First Time: Ian's Story (First Time (Ian) Book 1) (19 page)

She stood and paced in front of the window,
glass in hand. “I keep going over it in mind. I was standing in the
shower, trying to think of every little thing, every way I should
have known what was going on, and none of this came up. I feel like
such an idiot.”

“
You’re not an idiot.” That
probably wouldn’t help her much. Nor would telling her that this
ex-boyfriend was the idiot. She already knew that. “Sometimes, we
want to love a person more than they deserve to be loved by us. And
we’ll do a lot of rationalizing to fool ourselves into believing
that they deserve it.”

She nodded miserably and took a drink,
scrunching her face up as she swallowed. “This girl was so totally
into him. She looked at him like he was every dream come true. I
keep thinking I should have warned her, but why? What if they’re
actually meant to be together, and he never does anything awful or
hurts her at all?”

“
Then you’ve ruined their
happiness for nothing,” I agreed, not because I thought the
scenario was plausible—a man willing to string along two women
until one of them is in imminent danger of giving birth isn’t
likely to change his stripes—but because Penny couldn’t take
responsibility for that. “It’s not up to you to help her realize
what he is. If you’d told her, do you think she would have believed
you?”

“
No. I would have been the
psycho ex-girlfriend.” She paused to take another long swallow from
her glass. It was nearly empty. She held it out to me. “This stuff
isn’t expensive, is it?”

“
No.” I held out the bottle.
“Just don’t get yourself alcohol poisoned.”

“
Or vomit in your
apartment?”

“
Ah, Penny. There aren’t
many people I’d let vomit in my home, but you’re one of them.” It
got a laugh out of her, at least.

She took the bottle and clumsily poured
herself another glass, nearly to the rim. A little sloshed onto the
floor, but she didn’t appear to notice. “I shouldn’t have run over
here to tell you all of my ex-boyfriend problems. That’s not fair.
You’re trying to be the new boyfriend.” She paused and frowned. “I
mean, I think you were. I got the impression that you were
interested in the position.”

“
Definitely. I hope I’m
still in consideration.” I eyed the level in the glass and thanked
the heavens that Gena had insisted on wood flooring. Glenlivet
would be spilled tonight.

Most of it would spill down Penny’s throat,
it seemed, because she threw back another half of her glass. She
put it on the coffee table and came to sit beside me. “I think it
was because I made him wait too long. Two years, you know…”

There was no way in Hell I would let her
rationalize the bampot’s treatment of her. “So, you were supposed
to have sex with him to keep him from cheating on you? That wasn’t
your responsibility. If he wanted to go off and fuck somebody, he
should have fucking well broken up with you first.”

“
You’re swearing a bunch,”
she said quietly.

“
I can stop,” I
offered.

“
No, you can’t.”

She had a point. I sighed. “This prick… He’s
the kind of man who’ll sleep around on you whether you’re sleeping
with him or not. This other woman was sleeping with him, and he was
still seeing you. He was just—”

I stopped myself, because if she hadn’t
already come to the conclusion I’d been about to voice, I didn’t
want to be the person who slapped her in the face with it.

She nodded sadly. “I know. I know why he was
still with me.”

I put my arms around her, and she leaned her
head on my shoulder while she cried. It wouldn’t help her to hear
that this arsehole would be fucking around on his new girl at any
moment; she already knew. And there wasn’t anything I could say
that would take the sting out of any of this, so I held her while
she cried and probably got snot on my sweater.

When she sat up, her eyes were alarmingly
red. She reached for her glass and finished it, then sat with her
face in her hands. “I’m sorry. I’m a mess. I showed up here a mess,
and now, I’m drunk and a mess.”

“
If you think this is the
only time anyone has gotten drunk on this sofa and cried hard, I
have some news for you that will come as a bit of a shock.” I
nudged her with my elbow. “Don’t feel sorry for coming here. I’m
thrilled to death it was me you wanted.”

“
Yeah?” She tilted her head.
“Can I have more of whatever that is?”

I eyed the bottle and tried to mentally
calculate her body weight. “How about a beer, instead? Just to slow
down?”

“
Liquor before beer, in the
clear,” she said with a thumbs up, and I momentarily reconsidered
even the beer.

When I came back with it, she was in better
spirits. “Is it weird to feel a little relieved about this,
too?”

“
How so?”

“
Well, for the last few
months that we were dating, Brad was really distant. Now I know
why. But, at the time, I had this feeling…” She took breath. “I had
a feeling things were falling apart between us. And that maybe he
was with me because he was waiting it out. Like, he wanted to be
the winner.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I just nodded
to indicate she should go on.

“
It’s nice to have that
confirmation. To know that I wasn’t crazy. I mean, it sucks, and it
hurts, but it’s nice.” She shrugged. “And I’m glad Brad broke up
with me. Because…I got to meet you. You’ve already been way better
to me than he ever was.”

“
Is it selfish of me to say
that I’m glad the two of you broke up, as well?”

“
No, I think you made out
like a bandit in the deal.” She leaned against me, as though it
were the most natural thing in the world to take comfort from me.
My chest ached. The worst part of being single was the lack of
physical contact; I could go days at a time without touching
anyone. If I needed to be hugged, my sister was only a phone call
away, but this was far different. Penny snuggled beside me out of
need, trusting me to make her pain go away.

It had been a very, very long time since
that had happened to me. I hadn’t realized until now that I’d
missed it.

Holding Penny had a soporific effect on both
of us. I’m sure the quantity of whisky she had consumed and the
short time she’d consumed it in had something to do with it, as
well. I leaned against the bend of the couch, and she lay between
my legs, her head on my chest. With my long day after the late
night before, and her emotional outpouring, sleep was
inevitable.

When I finally managed to peel my eyes open,
the clock hands on the window said it was twelve-thirty. I nudged
Penny with my elbow. “Penny? Open your eyes, Doll. We fell
asleep.”

“
I can’t understand you when
you mumble,” she said. Or I thought that’s what she’d said; if
anyone here was mumbling, it wasn’t me.

“
Do you want me to take you
home?” I should have just let her sleep. I didn’t know what I was
thinking, when it felt so good to hold her.

She blinked up at me. “Can I stay here?”

“
Certainly. I don’t think
the guest bed is made up, but I—”

“
Can I sleep with you?” she
asked plaintively. “I could really use the snuggles.”

If she were any other woman,
this would have been the moment I mentally began preparing to get
laid. Knowing that wasn’t a possibility—not just because of Penny’s
celibacy, but also because she was still roaring drunk—was oddly
comfortable. There was something startlingly intimate about going
to bed with a woman for the first time and
not
having sex with her.

So intimate that I was more
frightened than I would have been if we
were
going to have sex.

“
Fine. No funny business,
though. I know your type,” I warned. She sat up, and I groaned as I
stood. I offered her my hand.

“
Come on, before I fall
asleep while I’m walking.” She yawned.

I walked behind her, a hand at the small of
her back to navigate to the floating staircase. “You must be
desperately tired, if you’re willing to brave these stairs.”

She gave a tired laugh. “I was never afraid
of the stairs.”

“
You lied about hating my
brilliant stairs?” I exaggerated a gasp of pure offense. “How dare
you!”

“
At the time, I didn’t
really know you.” We gained the top step and walked straight into
the bedroom. “I thought it might have been a trick.”

I’d known all along that she’d been
uncomfortable at the thought of going up to my room the first time
she’d been in the apartment, but her wording raised warning flags
in my mind. Had she thought I might assault her? I pushed past my
initial defensiveness to remind myself that she had no choice but
to suspect men, even handsome, devil-may-care men like myself, of
being potential rapists and murderers.

The sense of sorrow I had over that eclipsed
whatever slight sting I may have felt. “I hope I didn’t make you
afraid or—”

She stepped up close and pressed her palms
to my chest. “If I’d been worried about that, I wouldn’t have come
here in the first place. And I wouldn’t have come back. But I
wasn’t sure you wouldn’t try some clumsy seduction technique.”

“
Hey. When I’m clumsily
seducing you, you’ll know it.” I went to my nightstand and clicked
on the brushed steel wall sconce above it.

She followed me with long, lazy steps. “I
just really like you, and I didn’t want to give you the chance to
disappoint me. I know that’s probably not the smartest relationship
strategy.”

My heart twisted at the unspoken story
behind those words. She’d clearly had men try such an obvious ploy
before. She hadn’t wanted to believe me capable of behaving that
way. The fact that she was standing in my bedroom, getting ready to
spend the night, and she wasn’t worried that I would try something
meant she trusted that I wouldn’t disappoint her now.

“
This is a little hot,” she
said, plucking at the front of the sweater she wore. “Do you have
anything more nightshirt-ish?”

I went to my dresser and grabbed a T-shirt.
“I’m going to let you borrow this, but on one condition.”

She narrowed her eyes.

“
You can’t look sexier than
I do when I’m wearing it.” I tossed it at her, and she caught it,
shaking her head a little.

There was something so appealing about the
way I could look at her and not know what she was thinking or where
we stood at any given moment. For all I knew, she could have been
thinking about what an utter dork I was. And knowing Penny, that
was probably exactly what she was thinking.

She pointed to the door across the room.
“Bathroom, then?”

“
Yeah, in there.” I went
ahead of her and grabbed my contact solution and toothbrush from
the sink. “I’ll use the one downstairs.”

When I came back up, she was still shut away
in the bathroom. I considered my options with regards to my bedtime
attire. I usually slept in the altogether, but that wasn’t
appropriate for tonight. I switched my shirt out for a T-shirt and
hoped my boxers wouldn’t offend her.

I heard the bathroom door just as I pulled
the shirt over my head. Mother of God, but she looked amazing, even
in one of my ratty old T-shirts.

Especially
in one of my ratty old T-shirts.

Keeping my eyes off her legs was nearly
impossible. They were gorgeous and tan and curvy like a pin-up
drawing, and even though Penny was just a wee thing, she was only
covered to mid-thigh. Why the sight affected me so, I had no idea;
I’d seen her in a bikini. I’d seen her in her underwear, writhing
and moaning under my hand, for Christ’s sake. This was different.
She was standing here, ready to get in bed with me, where all that
bare skin would brush against mine and that shirt would ride
up—

I went to the bed, pulled back the covers,
and got in quick.

“
So, that side, then?” she
asked with a laugh. “You don’t have to defend your
territory.”

“
You say that, now. But I
know women. I’ll wake up on the floor, with you sprawled out like a
starfish in here.” I held my breath as she climbed in beside
me.

“
This is a pretty big first
for me.” Her hair swung against her face as she reached up to hit
the light. “I’ve never slept over before.”

“
Well, I can see why not.” I
put my arm out as she rolled up against my side. “You look fucking
hideous without makeup.”

She made an outraged noise and pushed
against my chest before settling down to lay her head on my
shoulder. “Here I am, breaking one of my cardinal relationship
rules, and you’re being mean to me.”

“
Never.” I kissed her
forehead and squeezed her tight. “I love you, and you know
it.”

I didn’t realize what I’d said until her
body stiffened. Then, very quietly, she said, “No… I didn’t know
that.”

Conversational regret hit me like a
sledgehammer to the balls. “When I say ‘love,’ I mean—”

“
You mean you love me?” Was
that the hint of a smile I heard in her voice? It would have helped
if I could see her face, to know whether or not she was staring at
me in unchecked horror.

“
Well, it’s out there,” I
said, trying to laugh. It sounded more like a cough. “I would have
preferred a more romantic venue to make such a pronouncement, but
here we are.”