Opening Up

by Lauren Dane

  She let out a shuddering breath as he dragged his teeth against her skin. “Asa,” she whispered, the sound tortured as she grabbed his hand, sliding it down her belly. He growled in her ear and burrowed into her pants and straight into her panties.

  She was hot and slick and ready to go. He groaned, brushing his cock against her ass. With his free hand he trailed fingertips up under her shirt, pulling the cups of her bra down so he could play with her piercings.

  He pressed a kiss to her shoulder as she writhed.

  “Wet and hot. Ready for me.”

  “Yes,” she gasped.

  “Mine.” Once the word left his mouth he knew it meant more than he’d even realized.

  “Yes,” she agreed again, riding his hand as he slid one finger against her clit and played against the inferno-hot entrance to her body.

  His breath sped too as she pressed back against his body. She reached up and back, encircling his neck the best she could at her angle.

  “Ride my fingers.”

  She made a sound, a plaintive growl. She wanted to come, his sweet Penelope Jean. Hated to wait. And it had seemed from pretty much the start that he’d been unable to resist her in the end. If she wanted it, he made sure it happened.

  “It makes me crazy when you get so desperate and bratty for it that you tantrum just a little.” He spoke, his lips against her skin.

  She let go of his neck, slapping her palms on the door in front of where she stood.

  She arched, pressing her nipple into his grasp, rolling her hips as she ground herself against his hand and came in a hot rush against his palm and fingers.

  He spun her slowly to face him. “Feeling a little better?”

  “Mmm.” She smiled, eyes glassy.

  He traced his fingertips, glossy with her, over her lips and groaned when she licked a trail behind his touch.

  She grabbed his belt and in three movements his pants were open and his cock in her hands. He nearly blacked out when she went to her knees and took him into her mouth all the way, getting him nice and wet as she did.

  He wanted to be gentle with her after that creep had manhandled her, but she had other plans. Inciting him on purpose, taking him as far back into her throat as she could.

  There was something so scorching hot about it when she played with him like that. When she knew what he liked and made it so he could have it. She knew him in ways he had no idea it would be so special to be known.

  The fist she had at the root of his cock slid up and down ever so slightly, but enough that he couldn’t stop himself from thrusting, fucking her mouth in earnest.

  He grabbed two handfuls of her hair and yanked her forward onto his cock, over and over. She moaned and made needy sounds as she sucked him.

  “So fucking pretty. Your mouth on me all pink and glossy. Pretty and so, so dirty.”

  He brushed his fingertips over her cheek, aching at what he wanted. Turning away from it, not thinking she was ready.

  Then she looked up at him as she swallowed him all the way down.

  Challenge.

  She needed it.

  Wanted it.

  As much as he did.

  He pulled free of that luscious mouth, pumped his fist around himself twice more, and blew all over her mouth and down her neck and shirt.

  A groan wrenched from his gut as he came, with each pulse as he watched his semen hit her skin, as her eyes widened but not with fear or disgust. No, PJ loved it. Loved that he’d done it, if for no other reason than that he loved it too.

  He whipped his shirt off and helped her clean up the worst of it.

  “Come on. There’s a shower with our names on it. Then we should watch movies like we planned. I’ll be up for another round shortly.” He waggled his brows. Maybe he’d pull out the new toys, especially the cane. Maybe he’d save it for another time. They had plenty of it.

  She tossed her sticky shirt in the laundry basket, along with her bra. He just followed behind her, watching her move through his house and feeling very satisfied with his life indeed.

  CHAPTER

  Nineteen

  Asa’s jeans were still open, so the V of tawny skin and that tantalizing trail of hair made her a little dizzy. That was why he’d gotten so close in the first place. He gave her such a smoldering look it made her wobbly. Despite the fact that they’d just had sex minutes before.

  “We should go back to bed. You look stressed. Let me help you with that.” His voice had gone low and coaxing. Teasing, laid-back Asa was one of her favorite flavors and as a result, even harder to resist.

  “Stay back.” PJ held out a hand to ward Asa off as he started to close the last three feet between them with that look on his face.

  He pouted but then grinned as he ignored her and continued to stalk her way. “You can’t honestly say that. Beautiful, you’re so sexy right now. How can I be expected to get anything done the rest of the day if I can’t have you before I go back to work?”

  She burst out laughing. “Fuck off. I’m just putting my underpants back on because I let you get away with that the first time when you talked me over here for a lunchtime quickie! Was I so forgettable?”

  “This is totally your fault, PJ.” He gave her a very serious face and inched forward. She shook her head. “You’re irresistible. I can’t not want you. Even when I’ve just had you.”

  He was like a sex cobra. Swaying and dazzling her with his looks and all the stuff he said as he got closer and closer until he made a grab for her.

  Yelping and then laughing, she hightailed it out of his bedroom and into the entryway, where she’d left her bag and shoes.

  “I have things to do. I work with really demanding customers.” PJ gave him a pointed look.

  Which he ignored as he followed her out. “My hands still smell like you.”

  She shivered, loving it when he said stuff like that. “Good. I should rub all over you to scent you to mark my territory.” It was a joke, but she meant it. She’d started to think of him in terms of mine. Since that day three weeks ago when they’d been out at sushi they’d drawn closer, and it had been so intense and wonderful and fantastic. She’d never been happier in the whole of her life.

  She stopped in the entry and he was right there, his hands on her. Her resolve to go to work wobbled.

  “You can rub on me any time you like.”

  “I plan to always take you up on that. Call me later.”

  He backed her against the front door and kissed her until she was goo all over again. He kissed her so long that she’d forgotten she was in the process of leaving until she opened her eyes to find him, gaze roving over her features.

  He made her feel so fucking beautiful.

  “Every time you touch me you do this.” She looked up at him, reaching to brush his hair away from his eye. Unless he was working, he wore it down a lot more often around her because she’d mentioned how sexy she found it. And that was sweet and holy shit she was so fucking gone over this man.

  “I always do what to you? Sex you up? It’s because you’re too delicious. I can’t resist,” he said.

  “You make me forget everything else.” She petted his beard because she could. He was hers.

  He smiled, that softness he showed so few people, that tenderness he showed only her.

  “I like it when you pay attention to me. What can I say?”

  “That’s good right there. You saying something, I mean.” She kissed him and then managed to get out to the porch unmolested. “Bye. Don’t forget to eat. I know you, you’ll be at Twisted Steel until nine tonight and you’ll get caught up and won’t remember food until you have a headache.”

  His expression softened. “Okay.”

  “Not just ice cream and energy drinks either.”

  “Too far.”

  She laughed and he went out to the porch, watching her until she’d pulled away from his house and was heading down the street before he went back inside.

  She had a job up north,
so she called ahead to arrange lunch with Shawn. On the drive it hit her: the years she’d spent making this drive, the energy she’d put into building a place for herself at Colman—it was never going to happen.

  It didn’t matter how much she bled for her father, it wouldn’t be enough. And maybe a life where she didn’t worry every moment what her father might think, but instead thought about what she wanted, was better.

  Fifteen minutes later Shawn and PJ sat at a rickety table in a hole-in-the-wall Mexican food place facing an overgrown parking lot in a strip mall many people had long forgotten.

  But the tortillas were freshly made, the tamales were to die for, and for six bucks it was the best lunch within an hour of Colman’s building.

  “I’m glad you called,” Shawn said as they cracked open their bottles of orange soda. “I’ve missed you.”

  “I know. You’re coming to the dinner Mom is having, right?” PJ asked.

  “The show trial for your boyfriend? You know Dad sees Asa as the source of your leaving Colman, right?”

  “Um, no. Mainly because no one said, least of all him. He avoids me. I can’t imagine why he’d care anyway. It’s not like he makes an effort to have contact of any kind with me.”

  Shawn heaved a sigh. “He loves you, Penelope. But he’s fucked up. He isn’t a good dad. That’s the truth. I don’t know if he ever could be. He’s telling everyone that you were finding a place at Colman just fine before Asa came into the picture. Whether he believes it and says it for that reason, or he’s said it so many times he believes it by this point, I don’t know.”

  Begging for scraps of her father’s affection had left her disheartened and worn out. When she’d left Colman and had also been estranged from Asa, she’d been able to pour everything into her business, and it had been exactly the right thing.

  “There are a lot of things I don’t know. But I’m good at custom paint. It’s not glamorous. It’s hard work. It’s expensive to do it right. I have to constantly innovate and update my skills. And I love it. I don’t need to defend my life to anyone. And I’m not going to for Howard Colman Jr.”

  Shawn put his hands up. “Preaching to the choir. I just think Mom expects this dinner to be something it won’t. As far as your work goes, I’ve always been proud of you. But I’ve seen enough to be thrilled by your success. You don’t have to defend yourself to me. I love you. I just thought you should know.”

  “I appreciate it. I do need to know, even when it’s tiresome and it makes me sad.”

  “I’ve only talked to you here and there for the last six weeks or so. I get updates through Julie but I don’t know much about your private life. Tell me about him. All I know is that he’s big, bad, and inked,” Shawn said.

  She nodded. “He is all those things. But he’s kind. And gentle. He worries about how I’ll feel about things. It’s nice.” She didn’t need to tell Shawn about the bare-knuckles fighting or the kind of crazy stuff he and his buddies did on the regular. Shawn wouldn’t understand, though he’d try because he loved her.

  “He’s smart and really talented. He and his partner, they’re geniuses with machines. He…” PJ looked up at her brother. “He listens to me, Shawn. He listens to me and he takes me seriously.”

  “All right. Well, that’s what I need, really. If you’re happy, I’m good. You and I need to get together with Jay and Julie and work out when you’re coming back to Colman.”

  She sat back and shrugged. “I don’t know if I want to.”

  Shawn shook his head. “No way, PJ. You said resigning was your way of making your point but that you’d come back. That was the only reason I didn’t make a bigger fuss at the time. You not being part of Colman isn’t what I agreed to. Neither did Julie. Even Jay is unhappy. I’m holding you to the promise you made.”

  “As I was driving up here I realized how many times I’d made this trip just hoping I could get him to see how hard I was trying. And I realized it was never going to happen. Whatever his reasons, he’s cool with not being close with me. Worse, he’s cool forcing me into a place that would slowly destroy me over the years. Why should I do that? And make no mistake, if I returned I’d be saying that was what I was worth,” PJ said.

  Shawn didn’t interrupt; he knew she wasn’t done.

  “Right now I don’t have to share my profits, which are modest, but they pay my bills. I don’t have to tiptoe around and pretend I’m not successful so as not to offend anyone that I might be doing better. My hours are my own. My choices are my own. Quitting was the best thing I ever did because when I had to put things together to make my business work, I realized I could do so much more than I thought possible. That encouragement is never going to come from my boss if I return to Colman.”

  Shawn sighed. “I’m sorry you felt that way. But we can change things. I miss you. I miss building a future with you and Julie and Jay. I used to see you at least five days a week. When was the last time I saw you in person, PJ? This is our company. Ours. Don’t run off. Stand and fight.”

  “I do miss you and Julie, even Jay. But it takes a lot of energy to fight all the time, and I did a lot of it alone. I don’t miss that. I don’t miss feeling like no matter what I do they won’t notice because I’m not a son.”

  “But we’re all old enough to change that. I keep saying this to Jay and Julie. Why do we wait around for what Dad and Fee decide?”

  “Because they’re in charge.”

  “They’re in charge because we allow it.”

  “Are you talking insurrection? I’m gone for not quite four months and you’re already leading a revolution?”

  He wasn’t amused, though. “Is it such a bad idea, PJ? This is my company, but I’m stuck waiting for Fee to pull his thumb out so he can pretend it’s his work and take credit. Julie is smarter than everyone above her but she waits. Jay, well, he’s a dick, yes, but that’s how he was raised. They made him this way. He’s our brother and he’s good at his job.”

  “I’ve been thinking about this a lot. At first I thought like you did. But now? Now I don’t agree so much. Jay isn’t good enough at his job that I’d believe he could lead Colman. Not right now. He’s spineless.”

  Shawn’s shocked expression made her sit forward and speak quietly. “It makes me so frustrated that you’re surprised by that. I sat there after tossing him some of my biggest clients and he was still so worried about Fee and whatever he might say to Dad that he did nothing to help me. That’s not leadership unless he planned to do that very thing. I get it; he was worried about his job, but come on. Until he grows a spine and stands up when he needs to, I don’t think he’s a better leader than Fee or Dad.” She shrugged. “Leading is more than sitting at the head of that table. This is why I’m not convinced coming back is what I need. Or what Colman needs. I’d rather be successful on my own without tearing down Colman on my way out.”

  “Why do you see this in such either/or terms? Jay might just surprise you with how much skill he’s got. Why assume he’s taking this lying down?”

  “What other assumptions can I make? I mean, really. I haven’t heard a single word from him in months. I’ve left him messages. I’ve texted him a few times. Nothing. So okay. I hope his new income with my clients gets him some therapy and maybe some management classes. But he’s doing nothing that I can see, so what other choices do I have?”

  “Did you think we all should have quit in solidarity?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Stop. I never asked for, nor do I expect, that. You’re all happy in some way, so why would you leave? If I’d been listened to and valued, I’d have stayed too. I love my family, Shawn. I just don’t think you all get to make me feel like shit for the rest of my life because I dropped out of college and have a ring in my eyebrow. Oh, and a uterus.”

  “I’m sitting here begging you to come back. So why would I want you to feel like shit? I want you back at Colman because it’s yours. As much as it’s mine and Julie’s and Jay’s. I think you judge him too hars
hly. Jay, I mean. He knows how to run a company. It’s all he’s known. It makes him slower to act, more conservative, because he’s been educated that way,” Shawn countered.

  PJ shrugged. “We all have to live with the choices we make. Or don’t make. He owes me a lot of words, and a lot of deeds. I haven’t received any of them. So while I don’t think he’s Fee, I think he needs to figure out who he is before I’d go tossing my power—which is minor, really—behind him.”

  “If he comes to a meeting with you, me, and Julie to talk about how we’re going to take Colman into the future, would you consider that a meaningful step?”

  “You’ve been planning, haven’t you? Why not you then? Or Julie?”

  “Because Jay has been groomed for this his whole life. You have no idea what it’s like.”

  “I don’t, no. But I’m making my way. Because no one at my place of employment found it necessary to attempt to keep me on. You need to remember that, because I sure as hell do.”

  “You said you wanted to make a point by leaving. We tried to back you up. You can’t have it both ways.” Her favorite thing about Shawn was that he never let her get past him with an argument he thought was fast and loose. It had always meant to her that he believed her capable of backing up her choices.

  “I’m not talking about you and Julie. I left. That’s the way I’m trying to have it. That way I can make my own mistakes and fix them. That way I can look at myself in the mirror each morning and know my boss thinks I’m worthy. I left. I thought it would make a difference. I was wrong.” She shrugged.

  “You’re just going to quit your plan? Along with quitting your job.”

  She’d missed this sibling back-and-forth with Shawn. “Nope. I quit my old job because Colman sells tires and that’s all they want to do. You’re all great at it, but that’s not what I want to do. My job now is awesome. My plan was to be relevant to this industry. It was to broaden our appeal and serve more customers than Colman did at that time. I’d hoped it would make a difference with Dad, yes. I’ve sent him my receipts for the last three months. I’ve forwarded him articles and pieces about what I’m doing. He hasn’t replied. My plan didn’t work the way I hoped it would. I wanted to come back. I wanted a place at Colman I’d helped build. But I can’t do either of those things because I don’t have the ear of anyone with a vote. So you can sit here and make it my fault that our brother won’t stand up, or that our father is useless and would rather drink too much and play golf than let his children build for the future. But we both know the truth.”