Imperfect Penelope (Wild Crush) (12 page)

“Sometimes I think it is. It’s all a lot of hierarchical nonsense, and I fear all my expensive education has failed to prepare me for someone like you.”

Penny took another sip of her wine, gathering the courage to look at him. He’d set down the knife and was leaning one hip on the counter, watching her. “Someone like me?”

“Someone who enjoys pushing my buttons.”

She’d deny that’s what she was doing, but she was far too honest to pull off a lie of that magnitude. “The women you knew in Sydney didn’t give you any trouble, huh?”

“Not often, no. They were usually happy to fall into a predetermined plan.” Something flashed in his eyes, something that told Penny there was an unspoken
until her
on the end of that sentence. He turned to face the array of chopped vegetables on the bench. “We need noodles for this, don’t we?”

“Oh. Right.” Penny returned to the pantry for the necessary packet, tamping down the urge to pursue the topic of Greg’s past relationships. She didn’t want to know.

Yes you do.
She’d sensed all along there was a wound in him that he was only halfway expert at covering up, and her guess was it involved a woman. Maybe if she knew all of it, if he explained why that experience had soured him on relationships forever, it would stick in her brain that he wasn’t willing to offer her anything. She could quash for good the niggling optimism that was trying to compel her to get excited about the flowers and his apparent interest in her as a person.

“I’d love to hear more about how people date in upper-crust Sydney society.” She switched on the jug for the boiling water she’d need to soak the rice noodles. “It sounds very different to how things go down in Leyton’s. We’re too quirky for predetermined plans here.”

“How so?”

“You already know about Summer and Ty doing things backwards.” Penny let him deflect the discussion from himself for the moment. “Well, there’s also my sister Emily. You remember, Jet, my almost brother-in-law?”

“How could I forget? The man shows off when he dances.”

Penny smothered a smile. He was still jealous, even though he knew there was nothing between her and Jet. It was… Oh God. It was giving her that little spurt of hope that she had to kill.
No rose-colored glasses anymore, Pen.
“Well, he’s one of two unofficial brothers-in-law my sister has given me.”

His dumbfounded expression was so comical, Penny laughed. “You’re not serious.”

“Sure am. My big sis hit the jackpot.”

Greg’s brows lifted. “That a fantasy of yours, is it?”

“Not really.”

But I have others,
Penny thought, her glance shooting to the red silk tie draped over the back of her dining chair. Why did he have to wear red when he came over here? In her naughtiest dreams, the satin sheets were always red, and now she mentally added red silk ties to the fantasy. Thinking about Greg, that silk tie and her wrought-iron headboard made her nipples peak inside her tank top.

“Where did your mind just go?”

Penny snapped her gaze back to Greg’s, which was studying her far too shrewdly for her liking. “Nowhere interesting.” Little white lies she could tell—when she had to. “Don’t grill me. It’s your turn. I asked about the dating habits of the Sydney elite. So educate me.”

“I’d hardly call my family part of the elite, but we were definitely from staid, stiff-upper-lip British stock,” Greg told her. “My grandfather emigrated from London, brought his three children here with him along with his very elegant wife named Elizabeth. They were both from the same circles—she was the descendant of a duke, and was considered quite a catch.”

“I’ll bet,” Penny said.

“The story was my grandfather courted my grandmother for precisely eight months, before asking her father for her hand. They married in a lavish ceremony held in the duke’s country castle.”

“Country castles are handy when there’s a wedding to be held.”

“You shouldn’t ask questions if you’re going to make fun of the answers.”

“You’re right. Forgive me. I’m not as well-bred as you are.”

“But you obviously have fantastic genes,” he countered, looking her up and down with a lasciviousness that wasn’t as subtle as his breeding called for. Penny’s already beaded nipples reacted, and sexual desire made her stomach muscles clench. He asked softly, “Have you heard enough yet?”

Penny cleared her throat. “No. Tell me about your parents. I’m guessing they’re both suitably elegant people who conducted their courtship in the proper manner.”

“You guess right. They proceeded to have two strapping sons, one who dutifully followed in his father’s law-school footsteps. My father is a judge, the Honorable Lionel Danvers of the Supreme Court.”

“Wow. My dad’s an electrician.”

“Which is probably a more honorable profession than the law can be at times,” Greg quipped.

“Your dad must be proud of you for going into law.”

“I did what was expected and was a lesser disappointment than my brother, but pride isn’t a word I’d use.”

If Lionel Danvers hadn’t been proud of Bryan before, Penny couldn’t imagine he was thrilled with how things were going for his youngest son these days. “How is Bryan doing, by the way?”

“All right, I think. I haven’t heard from him in a few days.” Greg looked at her sidelong. “It’s nice of you to ask, considering.”

“I don’t wish him any ill-will. I hope he sorts himself out.”
For your sake if nothing else,
she added silently, not liking the idea that Greg had to deal with a sibling in such turmoil. It would put him in turmoil as well, seeing how protective he was of his brother. She didn’t want Greg stressed out, she wanted to see him happy.

And that’s just the kind of mushy-mushy thinking that makes having cozy conversations with this man dangerous. You care about him a little too much.

“Does your dad know about Bryan’s…problem?” Penny asked quickly to distract herself from her thoughts.

Greg shrugged. “Unlikely. Bryan would never have gone to him for money. When my father decided to divorce my mother, he did that in the way it’s done where I’m from. Cleanly. He paid a generous settlement and left the child-rearing to my mother, that being the woman’s domain, you see.”

Penny didn’t see, since her parents had a much more egalitarian approach to family life. They loved each other like husband and wife and shared the duties in an organic way that seemed to somehow work out fairly equal. They didn’t assign tasks to each other like colleagues. “That doesn’t sound clean as much as…cold.”

“That it does.” She felt him studying her profile as she put the noodles in a bowl and poured boiling water over them. All was silent save for the noise made by the splashing water, and the sound of a lone car driving up the street outside. At length, Greg said, “I don’t usually tell people any of this.”

His soft admission made Penny’s throat constrict. “I know.”

“I want to tell you things, Penny. Whatever it is you think you need to know in order for you to trust me. I know I screwed things up the other morning, letting you think that I didn’t want you again. I did. I never meant for us to be a one-night-stand, but I didn’t know how to give you anything else. Not then.”

His
not then
made her pulse jump. Her hands trembled as she set the jug back down on the counter.

“Ask what you
really
want to ask.”

At his prompt she turned to face him, clinging to the counter behind her like an abseiler clings to the rope. She was nervous for reasons she didn’t understand, but she broached the topic at the heart of the matter, because she had to.

“Who did you court in the proper way?”

Chapter Twelve

“Her name was Rochelle Myers.” Greg’s chest tightened oddly because he hadn’t said Rochelle’s name in he couldn’t remember how long. “And I wasn’t nearly as proper about it as I should have been.”

“Ooh. Sounds intriguing.”

There was a thread of snark in Penny’s voice that belied the ostensibly glib delivery. She turned around to open one of the lower cupboards behind her. From the clang of metal on metal Greg assumed she was searching for a fry pan. Her bent-over pose gave him a terrific view of her pert ass, and he could barely stifle his groan. What was he doing talking when all he wanted to do was yank down those yoga pants and bury himself in her tight pussy?

“Go on,” Penny said as she found what she was looking for and stood up. “You were telling me how improper you were with what’s-her-name.”

“Rochelle.” It didn’t feel as weird saying it the second time, and some of the tightness eased out of his chest. A feeling that was probably helped by the sneaking suspicion that Penny was jealous. His lips twitched at the thought, and his chest didn’t feel tight at all anymore. In fact it felt rather puffed up. “And I was never improper. Simply impatient. I asked for her hand within three months. In hindsight I suppose I should have given it more time.”

“Because it obviously didn’t work out,” Penny concluded. “Was it you or her? Who ended it, I mean.”

“Definitely not me. I had no clue anything was wrong. I did everything right, as far as I was concerned. I had a good career, a great apartment. I was thirty-one, fully ready to commit, and Rochelle and I seemed to fit. She was from my world, and I thought we understood each other. We never even argued. She was kind and smart and beautiful—”

“I get it,” Penny cut him off. “You had the perfect fiancée. Your kids would have been genetic freaks.”

She slammed the plug of the electric wok into a socket. The tilt of Greg’s lips turned into a fully formed curve. She
was
jealous. What a revelation. Suddenly he didn’t even see the point of talking about Rochelle. The past didn’t seem nearly as interesting as the future.

A future in which he was going to make Penny Irving his, God damn it. Oh hell yes he was.

“Maybe we don’t have to talk about this after all,” Penny muttered.

“You asked, sweetheart. I’m only trying to be honest with you.”

She whirled around, her eyes flashing green flame at him. “Don’t sweetheart me. It’s—”

“Romantic?” Greg filled in. “You know, nobody’s ever accused me of being too romantic before.”

“I’m surprised. With the way you’re always lifting women up like you’re Rhett Butler.”

“Who?”

She looked at him agog. “
Gone with the Wind
? Rhett ‘You should be kissed and often by someone who knows how’ Butler?”

“I have no idea what you’re saying, but the kissing part sounds interesting.”

His gaze dropped to her lips, and even though they were pulled into a thin line, Greg wanted to kiss them more than he’d ever wanted anything. More than he’d ever wanted Rochelle back in that first drunken month after she jilted him, more than he’d ever wanted to erase their entire relationship from his memory. Next to Penny and all the things he wanted to do to her—with her—all thoughts of Rochelle seemed woefully insignificant.

Greg wasn’t sure how that open wound had healed into a faded scar without him realizing it, but sometime over the past ten months it must have. He wasn’t broken anymore. He’d simply been too invested in the idea that he was broken to let it go. No question, being jilted at the altar had made him seriously doubt his instincts about women, but he felt his willingness to take the risk of being wrong growing stronger than his caution for the first time in what seemed a lifetime.

It probably helped that he didn’t think he was wrong about Penny. Penny would never hide the truth from him, only to reveal it at the worst possible moment. She was vocal and opinionated. He had to wonder how he’d once been drawn to the polite reserve of someone like Rochelle when he found Penny’s expressiveness so unbelievably sexy. He found
her
unbelievably sexy.

He couldn’t stand not to have her in his arms another minute.

Greg took a step forward. When Penny held up a hand in a stop gesture, he halted mid-stride. “I see the look in your eyes, but you cannot kiss me.”

He crossed his arms over his chest, trying to rein in his impatience. Because he was still a gentleman, even though he felt about fifty percent animal. “Do you want to explain why not?”

“Because we have nothing in common and there’s no point pretending otherwise. I’ve never even met anyone else who hasn’t seen
Gone with the Wind
. You
are
from a different planet.”

“That reasoning makes no sense,” Greg said, smiling. “I object.”

“This isn’t a courtroom.” That flicker of vulnerability he’d seen rarely but that always made something hard tug in Greg’s chest passed over her face. “It’s my life. And I won’t have you making promises you can’t keep.”

Greg released a sigh. She didn’t trust him yet, and he knew he hadn’t given her enough reasons to. He had to do whatever it took to reassure her he could be what she wanted. He could be the man she deserved. “What if I promised to watch the movie? Will that help?”

“No!” she exclaimed. “I don’t need you getting any tips on how to be a suave debonair hero from my movies. I need you less romantic, not more.”

She was talking like a crazy person, but Greg made the effort to find the parts that made sense. Anything that would result in his lips landing on hers. “If I promise not to be romantic about it, you’ll let me kiss you?”

“Well…”

She bit her lip as she considered her answer, and the fifty percent animal inside Greg morphed into one hundred percent feral beast. He growled low in his throat and pulled Penny towards him, crushing her breasts to his chest before slamming his mouth onto hers.

She ate it up, throwing her arms around his neck and throwing herself into the kiss as though her reluctance had never existed. She was wild and sensual, and she gave in to her passions with a gusto that threw fuel on the fire of his lust. He dragged her hips into his, grinding so she’d feel the pained erection he’d been sporting since he first saw her wearing her all black, too-skimpy-for-his-sanity yoga gear. She moaned into his mouth and rocked her hips, rubbing her crotch against his hard-on.

It was raw and primal and so
fucking fantastic
that Greg knew he was going to lose his mind in under ten seconds if he didn’t take back some kind of control. He dragged his mouth from hers and transferred it to her neck. Penny’s head dropped behind her, giving him access to her throat. When he nipped at her pulse point, she gasped.

“I’m going to make love to you,” he croaked. “I have to.”

“No. You have to fuck me.”

Semantics as far as Greg was concerned, but he wasn’t going to argue the point because she was kissing him again, sliding her tongue along his and digging her fingernails into his scalp in that way she had that made him feel wanted, desired. Penny was hungry for him, desperate, and for all the advantages he’d grown up with, Greg had never felt quite so privileged in his life.

Greg drew back, grasping for a control that was fast slipping away. Penny chased his mouth, the least diffident woman he’d ever kissed. He loved it. He cupped her jaw, steadying her, steadying himself. He ran his thumb along her lower lip, schooling himself to take more time. To show her—

Looking him directly in the eye, Penny took his thumb into her mouth and sucked.

Heat, faster and more electric than lightning, seized his balls. Seeing his thumb disappearing into that pink, wet place… He was done for if she didn’t stop. They both would be. Any second he’d be telling her to take those bold, eager lips and wrap them around his cock. An image of blowing in her mouth tormented him, and Greg tried to push it away. Abruptly he spun Penny around until her back was to him. It would be easier if he couldn’t see the unveiled lust in her eyes.

Or so he’d thought. Having his aching hard-on nestled into her butt cheeks didn’t do much for his state of mind either. He slipped a hand beneath the hem of her top and moved it upward, taking the cotton away from the silk of her skin. “Do you have any idea how sexy you look in this?”

“I…I was going for casual.”

After enjoying the short tour of her waist and rib cage, Greg’s hand settled over her breast. He massaged it none too gently while he thrust his hips forward, pressing his erection into her ass. “Does this feel casual to you?”

“God, no.” Unfazed by how hard he was, or how rough he was being, Penny tilted her hips back, rubbed her ass against him. “Greg…Greg.”

Forget making her suck his dick. He was going to come in his pants if she didn’t stop. That would be humiliating and totally counter to the point he was trying to make. What was that again?

Oh right. That she could trust him. That her happiness mattered to him.
Christ, Danvers. Get a hold of yourself.

He tilted Penny forward, bending her at the waist. As she reached out to grab the kitchen counter, Greg pushed the wok and the still-soaking noodles out of the way. Water sloshed over the edge of the bowl and onto the counter. He didn’t care. He put his hands back on Penny’s waist, moved them down to her hips. He allowed himself the momentary torture of grinding his stiff pole into the crevice between her legs. He felt the heat of her through her tights and his trousers. The promise of skin on skin called to him, had him drawing Penny’s pants and underwear down to the tops of her thighs before he could stop himself.

Greg ran his finger along the slick seam between her legs. “Fuck. You’re drenched.”

“Your fault,” Penny breathed. “Practically undressing in front of me.”

It had been a completely practical decision, but Greg had seen the fire in her eyes when he’d shucked his jacket and tie. He’d liked it. He’d liked it a lot that he could make her react from doing one simple thing. Applying that principle, Greg took his middle finger and sank it partway into Penny’s sodden channel.

“Oh, Jesus!” She pushed back, begging for more. Greg retreated, denying her. The loud curse that burst out of her made him smile.

“How’s this?” he asked as he took his finger, now wet with her juices, and slid it back and forth over her pussy lips. “Unromantic enough for you?”

She moaned and widened her stance—as much as she could with her yoga tights restricting her movement. Her eagerness fueled his own, and Greg gave her what she wanted. He found her clit with his wet finger and rubbed.

“Yes. Oh.”

He let her gyrate into his touch for a moment, mesmerized by the erotic sway of her hips. Then he drew his finger back and sank it once more into her pussy. She whimpered in both frustration and relief. Her breath started coming in rough pants as he plunged into her, over and over.

It mimicked what he wanted to do with his erection, and Greg couldn’t take his eyes off the backward thrust of her hips. His trousers had never felt this tight. “Tell me what you want.”

“Your cock. I want you inside me.”

He’d known she wouldn’t be shy, but her bold demand ripped a groan from Greg’s throat. He tried to think straight, to remember if he’d brought condoms. In his wallet. Jacket pocket. The jacket that was in the dining room. Too far away. Might as well have to trek to Mongolia for condoms as to leave her to go ten meters away to his jacket pocket.

His question was a taut rasp. “Are you on the pill?”

“I am. But I’ve never…I always use extra protection.”

Because she cared about her health and everybody else’s. And here he was almost plunging inside her bare because he couldn’t control himself. He knew he was safe and he trusted Penny, but hell. He had to get a grip. “Stay right there,” he said.

“Wait.” She propped up on her hands and looked over her shoulder at him. That fear was in her eyes, and he recognized the emotional reluctance, a fear of getting hurt. It was the same thing he’d felt from the beginning, the reason why he’d been willing to believe Bryan’s lies, why he’d tried to keep a shield up between himself and this woman. From the first moment he’d met her, he’d felt a part of him shift, and on some level had been relieved she was off limits. She’d always had the power to touch him, inside and out.

Just as he had the power to breach her defenses and reach her heart. He had to believe that, because she’d already taken up residence in his. He wasn’t terrified of her meaning something to him anymore. What scared him most was the possibility that he might not mean anything to her.

“It’s okay,” Penny said. “I trust you.”

A sigh shuddered out of Greg. Humbled by her faith in him, he dropped his head to her shoulder, kissed it. Said, “Thank you, sweetheart.”

Greg released his fly and took out his aching cock. Then he eased it inside her snug sheath and went to heaven.

They both cried out. The soft clamp of her flesh made Greg’s balls tighten instantly. He held still a moment before drawing back and plunging into her more fully. Dear God, she was perfect.

With determined purpose, Greg reached between Penny’s legs and found her clit. It was plump and wet. When he stroked it, she tipped her head back and wailed, “Yes!” He banded an arm around her ribs and held her upright, held her to him, as he rocked into her. He pinched her clit and bit her neck until she cursed and bucked against him in ferocious orgasm.

It hadn’t taken long and Greg had counted on that. The feel of her flesh undulating over his without any barrier between them had hurtled him to the edge, and when Penny dropped her arms back to the counter in repletion, Greg held her hips still and pounded into her, out of control and lost to all but sensation until he too climaxed with a guttural groan.

Afterward, he dropped his hands to the counter beside hers and shook. It was all he was capable of—to hover above her and tremble and not speak because words wanted to spill out and he wasn’t sure she’d welcome the words he wanted to say.

I love you.

It made no sense. This thing had barely begun. Penny would say they weren’t compatible, that he was in a post-sex state of grateful bliss. That part was true, and Greg couldn’t discount the possibility his heightened state of pleasure colored his thoughts.