by Hailey North
Just then he glanced over and found her watching him. A slight upward curve to his lips, he said in a deep, low voice, “Like what you see?”
She nodded.
“Good.” Reaching over, he took her hand and started circling his thumb against her palm.
She sighed.
“Like that?”
She nodded again.
In a low voice, he said, “I want you to like everything we’re going to do tonight.”
Penelope shivered and clutched his hand, then reminded herself she wasn’t turning back. No matter what bridge she was about to cross, no matter the irrevocable consequences, she wanted to give herself to him, if only for one night.
For so many years she’d been the perfect example of goal-driven virtue.
Tonight, she’d live for the moment.
When she’d moved to New Orleans, she’d promised herself she’d begin to live life in a way she’d avoided for far too long. Tonight she wanted to turn a corner; from the tips of her toes to the edges of her hair, she wanted to feel alive, wanted, desired.
A radio sounded and he slowly withdrew his hand from hers and lifted his radio microphone.
Immediately missing the connection, she shifted toward him, needing to bridge the gap between their bodies. She kicked off her heels, then pulled her legs onto the seat. Feeling bold and daring, she stroked the side of his rock-hard thigh with her toes, wondering where within herself she’d found the courage to do such a thing.
He smiled and let the radio dangle from its cord. His hand drifted in a teasing feathery path from the tips of her toes, along the length of her calf, behind her knee, and along her thigh, where her skirt had inched up dramatically.
Penelope sighed and instinctively tilted her body more openly toward his exploring hand.
She thought she heard him utter a noise somewhere between a growl and a sigh.
She smiled.
She might grow to like this flirting stuff.
She sure hoped Tony liked the way she did it, too. From that sound he’d just made, she couldn’t tell, and she was too shy to ask.
“Penelope?”
She shifted toward him, thankful for the darkness that hid her expression. She didn’t want him to see just how consumed with longing she suddenly felt. “Yes?” she managed the question in a languid tone, trying to sound like a woman accustomed to running her toes over a man’s thigh.
“How’d you find me tonight?”
“Good detective work, I guess.” Remembering suddenly the cherry-red candle she had burned late last night, she added, “And a little bit of magick.”
“Threw a spell on me, did you?”
He kept on stroking her leg, making it almost impossible to answer. And since there was the teeniest chance she’d done exactly that, Penelope couldn’t think of anything to say.
Just then Tony pulled off the road and the car bumped along a gravel lane before stopping in front of a small house with a sprawling porch that extended on pilings over the water. “Here we are.”
Penelope shifted around, scrambling for her shoes. Before she got both of them on, Tony had whipped around to her side of the car, opened the door, and held the right shoe out. “For you, Cinderella,” he said, a provocative smile curving his lips.
Feeling a lot like she’d fallen into one of her own fantasies, Penelope slipped her foot into the shoe as he held it for her. Then he took her by the hand and led her from the car and up a path that crunched underfoot as they walked on it.
From underneath a flower pot, Tony produced a key that glinted in the moonlight. “Thankfully my brother is a creature of habit,” he said, inserting the key in the door.
“Should we? I mean, will he mind?”
Tony chuckled. “Not Chris. He’d be happy to know someone was getting good use out of the place.”
Penelope hesitated. “So no one lives here?”
Tony had the door unlocked. “It’s a camp, a summer place, but Chris is so busy at the restaurant he rarely gets out here. We used to come here as kids, everybody, the cousins, aunts, uncles, you name it, and run wild.”
“Wild?”
“Oh, the usual, swim, fish, pull the girls’ pigtails.” He turned and caught her hand back in his. “That was my favorite,” he said, staring down at her face with those incredible dark eyes of his. Penelope noted extra circles under his eyes and wondered with a tug of tenderness whether he had trouble sleeping at night.
Then she forgot all about that as he pushed open the door and said, “After you, Cinderella.”
She told herself to move forward, to enter this strange house that belonged to someone else, with a man she scarcely knew. She sent the message from her brain to her foot, but somehow it seemed to get all tangled up.
Tony must have sensed it, because he simply picked her up in his arms and carried her inside the house.
“Oh, my,” she said, her words muffled in his thick hair curling over his shirt collar. She wondered for the most fleeting of moments if Cinderella had experienced this incredible mix of anticipation and trepidation as she stepped into the glittering golden coach on her way to the ball.
Tony settled her gently on the floor. Dim light glinted in the room through gaps in the window coverings.
He closed the door behind them.
Turned the key in the lock.
And took her in his arms.
His lips moved like velvet over silk as he caressed and nibbled at her mouth. She sighed and nestled even more closely against his chest. He stroked the back of her neck with one thumb and as she uttered a tiny moan at the magic of his kiss, his tongue eased between her lips and danced in rhythm with the raging beat of her pulse.
She moved in unison with Tony as he half-waltzed, half-circled his way across the darkened room. In the rush of his kisses, Penelope scarcely noticed when her head settled against a nest of pillows. Then, his arms still encircling her, Tony lay atop her.
A tiny note of warning, a last echo of common sense, began to sound in her head.
Then Tony slipped his hand under her jacket, beneath the lacy cup of her bra, and the warning drowned in the wave of pleasure that swept over her.
Tony was pretty sure he’d lucked out and gone off to heaven. The touch of Penelope’s skin under his hand, the curve of her breast, the rise of her excited nipple, all combined to assure him that no matter what else happened in his life, he had to have this woman as his tonight.
Any questions, hesitations, or reservations had long since fled his mind.
He freed the buttons of her jacket, shrugging it from her body as she wriggled and sighed beneath him in a way that was fast driving him over the edge. For a fairly prissy woman in fussy suits with her hair slicked back, Penelope warmed up faster than a cup of soup in a microwave.
Sure enough, the only thing she wore under that jacket was her bra, a concoction of lace and satin that barely covered her full breasts.
She lay with her head thrown back on a sea of pillows. His hand on one breast, he turned his attention to the other with his tongue, palming the nipple through the lace of her bra.
She squirmed and he let go long enough to unbutton his shorts and reach for his zipper.
Between kisses, he said, “For someone so incredibly starchy, you are the most passionate woman I’ve ever known.”
Her eyes flickered wide and the most adorable smile curved on her lips. “Really?”
The innocent way she asked the question undid Tony. Working on her skirt, he shed it along with her pantyhose. The scrap of satin that passed for panties he left in place, excited by the sexy outline of the white silky fabric and the wisps of hair that curled around one edge, beckoning him inward.
Tony groaned, choking in a ragged breath.
She lay beneath him, the picture of female perfection, her breasts under the lacy bra rising and lowering rapidly, offering herself to him with every breath she took.
Of course he accepted the offering, after first tugging off h
is shirt and tossing it somewhere on the floor along with the rest of their clothing.
She had the most incredibly awed look on her face. It tugged at his conscience as he lowered his mouth to suckle on her breast, first warming the tightened nipple through the barrier of the fabric, then edging back the lace playfully with one finger.
She gasped and raised her hands to the back of his neck. Murmuring jumbled words Tony couldn’t quite make out, she curled her hands in his hair and kissed the top of his head.
She was more than ready.
Tony eased one hand beneath her back, making quick work of the catch of her bra. He skimmed it off her body and tossed it over his shoulder.
This time not even a wisp of fabric lay between him and her ripe breasts. He circled first one nipple, then the other before edging off the couch and patting his hand around the side table until he found what he sought.
With a click, the soft light of a table lamp cast a glow in which Penelope basked. Staring up at him, she looked completely open, totally vulnerable, utterly beautiful.
“You don’t mind the light?”
She smiled. Tracing the shape of his lips with her little finger, she said, “All the better to see you.”
“Ah, Penelope,” he whispered, tracing a line from her lips down her throat, around the silver pendant engraved with the letter p between her breasts, over ribs that showed clearly against her skin, in a slow circle around her navel, then lower, past the scrap of satin that barely covered the part of her he didn’t think he could wait much longer to explore and lay claim to.
She lay with her head thrown back, an almost drugged expression on her face. She whispered in response, “Tony, you’re making me feel things I never knew existed.”
He couldn’t help but smile before he lowered his lips. With his teeth, he tugged at the edge of the satin panty, then traced a path of demanding kisses where satin teased the edge of her thigh.
She quivered violently and he kissed the same path on the other thigh, reveling in her excited reaction.
“I want you to feel everything I do tonight in a way you’ve never felt before,” he said.
“Don’t worry about that,” she half-whispered, half-murmured.
Satisfied, he kissed her thigh, then the damp center of her panties. He’d been ready for her for so long now he thought he’d probably explode, like a balloon released with too much helium, but he willed himself to wait.
He wanted to show Penelope just how good she could feel with Tony Olano.
Not yet freeing her of panties, he stroked her with mouth and tongue. She writhed under him, calling his name. God, but she was hot. He eased his tongue under the edge of the satin, tasting her, teasing her, promising her more pleasure to come.
“Oh, Tony,” she cried out, “Raoul was never like this.”
“Raoul?” Tony stilled his kisses, lifted his head, and gazed toward her face, a face intensely passionate, intensely concentrated on the pleasure he’d been giving her. Dragging the name out into three syllables, he said, “Raoul? Who’s he?”
“Oh, nobody,” she said, opening her eyes and looking rather sheepishly at him.
Tony stroked the side of her thigh. “Your mama never told you not to talk about other guys?” He was too excited to be annoyed . . . yet.
“Raoul’s not just another guy.”
“Oh, no?” Tony edged up on his elbows. “Then who the hell is he?”
“Oh!” Penelope seemed to snap back to the reality around her. She blinked, then said, “Oh, Tony, Raoul’s not another man. He’s, um, he’s . . . well, he’s a figment of my imagination.”
“Uh-huh.” Tony didn’t feel too impressed by that explanation. She might have started off the reference to this mystery man with a less-than-favorable comparison, but Tony wasn’t into any compare-and-contrast point systems.
He wanted Penelope to think only of him.
Penelope pushed up on the pillows. “It’s true. Raoul’s an invention of my imagination. He’s like a . . .” she waved one hand in a slow circle, as if trying to whisk an explanation out of thin air, “an imaginary lover to keep me from missing all the things I’ve not had a chance to experience while I’ve been concentrating on my career.”
“Such as?” Tony wanted to stop talking and get back to business. The way he’d been kissing and pleasuring Penelope had him so excited he couldn’t stand this interruption. But neither could he stand her thinking of another guy.
She giggled, a bit nervously. Tony stroked her beautifully flat stomach, then edged his hand higher, past her ribs, until he captured first one breast, then the other. She sighed and said, “This.”
He followed his hands with his lips, leaning over her, claiming her, tasting her. When he could force himself to pause, he lifted his mouth and said, “You mean this, for instance?”
She nodded.
He returned his lips to hers, to the warmth and excitement of her mouth, her tongue responding to the dancing inquiry of his own.
Then his tongue slowed as the messages she’d been sending him filtered through the haze of desire ruling his mind. An imaginary lover. To make up for what she’d never experienced. He added up her words, plus what she hadn’t said, to what her almost-surprised reactions to his love-making signaled.
Lifting off her, he said, very slowly, and very clearly, “Penelope, are you a virgin?”
No answer came; she said nothing.
Beneath his embrace, she ceased her wriggling and soft moaning.
He groaned and sat up. “Shit,” he muttered, tugging at his hair, ready to explode.
“What’s so bad about being a virgin?” She, too, sat up, and glared at him, crossing her arms over her bare breasts.
“Nothing.” He pulled away from her, yanking at his shorts, tugging them up around his less-than-willing-to-give-in-to-reason body. He hated the way she’d closed in immediately, like a flower shocked by too much heat, when before she’d been so open to him. “It’s just that I can’t simply plunge ahead. It’s not right.”
Her chin quivered. “You don’t want me, do you?”
“Don’t want you?” He caught her hand, brought it to his body, showing her quite clearly how much he wanted her. He stared into her eyes.
She returned his look, quite steadily, though a wash of color mounted on her cheeks.
“I can’t do it this way. It’s not right, when you’ve waited this long, to give yourself away on a one-night stand.” He hated putting it that way, but he knew Penelope would wake up in the morning despising herself.
Who was Tony Olano to her, other than a guy in the wrong place at the right time? He tugged at her hand, pulling her delicious body from the couch. “And don’t tell anyone I stopped, for pete’s sake, or I’ll lose my reputation.”
“Great,” she muttered, letting him slip her bra back on. “My one big chance and you’re worried about your reputation.”
He handed her her skirt, intent on dressing her, refusing to give in to the desire raging within him, desire he could see she’d do nothing to derail.
It was probably just as well that a different type of fire sparked in her eyes. She snatched her clothing from him, rose from the couch, and turned her back on him as she yanked her clothes on.
Good. Better for her to be angry at him than hate herself in the morning. Still, he couldn’t believe he, Tony Olano, was now about to deliver this ready, willing, and wanting woman back to her car, follow her home, and tuck her into bed.
Alone.
Since when had he grown a conscience?
“My reputation,” he finally answered when she turned to face him, her suit jacket buttoned securely, “is the least of my worries.”
“I guess you’re worried whether I’ll still respect you in the morning,” she said in a cross voice.
He couldn’t blame her for sounding upset; hell, as worked up as he was, she had to be pretty crazed with need right now, too. He placed his hands on her shoulders and gazed into her eyes—ey
es passion had darkened to cobalt.
“As a matter of fact,” he said, trying for lightness, “I do care about that.”
Then he marched her out of the house before she could wear down his unexpected spurt of conscience.
Chapter 20
Penelope had sat frozen as Tony slipped her bra onto her arms, then reached around to the back to fasten the clasp. Her skin burned where his fingers touched it, but not even that heat thawed her mood.
His touch had, however, jerked her back to her senses and she’d snatched the rest of her clothing from his hand, not meeting his gaze, whipping into her nylons and suit.
A volatile blend of humiliation and pride ruled her as Tony now propelled her out the door and into his car. She’d started to argue with him. At twenty-nine, she was certainly old enough to know her own mind. If she chose to have sex with him, what did it matter to him whether she’d never done it before?
But the words he’d used had stopped her cold.
One-night stand.
Forgetting she’d gone off to Olano’s telling herself that’s exactly what she sought, Penelope hugged her humiliation to her chest. Even as her skin still tingled from the touch of Tony’s lips and hands and mouth, her ego reeled.
She shouldn’t have let herself hope, not even for a second, that she could have meant anything more than that to a man so obviously worldly-wise and experienced.
When they reached the restaurant parking lot, Tony took her hand. Against her own better judgment, she let him clasp it softly in his, registering with a rush of emotion how good his touch felt.
Gazing into her eyes, he said, “I want you to remember I stopped because I care about you. Not the opposite, not for any silly reason you’ve got racing through your head.” He brushed his lips across her knuckles. “You’re a sexy, desirable woman and if things were different, we’d still be back there on that couch.”
He sounded so sincere. Penelope softened slightly. Then he tipped her chin gently and feathered a kiss across her lips. She sighed. Could she believe him?
His lips moving slowly from her mouth to her ear, he whispered, “When I can, I’d like to see you again.”