A big-band-style orchestra played on a temporary stage, and a dance floor had been laid over the marble tile. I stood at the edge, my gaze flicking over the crowd. I knew I looked super hot, because Rosa had helped me with my hair, which swept back from my forehead in stiff waves that wouldn’t move in a hurricane but looked chic and sophisticated, as befitting someone who worked at the hippest digital fashion magazine on the internet. When I’d shown Sophie my tight, floor-length, strapless black velvet gown a week ago, she’d praised its retro look and loaned me a thick silver choker from her mother’s collection of 1990’s jewelry. It really went perfectly with the whole Sharon Stone look I had going on.
So, working my hotness? Not a problem. But even though there were some incredibly sexy men in the place tonight, and I’d had more than one approving nod from some of them, romance was the last thing on my mind. I still had a misery hangover from my earlier trip down breakup voicemail road.
Which was a shame, considering my cleavage was impressive enough to hide a cell phone. And it actually was; my job tonight was to mind Sophie’s phone, and my boobs were the only place I could think of to put it.
Okay, Penny. Time to snap out of your funk. You didn’t get this dressed up to do nothing. I squared my shoulders and prepared to find a dance partner. Maybe even an anonymous sex partner. That might also be fun.
Bad breakup, new Penny.
That’s when I saw Ian. Standing across the room, a glass of champagne in his hand, decked out in a tuxedo that made him look like James motherfucking Bond.
I felt like I’d been shot. This was so unfair. Why now? Why when I’d just gotten my confidence up? Why on the very day I’d listened to the progression of his messages from “Hey, Doll, I love you,” to “Hi Penny, I loved you?”
But, for as handsome as he looked, he also looked really miserable. Good.
A part of me hoped that he would pretend he hadn’t seen me, and we wouldn’t speak. Another part of me desperately wanted him to approach.
The former part was disappointed, as my feet moved without permission from my brain or heart. My first instinct was to run from the hurt I knew I was about to feel, but even in my wounded and heartbroken state, I knew that was ridiculous. So, rather than turn in the other direction, I met him on the other side of the dance floor.
He looked even better close up, where I could gaze into his gorgeous green eyes and remember the width of his shoulders. Take me back. Please, take me back, I wanted to say, but what came out was, “Ian, what are you doing here?”
What do you think he’s doing here? He’s Neil’s friend. I don’t know why I hadn’t anticipated this.
Were Ian’s eyes actually watering? “I came to get you.”
Okay. There were definitely less alarming things to say to your ex-girlfriend.
“That turned out creepier than I intended.” He ran a hand through his hair, ruffling it from it’s perfectly combed state. “But I want you back. I want you to come with me to Nassau. We can get a nice apartment with a pool and ocean views. We can go on the fucking House Hunters show if you want. Be their token older man, younger woman couple who can’t agree on anything—”
“Ian…” I interrupted him, but I didn’t have anything to say. I just didn’t want him to keep dangling that hope when I couldn’t even believe if this was really happening.
“You said once that you believed whatever happens between us, we would be together in the end. I believe that, too. I was stupid. I was so fucking stupid to say what I did to you. And to not fight harder for you. But I want you.”
I took a breath so deep and sudden I worried that Rosa’s double-sided-tape trick would fail me.
“I know you don’t believe me, but I never cheated on Gena. I wish I could make you understand why I would lie about it to Annie—”
“Don’t.” I didn’t want to hear about this. Not when my brain and my heart were going head-to-head. Whatever was in his past was in his past. It was over and done with, and it couldn’t hurt me. And though I had nothing but my trust in him to guarantee that he would be faithful, that trust was so strong, I wondered how it had ever faltered. I wiped a tear away from my eye with my thumb and cut him off. “Dance with me?”
He accepted my invitation with a quiet, “Of course.”
The band was playing that old standard, “I Wanna Be Around”, which was the most horribly inappropriate song to heal a breakup to, but I didn’t care. The moment his arm encircled my waist and he pulled me against him, everything I’d felt for him roared back to life like a fire out of control, burning me up with fear and sadness and exhilarating joy. It was all too much, and I gripped his shoulder as we started to move, as though by physically holding him, I could keep him forever. “I don’t want to do this, anymore, Ian. I don’t want to be without you.”
“And I don’t want you to rush into coming back to me.” He paused. “I do want you to come back to me. I would love it if you rushed. But I want to earn your trust.”
I leaned my head on his chest to hide my tears. “We have so much time to worry about that. But the way I feel about you? It isn’t going to go away because of a lie you told someone in your past,” I promised. “This isn’t going to be perfect. It might take a long time to get back to where we were. But it will be worth it. And for right now? I just want you.”
“You have me, Doll. You’ve always had me.”
Relief overwhelmed me. I lifted my head and asked, “What if I said no to leaving New York? What if I told you I wanted to stay here? That I wanted you to stay here?”
There was no question in my mind that I was going. But I wanted to know if this was conditional. If it was, I didn’t know how I would feel.
“I would turn down the job,” he answered without hesitation.
“Ian…” I shook my head. What a stupid, impetuous man I’d fallen for. “That would destroy your career.”
“I know.” He shrugged. “I want you more.”
“More than—”
“More than a few million dollars, yeah.”
Holy shit. I hadn’t realized he was going to make that big a commission. And he was willing to turn it down to be with me?
All I’d ever heard, my entire life, was how much I cost. My private schooling, my braces, the amount of cereal I went through in a week. How little my job made. How important it was to find a rich man, a nice house. I’d never heard anyone say I was worth something.
“You’re such an idiot,” I blurted then laughed. “I’m not really going to ask you to turn down the job. Of course I’m going with you. Do you have any idea how much snorkeling I can do down there?”
“Oh, you…” he started, but he leaned down to kiss me, and that was all that mattered in the world. His arm around me tightened, and my mouth opened under his. We weren’t dancing anymore, just standing there, lost in each other.
I was still technically at work, and I really couldn’t be doing this. At least, not in front of all of these people.
But it wasn’t like the first floor wasn’t full of brand new, totally unoccupied conference rooms.
I pulled back and looked up at him, naughty bravery swelling inside me. “Come with me.”
I dragged him off the floor, hoping we wouldn’t look too conspicuous cutting through the crowd that was gathering at the base of the stairs. It was almost time for Mr. Elwood to thank everyone. I’d overheard him practicing his speech with Sophie shortly after we’d first arrived. We had some time.
Ian and I hurried past the coat chec,k and I pushed open one of the doors that closed off a hallway. It was dark inside, lit only by the red exit signs above us and at the far end.
“What is this?” Ian whispered as the door shut behind us.
I hoped they didn’t lock. But that was a problem for future Penny.
“It’s like a conference center thing,” I whispered back. “Sophie gave us a tour the other day.”
“So, what are we doing here?” he teased as we waded farther into
the darkness. “Corporate espionage?”
“No.” Wasn’t it obvious? The nearest door was unlocked, and I pushed it open. “Looking for a place to fuck.”
I grabbed his shirtfront and pulled him inside with me. I jerked my dress up to my waist and hopped up on the table. “I love you. And I’m so glad we’re back together. And we’ve got plenty of stuff we still need to talk out, but I’m asking you, please, please fuck me.”
Sure, there were other things that needed our attention. Like working out my trust issues and his need to lie to keep everyone happy. I didn’t want to think about that until later, when my body wasn’t so hungry for him.
I thought he would push my panties to the side and slip into me. Instead, he dropped to his knees, hooked my legs over his shoulders, grabbed the sides of my panties, and ripped them off.
Oh my god. “I can’t believe you did that!”
I didn’t even care that they were a favorite pair. I gushed at the desperate need in the gesture. “Please,” I begged him, and his tongue swept over me, between my folds. I braced myself on one hand, so I could stay upright, but the other sank into Ian’s hair, holding him tight to me. He sucked my clit into his mouth and started the flicking motion with his tongue that always pushed me over the edge.
It was a good thing there was a party going on outside, because I couldn’t keep quiet. A mixture of desire and happiness and relief wrenched from my throat in moans and shouts. I pounded the table with my palm and jerked Ian’s hair so hard I was sure I hurt him. I came with a long, loud wail, flashes of light behind my eyelids.
Ian lifted his head, gasping for air, and I almost came, again, just from the sound. It was less sexy when he said, “I don’t have a condom. So does this work for now?”
No. Not even a little. And that wasn’t the only thing that influenced my decision. I wanted my life to be with him. Everything had moved so fast already, did it really matter if we threw caution to the wind and let fate decide when our next big step came?
“I don’t care.” I slid off the table and stepped up close to him, reaching down to unzip his trousers. “Just fuck me. Whatever happens, happens, okay?”
He hesitated for a frozen second. He said, “Yeah, I’m okay with that.”
My heart clenched. I actually kind of hoped I would get pregnant tonight. Not because I thought it would keep us together, but because I was so damn impatient to get the future we’d planned, then abandoned. Sure, it was unrealistic, hormone-fueled, and probably a terrible idea. But it would be some conception story.
He helped me onto the table, my already rumpled dress irrevocably creased where it was caught between us. He spread my thighs, then he was inside of me, all of him in one deep thrust. He pulled one of my legs to lock around his back, sinking deeper. But before we could even get going, it was all over for him. His fingers dug into my hips and he pounded into me, so hard it hurt, and I welcomed it. Every sensation grounded me in the reality that this was actually happening. We were us, again. I felt him jerk inside me, and the wet burst that came on the heels of his deep groan.
“I’m sorry,” he said, slightly breathless. “I thought that would be…better.”
I almost laughed at him and his sense of duty when it came to sex. He was still throbbing in me, spiking pleasure through me with every twitch of his cock, and he was apologizing? “No, it was…” I sighed to release some of the happy pressure in my chest. “This is perfect. You’re with me, and we’re perfect.”
He pulled out with a pained noise, and a trickle of wetness followed. I thought of walking back out to the party bare beneath my dress, my thighs sticky with evidence of what we’d been doing in here, and I felt like the sexiest woman who’d ever lived.
The party! I was supposed to be out there, available if Sophie needed help remembering names or something. Ian helped me find my panties, and he kept them. Because he was nothing if not a total perv.
And I loved him. I loved him so much, I wanted to run around in circles, shouting about it. But, at the moment, I had my job to do. “I should get back out there. I’m technically on the clock, and this…”
Ian laughed at me as I struggled to free Sophie’s phone from my sweaty cleavage. I would definitely use a sanitizing wipe on it before I returned it to her. I shrugged. “It’s Sophie’s. Ah, shit. I missed a call.”
Ian took my hand and lifted it to his lips. “Go. We’ve got all the time in the world after tonight.”
“Yeah.” I looked down, a smile bending my lips. “We do.”
“You go first. I’ll follow behind,” he suggested, but he didn’t release me. He pulled me in for another kiss, which I happily accepted. A few seconds more couldn’t hurt.
The phone rang again, and he stepped back. “Go.”
I lifted my skirt up to better run in my heels. I could only imagine what I would look like when I emerged in the atrium. But it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but Ian and me, and all the changes we had ahead of us.
I couldn’t wait to see what they were.
There are two sides to every story…
Read First Time (Ian’s Story)
By Abigail Barnette
Also by Abigail Barnette
The Boss
The Girlfriend
The Bride
The Ex
Bad Boy, Good Man
Coming soon
A new chapter of the internationally bestselling Sophie Scaife series
The Baby
November 2015
Abigail Barnette is the pseudonym of Jenny Trout, an author, blogger, and funny person. Jenny made the USA Today bestseller list with her debut novel, Blood Ties Book One: The Turning. Her American Vampire was named one of the top ten horror novels of 2011 by Booklist Magazine Online. As Abigail Barnette, Jenny writes award-winning erotic romance, including the internationally bestselling The Boss series.
As a blogger, Jenny’s work has appeared on The Huffington Post, and has been featured on television and radio, including HuffPost Live, Good Morning America, The Steve Harvey Show, and National Public Radio’s Here & Now. Her work has earned mentions in The New York Times and Entertainment Weekly.
She is a proud Michigander, mother of two, and wife to the only person alive capable of spending extended periods of time with her without wanting to kill her.
First Time: Penny's Story (First Time (Penny) Book 1) Page 28
