Page 127 of If Our Hearts Collide

“Just take me home,” she says in exasperation after a long pause. “I’m ready for some battery operated toys and a new day to start. Who needs a man to stumble around trying to please himself in my flesh when I have silicone and my own hands to do the job?”

My greedy-as-fuck cock jerks in my pants as if it just hit puberty and can’t keep under control. The sass on this girl. She knows exactly what to say to elicit a reaction out of me—albeit this time I’m able to stay quiet about it.

She has no clue just how good being with me would be. What she doesn’t need is some boy in need of a road map to locate her erogenous zones. No. Instead she needs a man who can work her up to the edge and then send her over it in a rush. She doesn’t need someone to satisfy her. She needs someone to devour her.

But I’m not the man.

I can’t be that man.

We drive in silence back to Sky View Apartments. I’m used to the quiet and yet there’s something so bothersome to me about all of this.

I keep my eyes on the road, afraid that if I glance over, I’ll give away every emotion running through my body right now—many I haven’t even deciphered quite yet. There’s a large part of me that knows my torrid thoughts are going to get me sent straight to hell.

Yet, there’s a more aggressive part of me that knows that every stirring sensation I am feeling inside is in direct relation to the happiness Penny brings into my life. She makes me want to be softer, more yielding.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m demanding as fuck. It’s just that now I’m considering how my actions will make her feel. I don’t want to scare her with my intensity. If anything, I want to make her feel so comfortable that if she ever has a problem, I’ll be the first person she’ll lean on.

A foreign feeling rushes over me. Is this what jealousy feels like? I already feel like an idiot comparing myself to inanimate objects—like her silicone dildo—when clearly I can supply her needs better than they can.

But that’s what this whole night has been about, beyond just protecting Penny.

It was about jealousy.

If I can’t have Penny, no person or object can…

And that there is the shittiest revelation of this entire journey.

I finally glance over at her as she fidgets with her handbag, opening and closing about two inches worth of the zipper on repeat. “I think I’m broken.”

“You aren’t broken, Penny. Don’t say things like that.”

She shakes her head adamantly. “How else would you describe it then, Collins? I’m twenty-two years old and have only experienced one orgasm in my entire life. And I think it was just a fluke anyway. It wasn’t anything like the magazines describe it as.”

Oh. I was not expecting this. Damn.

And then she sighs. “And now I’m questioning if I ever even experienced one in the first place. And it definitely was by my own doing if it was genuinely one, because there’s no way a man could ever be responsible enough to handle that endeavor.”

Well, at least I know that Penny is an open book when she has some wine running throughout her system. She’s providing me more insight into her past experiences than I’ve known up to now.

“What makes you question yourself?” Why the fuck am I even asking? What benefit would result from knowing this highly inappropriate information? I’m her bodyguard for fuck’s sake—not her sex coach.

“Because the euphoria I felt when you kissed and ground against me in the alleyway was so potent that I know I’ve never felt that zing before in my…”

Now she’s being shy? What’s changed other than possibly having a chance to sober up?

I nod, not because I’m agreeing with anything she’s saying, but instead because I’m trying with everything I am not to sport a freaking hard-on in these close quarters with her—when all I need to do is draw a firmer line. And then actually not cross it.

“Pussy.”

Fuck. Is she trying to kill me? Is it the alcohol that just dissolves her filter or is this the real Penny all along?

I know Graham and Nic want to keep this angelic vision of Penny preserved in their minds, and I don’t blame them one bit from all she’s endured from Mark Tanner, but this woman is not the innocent little girl they see.

No.

Penny is a seductress.

And every naughty word spilling out of her perfect little mouth causes a primal response deep within me.

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