His final word was punctuated with his phone buzzing noisily on the table, drawing both of our attention. He stepped forward and flipped it over to see who was calling so late at night. His eyebrows rose, and he chuckled.
“Didn’t see that coming,” he muttered under his breath.
“What?”
My eyes moved to the screen, and there, in bold white letters, read Lewis.
“This should be good,” Penn said and then put the call on speaker.
Natalie
30
“Lewis,” he said, “it’s been a while, man. What’s up?”
“Is she there?”
Penn glanced up at me. “Is who where?”
Lewis huffed out angrily. “Natalie. We got into a…disagreement, and she ran out. She’s not at her apartment. She’s not with Jane.”
I could tell that he was frustrated and likely pissed off. I couldn’t imagine what he must have gone through to get to the point where he would call Penn to try to find me. He must have gone to my apartment, and when he’d found that I wasn’t there, he’d panicked and called people who knew me. Luckily, or perhaps unluckily, that list was pretty small in the city. Jane and Penn.
“Really? A disagreement? About what?”
“Penn, is she with you?” Lewis growled low.
His eyes cut to mine, and a silent conversation passed between us. He wanted to know if he should tell him that I was here. Or if he should leave him to fret longer.
I nodded. I couldn’t hide here forever anyway.
“She is,” Penn finally said.
A string of curses followed softly. As if he’d jerked the phone away from his face so that he could scream them into the night. I winced.
“She’s here, and she’s fine. She just needed to calm down. I think you should give her some space.”
“I don’t give a damn what you think, Penn,” Lewis snapped. “If you lay a hand on her, I will destroy you.”
And then he promptly hung up. The silence was a living thing between us. My hand half-reached toward the phone as if to comfort Lewis. To reassure him that nothing had happened here. But he was gone. Leaving me more on edge than ever.
“Well,” Penn said, dropping the phone back on the table, “that went about as well as expected.”
“He’s probably on his way here.”
“Probably.”
“I guess that’s my cue.” I set the drink down, kissed Totle’s head, and stood.
“You don’t have to go just because he’s coming here, Natalie.”
He stepped toward me, bridging the distance we’d had between us all night. I looked up into those blue eyes, lost to them for a moment. He stroked back the silver hair from my face.
“You’re safe here.”
“I know,” I whispered. “But I highly doubt he’s going to leave this alone.”
“I can refuse him access to the elevator. You don’t have to face him yet. Not until you’re ready. On your terms. Not his.”
“I still should go.”
But he didn’t move. And I didn’t move. We just stood together. Trapped perpetually in this inescapable vortex. A whirlwind of passion and pain. Of all the unspoken reasons that I’d shown up at his place. And all the unspoken reasons he’d allowed it.
His hand still held that stray hair. His fingers slipped up into the tresses. An intimacy that should have never been allowed. The mingled heat that couldn’t be cooled. The desire that raged like a tempest, no matter how we tried to push it aside.
“I want to kiss you,” he told me. His voice strained. His breath heavy and tortured.
“I know,” I breathed.
“I’ve pushed you, and it didn’t work, Nat.” His lips dipped lower, lower, lower. Hovering, inching, waiting. “It’s hard to have you here now. All I want is to pick you up and carry you into my bedroom.”
“We can’t.”
His nose touched mine. Brushed against it once, gentle and somehow intoxicating. The tension taut. I arched toward him. Not quite touching. Not giving in. But not quite turning away either.
“I have to go,” I reminded him.
“I’m fighting for you.” He threaded his other hand up into my hair. “I didn’t say I’d fight fair.”
His lips skated against mine as he held my face in place. His tongue darted out and licked across my bottom lip. I shivered all over at the tease of it all.
“Penn,” I murmured. My brain going fuzzy. “He’s going to kill you.”
He smirked. “Then I might as well make it worth it, huh?”
I pressed my hand to his chest and tilted my forehead against his before he could make good on his promise. “Please don’t put me in this position.”
“You know that I want you.”
“I do.”
“You knew that coming here.”
“I did,” I whispered weakly.
“And you want this.”
“If I kiss you, then I have to tell him.” I pulled back enough to look in his eyes. “And then our argument is about you. Not what happened. I don’t want that. I need to talk to him and find out the truth. This…this just complicates things.”