“ Yessss ,” she cried,
throwing her head back as she slammed into another orgasm, this one rocking her
harder than the first. “Oh, God, yes, Dillon!”
He groaned as he
filled her moist heat, shuddering in great, racking shakes of his body, until
he was completely spent and collapsed, rolling off her with a loud, satisfied
exhale as he recovered. Penny slowly came to her senses and rolled to her side
only to find Dillon knocked out cold. “Damn,” she murmured, pushing a chunk of
hair behind her ear. So much for getting him onto the couch. She sighed and
tucked him under the covers and then climbed in beside him. If Dillon was
hellbent on sleeping in her bed, so be it; she was going to enjoy a night
cuddled up to him. Who knew when it might happen again?
Dillon slowly
awoke, momentarily disoriented when he didn’t immediately recognize his
surroundings but as he realized who was sleeping beside him, everything came
back to him in a hazy rush. He closed his eyes against the harsh pounding of
his head and quietly climbed from the bed, careful not to wake Penny. After
swishing his mouth free of the taste of metallic sludge leftover from too many
glasses of scotch, he splashed his face and went to the kitchen, his mind on
coffee and breakfast, but not necessarily in that order. Hell, he’d made a huge
mess of Penny’s life. What had he been thinking to come here? His feet had,
apparently, been on auto-pilot because he didn’t actually remember purposefully
showing up on her doorstep. He remembered calling a cab but not necessarily the
address he’d given the driver. Well, he thought drily, he supposed that mystery
was easily solved; he’d given the cab driver Penny’s address.
And then he’d
seduced her into having sex. Dillon leaned down on his elbows and tried not to
stick his head in the grinder for being such a dick. He had no business messing
with Penny any longer. But he’d be a liar if he said he hadn’t slept like a
baby curled up beside her. Maybe it was a combination of alcohol and sex but
he’d enjoyed a dark oblivion, which he hadn’t experienced in a long time. Sleep
had long become his archenemy as work obligations had often corrupted his
ability to simply drift off into La-La Land. But not with Penny. Sleeping
beside Penny was near to heaven.
Fabulous . Just what he needed . More shit to cloud my judgment.
Penny appeared in
the doorway looking delectably tousled and sexy as hell and he had to restrain
himself from bending her over the kitchen table for round two. “I made coffee,” he said, gesturing at
the fresh pot brewing. She nodded and slid onto the barstool at the counter. He
poured her a cup and pushed it to her. She didn’t say a word and simply lifted
her mug to jolt her system awake with the help of caffeine. “I’m sorry,” he began,
figuring he ought to start there. “I shouldn’t have come here last night. I
don’t know what happened.”
“I’m not sorry,”
she said, shocking him as she regarded him over the rim of her coffee mug. “I’m
not sorry one bit.”
“Why not?”
“Ask yourself
this…why do you think you came here?” she countered.
“I was drunk and
horny.”
“Don’t be
deliberately crude to shock me and stop dancing around the emotional element in
all this. You were hurting inside. And you came here. To me.”
He didn’t want to
accept her simple logic because it created too many other deep questions that
he wasn’t ready to answer. She may be right but he wasn’t willing to go
there. “Penny, why do you do this?
You read more into a simple act than it warrants. I needed a place to crash and
when I drink too much, I want someone to fuck. End of story.”
“Stop it!” She put
her mug down forcefully, causing coffee to slosh over the sides. Her gaze
burned a hole into his soul, demanding the kind of emotional honesty that
scared him. “Haven’t you learned a damn thing since Isabel? You shut her out
and lost her — and your
1796-1874 Agnes Strickland, 1794-1875 Elizabeth Strickland, Rosalie Kaufman