Page 119 of On a Fault Line

Meandering, I shovel more flag cake into my mouth, doing anything I can to ignore this tense…awkwardness. Does anyone else feel it or is it just me?

But then I swallow my bite way too soon. Bending over and coughing into the crook of my arm, I am immediately surrounded by both Collins and Ivan.

One’s a pit bull, and one’s a poodle…

“You okay, Penny?” they both ask in unison.

I continue coughing and then once it turns into laughter, I nearly dump my cocktail onto both of their feet.

How am I going to get through the next several hours with two men circling me like rabid dogs?

“Penny.”

I look up at Collins.

His features harden, moving from angry to livid, as if a switch was hit.

“I need to talk to you.”

I look at my nails. Nobody has time to micromanage everyone’s emotions right now. “Sounds serious.”

“It is.”

He gestures to a space in the corner away from Ivan, and with a predatory hand on my lower back, he ushers me there.

Is he freaking staking a claim at my family’s barbecue?

“You can’t tag me and bag me, you know?”

“Oh, I totally can.”

My eyes narrow. “What’s wrong? Why did you put baby in the corner?”

“You have icing on your lip.”

My fingers reach up to wipe it off. “That’s what you needed to separate me from the group to say?” I know he just wanted me away from Ivan. He’s being so obvious. “Do you want a bite of flag cake?”

His attentive gaze drags over my body, exploring me unabashedly and without any intrusion. Nothing is standing in the way of us—except the fact we are at my family’s barbecue.

“More than you know.”

“Hey, Penny,” Ivan says, joining us.

Jealousy erupts behind Collins’s eyes, causing him to curse under his breath, as my body tingles with the realization that later he will be exerting his possessiveness over me, reminding me just who owns me.

“What’s up?” Collins asks, before I can string together the words in greeting. “Ivan.”

Why is he saying his name so weird? It sounds weird. At least I think it does?

With eyes still trained on me, his silent command to be agood girltransfers between us. The problem is…I don’t want to be a good girl.

What I really want to do is smack him for his rudeness.

“I wanted to know if you wanted some cake with the berries.”

Collins snaps his head toward him as if he was brainless. “You mean another slice of the one she made and brought? You just spent the last eight minutes watching her eat some, an?—”

“Alrighty,” I say, clapping my hands together.

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