“Oh, well, if you insist.”
Her soft lips curl into a real smile, and I feel it in my chest. The feeling grows when she cups my face with her smooth hands and rises to her toes. Her mouth is sweet and full, and she kisses me like I’m a treat she’s been waiting to have.
Total goner.
With a groan, I grasp a handful of her hair and grip it as I feast on her mouth. I’ve missed it. Missed her. And she tastes so fucking good. She kisses me back like I’m her air, pressing her perfect, plump breasts against my chest with a little whimper that has my dick perking right the fuck up.
Starving now, I wrap my free arm around her back, intent on hauling her even closer. But she instantly flinches as though in pain and gasps. I know enough about injuries to understand she has one. Immediately, I step back.
Guilt tightens her features. Guilt?
“Penny?” I search her face. “You’re hurt?”
“I...” She chokes up, her eyes glossing over with tears.
“Jesus. Baby, where are you hurt?”
“It’s nothing.” She shies away. “I’m fine.”
But things are clicking in my head now. The way she jumped. Her weird tension. The wash sink... I glance that way. “That was your leather jacket.” There’d been a massive stain on the back.
My head goes light.
“Penelope.” I clasp her arms as gentle as I can, given my panic. “Did you have an accident on the bike?”
Wrong thing to ask. Her eyes well up and spill over. Another breath and she starts to cry. Not the pretty, streaming tears thing but heaving sobs that rip my heart in two.
“Christ.” I hold her like she’s glass and bring her as close as possible. My heart beats too fast. I could have lost her. “Baby. Are you all right?”
“I’m okay.” She grasps my roaming hand because I can’t stop petting her, looking for the hurt. “August, it’s just a bruise.”
“Let me see.” I know it’s on her back. I felt her flinch. Beside myself, I turn her round and lift her shirt, while she protests that it’s nothing.
It’s not fuckingnothing.
“Fucking hell.” She’s got a black-and-blue bruise the size of a football on her right shoulder blade, and a bit on her spine. “Fuck, baby. Penny love.”
I’ve had worse bruises. But it’s on her. Not me. Shaking, I lean down and kiss her skin.
Pen sighs, then steps out of my grasp. Her creamy cheeks are blotchy with tears. “August.” She rubs a fist over her eyes. “It wasn’t an accident.”
“What?”
“I didn’t crash my bike. I— Shit.” Her hands clench at her sides. “It’s so stupid. Fucking assholes...”
Assholes? Something ice-cold and dark starts to spread in my gut. Something like rage but more violent.
“Pen,” I get out through numb lips. “What happened?”
She shifts on her feet, her fingers playing with the hem of her shirt. “Someone ah... someone threw a sub at me.”
Icy-hot rage claws at my throat. There’s a buzzing in my ears, and I’m worried I misheard. “A sub?”
Pen’s cheeks go bright red. “As in a big sandwich. I think it was an Italian cold-cut.”
Someone pinged a fucking sub at my girl. A fucking sandwich. At Pen.
“There was a rock in it,” she confesses in a small voice. Like it’s her fucking fault. Like she thinks I don’t believe it.
