CHAPTER EIGHT
Dalton
The lobby this time of day is always annoyingly busy. Everyone is finished at their busy offices and ready to party the weekend away. Work hard. Play with reckless abandon. Nothing different. Nothing new. Except one.
Like a lit candle in a dark room, Penny draws every eye. Her simple cotton sundress is bright against her tan, flawless skin. Unlike most of the faces passing by, hers isn’t creased with worry or deep in thought. Her cherry-red lipstick is painted on a bright carefree smile as she chats with the doorman. Something no one around here bothers to do.
I watch her a few long beats as she and the doorman break into an easy and familiar laughter. I wonder why she always looks so happy. She’s got nothing. He’s got nothing. Don’t they know that?
Rumors are flying about the master plan to drive her out. Nothing serious, but enough that it should have annoyed her by now. Yet here she is, grinning like a fool as if they hadn’t cut her Internet and cable lines. Doesn’t she care they’ve had her car towed twice already this week?
I watch as she waves the doorman off, insisting she can carry her own groceries upstairs. Why? It’s his job to help her. She’s a puzzle with a few missing pieces.
We hop in the elevator at the same time and I don’t admit, even to myself, that I may have held back a few steps to make sure that would happen. It’s not because I’m desperate to be with her. I’m intrigued. Why the hell is she smiling?
“The staff is supposed to carry that up for you,” I say, gesturing at the paper bag she’s propped up on her hip.
“I’m good. It’s free exercise,” she says in a breezy tone that I’m still trying to dissect.
Maybe she doesn’t understand the perks of the place. “If you want exercise there is a state-of-the-art gym downstairs. It’s not necessary to do your own shopping. Write up a list, and it’ll be delivered and unpacked into your fridge.”
She twists her mouth up like she’s giving something some thought, and my mind shifts gears. Maybe she’s thinking about sucking my cock. I’m sure as hell thinking about her doing it. Or it’s wishful thinking.
“Sometimes a luxury actually takes away from an experience. I enjoy the farmers’ market. The sights. The smells. The people.”
“Those are literally all the things I avoid.” Who wants to push their way through a bunch of people who are squeezing melons and asking about this year’s strawberry crop? Pass.
“Too bad. I ran into one of our neighbors there actually.”
“Who?”
“Ben,” she says with too warm of a smile. “He says not everyone in this building is trying to get me kicked out. Some of you are actually nice.”
She puts me in the same camp as Ben Simons, which instantly annoys me. I won’t be lumped in with the jackasses plotting to get rid of her. But I’m no eager-to-please, still wet behind the ears Ben.
We’re out of the elevator and heading to our doors as she fishes her key card from her pocket. “Have a good evening, Dalton,” she says, and my name on her lips does something funny to me. I’m tense and excited at the same time. I want to ask her to say my name again but cannot imagine ever voicing such a cornball request.
“Yeah,” I call back as I swipe my card but hear an unfamiliar beep come from her door at the same time.
“Shoot,” she says, swiping it a few more times and getting the same beep. “They did it again.”
“Your card’s not working?” I ask, leaning back so I can see her. She moves the groceries from one hip to the other and tries it a couple more times. Her hair falls down in front of her face, and I can’t read her expression. But I’m sure she’s pissed. I’d be raging.
“It’s just one more of the little games they’ve been playing. Someone keeps hacking my key card. I’ve gotten about five new ones in the last few days. The guy at the front desk thought I was crazy, but now we’re kind of friends. Oh well.” Her slender shoulders rise and fall in a dismissive shrug.
“Oh well?” No one is that easy going. “That’s it, just . . . oh well?”
“They only win if I let them get to me. They had my car towed twice, so I let a friend of mine have it for the next two weeks. It’ll help her out a lot too and save me money on gas. They screwed with the cable and Internet, but I prefer to read books anyway. My sister always needs to be plugged in, but I like shutting the world out. It’s kind of nice.”
She calls downstairs, but the only one who is able to fix her key is temporarily out of the building and not expected back until later that evening.
“Okay, Silver Lining Sally,” I say, staring at her with a look of skepticism. I’m unconvinced. No one lets this much shit roll off their back. I don’t care how Zen you try to be. There isn’t enough yoga in the world to keep me calm in these kinds of situations. Fuck with me and I put you down. Fast. “And now you’ve got an armful of groceries and a door that won’t open. How do you spin melting ice cream into something positive?”
“Milk shakes?” She smiles, and I wait for her face to fall in defeat, but it doesn’t. She’s dead serious. Other women might fall to pieces, waiting for a man to swoop in and save them. Hell, they might even fabricate the situation as an opportunity to play victim. But not Penny. She’s not even rattled. “I’ll call one of my friends and take a bus over to her place. I’ll cook there.”
I grunt. That’s not how I would solve the situation. My ass would be knocking the door down or lawyering up.
“You don’t cook with your friends?” she asks, looking equally intrigued by me now. I get it. We could not be more different. “What do you do for fun?”
The answer that crosses my mind doesn’t suit the moment. I fuck for fun. I’m too busy to have other hobbies. “I don’t do friends. Not my style.”
“You don’t have a single friend?” She’s skeptical of me now, and it’s laughable. She’s like a goldfish stuck in a bowl wondering where a bird might fly off to. She has no idea what she’s missing in the world. Her eyes narrow as she waits for my reply. “Everyone has friends.”
“They might think they do. Loyalty is situational and fickle. Therefore, the idea that any person could be a ‘friend’ is a myth. I have business associates. Drinking buddies. Women whose company I enjoy for a few hours at a time. Not one of them pretends to give a shit about me. They don’t expect me to care what’s going on with them.”
“That’s pitiful,” she says, as though I’m the one with melting ice cream and a door that won’t open. “I have met plenty of jaded people, but that has to be the saddest outlook on life I’ve ever heard.” Her eyes fill with sympathy, which strikes me harder than a blow to the chin. I don’t want her looking at me like that. I’d rather have someone look me square in the eye and tell me to go fuck myself.
She can smile down at me while she rides me like a bronco. She can grin and look over her shoulder as I fuck her from behind on the table. But she cannot stare at me with her hair half in her face and her arms full of groceries like she feels sorry for me.
I don’t know what it is about the way she’s looking at me, but I feel compelled to say something. “I prefer it that way. The reality is that everyone loves you when you’re at the top of your game, but falter once, start to fail, and people scatter. If you want to feel bad for someone, feel bad for the saps who don’t realize they’re one mistake away from being alone. And that’s if they’re lucky. Some people stick around to kick a person on their way down.” I’m oversharing. Breaking all my own rules. I’m shutting up now.
“Do you like Brie and pomegranate crostini?” she asks, mercifully changing the subject. Maybe she knows she’s wrong or at least realizes she’ll never change my mind.
“No,” I say flatly. “Because no self-respecting man says he likes Brie and pomegranate crostini.”
“Fine,” she says, rolling her eyes and smiling at me. “Do you like crusty bread with sweet stuff and cheese on it?”
“Are you offering to cook for me?” I as
k, in my mind replacing the word cook with striptease, because everyone knows where a good dance leads. Maybe she’s the kind of woman who needs the pretense. She needs the guise of some other agenda than coming over to fuck. Not my usual style, but I think Penny might be worth it. Fair enough. Cook for me.
“Silver Lining Sally could use a kitchen right now.” She blinks slowly at me a few times and I crack a smile. That nickname might stick.
I don’t say another word, just jerk my head toward my door. That’ll have to serve as an invite. I hold my breath as I wait for her to pass by me into my place. I need to keep my cool, and her fruity shampoo fucks with my clear head.
I know she wants me. We can call it cooking if she wants. Hell, if she’s as good as I think she’ll be in bed, I might even let her cook for me every day until she moves out.
I smile.
The game is back on.
CHAPTER NINE
Dalton
The ease with which Penny moves around my apartment unsettles me. She looks comfortable in my place, and that’s something I’ve worked hard to make sure most people don’t do. There are no family photographs to ask about. There’s no place to hang a coat or lounge comfortably too long and chat. When my designer came through, I specifically asked for an uncomfortable couch because I didn’t want people to stay long.
The designer had scrunched her nose up and giggled, but I cut it short. I was dead serious. She called me an asshole, but still fucked me on that couch the day it was delivered. Women like assholes—that was my takeaway. They shouldn’t. I should be the loneliest fucking bastard in Boston, but I’m not. What does that say about women? Nothing I didn’t already know.
Penny starts unloading her groceries like she lives here. She has a confidence and breezy nature most women I’ve met lack. I bet she’s even happy in her shared studio apartment. A fucked-up broken part of me has this desire to wake her up to the reality that her life sucks. Another shitty reflection on human nature, but nothing I didn’t know about myself. I never claimed to be a nice man.
“So you seriously never cook? Not even for yourself?” Penny is chopping carrots with quick precision as she eyes me incredulously. Her delicate hands draw my attention.
“Why would I? Did you not see the huge assortment of food they brought up from downstairs the other day? Why bother?”
“So you can create your own flavors,” she answers excitedly. “The colors, the ingredients. It’s a canvas you paint and design yourself.”
Damn, she belongs in commercials. I’d be ready to fucking buy whatever she’s selling.
“Pass,” I say waving her off. Even if the idea of cooking and other tasks like that are lost on me, it doesn’t mean I’m not intrigued by her explanation. I can’t think of anyone I’ve met in recent years who had that sparkle in their eyes. Unless they were crushing someone else’s spirit. That tends to make the people I know light up. Sad, but true.
“Then why do you have all this stuff?” she asks, gesturing at the kitchen gadgets and supplies. “It looks like a chef’s kitchen you’d see in a magazine.”
“Because my designer asked if I wanted the kitchen stocked, and I said yes.”
Her look of bemusement tells me I make no more sense to her than she does to me, yet here we are in my kitchen.
Dancing around the desire to fuck each other.
Isn’t that what this is all about?
“Did your parents never cook?” she asks, her back turned to me as she fires up the stove that I think has probably been used twice since I moved in. Both times were to heat some hot wax . . . not intended for consumption, only titillation. I wonder if she’s into wax.
Tonight I’m into whatever she is.
She’s giving me that look again, like I’m supposed to say something of importance. “I never knew my mother, but the women who paraded through my dad’s life weren’t there to cook. And they never stayed long.” What the fuck is she? Some sort of skilled interrogator? I’ve just divulged more to her in twenty minutes in my kitchen than I have to people who have been in my life for decades.
“That’s sad,” she remarks, turning halfway to give me a sympathetic look. No, not again. My temper begins to rise. “Where did they all go? And why were there so many women?”
It doesn’t matter. I take a deep breath and remind myself this isn’t about me or how I feel about anything. It’s a dance of sorts. She’s one of those women who needs to talk first—so I’ll talk. “You know how birds fly south when the weather gets cold?” I lean casually against the counter, folding my arms over my chest.
“Yes.” Her brows knit together, and I wonder what faces she’ll make when I’m eating her out later.
“Women migrate toward money. My dad was a risk taker. He’d invest and win big, and just as quickly he’d lose it all. Women came in and out like the tide. Some played Mommy, some pretended I didn’t exist. I got used to it. The only confusing part was how my father could be surprised each time one left him. He never learned.”
“That must have been really hard for you to watch. No wonder you’re screwed up. It makes sense now.”
Screwed up?
“I’m not the one who’s screwed up,” I cut back with a laugh. “You’re the one who pretends to be happy even when you’re not.”
“I’m not pretending,” she counters, widening her eyes. “Is it so hard for you to believe I can be happy without a personal shopper or masseuse on call? Some people actually believe the old saying about money.”
“Which old saying is that?” I ask, assuming she’s going to drop some ancient philosophy bullshit on me. I’m already creating my counter argument. Whatever some old dude felt about money, doesn’t apply today. The world is a different place, and money is now all that matters.
“Mo’ money, mo’ problems,” she says with a straight face, holding it as long as she can before she breaks into an adorable laugh.
“Deep,” I say, rubbing my chin as though I’m contemplating the words. “I thought you were going to go a little further back in history than that for your words of wisdom.”
“Hey, could you peel those potatoes for me?” She points at the counter.
“Me?” I look around as though someone else will appear suddenly in the room to help her.
“Yes, if you’re capable. I need them peeled and cubed.”
I sigh. If this is what she likes to do before she bangs a guy, I guess I can cut a vegetable. I’ve known some crazy-ass women in my day with all kinds of fetishes. Plus, when she whisks whatever she has in that pot, her tits jiggle. It’s dinner and a show.
I get to work making perfectly square cubes. I do everything with precision and intensity. She’ll see that later. As I imagine what awaits us, Penny catches me smiling and grins.
“Well, look at you,” she says, propping one hand on her hip as she assesses my work. “I told you this was fun. It’s therapeutic. Chopping. Cooking. Chatting with friends.”
“We aren’t friends,” I say and regret my knee-jerk reaction. I don’t want her to be unhappy. I’m just honest.
“You like me. Admit it.” The corners of her mouth creep up enough for me to know she’s not offended, but she still believes I’m faking all this friends are bullshit talk. It’s only fair I give her the real me.
“I just want to fuck you,” I reply flatly as though I’m pointing out the fact that the sky is blue. Because it is and this is as true as that. “I’m being honest.” This time she holds a poker face, and I’m impressed. If I’ve shocked her, she’s not showing it.
She doesn’t skip a beat in her reply. “In that case, wouldn’t it make more sense for us to be friends?” A smug smile rises, and I can tell she thinks she’s landed a solid point, but she doesn’t know how wrong she is.
“Are you friends with everyone you’ve fucked?” She is too smoking hot to have not hooked up with a few nameless guys. Maybe even a couple of guys like me.
“I am,” she replies proudly.
What the hell?
“They are both good friends of mine. As a matter of fact, I went to one of their weddings a few months ago. I gave him and his new wife a nice engraved serving platter.”
“Both,” I say, choking on the idea that this hot girl has only been with two men. I almost cut my finger off. “When is the last time you had sex?”
“Why would I tell you that?” she asks, finally seeming to reach her threshold on my prying. Her cheeks are getting pink, and my insides tangle up. I want to accuse her of lying. Worse, I want her relative innocence to be true. Which only confuses me more. I’m not into innocence or the tedious emotional roller coaster that follows a brush with it. Yet, I can’t look away, can’t convince myself to end this. I’m hooked, but I’m not going down without a fight.
I smirk. “Don’t friends talk about everything?”
“I thought we weren’t friends.”
She’s good. I laugh, but persist. “How long?”
“Whatever. A year?” She shrugs and turns back toward the stove.
She thinks? “If you can’t instantly and vividly remember the last time, then you’re doing it wrong.”
“I am not doing it wrong.” She slaps the wooden spoon to the counter. “I’m good at it. Everything was just fine, thank you.”
“Oh really? Tell me about it then. Tell me about that last magical encounter you can’t remember.”
“No way.” She picks the spoon back up, waves it at me, and I get spattered with something. “Sorry.” She hurries a towel to me. She’s flustered and it’s absolutely fucking hot to watch her squirm.
“So you like to include food, I can get into that,” I joke as I let her wipe my shirt with the towel. Her hand lingers on my pecs for a second and our eyes meet. That’s all it takes to get me rock hard. Again.
She breaks away from me and channels her embarrassment into anger. “And you think the parade of vapid idiots you bring up from the bar is doing it better? Strangers? I’ve heard all about how it works here. No way that’s good sex.”