With Carson off at football camp, Logan decides she’s going to spend the last couple of weeks of summer in her old neighborhood, leaving me and Levi to enjoy the last piece of freedom by ourselves.
By midday, I’d grown annoyed that Penelope hadn’t responded to my text message and made plans with Levi to go to a party tonight. Better than sitting at home by myself, and maybe I’ll find someone to ride me into forgetting about the woman I can’t stop thinking about.
Levi and I are about to head out my front door when my phone goes off in my pocket. I pull it out, Penelope’s name lighting up the screen. I hate the feeling that rushes through me, like something attacking my insides and threatening to birth anxiety.
I open my messages, seeing that Penelope has sent me nothing except her current location: Luxington Beach. I lick my lips, grinning.
“Dude,” I say, pulling Levi’s attention. “I gotta bail.”
He’s standing in front of the mirror next to my front door, running his hands through his hair, when he snaps his head to the side to look at me. “What?!”
I laugh, pulling my keys from my pocket and tossing them at him. “Take the Maserati.”
He catches the keys between his hands, then narrows his gaze at me. “What the fuck? You never let anyone drive the Maserati.”
I take a step backwards, typing out a text to Penelope with one hand. “Have fun.”
“No, no, no,” he says, following me. “What the fuck is going on?”
I chuckle, waving my phone at him. “Other plans.”
“With who?” he asks, tilting his head to the side in question.
“None of your business.” I grin. “Now go before I change my mind and you have to call an Uber.”
His brows raise, but he isn’t stupid, so he laughs before he turns and leaves through the front door, not saying another word.
I send the message to Penelope, then run upstairs to change.
ME:
on my way
She responds almost immediately.
PENELOPE:
Bring a blanket
I change into shorts and a black t-shirt, grab a blanket from the hall closet, and then run downstairs to look around for the keys to the Mercedes G-Class my father left here. I find them hanging in the garage with ten other sets of keys that haven’t been touched in months, so once I’ve gathered my weed, cigarettes, wallet, and phone, I unlock the truck and jump behind the wheel.
Rolling down the windows, I press the button to open the garage and light a cigarette. I turn up the radio, check Penelope’s location one more time so I know exactly where to meet her, and pull out of the driveway.
It takes me ten minutes to get out to the beach, and I park on the side of one of the residential streets before I turn the car off, grabbing the blanket from the passenger’s seat and getting out.
The sun has long dropped from the sky, and shadows stretch over the road.
I head down the little makeshift path through the trees that people have stomped into existence, and when I’m on the sand, I kick off my Nikes and pick them up. I can’t see anyone on the beach since it’s starting to get darker, so I just hope I’m in the right place and I’ll stumble upon Penelope.
I find her sitting at the edge of the ocean, her feet in the water and the waves crashing just before her so they rush underneath her body.
Tossing the blanket down in the sand, I empty my pockets onto it and join her, dropping down in the wet sand.
She looks at me and smiles. “Hi.”
I can’t help the smile that pulls up my lips in response. She’s messy again, her dark hair wet and thrown on top of her head in a bun that’s falling down. Her face is makeup-free, and all she has on is a little black bikini. She’s gorgeous, and I want to kiss her.
I clear my throat, stopping myself from touching her. “You don’t text me back all day, and then you randomly send me your location?”
She laughs. “Careful, you’re sounding like that upsets you.”
I lick my lips. “What if I had been busy?”
“Then you wouldn’t have come, and I would have spent the evening out here by myself without caring,” she answers, looking out at the water.
I don’t like how much she doesn’t seem affected by me; it’s making me want to grab her, bend her over, and smack her ass until she confesses that my presence is important to her. I realize I’m gritting my jaw when she looks at me again and concern passes over her features.
“You look mad,” she observes. “Why?”
“I’m not,” I answer, looking away from her and trying to pretend my muscles aren’t tingling with an unfamiliar feeling of possession.
Her hand comes around my face, and she turns my head to look at her again. “Hayden.”
I grin, lifting my brows. “Penelope.”
She smirks back at me, shuffling onto her knees and straddling my waist. My hands find her hips, and she puts both hands on either side of my face.
“Did I say something to piss you off?” she asks, leaning forward to put her nose against mine.
I squeeze the flesh of her hips, breathing through my nose. “No.”
“You don’t like that I said I wouldn’t care if you showed up tonight or not, right?” she muses, humor touching her tone. I don’t say anything, instead I just look into the green of her eyes and stare, waiting for the moment to pass.
She laughs and continues, pulling back to study me. “I told you that you couldn’t handle me.”
I clench my teeth, running one hand up her body to circle the column of her throat. “I think I handle you just fine, Penelope.”
She swallows against my palm. “You’re used to women begging for your time and attention, and you don’t like that I don’t need either from you.”
I tighten my hand, leaning forward to speak against her lips. “You’re the one who dropped your location.”
She smiles wickedly, but I’m holding her throat hard enough that she can’t say anything back, she just hums against my palm and stares at me.
I kiss her lips once and pull away. “It’s okay to want me, beautiful. That doesn’t make you like everyone else who wants me too.”
Her chest shakes with a laugh, and I squeeze her throat one more time before dropping the hold, letting her talk.
“You’re a distraction,” she says, leaning back to look at me through her lashes. “It wouldn’t bother me one way or another if I never saw you again.”
I hate that I can’t tell if she’s bluffing. I can’t read anything on her face, and it pisses me off. I grab her face between my hand, squeezing her jaw hard, and her eyes flare with heat. “Don’t fuck with me.”
She grins the best she can while I’m holding her face. “Poor little rich boy doesn’t like not being the centerpiece of someone’s desire? Does it make you feel small that you aren’t the reason my world spins?”
My blood bubbles with rage, so I move without thinking, flipping her onto the sand on her front and smacking her ass hard. She screams, and I do it again, loving the sound. I slap her ass three more times before she’s curling her back and grinding her hips, making a satisfied smile pull up my lips.
Her chest is heaving as I slide my fingers under her bikini and stroke along the opening of her pussy, feeling the wetness that’s collecting there.
She moans, and I laugh. “You can tell me all the bullshit you want, Penelope. But your pussy gives you away.”
I slam two fingers inside of her, pulling a cry from her lips.
“Hayden,” she cries as I fuck her with my hand. “What if someone sees?”
I lick up her back while I keep impaling her on my fingers. “Then you better come quick.”
“You’re crazy, aren’t you?”
Penelope and I are lying on the blanket I brought on the soft sand. The sun is long gone, the sky a crimson black, with speckles of silver and white, and the moon is full above our heads. Wind is blowing lightly, making goosebumps multiply on my skin.
I turn my head to look at her through the darkness and laugh. “Definitely.”
“I hate how much it turns me on,” she admits, turning onto her side to face me.
I admire the shape of her face, the light freckles sprinkled over her nose, her thick eyelashes that spiderweb over her face when she blinks, and I hate how much I want to reach out and trace them with my finger. I want to memorize her features, tattoo them on my brain to return to whenever I close my eyes.
I don’t miss the fact that this is the first time in a while I’ve felt peaceful. There’s no anxiety squeezing my lungs, no dark cloud over my head telling me to pop a pill and numb it all.
I roll over onto my side as well to get closer to her. “Tell me something.”
“Like what?” she asks, her mouth curling at the sides.
“Where are you from?” I ask, acting as if I don’t know the answer already.
“Here.”
“How have I never met you before now? Luxington isn’t exactly the biggest town,” I muse, running a hand down her bare side.
“I just moved back here from Washington, but I grew up in the area. What about you?” she asks, looking up at me.
I wonder how much of the truth I should tell. I don’t want to give away the fact I’m not the age she’s assumed I am. So, I decide on something simple. “Born in NYC, moved here when I was a baby.”
“And your parents? They’re still living here?”
“No.”
She stares at me, probably trying to read between the lines of my answer. Before she can speak again, I do. “Your parents still here?”
“Yeah.” She slides her fingers through mine, playing with the ring I have on my middle finger mindlessly. “That’s why I’m back here. My dad was diagnosed with cancer.”
My features soften at that, leaning a little closer as I see the pain in her eyes. “I’m sorry.”
She chuckles, but it’s humorless. “Don’t be. Let’s talk about something else. I didn’t mean to ruin the mood.”
“You didn’t.” I grab her waist, pulling her body flush against mine to reassure her. I want to comfort her, be someone she can confide in about her pain – and it scares the shit out of me. I’ve never felt this way about someone before. Outside of my small group of friends, the feeling is so unfamiliar that I’m not sure what else to say to her. Instead, I kiss her languidly, sliding my hand up her body and into her hair.
There’s passion behind our kiss, but it doesn’t turn hot. She kisses me back like she’s trying to get closer to me, and I kiss her like it’s the last thing I’ll ever do on earth.
When she pulls back, she’s breathless. “Stop being soft with me, Hayden. I can’t handle it.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, tipping her head back so I can look into her eyes.
“I mean,” she starts, then she takes a breath. When she speaks again, her voice has dropped to a whisper like she’s giving confessional. “I don’t want to fall for you. I already have too much going on; I can’t handle some fuckboy ruining me on top of it.”
The twisted part of me wants to ruin her, but there’s something else inside of me that is telling me it’s okay to be soft, that I won’t hurt her.
“Would it really be that bad?” I ask quietly, like a scared little boy ashamed of his words. “Falling for me?”
“You’re as addicting as the drugs you do. I’ll keep taking you and start to rely on the feelings you give me, and then you’ll fuck me up – ruin me and send me to emotional rehab. Do you even know how to catch someone?”
“No,” I say, meaning it. I’ve never loved someone a second in my life, never been in a relationship, never treated someone right. Who am I to pretend I know what the fuck I’m feeling?
She grabs the fabric of my t-shirt and pulls me closer. “So stop, and fuck me like you don’t give a fuck about me.”
I flip the switch inside of me, the one that cares, and roll her onto her back. Fitting myself between her legs, I kiss her hard and painfully, threading my fingers into her hair to yank on the strands. Pulling back, I groan against her lips as I grind my cock into her pussy. “Is this what you want?”
“Yes,” she breathes, rolling against me.
I suck on her throat and chest, ripping her bikini top off so I can make a meal of her tits, and her hand slides under the waistband of my shorts to free my dick.
She pumps her hands a few times before she uses her other hand to move her bikini bottoms to the side, and I sink into her in one powerful thrust. Moaning long and loud, she rolls her head back on the blanket.
I fuck her fast, biting her skin. “You want me to fuck you like this? Hard and fast? Like you mean nothing to me?”
Her fingers grab onto my arms, the sound of our wet flesh slapping together echoing out around us. “Yes.”
