His jaw is clenched tight, his eyes sparkling with that weird male intensity that I’ve never seen in real life before him. He’s essentially threatening to keep me a prisoner and instead of being scared I just feel… relieved.
After tossing and turning all night, what I realized when I woke up this morning was that I’m in love with Penn Barnett. It makes no real sense, least of all to me, but I love him and even with noble intensions at heart, it would kill me to give him up.
I’m not sure how he figured out where I was, but he did and he came. He’ll always come. I don’t know how I know that for sure, but I do. He will always be here, he won’t leave, he won’t desert us, he won’t turn his back. He will always be there for me and Poppy and despite all the drama that’s surrounding us right now, something in my heart settles into place with the realization.
My body has always reacted to him, even though my mind had fought his possession at every turn. Now my heart is in the game, it would kill me to have to walk away from the future he’s offering us. I want this man, I want to live with him, marry him, let him be the father he’s promising to be for my daughter. But I need to know if that future is going to involve Roxanne and her child too.
“I was coming back to Rockhead Point today anyway.”
“You were?” he asks.
“Yeah, last night I freaked out and I just needed some space. I saw the sign for Buffalo and remembered Bran lived here.”
“Who is this guy anyway?”
“He’s an ex,” I say on a wince.
“You ran to your ex fucking boyfriend,” Penn says, the calm in his tone not hiding the angry menace that’s barely below the surface.
“Not him, just someone who knows the area, I asked if he could help me book a hotel so I didn’t have to turn up somewhere late at night with Poppy and he offered to let us use his spare room. He calmed me down and stayed on the phone with me almost the whole drive here because I was upset.”
His face reddens and he releases his grip on my me, lowering his hands to his lap as his fingers clench into fists. “Stay here.”
“What are you going to do? He’s married for god’s sake, it’s been years since we were together and we broke up because we realized we were better as friends,” I say quickly as Penn opens the driver’s door and climbs out.
“Get your ass back in the fucking car,” he hisses as I open my own door and follow him out.
“No. What are you going to do? You need to calm down.”
“I’m to go and get my daughter, my brother and your stuff, then I’m going to thank your ex and his wife for taking care of you before I drive us home.”
His words are polite, but the tension in his body and the anger that’s clear on his face tell another story.
“No, I’ll get Poppy, you stay here.”
“Lulu, if you don’t get in the fucking car right this second, I’m going to bend you over the hood, rip down your pants and fuck you right here out in the open so your ex can see exactly who you belong to now.”
“You’re being ridiculous.”
A moment later my back hits the cold metal of my car, my legs spread wide with Penn’s body pressed up against me. His finger collars my throat while his lips take mine in a claiming kiss that I can’t help but respond to.
“You. Are. Mine,” he taunts against my lips.
A moment later he releases me and turns, striding purposefully up to the front door as I sag back, glad for the support of my car behind me. By the time I’ve pulled myself together enough to move, the front door is reopening and a stern Penn is exiting, Poppy’s baby carrier in one hand, her diaper bag in the other. Teddy follows behind him, chatting happily to a wide-eyed Bran and a smiling Nina.
“Go say goodbye,” Penn grunts as he reaches me, opening the back door and clipping Poppy’s seat into the car.
When I reach the front door, Teddy is just saying goodbye, and he reaches out and squeezes my shoulder as he heads back to Penn’s car and slides into the driver’s seat.
“Are you okay?” Bran asks, eyeing my crazy boyfriend behind me.
“Yeah, I’m fine. I was going to head back home this morning anyway.”
“Penn is… intense.”
A laugh bursts from me and I smile a little manically. “Yeah, he is. He has six brothers and they’re all the same too, even Teddy, although he’s a sweetheart.”
“Are you sure you want to leave with him? He kind of just told us you were going and marched out with Poppy. But if you don’t want to go we can call the cops, you can stay with us as long as you need,” Bran offers.
Nina snickers, curling herself around her husband’s arm. “Honey, that man is crazy in love with Lulu.”
“Oh he’s definitely crazy,” Bran says beneath his breath.
“I’m fine, I promise. He’s organizing a DNA test for the baby, but he thinks Roxanne will admit she lied before it gets that far,” I say with a shrug, looking down at my feet, not wanting to talk about all the tabloid style drama going on in my life right now.
“I’m glad he came for you,” Nina whispers, “It’s so romantic.”
“I’ll let you know what happens,” I say with a smile, and she nods emphatically. “Thank you so much for letting us stay here last night, I’m so sorry I invaded with my drama and emotional meltdown.”
“I’m just so glad I finally got to meet you. Poppy is an absolute darling and you guys are welcome any time. It’d be really nice to catch up over dinner or something once things settle down for you and Penn,” Nina suggests, releasing Bran and pulling me into a hug.
“I’d really like that.” Turning, I offer them a little wave, then let Penn guide me into my car, closing the door behind me with a firm thunk. I tense when he walks up the path to Bran, then relax a little when they shake hands. With a decisive nod, Penn walks around to the driver’s seat and climbs in, starting the engine and pulling away from the curb a moment later.
An hour later, Penn speaks for the first time. “Can you text Teddy and tell him I’m going to pull off at the next exit and find us somewhere to eat.”
“Sure,” I say quietly, taking Penn’s cell and typing out the text.
Penn: Hi Teddy, Penn asked me to tell you he’s pulling off at the next exit to find somewhere to eat.
Teddy: Okay, I’ll follow
The silence is so thick I can practically taste it. I’m not sure why he’s not speaking, I can only assume it the fact that I called Bran and he’s my ex. “Surely you’re not this pissed about me calling Bran?” I ask, unable to stay quiet anymore.
“Did you fuck him? Has his dick been in your pussy?”
“Are you serious? Do you know how hypercritical it is of you to even say that when the reason I was at his place was because you might have gotten Roxanne pregnant? You know I wasn’t a virgin when we met, Bran and I had a short-lived thing in my freshman year of college, we both decided we were better as friends and broke up. You’re being ridiculous and a massive hypocrite.”
When he doesn’t say anything, I turn and look at him. His jaw is clenched tight, his knuckles white from his death grip on the steering wheel. “I’m not going to sit here and chat amicably about the men who’ve been inside you.”
Rolling my eyes I shake my head and sit back in my seat, happy with the silence if he’s going to be an asshole. We pull up outside a roadside diner and I open my door the moment the car stops, grabbing Poppy’s seat from the back and striding toward the restaurant doors without looking back for Penn or Teddy.
Sliding Poppy’s seat into the booth I follow her in and grab the menu, not looking up as the guys sit down on the other side of the table. I order when the waitress appears, then pointedly ignore Penn while I fuss over Poppy.
“Well this is fun,” Teddy says, breaking the silence with a chuckle.
“Your brother is being a hypocritical asshole,” I say, smiling at the waitress when she slides my food on to the table.
“Okay…” Teddy says, dragging out the word as he waits for either me or Penn to fill in the blanks.
“Bran is a friend, we also used to date.”
Teddy whistles through his teeth. “You left town and went to your ex’s?”
“I left town because I found out my boyfriend used to have sex with someone I consider family and got her pregnant.”
“It’s not my baby,” Penn says through gritted teeth.
“Wow, you pair need to fuck all this tension out,” Teddy laughs again.
Snapping my head up, I glare at him. “I can’t wait to watch you find a girlfriend, I’ll make that stupid suggestion to her when you’re in the middle of an argument and you can tell me how funny it is then.”
Smirking, he lifts his hands up in mock surrender. “I’ll mind my own business. But I have no intention of having a girlfriend any time soon.”
“You wait till you find your woman, it’ll knock you on your ass and you’ll be as fucking crazy as I am right now, you mark my words,” Penn warns.
“Nope, that won’t be happening to me.”
“Why? I thought you all believed in the Barnett love at first sight myth?” I ask.
“Well, because I already found my woman,” Teddy confesses a little sheepishly.
My eyes widen and I look up at him as Penn does the same.
“Who is it?” Penn asks. “Why the fuck haven’t you claimed her?”
“Her name was Prudence.”
“Prudence?” Penn questions.
“Yeah, she was Mrs. Hemmings’ granddaughter, she came to stay with her for a while during my senior year of high school.”
“What happened?” I ask.
“She was the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen. Long, white blonde hair almost all the way down to her butt. First time I saw her I thought there was something wrong with me, I could barely breathe.”
“So,” I prompt.
“So, she was a freshman and I was a senior. Four years age difference might not seem like anything now, but when she was fourteen and I was eighteen that just wasn’t okay. She was a kid and I was basically a man. By the time I decided I could care less what anyone thought of the age difference, that I’d wait for her, she’d left, gone back home to her parents. I never saw her again,” he says with a shrug. “I didn’t believe what Dad said about there being just one woman out there destined to be mine. I had my chance and I blew it.”
“You have to find her,” I tell him.
Teddy scoffs lightly. “Lulu, it’s been thirteen years and we weren’t even friends. I’m sure she’s married with a couple of kids by now.”
“Bro, I’m sorry.” Penn puts his arm around Teddy’s shoulders and squeezes him, leaning down and resting their foreheads together in an oddly touching brotherly moment.
“Look, it is what it is, maybe fate will give me another chance. But what you guys have is rare, don’t let Roxanne’s crazy ruin things between you.”
The rest of the meal is still quiet, but the hostile tension between me and Penn dissolves and by the time we’re climbing back into the car, I’m just sad that yesterday’s revelations have caused this distance between us.
I must fall asleep because the next time I open my eyes, it’s to the sound of gravel crunching beneath our tires as Penn drives us up to his house. “Why are we here? I need to go back to Chloe’s.”
“Not happening,” he says, his voice low and gravelly.
“Penn,” I exhale.
“Not fucking happening. Before Roxanne dropped the baby bombshell you were moving in, you’re still moving in.”
I open my mouth to speak, but he puts his hand over it silencing me.
“I’m not interested in arguments, Kitten. Now, are you walking in, or am I carrying you in over my shoulder? Either works for me.”
“You’re an asshole,” I spit as I climb out of the car and move to get Poppy.
“I got her,” he says, amusement lacing his words as he gently moves me out of the way and grabs her seat and bag, closing the door behind him. He surprises me when he locks my car.
“Why did you lock it?”
“Just making sure you can’t run again,” he says nonchalantly, like it’s no big deal, as he slides the keys into his pants pocket and smirks.
“Asshole.”
“Yep, an asshole that’s going be all up in yours later on if you don’t start minding your attitude.”
I start to tell him he’s going nowhere near my asshole, but shut up when we enter the house. His entire family is grouped together in the family room and they all turn and stare at us the moment we step inside. Cora, Bonnie and Alice all rush forward, pulling me away from Penn.
“Are you okay?” Bonnie asks, she’s the youngest of the three, but you’d never know she’s barely twenty-two.
Sighing, I reach up and run my hand through my hair. “Not really. I wanted to go back to Chloe’s, but Penn—”
“Penn’s a Barnett,” Cora says, interrupting me. “He was never going to let you go.”
“We can distract him if you want to make a run for it, but he’s going to chase. The men in this family are relentless,” Alice says quietly, glancing over her shoulder to where the guys are all sitting on the couch, Poppy in Penn’s lap.
“What do I do if it is his baby?” I ask them, knowing that these women understand the caveman tendencies of the Barnett brothers better than anyone else.
“He swears it’s not, and the guys all say there’s no way it happened that night. When Beau and I first got together, she came to see Penn in the bar we were in and she was saying all sorts of crazy shit to him. I know she’s Chloe’s daughter, but she really is insane,” Bonnie tells me with a rueful look.
“Oh, I know. She hates me, always has. Mainly because I’m so close to her mom and she’s always had a tempestuous relationship with her. The thing is, even if this baby isn’t his, she’ll never let me forget that she’s had sex with him. She’ll torture me with it and honestly, I just don’t know if I can cope with that. I know we both have pasts, I just wish his past wasn’t someone I’m going to have to see every holiday.”
The girls wince, looking at me with sympathy. “I wish I could tell you what to do, but you’re the only one who can decide if it’s worth it. What I can tell you, and I think Cora and Alice will agree, is you’ll never find anyone who will love you the way Penn will. These boys are big, crazy cavemen, but when they give their hearts to a woman, they give them wholeheartedly, forever, and once you’ve been a recipient of that kind of love, everything else will pale in comparison. Dealing with Roxanne and knowing she and Penn have a past might be hard, but living without Penn will be so much harder.” Bonnie pats my shoulder and heads back toward the guys, pushing up onto her tiptoes to hug Penn and Poppy as she passes him.
“Come on, Kitten, we need to go talk,” Penn says when he appears beside me.
“I—” I start.
“Walking or over my shoulder, pick.”
Cora and Alice snigger as they scurry away. “Asshole,” I snark, taking Poppy from him and walking away. Pushing open the door to Penn’s mini apartment, I walk in expecting to find all of my boxes piled up in the living room, but there isn’t a box in sight. “Where’s my stuff?”
“I unpacked. I’m going to put her down for a nap.”
“Didn’t she sleep in the car?” I ask, pressing my lips to Poppy’s head.
“No, she woke up not long after you fell asleep, she’s been singing and cooing for the last couple of hours.”
Holding out his hands for her, Poppy wiggles excitedly and I reluctantly let him take her, watching his back as he disappears into her room. Wandering into the living room, I glance around the space noticing the hints of me that are now dotted all around. Pictures of Poppy as a newborn, my books on the shelves, my knitted throw over the back of the couch. He hasn’t just unpacked, he’s moved me into every inch of his space.
I hear his footsteps a moment before his arm curls around my waist. “When did you do all this?”
“Last night after you ran out of Chloe’s. I needed to do something so I didn’t lose my mind not knowing where you were.”
His eyes are heated with a mixture of hurt and anger.
“I’m sorry,” I tell him, lowering my gaze to where my hands are wringing together. “I shouldn’t have just left, that wasn’t fair of me.”
“Fair,” he scoffs. “Nothing about this is fucking fair. You ran, you were upset and you took Poppy. I had no idea where you were, if you were okay. You could have gotten hurt, I could have lost both of you.” His voice cracks and he quiets, pursing his full lips as he inhales slowly like he’s trying to calm himself.
“I needed some time, this is a fucked up situation that I shouldn’t be in the middle of. I believe that you don’t think the baby is yours, but Roxanne is crazy, I wouldn’t put anything past her, including her doing whatever she can to deliberately get pregnant so she can trap a man.”
“I found a place that does invitro paternity tests, I’m going to call them and see how quickly they can fit Roxanne in. The results only take twenty-four hours, this will all be over by the end of the week.”
Sighing, I close my eyes and let my head fall back for a moment. “It won’t be over though. She’ll always be my family, she’s Chloe’s daughter. I see her every holiday, we live in the same town now, she won’t just disappear, regardless of the results of that test. She’ll never let me forget that you’ve had sex and I just don’t know if I can deal with that.”
“So we move and I’ll pay for Chloe to come visit us once a month, hell, once a fucking week if that’s what you want.”
“You can’t move,” I shriek. “Your life is here, your business and your family are here.”
“You’re my family,” he says, closing the distance between us again and curling his arm around my back, pulling me to him. “You and Poppy are my whole fucking universe and without you I don’t work anymore, you’re a part of me.”
Even though I know I should walk away, leave now while I can; moving out of his arms is impossible. “You can’t move.”
“Where you go, I go, even if that means moving in with the devil and standing in between you and Roxanne and all her hatefulness.”
His hand lifts from his side and collars my throat as his eyes heat and darken. “I won’t let you leave me and if you’re really honest with yourself, you don’t want to. You know you’re mine. I own all of you heart, soul, cunt every fiber of your being belongs to me and you want that. I see the way your pupils dilate when I control you. I see the things you think you’re hiding from me, the way your breathing shallows, how goosebumps coat your skin when I dominate your body. I see you, Kitten, the way no one ever has before and I hate that I made you sad, I hate that I made you cry. I fucking hate that you ran from me, when I only ever want to be the person you run toward. But if nothing else, all this shit that bitch has caused will only cement us together, because I refuse to let anyone, least of all her take you away from me.”
“But”
“No, Kitten, no excuses, no buts. We are forever, we’re a family and I refuse to give that up.”
Falling silent, he looks down at me, an impassioned flush filling his cheeks, his grip on my back and throat tight and unyielding.
All of a sudden it doesn’t matter about Roxanne, it doesn’t matter if she’s lying or not, it doesn’t matter that she’ll never go away. This man, this crazy, ridiculous, brute of a man is standing here and owning me with his touch, his words and his very presence. I couldn’t leave if I wanted to. “I love you,” I blurt.
“What?”
“I love you. It’s too soon and this is the worst possible moment to say it, but I love you. It’s what I realized last night while I was lying in bed missing you and hating her for causing this rift between us.”
“You love me?” he questions.
I nod.
“You love me.”
I nod again. “You don’t have to say it back, that’s not why I told you. I just had to say it.”
“Kitten, I’ve been in love with you since the moment I saw you. Love doesn’t even begin to describe the depth of my feelings for you, but I suppose it’s a good place to start. I adore you, admire you, covet you, crave you. I want to shield you, care for you, protect you. I want to own you, consume you, corrupt you. Love is only four letters that could never truly convey how my very being starts and ends with you.”
Tears fill my eyes, but before they get a chance to fall he lifts me off the ground and carries me into the bedroom, placing me reverently down on the comforter. Our clothes seem to dissolve from us and it barely feels like a second has passed before his hands are caressing my naked skin. I cling to him, needing to feel him close and chase down the bliss our confessions have evoked. Soft lips find mine, kissing me quietly, slowly, not dominating me but controlling everything with a featherlight touch.
His hands feel like they’re everywhere all at once, teasing my nipples, stroking my clit, filing my pussy up with his fingers and taunting my ass. My eyes roll back and I give myself over to him, holding him to me while he claims every inch of me and I bask in him. I’m soaked, the sound of my wetness surrounding us as he pushes me head long into an orgasm, pinching my clit and rubbing at the spot deep inside of me that makes me see stars.
“I love you,” he whispers against my lips, as he guides his hard cock toward my core and slowly pushes inside of me. I’ve lost count of how many times he’s fucked me, but the size of his dick still shocks me as he stretches me wide, easing his way into my pussy with shallow thrusts until he’s sheathed inside of me, his hips pressed against mine.
“Jesus, Lulu, your cunt was made for my cock, so hot and wet and tight.”
Moaning wantonly, I arch my back, closing my eyes as my heart beats so fast I can feel it in my chest.
“Open your eyes, baby, watch me fuck you, watch the way your cunt is gaping around my fat cock. You look so fucking hot, I can barely hold back from slamming into you and coating you in my cum. I want to fill you up and then watch it slowly drip out of your swollen slit.”
His dirty words and the erotic sight of his cock glistening with my arousal almost has me erupting into an orgasm, but his hand at my throat stops me.
“No, you don’t come until I tell you.”
“I can’t stop, I’m so close,” I rasp, even more turned on by the weight of his hold on my neck.
“Fuck.” Pulling his hips back he slams into me hard, setting a frantic pace that steals my breath and pushes me over the edge. I come on a cry, sinking my nails into his shoulders, holding on while he fucks me proprietorially until he stills, grunting out his release as he fills me.
We stay silent, holding each other tightly until our breaths return to normal. Pressing a kiss onto my neck, Penn lifts his head and looks down at me. “I love you, Lulu.”
A slow smile spreads across my lips, I don’t know how it happened, or why I was brought to this town, to this man, but lying here beneath him, somehow everything I’ve gone through in the last eighteen months makes sense. It was all just the path to him.
“I love you too, Penn.”
