But I saw that we had an audience in the distance. A few boys were gathered around our clothes in the sand. They looked like they were probably in high school, ditching class.
I pulled out of her and she rested her head on my shoulder, oblivious to the fact that we were no longer alone. I kissed the top of her head. “We have an audience," I whispered.
"What?!" She whipped her head around to look at the shore.
The tallest of the three gave me a thumbs up.
I laughed.
"Oh my God," she put her head back on my shoulder, hiding her face.
I held her protectively against me. The kids were harmless enough, but I didn’t want anyone else to see her naked. But then they grabbed her bathing suit.
"Oh, shit. Hey!" I yelled at the boys.
I started to let go of Penny so that I could run after them.
"Don't you dare leave me in this ocean!"
I started laughing because there was nothing else I could do. And…it was fucking hilarious. "Penny, I'm so sorry," I was finally able to get out interspersed between my laughter. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d laughed so hard.
"Stop laughing! This isn't funny, Professor Hunter! I just bought that." But then she started laughing too.
"I'll buy you a new one."
"Should we make a run for it? It's freezing." She unwound her legs from my waist.
I grabbed her hand and we started to run out of the water. "Oh, wait. The coast isn't exactly clear." I pointed toward the boardwalk. "Boys don't steal bikinis and run away. They stay to look."
She looked mortified. "What do we do?"
A wave crashed down behind us. I lifted her over my shoulder so it wouldn’t knock both of us over.
"Professor Hunter, put me down!"
I laughed and walked the rest of the way to shore, keeping my hand on her ass to help cover it. I wasn’t going to stay in this water a second longer or we’d probably both catch a cold. One viral ass video never hurt anyone. Besides, the kids were far away and I doubted they had any idea who I was. And if they were snapping photos, my junk was on better display than Penny’s ass.
As soon as I put Penny down, she sprinted to our towels and wrapped one around herself. I took my time. There’d been worse pictures of me in tabloids. "Penny, those boys were far away, they could barely see you."
"But they could still see me! And they probably took pictures with their phones. And they...they saw us having...well, you know."
"The highlight of their young lives, I'm sure." I began to dry off with my towel. Before I’d even run the towel through my hair, Penny was fully dressed. Without her bikini top, her nipples were on full display, trying to poke through her shirt. She folded her arms across her chest and sat down. I would have thought she was upset based on her body language, but she was smiling so hard. She was just trying to hide her very sexy nipples from me. Which wasn’t necessary at all. I took a deep breath of salt air, wondering if she felt as relaxed as I did. I pulled my boxers and shorts back on but kept my shirt off. I had a feeling she appreciated the view.
I sat down beside her and rubbed her back. "Are you ready for part two of our date?"
"That depends on what we're doing. I'm not exactly dressed to go anywhere."
"Well, how about we go to my place?" I’d told Ian that I couldn’t watch the Giant’s game with him tonight, so I hoped he wouldn’t be camped out on my couch. Rob and Isabella had already tried to ruin this day for me. But I was pretty sure even if Ian was at my place, nothing could dampen my mood. I felt…so relaxed. More so than I did in corpse pose. Or even when I ran.
Penny smiled up at me. "That sounds perfect."
I couldn’t have described it any better.
Chapter 29
Monday
We pulled into the parking garage of my apartment complex on the edge of Main Street.
"You live here?"
"Yes." I turned onto the third story of the parking garage and pulled into a space next to the rest of my cars.
"Your neighbors have really nice cars too."
I stepped out of the convertible. "Those are mine."
"Seriously?" She got out of the car and looked around. "All of them? One of them looks like the Batmobile!" She pointed to the one farthest away.
"Yeah. Turns out it's never very convenient to drive though. And it doesn't give me any superpowers." My smile disappeared as she pulled out a hoodie from her bag. She zipped it up and lifted the hood over her head. I shoved my hands into my pockets as I watched her. What was she doing…getting ready for a heist?
"Okay, I'm ready," she said, adjusting her hood lower.
"What, do you think I'm sneaking you in? I don't believe that anyone from the university lives here."
"Well I don't want to get caught. Someone in the lobby might see us."
I laughed and shook my head. "Okay." If this made her more comfortable. I put my hand on the small of her back and led her over to the elevator. I swiped my card in the sensor and the doors opened immediately. We stepped in and I touched the button for my apartment on the top floor. The elevator doors closed.
"Penthouse, huh?"
"I guess you could say that." She knew I bought that country club. But she was still surprised to see all my cars. And surprised that I lived in a nice apartment building. She really had no clue who I was. And she was still standing here with me. With a smile on her face. And I didn’t have the slightest idea why.
She looked around the elevator like she had never been in one before. But certainly she had. Maybe just not one with doors on either side that opened directly into apartments.
The elevator stopped. I took out my apartment card, swiped it through the reader, and the doors parted.
She stood there for a moment like she had never seen anything cooler.
I grabbed her hand and escorted her into my place.
"Wow." She walked down the few steps from the elevator and looked around. She was standing in my living room, which was surrounded by windows that overlooked the small college town. I walked over to the fireplace, touched a button, and a flame burst to life. I knew what she was probably thinking as she looked around. There was no T.V., no magazines on the coffee table, and the modern couch looked like no one had ever sat on it. The kitchen to the right had granite countertops and shiny new appliances. And there was a dining area with a vase of fresh flowers in the center of the table. But it looked like no one lived here. It looked like the model home they used for display purposes only. It was cold and uninviting. But I didn’t have good memories to fill pictures. Or anything I wanted to share. It was just me here. Alone. Until her…
Ever since Ian told me the place looked cold, I’d been worrying about bringing Penny here. But it was like she brought life to the place when she stepped into my apartment. It wasn’t that she didn’t fit. She fixed it. She fixed everything.
Her eyes stopped at the flowers on my dining room table. "Oh, Professor Hunter. Thanks for the friendship roses."
I laughed. "You're welcome."
"But really, thank you. How did you know I was going to agree to skip class anyway?"