Page 85 of One Second After Another

God.

He could laugh.

Her flippant, yet breathless, assurances were crazy. Yet, she made them like she expected no fight from him.

“What are you doing?” he asked her.

She was still touching his lips, the black strands of her faded box-dyed hair sticking to the pale skin of her face and throat. Not once had she looked away from him.

“Anything,” she replied softly. “I want to do everything I couldn’t before.”

He would let her. Hell, he’d be right there doing whatever she wanted with her.

“I kept my promise,” Penny said. “To everyone, Luca. Even you.”

She had. He couldn’t deny that. And God above knew that he loved her more because of it, too.

But did he ever expect anything different? Luca couldn’t pretend that Penny was the average woman—certainly the exception. Beyond, even. Exceptional. She walked through hell, and then went back for more with a smile. And here she was, saying she wanted to be all of those things with him.

With a wound in her chest.

While she bled in his arms.

“I just want you,” he eventually replied. “All I ever wanted was you.”

He wouldn’t let her go.

Not now.

Not ever.

Penny smiled wider, then, her lips trembling when she told him, “And now we can start over.”

It took Luca a second.

Those words echoed; they were a reminder of something he had been told two months ago when he first learned the bounty was claimed. His godfather’s promise that had left him so unsettled for more reasons than he was able to explain.

Like a restart, Cross had said.

“Can’t we start over?” Penny asked him. “I want an ... after.”

“And I’ll give you one.”

Nothing else mattered.

It never would.

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