Homecoming: The Billionaire Brothers (7 page)

When he reached the door to the bedroom he’d visited just once, to change the light bulb in the tiny closet, he paused to listen.

All he heard were the comfortable sounds of an old house settling. And then, a tiny whimper from inside Penny’s room had him pushing open the door and slipping inside.

Dylan scanned the room for anything out of place. But it was the same as in his memory: tidy and pretty, if a little bare of personal touches. Penny considered the room she lived and slept in to belong to the Harringtons.

Still, a woman with Penny’s vibrant spirit couldn’t help but leave clues about her personality scattered throughout the room. He’d grinned at the froth of royal purple lace spilling out of a half-open drawer, and ran a furtive palm over the hand-stitched quilt folded at the foot of the queen-sized bed. There was a framed photo of Penny with a younger, chubbier Matthew, faces squished together happily and shot from the improbable angle achieved by Matt holding the camera at arm’s length.

Dylan had looked at all of that and recognized traces of Penny in the impersonal, tastefully decorated room—the value she placed on fun, her pride in her family and its history, her hidden sensuality.

Another high-pitched noise from the bed got Dylan moving. Penny made a small lump under the covers, and as he approached the bedside, that lump thrashed against the blankets as if caught in a net.

“Penny,” he whispered urgently, his hands hovering. He didn’t want to startle her awake to find a man looming over her bed, but he couldn’t let her stay trapped in a nightmare, either.

The thrashing continued until Dylan had the bright idea to switch on the small antique Tiffany glass lamp on her bedside table. Amber light flooded the queen-sized bed, picking up the dull gold threads in the patterned duvet cover as Penny finally stilled.

“Wha—?” She pushed the blankets down as if they were suffocating her, breath still coming hard and heavy, and blinked up at him sleepily.

Dylan’s blood leapt, then rushed south. Penny may have been having a nightmare, but this situation was entirely too close to one of Dylan’s better dreams. The glory of her chestnut hair spilling over the white pillows, the hazy sweep of her lashes and the sleep-warm flush of her skin … Dylan swallowed.

“Sorry, you were having a bad dream,” he whispered, backing up a step to keep himself from reaching out to her. “I’ll go now. Do you want me shut out the light, or leave it on, or—?”

“Dylan,” Penny breathed, and she lifted her arms in mute appeal, her hazy eyes filling with tears.

Powerless to resist, Dylan sank down on the edge of the bed and let himself fold her close. She tucked her nose into the side of his neck and breathed damply for a moment, long enough for Dylan to realize with a shock of heat that she was wearing nothing more than a flimsy cotton tank top and a pair of plain white panties.

Which was more than he had on, since he’d hustled out of his room in boxer briefs. He was damn lucky there hadn’t been an actual intruder.

Dylan huffed out a laugh, and Penny’s arms tightened around his neck for a second before she sat back against her pillows. “Lord. It’s been a long time since I had one of those.”

Feeling useless and a little bereft without Penny in his arms, Dylan subtly twitched the corner of her blanket over his lap to hide the evidence of exactly how messed up he was.

Penny was in pain, upset and emotional, and here Dylan was—as Matt would say—perving on her. He sucked.

“Bad dream?” he prompted when she fell silent.

She nodded. “About Trent. I used to have this same dream all the time when we first moved here.”

“About the day you left?” Dylan held his breath, not sure he wanted the answer, but Penny huffed out a small laugh.

“Actually, no. In the dream, Trent is my boss at the Firefly Café. I drop a tray full of glasses and they shatter all over the floor, and he yells at me in front of everyone on the island, the whole lunch crowd. No one says anything, they all just watch. I know, it doesn’t sound that awful…”

“No, it does.” Dylan could practically smell the fear and shame still radiating off her, the horror of being in Trent’s power, and finding no help from the people she trusted. Exactly the nightmare she’d lived through, when her parents forced her to marry a cruel man.

“The dream was a little different this time,” Penny said, her hazel eyes shining in the dark. “You were there.”

Dylan’s heart thumped loudly in his ears. “Did I just sit there and watch, like everyone else?”

“No.” There was wonder in her voice, and a soft smile spread her pink lips as she curled her knees under her and leaned toward him. Dylan kept still, afraid any sudden movement would break the spun-sugar tension of the moment. When she was a breath away, she braced her hands on his shoulders and turned him to face her.

“You stood up for me. You told Trent to shut his mouth before you shut it for him. And you helped me clean up the glass.”

“I helped you.” Everything inside Dylan thrilled toward her, and what she offered him—the chance to be a better man, because Penny believed in him.

She nodded, tugging him closer, and Dylan followed her down to the mattress eagerly. “You could help me more, if you wanted,” she murmured, the words soft and hot against his cheek.

“Anything,” he promised roughly, entranced by the delicate shape of her shoulder blades beneath his palms as he cradled her.

“Help me forget the past,” Penny said, arching up to him in a fluid curve that nearly blew the top of Dylan’s head off. “Help me live in this moment, right here, right now.”

She was like a flame, in constant searing motion, and Dylan fell into her without hesitation. Taking her lips in a deep, hungry kiss, he filled his head with her scent, her sounds, the feel of her kicking the thin sheets to the foot of the bed and bringing their lower bodies into heartbreakingly perfect alignment.

Two kisses weren’t enough to get Dylan used to the idea that he was allowed to touch Penny, to press himself against the lush, welcoming softness of her curvy little body and sink into her.

The fact that she was trembling too made him feel better—he wasn’t in this alone, overwhelmed and overloaded. Penny was right there with him, pushing hard into his arms and snuggling her face into the bend of his neck, where she fit perfectly.

There was an astonishing innocence to Penny, despite what she’d been through. She made Dylan remember what it was like to be young and eager, too inexperienced to realize that every woman who hopped into bed with him had visions of dollar signs and diamonds dancing in her head.

“You make me feel like I’m not any older than Matt,” Dylan growled, nipping sharp little kisses along the line of her jaw. “Desperate for it, and having a tough time believing I’m about to get it … oh no. Matt.”

“Don’t worry about him. He’s a teenager—he could sleep through a volcanic eruption.” Penny tilted her chin back, baring her throat in a clear request for more biting, sucking kisses. Dylan was happy to oblige.

“I’ll show you a volcanic eruption,” Dylan muttered, just to make her laugh. The sight of her, head thrown back and smiling mouth open on a sigh, fed some hunger deep inside just as surely as the greedy clutch of her thighs around his hips fed his physical desire.

But even in the midst of the most passionate, intimate lovemaking Dylan had ever known, even as both of them clung to the present moment and immersed themselves in it and in each other, Dylan felt the future barreling down on him.

Penny had opened herself to him completely. He couldn’t keep lying to her.

She’d made him believe he could be a better man. The kind of man who would tell her the truth … and once he did, Dylan knew he would lose her.

No second chances.

Chapter Nine

Penny blinked her eyes open with a start of disoriented wonder. Watery morning light filtered through the lace curtains, and she should be shivering under the thin cotton sheet, but instead it was approximately four million degrees in her bed.

A slow, luxurious stretch revealed the culprit behind the humid heat, and the twinge in certain seldom-used muscles.

Dylan Workman. The tall, muscled handyman who had—wow, really lived up to the hype about being good with his hands.

One of those broad-palmed, blunt-fingered hands was still cupped around her hip, as if he hadn’t wanted to let go even in sleep, and Penny closed her eyes to enjoy the way her heart fluttered.

With a sharp intake of breath, Dylan stirred awake beside her. “Time’s it?”

Penny glanced at the antique silver alarm clock next to the bed. “Nine fifteen. We should get up, Matt will be awake soon. And I need to get ready for the lunch shift at the Firefly.”

Dylan shifted, but only to sling a leg over Penny’s bare calves and trap her more thoroughly on the mattress. “Not yet. Plenty of time.”

Humming with pleasure, Penny relished the sticky slide of their naked skin, the crispness of Dylan’s chest hair and the combined scents of their clean sweat and satisfying lovemaking. “We don’t have plenty of time. But I’m not ready to get up yet, either.”

A sweet, comfortable silence descended over the room, broken only by the dip and sway of the trees in the light breeze and the bright chirping of birds. Here in the heart of downtown Sanctuary, they were at least half a mile from the beach, but if Penny closed her eyes she pretended she could almost make out the sound of the waves lapping at the shore.

“This island,” Dylan said, hushed and almost reverent. “It’s not like any place I’ve ever been—and I’ve been all over the world.”

Penny frowned a little. How did a handyman have money for international travel? But he’d probably backpacked across Europe or ridden that motorcycle of his across Asia or something. “Sanctuary Island is special,” she agreed. “I’ve loved it ever since we moved here. I knew right away that it was the place to make our new start.”

“The rest of the world isn’t like this.” He sounded almost angry, voice harsh and clipped.

“What do you mean?” Penny asked.

“Happy and peaceful all the time.” Dylan’s hand tightened on her hip.

Forcing herself to relax, Penny breathed deep. “Well, Dylan, I don’t know how to break it to you, but not everyone on Sanctuary Island is blissfully happy, every minute of their lives.”

He snorted. “Could’ve fooled me.”

Dylan had been consistently bewildered by the friendliness of the townspeople he’d met, from her best friend Greta Hackley offering discounts at the hardware store when she saw how much he was spending on getting Harrington House fixed up, to random people walking their dogs in the park by the town square. It was endearing, if a little sad that he was so unused to basic human kindness.

But Penny had a larger point to make. “You talk a lot about how different we are here on Sanctuary, how much has changed for you since you got here—but Dylan, don’t you see? It’s the same for us, for Matthew and me. We were okay before, we were fine. But then you showed up, and you changed everything.”

She could feel it when his heart picked up speed to slam against his rib cage. The whole bed shuddered with it.

“Penny…” His hoarse voice and clutching hands made Penny sit up to get a better look at his face.

All angular jaw and sexy scruff, his sky-blue eyes were piercing even in the soft morning sunlight. He looked lost. Chest clenching, Penny cupped his cheek in her hand and met his gaze with every ounce of calm and certainty she possessed.

“I know you’re only here for a job, and that this is temporary—a moment out of your life. But I want you to understand what you mean to us.” Pressing her lips together briefly, she amended, “To me. You’re the only man in, well, years, who has made me feel brave enough to take a chance on opening up. And last night, you showed me how wonderful it can be to trust another person, with my heart and my body.”

Penny wasn’t prepared for the shattered look that washed over Dylan’s tense face. “Penny,” he said helplessly, and she rushed to reassure him.

“No, no—I’m not trying to put pressure on you about staying on the island. I know that’s not the deal, and don’t worry, you never gave me the wrong idea about that. You know that I don’t do this kind of thing all the time, so obviously there’s something special about you … and I don’t want you to leave here without knowing how I truly feel. Because you deserve to know that wherever you’re off to next, wherever life takes you, there are people here on Sanctuary Island who love you.”

His eyes pinched shut as if she’d slid a steak knife between his ribs, his whole body jerking with the wound, and Penny’s heart shriveled in her chest.

“You shouldn’t,” he said, the words harsh as gravel in a blender.

This wasn’t going at all the way she’d imagined.

Dylan was so stoic—not much of a talker, more of a doer. But Penny saw beneath the cocky grin and the hard-clenched jaw. She saw a man with a past like a wound that kept breaking open, never healing right. She saw a man who understood what it meant to be lonely, and she’d wanted to give him something to take with him and keep him warm the next time he found himself all alone in the wide world.

Instead, she seemed to have broken him.

“Listen, Penny,” he began, voice hoarse and eyes shadowed.

What was he going to say? Fear momentarily cut off the flow of oxygen to her brain—all she could do was sit there and stare at him, naked in her bed, with her grandmother’s quilt pooled around lean hips still imprinted with the shape of her clutching fingers.

The sound of her cell phone blaring out Diana Ross’s “The Boss” cut him off. Scrambling for the phone buried under the clothes they’d shed earlier, Penny held it up with an undeniable sense of relief, even as she frowned apologetically.

“Sorry, I have to take this. It’s Harrington family business, I’m always supposed to be on call. I wonder what they need.”

*   *   *

The tensing of every muscle in Dylan’s body was all the more painful after being so recently melted into a puddle of happy goo.

Penny loved him. Or, more accurately, she loved Dylan Workman, the Sanctuary Island version of Dylan—who was nothing like the man he’d been back in New York.