Total pages in book: 27
Estimated words: 25663 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 128(@200wpm)___ 103(@250wpm)___ 86(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 25663 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 128(@200wpm)___ 103(@250wpm)___ 86(@300wpm)
It was a good decision, despite my suffering. I haven’t seen her smile like this before, all bright and excited. In the hospital, her smiles for visitors were forced. This one is real. Her movements are even a little clumsy, because she’s flustered at having gotten her wish. And I somehow managed to make it happen, despite holding the title of world’s biggest bastard.
Penny makes me want to be less of a bastard. Not only that, she makes me want to be…good. For her. I just want to give her the good.
Her nimble fingers move the measuring tape around my collar and she goes up on tiptoes, whispering near my ear. “I know we need the rule. It keeps things from being unfair, but…are hugs allowed?” She sinks her teeth into her lower lip. “I really, really want to hug you right now.”
My heart rides up into my throat. “Won’t it mess up your pins?”
“I can re-pin them,” she says softly, shifting the tape once, before setting it on the work table. “It would give me more time to hang out with you.”
“You…” I shift in my boots. “You like hanging out with me?”
Her nod is slow as she winds her arms around my waist, pressing her cheek to my chest. “Uh-huh. Even when you’re being all growly.”
Knowing Penny can hear my heart galloping like a fucking racehorse makes me nervous. She’s my weakness and now she knows it. But I can no more pull away than I can stop the sun from setting. “I’m not working a shift today, but I have a lieutenant’s meeting. It starts soon and I’ll have to leave,” I say, lifting my hand to stroke her hair, but letting it drop. Damn rule. “Zeke will be here to take over and drive you home.”
She steps back, head ducked and smiling. “Will you be home for dinner?”
“Yes.” I pause, bringing her eyes up. “Until then, sweetheart, you behave and follow the rule.”
“I will, Nick.”
An hour later, when I pass Zeke on his way into the building, though, I see the starvation for Penny in his expression. And I know it’s not Penny I have to worry about.
* * *
Zeke
I rushed to pick up Penny, because I didn’t go straight to the school after my shift at the firehouse. Nah, I’ve been thinking nonstop about her father’s final words and I’m not leaving her safety to chance. Best I can tell, he wasn’t close to many of his family members, but his sister—Penny’s aunt—seemed uneasy while visiting Penny in the hospital. So I went to her first, hoping to get some information about who would want to hurt Penny’s father. I’m not a cop, but I’ve watched a fuck ton of Law & Order , so possible grudges seemed like the best place to start.
“He came to me for money,” she said, blowing cigarette smoke out the kitchen window. “Our father liked to play the ponies. Figures he’d fall into the same trap. His wife probably saw it coming and got the hell out.”
Thinking of Penny losing her mother, I wanted to go find my girl and kiss her until she smiled. But I kept going with the questions. “Did you lend him the money?”
She snorted. “Nope. It looks like I’ve got stacks of cash lying around?”
No, it didn’t. Actually, the place was a wreck and five days was too long for Penny to have stayed there. “Who else would he go to for a loan?”
The aunt seemed impressed by my detective work. Maybe I have a second calling. “I don’t have a name, but my brother said something about a Russian. Said he might try going to…Tatiana.”
“A woman?”
“Women can’t be loan sharks?”
That was around the time I decided I wouldn’t get anywhere with Penny’s aunt. I made it to the school in time to pick Penny up, passing an expressionless Nick on the way into the building. When Penny’s saw me, her smile bloomed in a way that made my heart pound. I vowed to keep looking for the person who killed her father…and most likely meant to take her out in the fire.
No way this girl gets hurt on my watch.
Right now I’m facing a whole other kind of problem, though. A pressing one. Penny loses the leggings the second we’re inside my apartment.
What the hell is a red-blooded man supposed to do?
I brought her back to my place, instead of Nick’s house, because that was the tight-lipped understanding we came to last night, after Penny went to sleep. Now she’s prancing around the place, the hem of her top floating up and down like a cock tease. I’ve adjusted myself so many times, I’m going to wear a hole in the front of my department-issued uniform pants. But Jesus, my dick has never been this hard. It’s lust. It’s jealousy. It’s the fact that she’s my one. I shouldn’t have to wait.