Bad Penny

by Staci Hart

Penny looked incredible, as she always did. Tonight she was in the tightest black jeans I’d ever seen in my life, the waist high and her crop top short, exposing a slice of the flowers tattooed on her stomach and ribs. She wasn’t wearing a bra again, and I tried not to think about how many men noticed the curve of her breasts, the peaks of her nipple, the bars on each side.

  It wouldn’t have bothered me so bad if I’d known she was mine.

  She smiled and stepped into me, and I pushed the thought away as I pulled her into my chest and kissed her.

  I closed the door, and we walked through the living room.

  “Hey, guys,” Penny said, wiggling her fingers at them.

  They waved over the backs of their chairs, not turning around.

  “Working hard?” she asked as we walked into my room.

  I closed the door and reached for my phone to turn on music. “Always. We’re in DEFCON One now that we have a meeting.”

  She smiled and sat down on my bed, reaching down to unbuckle her shoes. “It’s so amazing, Bodie. I have a good feeling about this.”

  “Me too,” I said as I stretched out in bed, propped up by my pillows. “So tell me about this stripper’s ass.”

  She laughed and climbed up the bed, sitting next to me on her knees. “It was magnificent. It made me want to do a thousand squats because if I could badonk my donk like that, I could die knowing I’d accomplished something that made the universe a better place.” She perked up and popped off the bed. “Oh! I brought you something.”

  When she bounded back over from her purse, she hopped up on the bed and bounced a little, holding something behind her.

  “How’d you know you’d see me tonight?” I asked, smirking in an attempt to keep my eagerness hidden.

  She shrugged. “I couldn’t be around all that gyrating and not come see you after. Okay, now — you ready?”

  “I dunno. Am I?”

  She chuckled. “You are. Voilà!”

  When Penny brought her hand out from behind her back, it held a small painting, about five-by-seven — an illustration of a girl in a leather bustier and leather garters with knives strapped to one thigh, red hair blowing in the wind, and an airship behind her. The word Nighthawk arched over the top of the watercolor drawing, framed by gears.

  I took it reverently, my eyes raking over it in wonder. “Penny, this is gorgeous.”

  Her smile could have been a thousand watts. “You like it?”

  “I love it,” was all I could say.

  “I told you it made me want to draw. Bodie, I’m just so happy for you. And I want you to know that I believe you can do this. I believe you can do just about anything.”

  I rested my hand on her thigh, and her face softened as she leaned into me, pressing a sweet kiss to my lips. When she backed away, I saw something new in her eyes, something different. Something good. Something more.

  I felt the warmth of it spread through my chest.

  I wanted to speak, but if I did, I’d admit things, and if I admitted what I wanted to admit, the feeling could be gone just as soon as I’d earned it. So instead, I cupped her cheek and slipped my fingers into her hair, bringing her closer to kiss her with more intention.

  Penny communicated through sex and through ink, and maybe I could do the same. Maybe I could telegraph how I felt through my lips alone. Maybe she could feel my heart through the tips of my fingers.

  I hoped she could. Because the game we’d been running was long, and I felt the end coming too soon. There would be a moment when we couldn’t avoid it anymore, when the words wouldn’t stay inside me any longer.

  The chances of her feeling the same were slim, and I knew it. I’d known my odds when I stepped into the lion’s cage and started this dance with her.

  But that didn’t stop me from hoping.

  12

  WILD HORSES

  Penny

  “So when’s your boyfriend coming?” Ramona asked my reflection in the massive mirrors of the bridal suite.

  “Hopefully the second I can get my dress hitched up,” I answered without missing a beat before sipping the champagne in my hand to punctuate the joke.

  Ramona and Veronica laughed, and I shimmied my rack in my bridesmaid dress with one hand.

  “Seriously, my boobs look amazing in this. Maybe he’ll come before I can even get it pulled up.” I turned to inspect my ass, which was on point. “Anyway, I’m not calling him that. I don’t like that word.”

  Veronica raised one brow. “And what are you calling him?”

  “My slam piece. ‘Cause he’s Sexy Like A Motherfucker, and he can slam me all night. Like, literally all night. My vagina has never been slammed on the Bodie level.”

  She snickered. “Slam piece? I mean, whatever helps you sleep at night.”

  “No wonder he somehow tricked you into being his girlfriend.”

  Ramona was baiting me. I was no dummy even if I was a sucker.

  Oddly, the moniker didn’t make me want to puke up my champagne and donuts like it had a couple of days ago.

  “Slam piece,” I said flatly. “You act like I’ve pledged my undying devotion to him. God, a girl can’t even get steady dick anymore without everyone starting a pool on when she’s going to get engaged.”

  Ramona laughed — she was cool as a cucumber, which was beyond all reason, considering she was an hour away from getting married. We stood in the middle of a regal room with a chandelier the size of Delaware and more French antiques than I’d ever seen in one place outside of a museum. She looked beautiful, blissfully happy, and without a single indicator of nervousness, which was impressive seeing as how she was about to walk down the aisle.

  She touched my arm, her eyes and smile full of love. “I’m happy for you.”

  I smiled back, my heart so furry and warm and full that I didn’t know if all the happiness would stay in my chest. “You too. Are you ready for this?”

  She shrugged. “I’ve been waiting for this day forever, but I’m just … I don’t know. Zen as fuck. I don’t even care how things go — in an hour, I’ll be his wife. And then we’ll eat and drink and dance and fuck like rockstars in the Kennedy suite.”

  “Yeah, you will,” I said, gyrating my hips.

  “Everything is done and taken care of.” She hooked her arm in mine and hung her other around Veronica’s shoulders. “I have you two. I have Shep waiting for me at the end of an aisle to promise me forever. There’s nothing else I could possibly wish for.”

  I misted up. “Ugh, you’re so happy it’s disgusting.”

  Ramona laughed. “I know. Isn’t it amazing?”

  I rested my head on her shoulder and took in the sight of the three of us in the mirror. “It’s kinda the best thing in the whole world.”

  My phone buzzed in my pocket — my dress had pockets, guys; winning hard. — and I pulled away, reaching for it.

  The photo displayed behind Bodie’s name lit up my phone and my insides; I was nuzzled into his neck laughing, and he was laughing too, his dimple flashing.

  Veronica laughed and pointed at my screen. “Oh my God. Boyfriend.”

  I rolled my eyes and answered the phone, smiling. “Hey,” I said as I stepped off the platform, passing the tornado that was Ramona’s mom on my way out. I swear, I think she was shouldering all the nerves for both of them.

  “Hey,” he echoed, his voice rumbly and low and velvety.

  My body reacted immediately to that one mundane syllable like it was a secret password.

  I hadn’t seen him in two days, since after the strip club. We’d been too busy with wedding stuff to have a free millisecond.

  “Are you here?” I asked.

  I could hear him smiling. “I am. Just got here.”

  “Meet me by the bar.”

  “Already there.”

  My grin stretched wide as I rushed to the door, calling over my shoulder that I’d be right back.

  I hurried through the garden where people were milling around, waitin
g for the ceremony to start. The venue was gorgeous, an outdoor garden with a big tent for the reception and a gazebo in a hedge alcove that felt like a fairy land. There was a rope swing and a massive bar that had been imported from a pub in France, all brass and mahogany and gorgeous and elegant.

  But not as gorgeous as the man standing in front of it.

  His dirty-blond hair had been cut short on the sides, kept longer on a top, combed back and to the side in a gentle swoop, and I nearly stopped in my tracks at the transformation. The laid-back surfer in a muscle shirt and sneakers had been replaced by a clean-cut masterpiece of power. The gravity of the vision of him pulled me toward him like a tractor beam. He looked like he’d stepped off a magazine cover with tan skin and eyes shining a shade of sky blue that felt infinite. The suit he wore fit him perfectly — charcoal gray swathing every angle of his broad shoulders and chest, one button of his coat fastened, his shirt crisp and white, and tie thin and black. One hand rested in his pocket, his coat bunched up at the seam where his hand and hip were, and the other held a scotch.

  I was nine hundred percent sure my uterus whispered his name when he smiled at me, popping that dimple and my ovaries with a simple flicker of cheek muscles.

  I might have floated into his arms, slipping mine around his neck as I kissed him. There was quite literally nothing else I could have done when I saw him standing there, dressed like that.

  His lips were so warm and familiar and soft and sweet. The two measly days we’d been apart felt like a month.

  I pulled away, humming, but I didn’t give him his neck back, just fiddled with the short hair at the nape, marveling over the soft bristling against my fingertips.

  “Your hair,” I whispered, smiling as my eyes scanned him in wonder.

  “You like it?”

  “I love it. If it wasn’t combed, my fingers would be buried deep, deep in it.”

  He laughed softly, the sound rumbling through his chest and into me. “Later we’ll bury all kinds of things in all kinds of places.”

  I answered with a laugh of my own. “What in the world possessed you to do it?”

  Bodie shrugged. “I went in for a trim and decided to cut it. It matched the suit.”

  “True. But do you think you might grow it back out?”

  “Why? Miss it already?” he asked with a smile, holding me tighter.

  “Maybe. I do love your long hair, but this is so soft.” I ran my fingers over it. “And I swear, somehow, your jaw looks a hundred times sharper. You’ve got a good looking head, boy. You could be a part-time model.”

  He laughed at that and kissed me again.

  I smiled up at him feeling dreamy and light and unbelievably happy. “I missed you,” I said without thinking.

  His face held its shape, but something behind his eyes shifted, sending a jolt of uncertainty through me, cooling my mood. “I missed you too.”

  I swallowed and looked at his tie, running my hand down his chest. “Where the hell did you get this suit?”

  His smile shifted sideways into a smirk. “Same place as you get your lingerie.”

  I laughed. “Oh, I very much doubt that.”

  Bodie chuckled, his hand on my hip, thumb shifting against the soft silk before he twisted the tie around his finger and held it up. “So tell me, what happens if I pull this?”

  I pressed the length of my body against his and smiled, stretching on my tiptoes to get to his ear. “Boom, I’m naked.”

  His lips were at my ear too. “Good to know.”

  The man was magic. He could whisper anything in my ear — My grandma makes a mean scone. I’m all out of peanut butter. I wish I had more time to climb trees — and I’d forget that there was ever or would ever be anything to do besides him.

  I sighed into his ear, and he held me a little closer. I found myself pouting because I couldn’t stay right there like I wanted.

  I pulled away and stepped back, though I slid my hand down his arm and to his hand to hold it. “You gonna be okay out here? It’s about to start, so it shouldn’t be long before I’m back to entertain you.”

  He held up his scotch, smiling. “I’ll keep myself company.” He paused, his eyes on mine in a way that I felt in the tips of my fingers and toes. “You look beautiful, Penny.”

  My cheeks flushed, and I smiled back. How could I not? Adonis in a suit was smiling at me with a scotch in his hand and a suit that made my vagina do an involuntary Kegel.

  “You’re not so bad yourself, handsome. I’ll see you in a little bit.”

  “I’ll be waiting,” he said.

  And the words worked their way through me like I’d been the one drinking scotch.

  * * *

  Bodie

  I watched Penny walk away as I took a sip of my drink, my eyes running over all the places I wished my hands were. The deep V of the back of her dress, framing her tattoos. The small circle of her waist, tied by that little sash that would strip her with a tug. The swing of her hips as she hurried away in the direction she’d come from.

  A sigh rose and fell from the bottom of my lungs.

  I hadn’t seen her in two days, not since she came over after the bachelorette party. Things had been the same that night as they had always been — we’d spent an hour or so wrapped up in each other, an hour or so talking and laughing, and then she’d left. But something had shifted, something I didn’t know how to place or what to do with. All I knew was that I could feel the depth of it in me and in her. And she hadn’t run away.

  We hadn’t spoken about the status of our relationship since the ice cream parlor, and her shock that day — when I’d reaffirmed that I wouldn’t ask for more than she was willing to give — was still fresh in my mind.

  How could she have gone for so long without knowing this feeling? Without wanting more than just a fuck boy?

  I wanted to know. But the last thing I wanted to do was ask.

  Because the last thing I wanted was to lose her.

  So as far as I knew — as far as she’d said — things were the same. But what she did didn’t match up with what she said. She’d tattooed my arm. She’d spent almost every day with me for weeks. We’d been on a date, and tonight I was her date at a wedding.

  It didn’t feel like no strings, no commitment, no rules. It felt like she was mine, and I was hers. It felt like we were together. And that felt good — so good that I wasn’t likely to rock the boat out of fear I’d sink it.

  I drained my drink and set it on the surface of the bar, checking my calculator watch before following the signs to the gazebo.

  Annika and I merged paths as we entered an arched tunnel covered in vines. In heels, she was almost as tall as me, her blonde hair in a loose bun at her nape and black dress sleek and simple.

  She smiled, transforming her aloof runway model vibe, warming her up. “Hey, Bodie.”

  “Good to see you, Annika.”

  “You too. You’re here with Penny?”

  I didn’t miss the mild surprise in her voice. I couldn’t say I blamed her. I was probably more shocked than anyone.

  “I am.”

  Her smiled widened. “Lucky you. Want to sit with me?”

  I relaxed a little. “That’d be great. I don’t know anyone who isn’t in the wedding party but you.”

  She chuckled. “I only know the crew who were invited, but I’m just about the only one who’s part of the production of the show who’s here as a guest. The rest are filming.”

  I looked around once we exited the tunnel for the camera crew, finding them in little hidden alcoves, blending in like chameleons. I’d signed a waiver, and I still hadn’t realized they were here.

  “Huh. How about that?” I said half to myself, guiding her into a row of white wooden chairs.

  “We want to film in the most unobtrusive way possible. It’s not always easy, but thankfully, my boss is sympathetic to the cause.” She wiggled the fingers of her left hand at me, flashing her engagement ring. When we were seated, sh
e turned a little in her chair to face me, crossing her long legs in my direction. “So, how’d you land her?”

  I wished I’d gotten another drink. “Well, I’m not sure I’ve landed her just yet.”

  “Oh, I am,” Annika said on a chuckle.

  I glanced at her, intrigued. “That so?”

  She nodded. “As long as I’ve known her, she’s never had a steady guy. She’ll date one for a little bit and then flit off to the next, never getting attached, and I’ve never seen one of the guys, only heard the stories. She won’t bring them around us like she has with you. And I’ve seen the way she looks at you, the way she talks to you. It’s my job to read people, and I’ve been reading Penny for a year now. She likes you, and she’s happy, happier than I’ve seen her. So I’m curious as to how you did it.”

  “I haven’t done much but let her be who she is.”

  Annika’s face softened. “Penny’s like a wild pony; she’s beautiful and untamed and completely free. Free from the tethers of judgment, free from being controlled, contained. She lives one day at a time, doing exactly what she wants, accepting her consequences without a single care for what anyone else thinks.” Annika sighed at that. “She’s the freest woman I’ve ever known or seen, and I have more respect for that than anything. I’m even a little envious.”

  I nodded, smiling at the truth of her words. “I know what you mean.”

  “But she loves to run. That’s the trick, the catch I haven’t seen anyone overcome.” She shook her head. “None of this — you and her, I mean — is any of my business, and I don’t mean to pry. I’m just so interested in how you snagged her. You’re like the pony whisperer.”

  I laughed at that. If she’d replaced pony with pussy it might have been spot-on. “Honestly? I don’t even know. She asked for no strings, so that’s what I’ve given her. I let her lead. I respect her too, respect what she wants even if it’s not what I want.”

  “And what do you want?” she asked. But before I could answer, she waved her hand as the color rose in her cheeks. “I’m sorry. My job has me trained to ask personal questions that I shouldn’t. Please, don’t answer that.”