Too long.
Maybe that was the general rule of the place. Don’t ask, don’t tell. If no one caused a problem, then someone wouldn’t cause a problem with them. Penny liked that just fine.
Luca finally came to find—and join her at the table—when Penny was six drinks deep. Vodka soda wasn’t her favorite alcohol to drink, but the place wasn’t exactly equipped for the kinds of martinis she preferred. Simple would have to do.
She didn’t even glance Luca’s way when he slipped into the chair next to hers. At the other side of the room, the female singer crooned her way through a rendition of Lana Del Rey’s Heroin. The song was decades old but the tune certainly fit the vibe of the place. And maybe even Penny’s current mood.
Luca said nothing, but Penny couldn’t help but fill the silence between them.
“I like this place,” she admitted. “It’s ... different.”
“Not the social standard?”
She shrugged. “Different.”
His head turned a bit in the corner of her vision, telling her that he was now looking right at her and trying to decipher what she meant. He was free to do that all he wanted; she wasn’t giving away the thoughts she kept locked up tight.
“Like you,” he said, not even posing it as a question. “I’m sure you feel different, too. Maybe like you don’t fit in with the typical crowd ... it’s not a place where you belong. Instead, you spend your time living in the undergrounds where people play at a new level of rules and only occasionally come out to blend in with the rest of the world when needed.”
Christ.
Why did he have to be right?
“Yeah, well—”
He interrupted her mutter with a quiet, “I get it.”
She did look at him, then, angling her body in the chair just enough that she could observe him from the side. He’d lost the leather jacket and hoodie, instead, now wearing his dark-wash jeans and the black shirt he’d been sleeping in since they arrived. At least, whatever soap he’d managed to find to use in the shower upstairs left him with a fresh, crisp scent. One she couldn’t stop trying to inhale.
Another problem.
Perfect.
“I told Freddie we might be here a while longer,” Luca said.
“You don’t need to be here at all. In fact, you would make shit a lot easier for me if you do leave before someone finds—”
Luca sucked air through his teeth, jumping in to say, “Yeah, probably not.”
“Why are you so ...”
His head tipped her way, those shockingly intense green-blue eyes of his watching her like he was trying to dissect her. The shadows from the lack of lighting in the bar only hardened the lines of his handsome face even more. If there was a God, then he spent a little more time creating Luca.
Unfortunately for her.
“I’m not anything,” Luca said, “and maybe that’s the problem. I’m not all that different than how I used to be, Penny, but you ... well, you’re entirely new. I mean, look at you.”
She blinked. “I don’t under—”
“I spent the last five years chasing after a ghost. I was trying to find someone who didn’t exist anymore. Everything you are is not what you were, and that’s fine. It’s certainly for the better, but it took me a second to catch up to speed. Don’t fault me.”
“Is that ... an apology?”
Because she wasn’t sure.
Luca chuckled, the sound a sinful tease to her senses. “What would I be apologizing for, exactly?”
“I don’t know. Finding me?”
“Nah, that was just my job. Anything else?”
Penny didn’t reply.
What could she say?
Luca lifted one shoulder, saying, “There’s your answer.”
Penny rolled her eyes. “Prick.”
Maybe it was the alcohol doing stupid things to her already foolish brain, but when she found Luca looking over at her with the kind of smile that could make women swoon, a soft giggle escaped her mouth. The sound only made his gaze drop down to her lips while his smile dipped into an all too knowing smirk.
“We’ve got a problem,” she told him.
Luca arched a brow. “Do we?”
“I think so. Starting with the fact you’re an issue that’s going to cause me even bigger problems if I don’t get you under control. No matter how many times I tell, and ask, you to leave me alone, you won’t. What happens if someone doesn’t give you a choice in the matter?”
“The tracking you thing?” Luca shook his head. “Again? That’s nothing.”
She didn’t think so. The man couldn’t possibly know it but every second he spent around her put his life in danger. And not just him ... his family and friends. Anyone who might cause issues for The League but especially those that became visible to the people she was hunting. Because if the monsters couldn’t find her, then they would move onto the next best thing. People she cared about; anyone attached to her life that they believed would hurt her to lose.
She had a feeling Luca wouldn’t care if she tried to explain. Five years of his life had been dedicated to finding her and bringing her home. If that wasn’t an obsession, then she didn’t know what was.
Did he even realize it?
That was the real question.
“What else would I be talking about?”
“I was thinking maybe that you realized I don’t really see you like the same broken little girl I used to ... and it fucked you up.”
Penny swallowed hard. “Well—”
“Penny.”
She looked his way.
He hadn’t looked away.
“What, Luca?” she whispered.
“It fucks me up, too.”
“What do we do with that, then?”
He flashed his teeth in a grin. “Maybe this.”
“What—”
He closed the distance between their chairs before she even knew what was happening. When his lips pressed against hers, there was no hesitation in Penny’s mind before she answered his kiss back. His hands threaded into the loose waves of her white-blonde hair before finding her jaw. Every stoke of his lips against her own coaxed open her mouth until his tongue tangled with hers.
There she was.
Stupid, again.
Breathlessly dumb.
But happy.
All because he kissed her.
When he did finally pull away, Penny was left with more confusion than before. At least when she only had her own attraction to deal with, things were easier. Adding his to the mess made all of this far more complicated. Because it—they—couldn’t be anything. Ever. Certainly not like this.
“I wanted to see,” he murmured, his thumbs stroking the line of her jaw with a touch that sent heat spiraling throughout her body.
“See what?”
Her words were air.
He didn’t seem to mind.
“If you wanted me to kiss you again.”
Penny could only ask, “Did you figure it out?”
“I did.”
And then he kissed her again. Penny let him. She wanted it.
15.
Luca
THE last thing Luca expected to find himself doing was Penny. So to speak. A part of him was still trying to reconcile the girl he remembered with the woman she had become in the years since he’d first met her. But it had become very apparent to him that it didn’t matter when that time was already over, and he had to deal with the now.