Cruel Money (Cruel 1)

“It isn’t?” I dragged my eyes up from the beautiful bracelet to his baby blues.

“No. It was never casual for me.”

“But…I thought you wanted it to be casual.”

“You suggested it after weeks of trying to avoid me. I wasn’t going to say no. I went along with what you asked because I didn’t want to scare you. But I don’t want to pretend anymore.”

“So…what do you want?”

“I want to be with you, Nat.”

“You want…to be…with me,” I said incomprehensibly.

“Yes. I messed up the first time around. I should have never let you go in Paris.”

“Then why did you?” I gasped out.

I could barely understand what he was saying. It felt too surreal to me. There was a ringing in my ears. Something that told me this was impossible. Guys like Penn Kensington didn’t want girls like me. No matter that we worked so well together. No matter that the sex was beyond incredible. No matter that we had matching interests.

I hated to admit it, but it made more sense when he’d abandoned me that day in Paris than that he wanted me now.

“I was a twenty-three-year-old idiot.”

“Obviously,” I said. “I mean…you had sex with me and then abandoned me. I was eighteen, and you took my virginity and then disappeared. Can you imagine how that made me feel?”

Penn’s eyes rounded in shock. “Wait…what did you just say?”

“I was eighteen,” I said, realizing that I had told him the thing I had sworn to myself that I wouldn’t.

“You were a virgin?”

“I mean…”

“Natalie?”

“Yeah, I was.”

“Why would you go back with me?”

“Hey, don’t blame me!”

“I’m not blaming you. I just can’t believe it. No wonder you were so mad at me all these years. What a way to end that night for you.”

“Ha,” I said humorlessly. “That was only half of it. You told your maid to let me out, and she called me trash and kicked me out on the street.”

“I never told her to make you leave,” he said in shock. “I didn’t even see her before I left.”

“Really? She made it seem like you’d told her to act that way.”

“I have very little memory of that morning,” he said solemnly. “Mostly just getting on a plane and rushing home.”

“Why?” I waited anxiously for the answer I’d wanted all these years. It wasn’t enough for Penn to tell me he wanted me. I had to get all of this out in the open. Without the truth, I didn’t know if I could trust myself or him enough to do this. “Why did you leave that day?”

Penn glanced at the floor and rubbed the back of his head. He leaned against the deck wall, sighed, and then looked at me. “It was the day my father died.”

My jaw dropped. “Oh my god.”

“I should have woken you up and told you. But everything was a blur. I just jumped on a plane and left.”

“You do not have to apologize for that.”

My heart was racing as I restructured everything that had happened that night and processed it over again with this new information. It changed everything. Yes, he’d still been a dick for not waking me up and telling me he was leaving. It was a shitty thing to do. But…if my dad had died, I couldn’t say that I would have thought to wake him up. I’d been so mad for so long. And now, it had all come down to this moment.

I released the anger. Released the mistrust. Released it all.

Then, I moved forward and kissed him.

He leaned into me, his lips soft and inviting. None of the casual playfulness we’d had for the last couple of weeks. This was deeper, better. A hundred times more intense.

His arms wrapped around me, dragging our bodies tight against each other. My fingers tangled in his hair. His dug into my back. My body responded instantly to his touch. To the soft caress of his tongue against mine. The way he moved it to tease my bottom lip and then drag it between his teeth.

I whimpered softly at the touch.

He pulled back and pressed his forehead to mine. “Does this mean you’ll accept the bracelet?”

I laughed. “Yes, I guess I will.”

“Good. Does it mean that we’re no longer casual?”

“Were we ever?”

He nipped at my bottom lip and grinned. “Good.”

Then, he lifted me up into his arms and carried me back through the house and into the bedroom.

“We couldn’t have just had sex out there?” I suggested as he kicked the door closed behind him.

“Too cold for you to be naked.” He dropped me onto my feet in front of the bed. “And I want you completely naked.”

“You owe me at least twice,” I reminded him.

“Oh, I remember.” He tossed his jacket to the floor. “Slow and steady first. And then hard and fast. Just how you like it.”