop doing this,” he said. “They’re not always going to line up this well.”
“I think it’s a sign,” I said through the lump in my throat.
He put the car in gear. “I think you’re right.”
I hoped he was right.
* * * *
Traffic was surprisingly light, but the weight of the mood in the car wasn’t. As we drove over the Brooklyn Bridge, I wondered if the heady silence between us would bring the entire roadway crashing into the river. Something had changed between us, and for the better. Which should have been impossible, considering how well things had already gone so far.
“I’m sorry I’m not talkative,” Ian said suddenly, quietly. “It feels like I should say something profound.”
“I know what you mean.” And I did, although I couldn’t describe it.
When we got to his apartment, that feeling intensified. We were solid and real to me, not potential. We’d already happened, and now we just…were. And yet, things seemed fragile, despite the permanence the fortune had promised.
“I want to apologize,” I said as we sat across the corner from each other at his dining table. We’d poured our food out onto actual plates this time, which was a nice change from eating off cardboard together.
“For what?” he asked.
Did he not know? “For my parents.”
He chewed thoughtfully, and took a swallow of water before he answered. “Why would you apologize for them? You can’t control the fact that they’re—”
“Assholes?” I finished for him, because I knew he was too considerate to say the word. “I know it’s not my fault they act that way. But I’m sorry I exposed you to them and how toxic they are. And I’m sorry I didn’t leave with you.”
“I shouldn’t have put you in that position,” he said, looking away, the way he always did when he was uncomfortable. This time, it was out of shame. I could tell by the soft volume of his voice. “It was an ultimatum. You deserve better.”
“I do,” I agreed. “I deserve you.”
After we finished eating, we took the plates to the kitchen. The quiet was killing me.
It must have been making Ian jumpy, too, because when he said, “Hang on a second, and I’ll wash these,” he was way too loud.
He had a dishwasher, but I supposed he didn’t want to run it for two plates and two forks and two glasses we’d only sipped water out of. I thought I should still help, even though
there weren’t that many. “How about I wash, you dry? You paid for the food, the least I can do is help with the manual labor.”
“Sounds like a deal.” He jolted, his eyes going wide. “I remembered what it was I wanted to show you.”
I’d forgotten he’d mentioned that outside the restaurant. Now, I really wanted to know what it was. “Show me!”
He reached up and flipped open a cupboard door. Inside, there were things on the shelves. Cans of soup, and boxes of pasta. A loaf of bread. Some quinoa and a packet of sun-dried tomatoes. Oatmeal. Real, actual food.
“You went grocery shopping!” I squealed.
“And look at this.” He opened the refrigerator, and inside there were eggs, orange juice, a couple of raw steaks and some leafy greens. “Now the beer won’t get lonely.”
“I’m so proud of you!” I threw my arms around his neck for a quick hug.
“I thought you might be.”
As I turned to the sink and flipped on the tap, he grabbed a dishtowel and threw it over his shoulder in preparation for his duties. I was struck by a vision of him doing the same thing with a burp cloth, juggling a baby—our baby—in his other arm. I wanted that so badly my teeth clenched.
He dropped his phone into the dock on the counter and hit something on the screen, turning away as the music started over the sound system.
“Oh, wow. I haven’t heard this in ages.” He whistled under his breath. “My iTunes library is too big.”
“Stop trying to impress me,” I said dryly. The tune was poppy and upbeat, and I couldn’t place the era it was from. It sounded like a cross between a sixties song and something out of the eighties. And it was mad repetitive. “What song is this? He sounds like Paul McCartney.”
“Close, it is a Beatle. George Harrison. ‘I’ve Got My Mind Set On You.’ It’s so fucking catchy you’ll still be listening to it in your sleep this time next year.” He took the dishtowel from his shoulder and slapped it onto the counter. “Come on. Dance with me.”
I flicked water from my hands. “In the kitchen?”
“Humor me.” He snagged me with an arm around my waist and pulled me into an awkward, fast two-step.
“I always do.” I hopped up to kiss his cheek then pushed myself back with our joined hands. He lifted one arm and spun me, and I stepped on his toes.
He caught me, laughing. “We’ll have to take lessons sometime. We can’t be a truly chic and sexy couple if we can’t dance like we’re making love on the floor.”
The mental image I had was probably not the one he intended. “That would be some really terrible dancing.”
“That’s not what I meant, you pervert.” He smiled down at me. His smile was perfect.
There was my intrusive imagination, again, creating a scene in my mind so vivid I could almost feel his body above mine, the bite of hard wood at my back.
My chest squeezed, a flutter of nerves. Stop searching forever. Happiness is just next to you. My head got light. My throat went dry. I’m sure I looked like I was going to faint, and I might.
He tightened his hold on me. “Did I make you swoon? Because if I did, I need to call some people and brag.”
My mouth fell open in a surprised laugh. “No. It’s just…you. Being you.”
He frowned, his expression changing to something more cautious. I had memorized that transition without realizing it; it was pained distrust, like he thought he could be rejected at any moment.
The big dumb, amazing idiot.
“You’re the one, you know,” I continued. “You’re my forever. I want it to be you.”
“I want it to be me, too.” he said with a hesitant smile.
I licked my bottom lip, extremely self-conscious of it a heartbeat later. “I mean it. I love you. And I don’t really care about some artificial, socially constructed timeline that’s supposed to guarantee forever. Even if we broke up two months from now—”
He bowed his back to lean down and take my face in his hands and kissed me, somehow soft and urgent at once. When he raised his head, he still cupped my jaw, holding me like a precious, fragile object. “Never going to happen. So, there’s no sense in talking about us ever breaking up. As long as we’re discussing artificial, socially constructed timelines, I’ve known for a while that we belonged together. It just wasn’t the sort of thing I felt like I could say without it sounding like… Jesus, I just didn’t want to sound like I was trying to get into your knickers.”
This was heavy stuff. This was terrifying, exhilarating, joyful, heavy stuff. No wonder people described love as being swept away.
I stepped up to kiss him again, and threaded my arms around his neck. “I have to tell you something, just so we can be totally clear.”
“Mmhm,” he murmured against my lips.
I pushed my fingers through the hair at the back of his head and tightened my hold just a touch. My heart swam mermaid flips in my stomach, and my thighs squeezed together. “I want to. Tonight.”
“Want to what?” Realization washed over his features in an almost comical wave. He cleared his throat and asked, “What, now?”
There was that darn squeeze again, but this time, it was in an entirely different location. “Yeah. We could wait until after we do the dishes, but—”
“Fuck the dishes.” He boosted me up on the counter and stood between my legs.
I remembered horsing around in the hotel pool, the way his bare skin felt against my thighs. Even the water had been too much of a barrier then, and we had way too many clothes on now. I grabbed the undone collar of his shirt and gave it an impatient tug.
“Wait, wait.” He placed his hands over mine and held them to his chest. His heartbeat was a rapid, powerful throb against my palms. “You’re sure you don’t want to wait for something more romantic?”
“I’ve been waiting for something ‘more romantic’ since I was thirteen years old,” I said, the pain of my parents’ lie crushing my heart all over. “Can’t it just be enough that I love you?”
“It’s everything.” He covered my mouth with his, and I held onto him, rumpling the fabric of his shirt beneath my fingers. When he lifted his head, his gaze lingered on my mouth, almost dreamily. “Should we go up to the bedroom?”
My head swam. My heart pounded. His eyes flicked up to mine, and I breathed, “Yes.”
Chapter Thirteen
Stopping in the middle of the buildup was weird. It would have been easier to have just jumped right into sex from making out, with no sharp transition. Now that I knew the night wouldn’t stop shy of defloration, my mind went totally blank, and I had no idea how to get back into that sexy mindset.
I went up the stairs ahead of Ian, and he held onto my hand as we went. I looked back to see him popping the remaining buttons on his shirt with one hand, and I turned before he saw me watching.
This was happening. Oh my god, it was actually going to happen.
When we got to his bedroom, he let go of my hand. “I’m going to go get a condom. Just so we have one within reach.”
He was so matter of fact about it. Like, my penis is going to be in your vagina later, better get the equipment. He threw his shirt across the end of the bed as he walked to the bathroom.
Get your head together. You want this to be perfect? Make it be perfect. I slipped my dress down and kicked it aside. I went to the shirt, weighing my idea in my mind. Guys thought it was sexy when women wore their clothes, but it did seem a little weird to put it on right before I was going to have to take it off, again. On the other hand, I wanted to be sexy, and while he’d practically seen everything before, he hadn’t seen it all at once. The thought made me suddenly shy.
I shed my bra and reached down to straighten my navy blue lace panties over my butt. Then I snatched up the shirt and pulled it on. The bathroom light snapped off, and Ian stepped out. I moved into the long slant of moonlight on the floor. He froze.
“I didn’t know how naked I should be.” I pulled the shirt closed at my waist
. “I thought I would surprise you, but then I got nervous and—” God, didn’t he know when to rescue me from myself? I shifted to my other foot. “Say something.”
He started toward me, and with each step he took, my pulse sped up. There was a raw possessiveness his expression, almost too intense as he wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me against his body. Our skin touched everywhere the shirt was open. The thrill of it raced through me. He tossed the condom on the bed and boosted me up to put my legs around him—I’d never considered that he might actually be strong—and carried me to the bed. I dug my fingers into his shoulders, not to hold on because he couldn’t support me, but because they were so damn broad, it was totally hot to hang onto them.
He set me on my feet, letting me slide down him until I hit the floor. He knelt before me, his warm palms closing over my backs of my thighs to support me. I definitely needed support when he nuzzled the shirt open and scraped over my belly with his slightly prickly chin. I sucked in a breath on a sound like a tiny, panicked dog yipping in alarm.
“You know, that makes me nervous. If this takes your breath away, what will happen when I do this?” He kissed my stomach, just under my belly button, and my hips jerked. Before I noticed I was sinking my fingers into it, I had two handfuls of his hair. His hands smoothed up my thighs, his fingertips brushing my ass.
“Take the shirt off,” he said softly, kissing lower, his mouth half on my skin, half on the scalloped lace edge of my panties. “Let me see you.”
My breasts tingled, goose bumps jumping out all over. I practically tore off the shirt to stand in front of him in nothing but my underwear. He looked up at me as if in worship; I’d never seen so much open adoration aimed at me before. He reached up, bracketing my ribs to pull me down to sit on the bed in front of him.
“You know we can stop if you’re not ready, or you don’t like it. Just tell me,” he reassured me.
“Okay. I’ll remember that.” I took a deep breath. “But right now, can you please fuck me?”
“Happy to oblige. But can I do one thing first?” He beckoned me with a finger, and I leaned down so we were eye to eye.
First Time: Penny's Story (First Time (Penny) Book 1) Page 19
