First Time: Penny's Story (First Time (Penny) Book 1) (8 page)

“
Nah. I said I was fine with
slow.” He looked out at the pond, the way he’d looked out at the
river when he’d asked me to come on this date. I wondered if it was
something he did out of nerves. Did talking about sex make him
nervous? He reached for his bottled water. “I wasn’t expecting to
have sex with you any time soon, anyway.”

“
Good. Glad we’re on the
same page.” I picked up my phone, but I could barely read the words
on the screen. Talking about sex with Ian—even though we were
talking about
not
having sex—made me imagine having sex with Ian. I’d never
wanted so badly to reassure a man that my virginity didn’t mean
we’d be playing Yahtzee and chastely holding hands. With a surge of
horny bravery, I added, “But just so you know, I give great hand
jobs, so there’s that to look forward to.”

He sputtered, water bursting from his mouth
in a sloppy spit-take. “Jesus! Give a man some warning.”

I laughed to myself and scrolled down the
phone screen, because I couldn’t look him in the eye at the moment.
I couldn’t believe I’d said that. “Let’s go onto the next one,
since you just mentioned it. We’re not supposed to bring up
religion.”

“
Technically you brought it
up, by running into me in the park on Sunday,” he said.

Oh my gosh, did he think I was stalking him
or something?

I was about to defend myself when he went on.
“So, are you religious? ‘Not religious, but spiritual’? Are you a
druid?”

“
No. I wanted to be a druid,
but I just couldn’t get past the human sacrifice.” I reached for a
nectarine. I didn’t want to get strawberry seeds in my teeth. “I’m
not religious. Or spiritual. I wasn’t raised in a religious family,
so it never occurred to me to pick up a faith.” Well, a faith
besides financial success. “I went to bible camp with my best
friend when we were in high school, but it didn’t change anything.
But I am
very
superstitious.”

“
That’s fair. At least
you’re not a godless Protestant.”

I couldn’t tell if he was
kidding, or if he was actually
that
Catholic.

“
Catholic joke,” he
clarified.

I knew absolutely nothing about Catholicism,
and definitely no jokes about it, but that didn’t stop me from
trying and failing and embarrassing myself. “Right, because of
Henry the Eighth.”

I took a bite of nectarine, because it would
taste better than my foot.

“
Sure, yeah.” Ian cleared
his throat and asked, “Are there any more items on the list we
haven’t covered?” and I couldn’t tell if he was offended by my
remark or not.

There was such a high potential to look like
a jerk when I tried too hard, but I could never seem to stop
myself. “Pets,” I read, grateful for the subject change. “It says
guys don’t like hearing about our cats on first dates. That’s rude.
It’s not like every woman who has a cat is a cat lady.”

His eyebrows rose. “I have a cat, and I’m not
a cat lady. Of course, I’m not a woman, either.”

“
You have a cat? I love
cats!” I couldn’t remember ever meeting a single guy who owned a
cat. Maybe it was his ex-wife’s cat, and she didn’t take it with
her? Either way, Ian considered it his cat, and that was going on
the “pro” side of my pros and cons list. But just so my enthusiasm
didn’t scare him, I added, “Which is probably the exact reaction
‘don’t talk about pets’ was warning you about.”

“
Ambrose is a great cat. And
I’m not just saying that. He’s never once peed in my shoes.” He
paused and picked imaginary lint from his shirt. “Except for the
shedding. I could do without all the fucking shedding.”

“
Hey, you used the f-word!”
I blurted. I’d been delighted to hear it; on our first date, he
hadn’t started swearing until we’d both relaxed and started
actually communicating.

“
I’m sorry. I do curse a
lot. It’s something I should work on.”

I hoped that he didn’t. I kept a pretty clean
vocabulary, myself, unless I got a little alcohol in me, but I
enjoyed people who had the confidence to fling obscenities like
candy at a parade. It was funny, as long as the situation wasn’t
inappropriate. Sometimes even when it was.

“
No, it’s fine! I think it’s
a sign that you’re loosening up. Maybe all the taboo topics did you
some good.” I dropped my phone and took another bite of my
nectarine, noting the way Ian’s gaze moved to my mouth. Even though
I hadn’t had sex yet, I still appreciated feeling sexy. The way he
was looking at me, I felt the way Rihanna must feel every single
time she looked in a mirror.

There was that flirty bravery again. I slowly
dragged the tip of my finger across my bottom lip to wipe away a
drop of juice while he watched like he wanted to lick it off
himself.

“
So. Do you feel any better,
now that we’ve made all the mistakes?”

He shook himself out of his momentary trance.
“I do. Honestly, I don’t know why they say not to talk about these
things on first dates. It would get a lot of out of the way right
at the start.”

“
But imagine if we’d had
this conversation on our first date. At the restaurant. Where you
wanted to kill an octopus,” I teased. It would have been a disaster
if we’d tried to talk about any of the things we’d just talked
about, because every word out of our mouths had been some sort of
misunderstanding at the time.

“
The octopus was probably
already dead,” he defended himself. “I didn’t realize you were so
passionate about them. I didn’t realize anyone was that passionate
about them. Speaking of which… I have to know where the tattoo
is.”

“
You don’t have to know.” I
was going to tell him, but the flirting was too fun. “But if
you
want
to
know…”

He reached for my hand, pulling it away from
where I smoothed down my skirt. The moment his skin touched mine,
goose bumps stood up on my shoulders. His hands swallowed mine
between them. My heart beat out of control. I couldn’t remember
what we were talking about.

Then he said, very serious, his voice low,
“Penny. May I please know where the octopus tattoo is?”

I couldn’t tell if I was relieved I hadn’t
made a fool of myself over his joke or disappointed it had been a
joke. With a nervous laugh, I pushed his hands away and said, “Yes,
fine. It’s on my right hip, in front. And it’s about the size of a
fifty-cent piece.”

He visibly swallowed.

“
Do you have any tattoos?” I
tilted my head as I considered the possibility. “You seem like the
type.” Or maybe I just wanted him to be the type. The foul
language, the drawing, I kind of wanted to find out he was some
reformed bad boy with an artistic soul.

“
There’s a type?” It sounded
like news to him. “No, no tattoos. I’ve never felt the
urge.”

Well, damn.
“Here I was, imagining that under your suits and
ties you were hiding some sexy bad boy past.” I finished my
nectarine and wrapped the pit in a napkin.

“
The extent of my sexy bad
boy past are some very stupid pranks I pulled in
college.”

Ah, well. You can’t win ‘em all.

I leaned back on my hands.
The sky was bright, crystal blue and dotted with cumulus clouds. It
was exactly the kind of sky you’d expect on a hot summer day. It
reminded me of
Up
,
and how my friends and I had left the theatre and gone back to my
house to lay on the grass and point out shapes in the clouds while
we talked about what college was going to be like.

That seemed like such a long time ago,
now.

“
This was a perfect idea.
Even if it’s a little crowded.” There were women next to us having
a competitive-sounding conversation about their babies’ weights and
percentiles, and two artsy types sketching the castle across the
pond. Joggers and cyclists and tourists crammed the paths, but our
little blanket felt like a calm, private island in the sea of
activity.

“
Is it?” Ian looked around
us. He was obviously way more used to being constantly surrounded
by tons of people than I was.

That was one thing I hadn’t gotten used to in
New York, and since I’d been living here for four years, I probably
never would. Everyone was right on top of each other.

“
Yeah, I just noticed,
myself. I guess I was so caught up in—”
you
, I finished mentally. I waved at
the picnic basket between us. Suddenly, it seemed like a total
third wheel. “Here.” I moved it then scooted a little closer to
him. “We still have room to stretch out. I want to do something I
haven’t done in a really long time. Since Pennsylvania,
actually.”

It was a little difficult to lie down on the
blanket and get comfortable without my skirt flying up, but I
managed, and folded my hands over my stomach because I was far too
aware of my body in the moment. “You have to look up,” I told him
with a nod.

He hesitated but got down on the blanket,
too, close enough to me that his arm brushed mine. “I assume we’re
looking for shapes.”

“
Yes. And then I’m going to
judge whether or not you’re a weirdo or a pervert based on the
shapes you see.” And speaking of weirdos and perverts, there seemed
to be a giant set of tits floating in the sky. “Oh my gosh, that
one looks like boobs!”

“
I was going to say an ice
cream sundae, but look who’s the pervert, now,” he said dryly. “The
sky today looks like something out of a cartoon.”

“
Those are cumulus clouds,”
I said without thinking. After years of hearing “no one likes a
know-it-all, Penny,” from my mother and seeing exactly how true
that was with guys I’d dated, I should have learned by now. “Sorry.
I didn’t mean to sound like a know-it-all.”

He gave me a strange look. “You don’t sound
like a know-it-all. But you do apparently know it all. First
octopuses, now this?”

“
Octopods,” I corrected him
automatically and cringed. “Sometimes, I can be overbearing, I
know.”

I couldn’t face him. I felt like everyone I
met got the same idea: that I was full of myself, that I thought I
was a bigger deal than I was or smarter than everyone else. And I
didn’t feel that way, not one bit. Most of the time, I felt the
exact opposite of smarter-than-everyone-else.

“
Hey, no. Don’t do that,” he
said softly. He sat up a little, propped on his elbows. “There’s
nothing wrong with being smart, Penny. Jesus, I’m fifty-three, and
I didn’t know what that kind of cloud was. I don’t remember what
any of the clouds are. I would have said cumulonimbus.”

“
Nimbus is only added if
there’s precipitation involved,” I said, and I bit my lip to stop
myself from saying anything else.

His expression shifted, like a barrier had
crumbled between us. I’d shown him more than I’d realized. I’d
shown him vulnerability, a hole in my super-peppy-positive-Penny
armor.

“
Penny…can I kiss
you?”

My throat closed up. I became dizzy with the
ridiculous thought that this didn’t feel like just a first kiss,
but a first step. And maybe it was too early to think that, but I
wanted it, as badly as I wanted to know what his mouth felt
like.

I nodded. “Yes, please.”

He rolled to his side, rising on his elbow
and leaning down. He planted one hand on the blanket beside my
waist, so his forearm lay across my ribs. I was sure he could feel
how erratic my breathing was.

What the heck was I doing? This was a public
park, with people all around, and I didn’t care one bit if they saw
me kissing a man in broad daylight. Public displays of affection
weren’t really my thing—at least, this public—but as Ian’s mouth
touched mine, I couldn’t worry about that anymore. Just the
smallest contact flushed all shame from my brain. I lifted my head
and just went for it, opening my mouth under his, hoping he would
follow my lead when I darted my tongue against his lower lip.

He didn’t just follow my lead, he took the
lead, sweeping his tongue into my mouth, stealing the breath from
my lungs.

There’s nothing in the world like a first
kiss. Tingles zipped from my mouth to the very best place. Ian
quickly rose from top five to number one first kiss of my life. It
was the most toe-curling, vagina-clenching kiss I’d ever had, first
or not. Now I understood how this could have woken Snow White.

I dove my hand into his hair and resisted the
temptation to push him down to my neck, my collarbone, my—

“
Excuse me!”

The voice was so loud and sharp, I reacted on
reflex, jerking away from Ian as he leaned up on his elbow. The
women with their babies were staring at us like they’d just seen us
slaughter a goat right in front of them. I couldn’t look them in
the eye, so I pretended to fix my hair.

“
Excuse you,” Ian replied.
“The lady and I were occupied.”

“
Maybe you shouldn’t be
occupied with
that
in public.”

I snuck a peek at the woman.
She was wearing yoga pants and a tank top that said
serenity
on it. She needed
to get back to whatever yoga studio that was, pronto, because she
had clearly lost her Namaste.

Knowing Ian’s love of and proficiency with
obscenity, I wondered if he was going to fly off the handle or
something. It seemed unlikely, for as chill as he was, but this
lady was being super rude. So it surprised me when all he came up
with was, “Maybe you should mind your own business.”