Magnificent Bastard (10 page)

“Pardon?”

“Smphx,” she mumbles, before responding to my head shake with, “Sex, Bash! That’s how long it’s been since I had sex.”

My jaw drops. “Thirty-two months?”

“Almost three years,” she confirms with a wince. “The last time was with Phillip, and I can’t shake this feeling that the second he lays eyes on me, he’ll know that I haven’t rebounded yet, let alone fallen in love with someone else.”

I blink, still having a hard time wrapping my head around this number she’s provided. “So you really haven’t been with anyone at all? Not even a one-night stand? Some nice hipster boy you picked up at brunch over Bloody Marys and took home for a quickie?”

She arches a wry brow. “No, Bash, I haven’t. Believe me, if I’d tripped and fallen onto a penis, even a hipster penis, I would remember it. I’ve been a nun, and Phillip is going to take one look at me and see it written all over my face.”

“No, he won’t,” I scoff as I give her a once-over, silently deciding that she’s holding up pretty damned well. If I hadn’t had sex in nearly three years, I would be trembling in a corner somewhere, jerking off and crying in a nest I’d fashioned from a stack of old Playboy magazines and my own tears.

“Yes, he will. When I look in the mirror,
I
can see it.” She jabs a thumb at the center of her chest. “I don’t look like someone who’s been rolling around in bed with a gorgeous man. I look like the most action I’m getting is forcing my cat to snuggle with me before bed.”

“But you don’t have a cat.”

Her melted chocolate eyes widen. “Exactly. I haven’t even been getting cat action, let alone Incredible Bulk action.”

“Shit, Penny.” I drive a hand through my hair while my pulse begins to beat harder, faster. “Are you asking what I think you’re asking?”

“Before you say no, just think about this.” She steps closer, flooding my head with her scent, the one that’s made me crazy since the second it hit my nose. “Remember that e-mail about Mitzy? The sex therapist?”

I nod, too taken off guard to have any idea where this latest tangent is headed.

“Well, she was your client for almost three months and she clearly had no idea the size of…certain things.” She pauses, her eyes dropping pointedly down to my towel and back up again, just the touch of her gaze enough to make me ache. “But we’re one session in, Bash, and I already do. I know.” Her tongue slips out to dampen her bottom lip, sending my racing pulse into overdrive. “When we kissed last night… Well, let’s just say it was kind of hard to miss.”

I make a noncommittal noise even as I curse myself for losing control.

“At the time, I explained it to myself as an unavoidable natural reaction,” she continues. “But after reading the back story you sent me and going over our e-mails, it became clear to me that this is something more.”

“More?” I shake my head, pretending more confusion than I’m actually experiencing. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in all my years of dating, it’s to never jump to conclusions with a woman, especially if she’s talking about sex.

“We’re attracted to each other.” She motions between us, her face edging toward crimson again. “But we’re also friends and coworkers, so we know attraction will never become something more. Which is why what I’m proposing makes perfect sense.”

I blink. Innocently, I hope. “And what you’re proposing is…?”

“Oh stop. Don’t play dumb,” she huffs, proving she’s no fool. “You’re tired of banging anonymous strangers and I’m tired of not banging anyone. Neither of us is on the fast track to love, but that doesn’t mean we have to be celibate or sad while we’re waiting to find that perfect person. As long as we go into this with our eyes open, we can—”

“So let me get this straight,” I interrupt, needing to make damned sure I’m understanding her. “You’re saying you want to be fuck buddies?”

She lets out a breathy laugh. “Well, yes, I guess. But that makes it sound so cold and…efficient. It doesn’t have to be like that.”

“Oh, but it does.” I plant one hand on the counter to her right before slowly and deliberately placing the other on the counter to her left, trapping her in the circle of my arms. “If you want to fuck, I can most certainly oblige.” I bend closer until I can feel her increasingly rapid breath warming my lips. “I’m happy to strip you bare right here. Right now. Lift you up on this counter and fuck you until you come so hard you see Jesus.”

“I’m Jewish,” she murmurs, swallowing hard. “Or at least, I was raised Jewish.”

“That’s how epic the fucking will be,” I continue, my cock swelling beneath the towel as I imagine slipping my fingers beneath Penny’s skirt, pulling her panties to one side, and sliding my fingers inside where I’m pretty damned sure she’s already wet for me. “It will make you a believer in the holy pleasuring powers of my cock.”

“Amen,” she breathes.

Any other time, I would smile at the joke, but I need her to understand how dead serious I am about what I’m about to say.

“But that’s all it will be, Penny. We’ll fuck and come and pleasure each other until one of us decides it’s not fun anymore. And when we end it, that’s it. It’s just done. No harm, no foul, no messy emotions or screwing up the good thing we have going. Because I can’t have that.”

And I’m not sure I’m capable of anything more than a physical relationship anymore, anyway.

Falling in love with me would probably be just as bad for you as when you fell for that walking canker sore your mother is about to marry.

For a moment, I almost confess the ugly truth aloud, just to be sure she knows what she might be getting into, but Penny’s already nodding enthusiastically.

“Right! We’ll keep it casual. We can do what you wrote in the memo. We draw up a contract promising that when things are over you won’t fire me and I won’t quit—at least not without training a replacement of your choosing—and we’re good to go.” She tilts her chin back, making me keenly aware of how close her lips are to mine. “But instead of falling in love the way we did in your story, we’ll have a good time and let it end when it ends. We already know we can work perfectly well together without ever setting foot in the same physical space. We did it for two years. So even if it’s weird for a while after one of us calls things off, we can just cut back on the texting and e-mail until it isn’t anymore.”

My lips part, but before I can remind her what a serious hole that would leave in both of our lives—we really do talk more often than some married couples—she’s rushing on—

“But I seriously don’t see it getting weird. I know you, Bash. I know I’m not the kind of girl you’re going to fall in love with and I know better than to think something physical between us would ever become anything more.”

I frown. I should keep my mouth shut, but I can’t help playing devil’s advocate, “And why aren’t you the kind of girl I could fall in love with?” I bend my head closer to hers until I can smell the hint of sugar and coffee on her breath and I remember how perfect it felt to fuck her pretty mouth with my tongue. “You’re beautiful, smart, funny, and one of my best friends. What about any of that knocks you out of the running for Mrs. Prince?”

Her eyes widen. She looks as surprised by my mention of a future Mrs. Prince as I feel—I certainly hadn’t intended to take things there; it just slipped out that way—but she recovers quickly.

“Okay. Well. If you really want to know, I’ll show you.” She bends her elbows, bracing her palms on the counter behind her. A moment later she’s boosted herself up to sit on the island, bringing her knees even with my waist.

She’s now in the perfect position for me to wrap her curvy legs around my hips and take her right here in the kitchen. For a moment, as she begins bunching her skirt in her hands, I think that’s exactly what she has in mind. I’m seconds from ripping my towel off and giving her what she’s asking for when she shakes her head.

“Just watch,” she whispers as the skirt rises higher on her thighs, sending my blood pressure skyrocketing right along with it. “Look. Don’t touch.”

“I’ll warn you right now, buttercup,” I say, my voice thick. “If we decide to do this, I’m not the kind who takes orders. When I’m in bed with a woman, I take control. It won’t be any different with you.”

“That’s what I assumed.” Her breath hitches and her nipples tighten beneath her tank top, making it nearly impossible to keep from bending to bite one of them through her shirt. “That’s one of the reasons I want this. I know, when I’m with you, there won’t be room in my head for anything else. I’ll finally be able to forget all the things I don’t want to remember. Maybe even this. At least for a little while.”

She tugs her skirt higher on her right side, displaying a patch of blue and gray as long and wide as my forearm. My forehead wrinkles, my brain torn as it attempts to process the conflicting sights of a woman’s sexy, curvy thigh bared to the hip and the ugliest tattoo I’ve ever seen.

“Go ahead and say it,” she whispers. “It’s the ugliest tattoo you’ve ever seen.”

“It is not,” I lie as I tilt my head to one side, trying to figure out what the fuck it is. I see eyes, a large set of teeth, and maybe…flippers? “It’s unique.”

“Uniquely hideous.” Her hands clench the fabric in her hands until her knuckles go white. “Manatees don’t even have tusks.”

A manatee. Shit.

Even falling down drunk, what on earth possessed her to get a giant manatee tattoo? And how could any alleged artist, tattoo or otherwise, dare to mar such a perfectly stunning thigh by inking an eighteen-inch blob with fins on it? I’ve never committed to ink, but I’ve seen Aidan fill in enough tattoos to know this amount of work in one night must have hurt like a son of a bitch.

Suddenly, the pity filling my chest transforms to rage and I have a vivid mental fantasy of punching the man who did this to Penny in the face.

Repeatedly.

“It’s so huge and dark there’s no way to cover it up and lasers would only fade it. The consultant I talked to said the color goes too deep for me to be a good candidate for removal,” Penny continues in a defeated voice. “So it’s going to be there for the rest of my life, reminding me of what an idiot I am and making every man who sees it wonder what the hell is wrong with me.”

“Stop it.” I cup her face in my hands, fingers digging lightly into her jaw until she lifts her gaze to mine. “You are not an idiot and there is nothing wrong with you. You had a bad night. That’s it. One night.”

“I know,” she says softly. “And it could have been so much worse. I could have drowned. Or that other woman could have died. But that’s part of the reason it hurts to look at this stupid thing. Every day this blob reminds me of how close I came to losing everything, all because someone I loved wasn’t who I thought he was.”

Her lips tremble, but her eyes stay clear and dry as she adds, “And that’s why you couldn’t fall in love with someone like me. When you fall, it’s going to be for a strong, gorgeous, amazing woman who is as magnificent as you are. It’s not going to be for a girl who’s been so afraid of explaining her crazy tattoo that she’s bailed on every LetsGoLove date she’s agreed to go on for the past thirty-two months.”

My fingers slide into her hair, cradling her skull in my hands, wishing I could reach into her brain, find those ugly thoughts keeping her from seeing how fantastic she is, and toss them into the trash.

“But that’s okay,” she says, lips curving into a shaky smile. “I’m not looking for love. I just want to be close to someone again. Someone I trust, who I know won’t laugh or ridicule me when he sees Mr. Whiskers.”

I smile, shaking my head affectionately as my hands slip free of her hair. “You named it. But of course you did. Of course you named it.”

She wrinkles her nose. “A man with an Incredible Bulk has no room to throw stones, Prince.”

Grin taking up more real estate on my face, I ease closer, moving between her thighs, loving the way her breath hitches as my hands come to rest on her hips. “But you have to admit it’s pretty incredible. And bulky.”

And getting bulkier by the moment as I imagine how amazing it’s going to feel to get Penny’s curvy body beneath mine. I’m going to drive her crazy, show her all the ways I can make her forget Phillip, Mr. Whiskers, and anything else that’s plaguing her beautiful mind.

“I admit nothing,” she says, breasts arching closer to my chest as she tilts her head back. “I’m reserving judgment until Mr. Bulk and I have been properly introduced. Which isn’t going to happen this afternoon.”

Before I can hook my fingers around the back of her knees to hold her in place, she’s scooted backward, spun around, and jumped down on the other side of the island.

“I want you to have some time to think before you make your decision.” She turns to face me, smoothing her skirt down around her legs. “I know this is a big shift from your usual and I don’t want you to jump into something you’ll regret just because you’re a sex addict and a willing woman showed up on your doorstep.”

“I’m not a sex addict.” I prowl around the island toward her, “And I don’t need time to think.”

“Yes, you do,” she says, backing away toward the door. “And I don’t think sex addiction should be ruled out. You forget that I’ve seen all your LetsGoLove messages.”

“Then you know women always come back begging for more.” I continue my pursuit, lips curving in a smirk. “Aren’t you curious, buttercup? Want to make any bets about how many times I can make you come before dinner?”