Page 31 of The Cowboy and the Bombshell
I wanted him to kiss me.
I wanted him to let me go.
Those conflicting desires battled inside me, leaving me frozen in this strange emotional limbo, the feel of his arms around me the only solid thing in my life at that moment.
Stone looked at my lips again, then said, “I have no idea.” With that, he crushed his lips against mine and all my questions vanished.
He was warm. That was the first thing I noticed. His lips seemed to sear mine as they pressed against me. The hand he had been touching my cheek with moved, his fingers sliding into my hair and fisting it tightly at the back of my neck. The sudden pain, mild but shocking, caused me to gasp, and Stone took full advantage of my surprise, sweeping his tongue into my mouth. He tasted of alcohol, warm and smoky, and I melted as the flavor of him seeped into me. Curling my fingers into his shirt, I pulled him tighter against me, not thinking of anything besides getting closer to him. Wanting to feel him pressed against my body, the firm length of his chest as he used his other hand to draw me towards him. I moaned softly when his hand slid down my back and his large, warm palm landed on my ass, giving it a gentle squeeze.
I couldn’t believe that this was happening. Stone was kissing me. And I was kissing him back. Stone Pennington.
Shit.
Stone freaking Pennington!
The realization of what I was doing slammed into me like a bucket of ice water and I pulled my head back. Stone opened his eyes, his gaze clouded as he looked at me. He reached for me again, but I stepped back and again crossed my arms over my chest.
Seeming to come to the same awareness I just had, Stone blinked the lust fog out of his eyes, replacing the soft look on his face with his usual scowl.
And I couldn’t take it anymore. His anger and confusing mood swings were just too much.
“I have to go,” I said quickly, and started for the door.
“Penelope, wait,” Stone said, reaching for my arm as I went. “I just - shit!” He sighed, looking conflicted and defeated, an expression I was unused to seeing on his face. “Can we just talk?” He gestured helplessly to the seating area near the house.
Sighing, I moved past him and sat on one of the loungers, drawing my knees up to my chest as I sat. He watched me for a moment, then sat on the lounger next to mine, his feet on the tiled pool deck, his elbows on his knees as he looked at me intently.
Neither of us spoke for a while, me staring into the sparkling waters of the lit pool, him, staring at me. I was the one who broke the quiet first.
“I just don’t understand, Stone,” I said quietly. “From the beginning, you have been nothing but a jerk.” He hung his head and blew out a breath.
“I know,” he allowed. “It’s kind of my default setting.”
“Yeah, well, it gets a bit tiresome,” I replied, raising my eyebrow at him. He had the decency to look ashamed. I drew off my shoes one by one, setting them on the lounger next to me. I curled my toes in and stretched them out, over and over, working my sore feet. “For the last month, I have been walking on eggshells, trying to avoid your ire, and I don't even know what I did to earn it.”
“Shit, Penelope,” he said, looking at me. “I don’t even know. I just…I always do this. I take my bullshit out on everyone. Even Silas. I don’t know why. I just get so fuckin’ mad. About everything.”
He stood, pacing beside the pool, his agitation clear in the tension in his shoulders and the way he was fisting his hands. “I just, I see you,” he huffed, the words coming quickly now. “All shiny in your designer New York clothes, walking around all perfect, knowing you represent everything I hate about that city.”
I was completely taken aback. “Excuse me? Everything you hate?” He couldn’t be serious. “What, exactly, do you hate about me, Stone?” I said coldly, narrowing my eyes as I watched him pace, looking for all the world like a cornered animal.
“Everything!” He shouted, turning to me and throwing his hands in the air. “Your perfect hair, your ridiculous shoes, your expensive wardrobe, and every other thing your rich daddy likely bought you to make you think he loved you, when he’s really just an asshole who loves his money the most.”
He was panting when he finished, and as I stared at him in the darkness, I realized there was a lot to Stone Pennington he didn’t want people to see. But here, under the cover of night, he was showing me everything. The scars he wore that had never healed. The wounds that bled every time he breathed.
It was no wonder he went by a different last name. Stone Pennington was hurting, and he had been for a long time. Daphne had hinted at this the night we met, but now I could see for myself how Stone had suffered.
And though his assessment of me was way off base, I understood what he was trying to say. He wanted to hurt me because Harold Pennington had hurt him.
He stood there, glaring at me, daring me to say something, to fight back and lash out in return, as I had in all of our previous confrontations. My reactions had fed his inner beast.
But that was not what he was going to get tonight. Instead, I tried a different tactic. Taking a deep breath, I pushed aside the walls I usually kept in place to protect me, and I showed him my own pain.
“The day the planes struck the towers in New York, I was seven years old,” I started quietly. I could see the confusion in his eyes. He was expecting my rage. I was giving him something else. “My father had been a member of the NYPD my entire life, and when the call went out, the whole department responded. His precinct was the 108th, in Queens, where we lived, and there was never a question. Every member of the NYPD, the NYFD, even the Port Authority, they all ran to Ground Zero.”
Stone slowly resumed his seat, his own anger forgotten as he stared at me open-mouthed. I couldn’t look at him, so I watched my toes clenching and un-clenching as I recited the story I hated to tell.
“The first days were terrible. The following months were worse. The recovery effort was beyond comprehension. Those men and women, they worked in the rubble and debris, day and night, looking for survivors at first, then bodies at the end.” I squeezed my eyes closed, picturing my fathers face, the lines of sorrow that got deeper every time he returned to the house. “At first, everyone was so focused on the folks who didn’t survive, the ones who were lost in an instant, that no one stopped to consider the toll things were taking on those who were left behind.”
