She returned to the island, going straight to a drawer that held silverware, and I laughed, drawing her attention. “What? Are these not the forks we should use?” She looked horrified at the thought. “Oh my gosh, I must seem like such a dumb little country girl.” She covered her eyes and groaned.
“You didn’t do anything wrong, angel,” I assured her. “I was actually laughing at myself. I think you are better acquainted with my house than I am.”
Penelope narrowed her eyes and raised a disbelieving eyebrow. “You’re teasing me.”
I shook my head and held up my hand, making the sign of the Scouts.
“Scout’s honor.”
Her eyes narrowed even farther. “Were you even a Scout?”
I laughed and put my other hand on my chest over my heart. “I swear, I was. Both my brother and I were Eagle Scouts, actually.”
Penelope’s jaw dropped a little, and her face smoothed out, morphing from disbelief to shock. Then she giggled. “Wow. I wouldn’t have pegged you for the outdoorsy type.”
I could feel the smolder in my gaze as I stared at her with deep intensity. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me, angel. But you will. We’ll know absolutely everything about each other.”
She flushed prettily again, and it had my body burning with desire. I was desperate to see if I could make her blush all over her body. However, it wasn’t the right time to be going in that direction, so I steered the conversation in another direction as we sat down to eat.
The meal was fantastic, and I asked her questions about her perfect kitchen, keeping mental notes in case I needed to renovate. After dinner, I refused to let her clean up, and Tucker was making it very clear that he was ready for his own food. I hated to send Penelope home, but I was only so strong. I wasn’t sure I would be able to stop myself from doing something stupid if we were alone after I put Tucker to bed.
We watched her walk next door from the front porch, waiting until she was inside before retreating into our own home. Tucker kept looking around as though he was expecting someone. “I know, little man. Trust me. I wish she was still here, too. We’ll just have to be patient. In four months, she’s all ours.”
Chapter 6
Jonah
Over the next three months, Penelope, Tucker, and I developed a routine. She watched him in the evenings and cooked for us on most nights. It turned out, she knew quite a bit more about babies than I did, so I happily let her teach me how to be a better dad. Tucker and I lived for the moment she arrived.
However, I made sure we were never together without Tucker and always sent her home before I put him down for the night. Or at least until he woke up and demanded to be fed...which was usually at about two o’clock in the middle of the night.
When I dropped him off at daycare for my weekly meetups with Justice, and sometimes Thatcher or Jamison, I made sure she was the one in charge of his care. The weekly appointments quickly escalated into two or three because they were my only opportunity to expend enough energy to exhaust myself, so I wasn’t bursting with so much repressed sexual tension. Between that and the dreams she starred in every night, I wasn’t quite as worried that my balls would shrivel up and fall off. I stripped the bed every morning so the housekeeper wouldn’t have to deal with the mess I made in my sleep. Although, she probably wondered why I’d suddenly decided to rotate my bedding nightly...
I hated every moment that Penelope wasn’t with me, but I managed to stay sane for Tucker. It also helped that I could watch her at the center and in my home. And when she wasn’t visible to me, I’d hired a guard to tail her, reporting her movements back to me so I always knew she was safe.
It was past Tucker’s bedtime when I closed out my computer and headed down to the first floor. I’d worked a little longer than usual because there had been an attempted hacking into one of the companies whose cybersecurity my team handled. I wasn’t hands-on with the projects very much these days, but there were times when certain clients expected to be handled directly by me.
Once I hit the bottom of the stairs, I started for the kitchen but altered my course when I heard the murmur of Penelope’s voice. “It’s pointless, Mallory.” I stopped outside the den and listened, quickly realizing that Penelope was on the phone. With her sister from the sound of it. “I don’t need to see a doctor about this. Why waste time when I don’t need it and will most likely forget to take it so often it would be ineffective anyway?” There was silence for a minute, then Penelope sighed. “Mal, not everyone does the casual sex thing.”
What the fuck? I walked straight into the room, but Penelope was facing the large fireplace on the opposite wall and didn’t see me.
“Can we talk about this later? Tucker will be up from his nap any minute, and I like to be the first thing he sees.”
Damn, I loved her. The way she had fallen for my son was as sexy as the sway of her delectable ass. The thought had my eyes straying down to said ass, and I licked my lips, reminding myself I only had a little under four weeks to go until she was officially mine. When she turned around, the distraction was gone, and I immediately refocused on her conversation with Mallory.
“I’m sorry to have eavesdropped”—not really—“but is everything okay? You mentioned going to the doctor?” And what the fuck was that about casual sex? I almost yelled the question but was able to contain it at the last second.
Penelope’s face flushed redder than I’d ever seen it. “Nothing. I’m not sick. It’s nothing.”
I prowled over until I was directly in front of her and lifted her chin with my thumb and index finger, tipping her head back until she was looking up at me. I kept my grip firm, so she was forced to meet my gaze. “I expect you to always tell me the truth, Penelope. I promise, you won’t like the consequences if you ever lie to me again. Do you understand?”
Her blue eyes became wide and round, blinking owlishly, while her mouth widened. I could see her pink tongue, and I swallowed hard to stop myself from taking a taste. “C-c-consequences?” she stuttered.
I nodded, never taking my eyes from hers so she could see I was dead fucking serious. I gave in to a small impulse and leaned closer until our lips were barely a breath apart. “Yes, angel. Your punishment will be begging for forgiveness.” And orgasms, but we still had weeks to go before I could tell her that.
My right hand caressed her shoulder and slid over her collarbone and down where I rested it over her heart, just above one gorgeous, buxom breast. Her breathing sped up, and my cock swelled to epic proportions. “You’re curious, angel, aren’t you? I think there’s a naughty, dirty-minded little girl inside you, and she’s dying to know what it would feel like to be punished by me.”
I was playing with fire, and I needed to stop before it got out of hand. But fuck, her heavy breaths and racing heart had my cock dripping with desire and begging to be released. I didn’t let her answer because her response would more than likely have me throwing all of my good intentions out the window and showing Penelope right there and then what it felt like to be dominated by her man. I raised my head and took one step back. “Now, answer my original question. Why do you need to see a doctor?”