Page 56 of One Second After Another

Penny would worry.

But other people were already doing that, and they had been worrying about her for a long damn time. Naz had asked to be kept updated. After all the shit Luca had already hidden from his friend—and still was in the case of the man’s father—he figured he could at least do this.

What would it hurt?

He also did want Penny to just enjoy the lodge.

“And was that a stone chimney I saw?” Penny asked as he approached.

Luca laughed deeply. “Sure is—I can even light it up for you.”

“Tell me there’s a rug in front of the fireplace.”

“Bearskin, babe. Canadian black bear.”

Penny sighed again.

That time, it sounded like sin.

With tightness in his throat, all humor gone, Luca passed her by and said, “Let me get started on that, then.”

She smirked. “You better.”

• • •

IF LUCA’S LIFE DEPENDED on his ability to describe temptation, it would be the sight of Penny lounging on her side, head propped into the palm of her hand, in the middle of a large bearskin rug. The black fur surrounded her creamy curves from all angles. He immediately regretted the decision to indulge her request for wine when he dared to mention the wine cellar earlier.

Had he not went in search of the years she asked for, then his hands would still be plastered to the alabaster canvas of her skin. He’d nearly mapped all of her to his memory with nothing more than his fingertips. He knew there were more parts of her skin that were scarred and rough to the touch than perfect and silky. It would take him nothing at all to find the spots where she would shake and break the fastest.

Except he found new things to enjoy about Penny every time he had the luxury of fucking her. Something else for him to learn—because he just couldn’t help himself.

“What’s wrong?” Penny asked, falling to her back as Luca neared the side of the rug.

Chuckling to himself, he set the two wine glasses down to the floor beside the rug and then went about pouring the wine to an acceptable level in both. He’d at least had the foresight to uncork that shit downstairs and give the wine some time to breathe.

“Nothing,” he murmured.

Penny hummed under her breath, pointing a single finger at him. “Liar. You even had a little knot right there between your eyebrows like you do when you get mad ... or confused. They do a whole thing.”

Luca glanced upward, freezing as he did so, muttering, “My eyebrows do a thing?”

A whole thing, apparently.

Penny pursed her lips into a pout, saying, “Well—”

“I wasn’t mad.”

“You definitely were. The eyebrows did the thing.”

Fine.

Luca gave her a devilish smirk when he said, “I was annoyed—I could have been buried balls deep in you up here instead of digging around in the wine cellar for thirty minutes. My eyebrows must do the thing when I’m annoyed, too.”

She had not been expecting that. Not if the way her cheeks heated, and the color rushed down the delicate column of her throat to the valley between her perfect tits, was any indication.

“I love that I can still make you do that,” he told her.

Penny’s gaze narrowed playfully below him. “At least you got my wine. Even if you did suffer blue balls and shrink—”