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“We were,” he agreed, “but you know what that lie caused, Penny?”
He continued to spank her, albeit pretty lightly, while he spoke. He didn’t want to hurt her or scare her away.
“N-no,” she whimpered.
“Well first, it made me feel like I wasn’t good enough for you,” he told her matter of factly, despite his raging erection that was digging against her stomach.
“No, Josh! Why would you think that?” she argued vehemently.
He ignored that and continued the spanking as if she hadn’t spoken. “One of the reasons I pulled away was because I started to exercise before and after school. I started running and doing weights in an effort to lose weight and get fit, to see if that made me more attractive to you.”
“You didn’t need to do that, Josh,” she sniffled. “I always appreciated you for who you were.”
Josh digested that information for the truth it was. She’d been the one person who never treated him differently because of his weight or his nerd glasses or all his geeky knowledge.
“I know that, Penny, but I had such a huge crush on you that I wanted to be the best version of me I could be, especially for you,” he paused for a second and then dived into the rest of his revelation. “But above all, I wanted you to be happy,” he breathed, and she stilled her wriggling and listened.
Josh gritted his teeth and flexed his jaw, bouncing another stinging swat against her reddening rump. “I thought I was holding you back. Stopping people from seeing the beautiful, caring girl you were, because you always hung out with a loser like me.”
Penny sucked in a shocked breath, but Josh plowed on. “As much as I selfishly wanted to keep you for myself, I decided if I let you go, took a step back, then you’d have a chance to date Brad and do all the things you dreamed of doing with the popular kids, without me dragging you down.”
He popped a couple of swats against her sit spots and felt her shoulders start to shake, but he didn’t think she was crying because he was hurting her.
He tightened his grip against the soft skin of her waist and let rip with two extra hard slaps. “But now I find out that after all these years of thinking I’d made an honorable sacrifice, consoling my aching heart with the knowledge that I did the right thing, just for you, that you lied and never wanted Brad at all.”
“Josh…” her voice broke and she clung to his leg like it was a lifeline. “I’m so s-sorry.”
Josh soothed his palm over the heated bloom of her backside and pulled her upright to cuddle on his lap.
She buried her face into his neck, and he could feel tears of remorse, wet against his skin.
“I want you, Josh,” she admitted in a small voice. “I wanted you then and I want you now.”
“We’ve wasted so much time,” he whispered, hugging her close. “We have a whole decade to make up for.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Penny sighed, still half asleep, and snuggled closer to the delicious, warm body curled up next to her.
Josh’s arm snaked around her waist, hauling her closer still and she could feel the hard evidence of his desire as well as his heartbeat as she settled her head on his chest.
She might have felt embarrassed at her decidedly forward, uncharacteristic actions, last night, but she was too sated and satisfied to care.
Even if he had spanked her. And she hadn’t hated that either. It had been a surprise, yes, but it had left her with a warm glow to know he cared that much and the conversation that had gone with it, well…
“I can hear you thinking from here,” Josh commented, his voice coated in the husky gravel of sleep. “I hope you’re not having second thoughts.”
Penny smiled against the chest hair that was tickling her nose. “It’s a little bit late for that, don't you think?”
She raised her head to look at him, his relaxed, drowsy eyes and bed rumpled hair causing her chest to tighten. She wanted to wake up with him like this many more days. Years. A lifetime. She’d never been more certain of anything in her life.
“Did you mean what you said last night?” she asked. She didn’t like the hesitancy she heard in her voice, but it was better to know now, when things weren’t mired in the passion of the moment, than later when she’d given the final part of her heart away. Heck, it might already be too late for that.
Josh held her gaze, his melted chocolate eyes direct and intense. “I said a lot of things last night,” he replied.
“You said we had a whole decade to make up for,” she repeated his words, looking away and steeling herself against the rebuff.
Josh gripped her chin and forced her face back to his. “Yes!” he said with a certainty that made her insides wobble. “I meant every word. I came back to town because of you, Penny, and if that makes me a creepy, weird-ass stalker then so be it. But my whole life, every relationship I fell into, I felt like there was something missing. I finally came to the conclusion that something was you and I had to act on it. Even if it meant finding out you were married and forcing myself to move on.”
