“Fine. But if you’re not there in an hour, I know where you live.”
Reluctantly, he got back on his bike while Penny went inside the store. He rode to Mel’s, aware of the police car tailing behind him. Only once Jaxson was back in his room did the cruiser pull out of the lot and continue on, presumably to harass someone else.
Jaxson paced around the room, trying hard not to think about Lenny leaning down and kissing Penny. Trying and failing. Every time, his hands clenched into fists, and he had the powerful urge to hit something. Hard.
What’s up with that?
When the soft knock sounded on his door a short while later, the first thing he said once he closed the door behind her was, “You didn’t mention you had a cop boyfriend.”
Her eyes widened. “Is that what you want to talk about? Me and Lenny?”
Hell yes, that was what he wanted to talk about. “Are you? Together?”
“What difference does it make?”
“Because if you are, you shouldn’t be here with me, alone in my motel room.”
“Why?” she asked, her voice a breathy whisper. “What might happen?”
She was close. So close. Looking up at him with those big eyes. His irritation fled, eclipsed by something much more powerful. Before he realized what he was doing, he lowered his head and kissed her.
For long moments, everything else ceased to exist. There was only the softness of her lips, the sweet taste of her mouth, and the quickly burgeoning desire to do so much more.
The feel of her hands clutching his waist brought a momentary fuck yes to his mind before reason returned. They couldn’t do this. Not now. Not ever.
He stepped back abruptly, shaken by just how good it’d felt to kiss her and how much he wanted to do more.
“That’s why,” he said roughly.
“Oh.” She licked her plump pink lips, now darker and fuller than they had been a few minutes earlier. “I guess it’s a good thing Lenny and I aren’t a thing then.”
Jaxson thought of the possessive behavior the cop had exhibited. “Does he know that?”
Penny waved her hand, though she seemed shaken by the intensity of that kiss as well. “We went out a few times. Nothing serious.”
“Again, I ask, does he know that?”
Penny averted her eyes and shifted uncomfortably. “Lenny only calls me when he runs out of other options.”
Surely, he’d heard that wrong. “Excuse me?”
Her smile only looked slightly forced. He began to wonder how many times Penny had faked a smile because she was damn good at it.
“I’m not his first choice. He assumes that I have nothing better to do, and spoiler alert: I usually don’t.”
When Jaxson’s expression turned dark, she hastened to explain. “It’s not like that. We’re friends, not friends with benefits. I’m talking about when he’s got an event or something and he needs a plus-one and no one else is available.”
“Why do you go?” he asked, angry on her behalf.
She shrugged. “It’s nice to get out sometimes, you know? Plus, he’s not a bad guy once you look past his preconceived notions and his tendency to be small-minded and stubborn. He has good personal hygiene, a respectable, steady job, and goes to church on Sunday.”
Jaxson snorted. She was setting the bar pretty low, and from where he was standing, she deserved better.
“Just so you know, I think that display earlier was meant to annoy you more than anything.”
Good to know.
“You just make friends wherever you go, don’t you?” She shook her head, as if clearing her thoughts. “But you wanted to know why I went to Sanctuary.”
He had? Right, he had.
“You were saying something about Sam’s father.”
“Right.” She began to pace the room, much the same as he had a short while earlier. “I told you that Sam’s mother, Ilsa, had some issues, right? Well, that made things rough for Sam. But what made things even rougher was that her dad wasn’t part of the picture. You know kids. They’re mean.”
He did know, having grown up with just his father, but he suspected that he’d had it easier than Sam. For some reason, society was more empathetic toward a father raising his son alone than a woman raising her daughter without a husband/father in the picture, and his father hadn’t dealt with mental health issues.
“Well, some of those mean kids grew up to be mean adults, and Sam wasn’t treated very well. She’s finally happy now. She’s got a husband who loves her and friends and ...” Penny paused. “Look, I know this is important to you, but I thought she should be forewarned if you were going to go in there and open up cans of worms she’d thought were buried a long time ago. I know it’s not your intent, but you’ll be bringing a lot of that ugliness back to the surface regardless.”
He got it. He did.
“For what it’s worth, I think Sam will want to talk to you. I bet she has just as many questions as you do. But her husband? He might be less receptive. He’s very protective of Sam.”
The way Penny said that, with an undercurrent of wistfulness, wasn’t lost on him.
“Like Lenny is of you?” he said.
She didn’t answer. Instead, she just tilted her head and looked at him, as if trying to figure him out. Finally, she asked, “Are you going to kiss me again?”
He shook his head. He wasn’t sure what had driven him to do so the first time. Sure, he’d thought about it. And, yeah, maybe he’d had some completely inappropriate dreams about her wearing that flowered apron and nothing else. But those were just thoughts and dreams. Once was enough to know that if there were a next time, he might not have the will to stop, especially not when she seemed so willing.
“I should probably go then.”
He nodded in agreement. “Yeah, you should.”
“Bye, Jaxson.”
Chapter Seventeen
Penny
Penny made it out to her van without her feet actually touching the floor. At least, that was what it felt like.
The man knew how to kiss!
Like the thunderstorm he was, the kiss had been sudden, near violent in its intensity, and had left her breathless.
Exactly why he had kissed her, well, she hadn’t quite figured that out. Proving a point maybe? It didn’t matter because wow. It was just like in those romance novels. For those few moments, everything else had ceased to exist.
As for what had happened afterward, she wouldn’t think about the regret she had seen in his eyes.
“Mom,” she called out when she got back to the flower shop. “Did you invite Lenny Petraski for dinner tonight?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“He stopped in earlier. One thing led to another, and the next thing I knew, I was inviting him for dinner.”
Lenny had just happened to stop by the floral shop today? Penny found that hard to believe. The timing seemed suspicious.
“Why did he stop in?”
“He said he wanted to check in and make sure everything was okay.”
“Why wouldn’t it be?” Penny asked, though she had a pretty good idea.
Addie shrugged. “Who knows why men do what they do? My guess is, he realizes he has some competition now and figures he has to do something. It’s not a bad thing.”