"No it's not," Penny disagreed surprising him. "You've been fighting with your brothers for so long it's time to let it go. Isabel died. How long are you going to let her ghost chase you around? I hate to be blunt but this is the way that it is, Isabel is gone she is part of the past and so is your baby. You have your whole future ahead of you, if you would just grab it. If you chose you could have gobs of children and be an amazing father to each and every one of them but instead you're choosing to drown yourself in alcohol over something that happened in the past. You can’t change what happened. Don’t use it as an excuse to fight with your brothers over misplaced guilt. Get over it, Dillon. Stop living in the past."
"Easy to say when you're not living it."
"No, actually it's not easy to say. But I think it's something that needs to be said. I've only known the Buchanans for a relatively short time but in that time I've learned a few things. You are all selfish jerks. You used people for your own advantage and you let money draw your moral boundaries. Basically, what you've all learned is that money doesn't buy happiness. It's a trite statement but it is so true. When I was growing up my Papa didn't have a lot. But I always had lots of love. Can you say the same? From what I've heard about your father he wasn't very affectionate. Kids need love not an endless bank account. You have an opportunity to be different and change and so do the twins. Take a chance and be different."
"I don't know how to be different."
"Sure you do. You were different with me." With that soft admission she leaned forward and brushed a soft kiss across his lips. "I saw the real you for a brief moment and I liked that man. I liked him a lot. But I don't like the man he pretended to be because you're so consumed with bitterness and anger so when you're ready to let the true you come through I'll be here, waiting."
"You're an impossible romantic," Dillon said his gaze softening. "How does someone like you navigate the world without being crushed by people like my family?"
“I'm tougher than I look,” she retorted dryly. "Now, would you like me to call you a cab?"
He looked wounded. "You would toss me out on my ear in my state? What if I trip and crack my head open? All manner of nasty things can happen to a poor drunk man suffering from an overindulgence of scotch and a heavy conscience."
She laughed. "Fine. You can take the couch."
"I have a better idea," he suggested, catching her hand and pulling her closer. "I say I stay right here, in this bed with you. I promise to keep my hands to myself.”
"I don’t believe you,” she said.
He shrugged. “Now how is that my fault?” he asked, tugging his shirt over his head and tossing it to the floor. He began to unbutton his jeans and Penny gasped and covered her eyes. “What are you doing?” he asked, amused by her reaction. “There’s nothing here you haven’t seen already,” he reminded her.
“I know that,” she said, scowling from behind her hands. “But I don’t need to see it again. At least not like this.”
“And how is that?” he asked, sliding from the bed. He pulled her hands away from her face and she met his gaze, willing herself to stay strong but he was quite possibly the most beautiful man on the planet and it simply wasn’t fair. Her gaze dipped to the hard muscles of his abdomen and she sucked in a shocked breath at how quickly arousal spiked through her. Oh damn. Her resolve was slipping already. She tried staring at him crossly. “What are you doing? How are we supposed to be friends if you keep trying to seduce me?” she asked.
He laughed, the sound causing ripples of awareness to jolt her backside. “Whoever said I wanted to be friends?” he asked, plucking at the ties on her shirt until the two halves slid open and revealed a creamy expanse of shoulder. His gaze darkened and he drew her into the shelter of his embrace before she could whisper a protest. He teased her mouth with the press of his lips, the taste of alcohol still on his breath, as he said silkily, “You and I were never destined to be friends, sweet little dove.” He tightened his grip on her possessively. “We were destined to be lovers.”
She gasped as his mouth covered hers in a sweet, yet savage kiss that shook her to her toes. She clung to him as her knees threatened to give out and all good intentions went out the window. She ought to tell him to get the hell out, that she wasn’t interested but her body was readily making a mockery out of such a foolish declaration. A craving so sweet and sinful that she could barely stand to voice had begun to take over her senses, stealing her resolve and turning her mind to mush. All that mattered was Dillon’s touch and how he managed to make her tremble like a leaf in the wind.
They tumbled to the bed and within seconds their clothes evaporated between them. The moment his mouth closed on her nipple she nearly lost herself in wild abandon, holding him tightly to her breast as he suckled like a baby, drawing the sweet flesh into his hot and greedy mouth with an insistence that sent spirals of need straight to her heated core. God, she’d missed him! There was no one who compared to Dillon. He made her body sing and her heart dance. “Ohh, Dillon,” she gasped when he released her nipple and quickly buried himself between her thighs, giving her no time to protest or refuse, not that she would. She thrashed as he devastated her feminine folds, seeking out her clitoris like a beast after a meal. Her hips thrust against him, pushing herself closer and deeper to his marauding mouth and she clutched the bedsheets as she crashed into her climax with violent swiftness. “Ohhh, God!” she cried, shaking as wave after wave shook her body, her muscles clenching in unison as her orgasm buffeted her senses. Before she’d even recovered, her head still in a daze, Dillon was pushing his cock inside her. She groaned as she took his length, stretching to accommodate his girth. She clutched at his back, gasping as the tip of his cock rubbed perfectly against her G-spot in a tantalizing way and she wrapped her legs around him to get a deeper connection.
“Penny,” he murmured against her mouth, sweeping his tongue through her mouth to slide sensually against hers. She moaned into his mouth, loving the feel of his body on top of hers. The delicious weight of his hard body pressing her into the mattress gave her a wicked thrill that she adored. “Oh God, why are you so perfect?” he said with a deep-chested moan. “Good God, you’re like a drug in my system.”
She buried her face in the crook of his neck while he plunged himself deeper and deeper inside her ready heat, the head of his cock pummeling her core with each pleasurable thrust until she was nearly mindless with the sweet sensation of being fucked by her bad boy. “Yessss,” she cried, throwing her head back as she slammed into another orgasm, this one rocking her harder than the first. “Oh, God, yes, Dillon!”
He groaned as he filled her moist heat, shuddering in great, racking shakes of his body, until he was completely spent and collapsed, rolling off her with a loud, satisfied exhale as he recovered. Penny slowly came to her senses and rolled to her side only to find Dillon knocked out cold. “Damn,” she murmured, pushing a chunk of hair behind her ear. So much for getting him onto the couch. She sighed and tucked him under the covers and then climbed in beside him. If Dillon was hellbent on sleeping in her bed, so be it; she was going to enjoy a night cuddled up to him. Who knew when it might happen again?
Dillon slowly awoke, momentarily disoriented when he didn’t immediately recognize his surroundings but as he realized who was sleeping beside him, everything came back to him in a hazy rush. He closed his eyes against the harsh pounding of his head and quietly climbed from the bed, careful not to wake Penny. After swishing his mouth free of the taste of metallic sludge leftover from too many glasses of scotch, he splashed his face and went to the kitchen, his mind on coffee and breakfast, but not necessarily in that order. Hell, he’d made a huge mess of Penny’s life. What had he been thinking to come here? His feet had, apparently, been on auto-pilot because he didn’t actually remember purposefully showing up on her doorstep. He remembered calling a cab but not necessarily the address he’d given the driver. Well, he thought drily, he supposed that mystery was easily solved; he’d
given the cab driver Penny’s address.
And then he’d seduced her into having sex. Dillon leaned down on his elbows and tried not to stick his head in the grinder for being such a dick. He had no business messing with Penny any longer. But he’d be a liar if he said he hadn’t slept like a baby curled up beside her. Maybe it was a combination of alcohol and sex but he’d enjoyed a dark oblivion, which he hadn’t experienced in a long time. Sleep had long become his archenemy as work obligations had often corrupted his ability to simply drift off into La-La Land. But not with Penny. Sleeping beside Penny was near to heaven.
Fabulous. Just what he needed. More shit to cloud my judgment.
Penny appeared in the doorway looking delectably tousled and sexy as hell and he had to restrain himself from bending her over the kitchen table for round two. “I made coffee,” he said, gesturing at the fresh pot brewing. She nodded and slid onto the barstool at the counter. He poured her a cup and pushed it to her. She didn’t say a word and simply lifted her mug to jolt her system awake with the help of caffeine. “I’m sorry,” he began, figuring he ought to start there. “I shouldn’t have come here last night. I don’t know what happened.”
“I’m not sorry,” she said, shocking him as she regarded him over the rim of her coffee mug. “I’m not sorry one bit.”
“Why not?”
“Ask yourself this…why do you think you came here?” she countered.
“I was drunk and horny.”
“Don’t be deliberately crude to shock me and stop dancing around the emotional element in all this. You were hurting inside. And you came here. To me.”
He didn’t want to accept her simple logic because it created too many other deep questions that he wasn’t ready to answer. She may be right but he wasn’t willing to go there. “Penny, why do you do this? You read more into a simple act than it warrants. I needed a place to crash and when I drink too much, I want someone to fuck. End of story.”
“Stop it!” She put her mug down forcefully, causing coffee to slosh over the sides. Her gaze burned a hole into his soul, demanding the kind of emotional honesty that scared him. “Haven’t you learned a damn thing since Isabel? You shut her out and lost her — and your baby — because of your stupid pride. I know you care for me, Dillon because I care for you in the same way. Do you think I wanted to fall in love with you? Hell no. You were the last person on the planet I wanted to feel anything for but sometimes fate has different plans and you and I, for whatever reasons, feels right. Admit it. When you’re with me, you feel different, more alive.”
He scowled, hating that she was right. He stared her down. “Don’t you get it? I don’t love you! You were a means to an end. I wanted to hurt my brothers and you were an easy way to accomplish that goal. I’m not cut out to play house and I’m not about to start trying when I know for a fact, I would fail miserably at it.”
“I don’t believe you, you stubborn jerk,” she said hotly, rising from her seat. “You’re just a coward who’s too afraid to admit that for the first time in his life, he wants something that he’s too afraid to grab with both hands. All your money doesn’t mean crap if you’re too stupid to realize when you have something within your reach that could be really amazing!” She stomped out of the room and slammed the bedroom door, causing him to follow quickly, if only to set the record straight once and for all.
He kicked the door open and it splintered the jam, startling Penny as she gasped in shock at his aggression. “What the hell did you just do to my door, you jerk? You’re paying for that, by the way,” she said with a dark glower as she pulled her night shirt from her body, exposing all of those lovely curves. “Now, get out. I need to shower — this booty call just ended.”
“You’re not a booty call,” he said with a low growl. Why ‘d she have to take her shirt off? How was he supposed to remain focused when all he saw were those gorgeous breasts? Her eyes flashed with knowing yet she looked away, still angry. He stalked her into the bathroom and she gasped in irritation that he’d followed her. “Get this straight, I don’t think of you like that. Okay?”
“Make up your mind. Just five minutes ago you claimed the only reason you showed up here was because you were horny. I’d say by definition, that is a booty call.”
“What do you want from me?” Dillon asked, his gaze devouring her lovely body. He itched to cup her full breasts and bring them to his mouth but somehow, by the grace of God, he kept his hands to himself. He lowered his voice, suddenly losing the will to put up a front. “Penny, you deserve far better than me.”
“Such as your brothers?”
“No.” He nearly growled. He couldn’t stand the thought of Penny being with his brothers…or anyone else for that matter. Damn it all! He claimed her mouth in a sudden movement that shocked them both. His tongue sought out hers and they tangled together in a sensual dance that immediately plumped his cock. He pulled away reluctantly to stare down at her. Her eyelids fluttered open and she regarded him with quiet grace. Why was she so beautiful? So perfect? He’d never find another woman like her and he knew it but what was he willing to offer her? “I’m a mess,” he admitted softly. “I don’t know how to deal with everything I’ve learned in the past twenty-four hours. I want to kill my brothers for keeping such a huge secret from me, but a part of me is tired of fighting with them.”
“So stop fighting with them,” she advised him as if it were that simple. “Dillon, my Papa used to tell me that we make our own choices. You can choose to forgive. You can choose to change the parts of your life that aren’t working any longer. You used anger to drive you but you don’t need it any longer. You’re successful in your own right; you don’t need your father’s money any longer and honestly, your brothers are good men that if you’d give them half a chance, maybe you could repair what was torn apart so many years ago.”
“You don’t know what it’s like to be a Buchanan. Forgiveness is not in our vocabulary,” he said.
“Only because you haven’t learned.”
“I wouldn’t know where to begin,” he admitted, shaking his head.
She offered him a warm smile as she looped her arms around his neck. “I can help you — you start at the beginning. Start with, ‘I’m sorry’ and work your way up from there.”
He liked the feeling of her arms around him. “And what happens if it doesn’t work? Me and my brothers…we have a lot of hard feelings to work through. And now there’s you. My brothers still want you.” He tightened his grip around her waist. “And unlike my twin brothers, I don’t like to share.”
Her grin brightened and he thought he might drown in that beautiful smile. “Good thing for you, I’ve decided one Buchanan is plenty.”
“Yeah?” He arched his brow. “And which one is that?”
“You, you big idiot. I want you.”
And suddenly, that awful tightness in his chest dissipated like mist on the wind and he realized, he’d been holding onto all the wrong stuff. This silly, yet sweet and drop-dead gorgeous woman had shown him in the most shockingly simple way that life didn’t have to be about conquests and annihilations and she gave him permission to forgive himself and his brothers for their individual parts in Isabel’s death. It was all too much to absorb in one sitting and he spiraled into some kind of wonderful delirium as the first tender shoots of hope kindled in his heart. Maybe Penny was right. Forgiveness was the answer to his salvation, not revenge. “I want kids,” he blurted out and her eyes widened. “Lots of them. And I want to marry you. Right now. Before you change your mind and realize that you’re getting the worst end of the deal.”
She stared. “Did you just ask me to marry you?”
Holy hell…yes. He nodded, suddenly scared. “Will you marry me? Please say yes.”
Her eyes suddenly glistened at the vulnerable quality of his voice and she nodded, pulling herself deeper into his arms, shuddering as tears broke free. He held her tight and wondered by what stroke of luck he’d managed to land the most amaz
ing woman in the world but he wasn’t going to question his good fortune — not this time.
He’d spent half his life paying for one prideful moment, now he would spend the second half of his life, earning the privilege of loving a woman as amazing as his lovely, beautifully curved Penny. He grinned suggestively down at her and said as he cupped her generous, sweet ass, “Now about that shower…”
Epilogue
“I thought for your wedding gift, we could have our previous contract with Penny framed,” Nolan joked with Dillon as they enjoyed an after-dinner sherry together while the girls were off spending gobs of money on bridal doo-dads, the likes of which none of the Buchanan men wanted to know a thing about. Dillon shot Nolan a dark look and he laughed. “No? I don’t know, it’s what brought you two together. Some might consider that romantic.”
“Only an idiot would consider that romantic,” Dillon countered with good humor. Three short months ago, he’d wanted to destroy his brothers and anything they’d held dear. Now they were laughing and giving each other a hard time as they had as boys — and it felt good. It felt damn good.
Vince and Nolan had since found nice, respectable young women to date and both were going to stand beside Dillon at the wedding ceremony. Dillon had wanted a quick wedding but Penny had wanted something a bit more…well, just more in general. And because he’d do anything to see her smile, he’d caved quite naturally. Except, time wasn’t exactly on their side.
“So, when do you think Penny will start to show?” Vince asked.
“Just about the time we come back from our honeymoon. And if I find you staring at her tits, I’ll knock you the fuck out,” he warned Vince.
“No worries, big brother. I have plenty to keep me interested at night. Besides, I don’t see Penny that way any more. She’s your girl and I respect that. I wish I’d done that with Isabel. Maybe things would’ve ended differently for us all.”
Dillon reflected on that statement and nodded to his brother, respecting his sentiment but being with Penny had changed his perspective on many things, including the tragedy of Isabel. “If things hadn’t happened the way they had, I wouldn’t have Penny. And honestly, she’s the best thing that ever happened to me so, little brother, I say we let the past rest. Having you two idiots back in my life, has made me realize how much I was missing out on and I never want to go back to the way life was before. Besides, someone’s got to keep you two in line and who better than your big brother?”