Page 68 of One Second After Another

If he looked her way, she couldn’t tell. Penny was too busy staring out the window and letting her mind wander.

“What, babe?”

He was going to argue.

She was willing to fight.

For this, always.

“You need to go home,” Penny said, finally looking his way. Luca’s mouth immediately opened to refuse, but she was quick to say, “I can’t finish this with you, and I’m not the girl that needs to be saved, anyway. It’ll be better if you’re—”

His hand slammed into the steering wheel palm first.

Penny didn’t even flinch.

“Why—I can help.”

He could.

But that also meant ... “I don’t want you to; I want to come back to you, Luca. Don’t you understand? I’m not running away. I’m running back.”

His attention drifted between the steering wheel and her. She already knew how this would end between them. He would agree; she wouldn’t have to say much to make it happen. He loved her.

This man loved her. Luca would do anything for her.

He already had.

• • •

PENNY STARED AT THE gate that led into a large, three-level suburban home tucked away in a gated community that seemed safe and quiet. Then again, with only the street lamps on to give the place any life, she knew the place looked a lot different in the daylight.

It wasn’t her first time here, after all.

She should have been thinking about the man in the house that she had come here to see, but instead, her mind kept drifting back to Luca. He let her keep the car, but she dropped him off two miles away from his parents’ home. She would have figured out something if he didn’t let her keep the Vanquish, but he hadn’t seemed concerned.

He simply said, “Dad’s already gonna kill me for the lodge—who gives a fuck about the car?”

And then he kissed her.

She could still feel the way his lips molded against hers when he leaned inside the opened driver’s window to say goodbye. Even the strokes of his tongue and the graze of his lips were still imprinted on her memory long after he was gone.

She still felt it.

Still tasted him.

She hung onto that memory even when the gate guarding the driveway’s entrance started to open. Luca’s kiss still teased her senses and felt like a ghost on her lips as the car crawled closer and closer to the Donati family home.

Luca didn’t know—she hadn’t told him—but asking him to go home and let her finish her job alone wasn’t easy. In fact, it was the hardest thing she had needed to do yet when he was ... still her safe place at the end of the day. But she wanted him to keep being that for her.

This needed to happen.

Penny hadn’t expected to find Cross waiting for her on the front porch of his large home. She certainly hadn’t thought Nazio would be standing there beside his father when she parked the Vanquish, either.

Neither man seemed shocked when she stepped out of the vehicle. Penny was sure she was still quite a sight—despite getting fully dressed—with her wild hair, calm demeanor, and sure stride. She could have lost her life tonight; it was just another night for her, though.

They didn’t know that.

“I told you—”