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“So you’re saying I shouldn’t think?” Luke tried to read her facial expressions, but Penny had always been careful to mask what she was really feeling. He’d thought he had been behind her wall once, but he knew better now.
“Thinking is highly overrated.” Penny winked at him. “We need to go to the table now. Do you think you can turn off that mega-powered brain of yours for the evening and just enjoy?”
Did she mean that he should enjoy her again? Or was it just wishful thinking on his part? One thing was certain—he wouldn’t make himself a fool for Penny this time. “I’ll try.”
* * *
Penny sat between Maggie and Amber, and Luke sat on the other side of Brady next to Sam at the hour-long gourmet dinner. Penny wanted to continue flirting with Luke during the meal, but it was fun talking with Amber and teasing Maggie. Her wineglass never seemed to empty and she lost track of how much she’d actually had. She felt a bit tipsy but not drunk. With her family history, she tried to be careful with alcohol.
When Maggie, Amber and Brady got up to go visit guests at their tables, Penny scooted over into Maggie’s chair and leaned across Brady’s.
“Having fun yet?” She batted her eyelashes at Luke in mock flirtation.
“I can say the view definitely just got better.” Luke’s gaze rested on her cleavage and her gaping neckline.
She didn’t make any move to cover herself or even to sit up straight. “Do you have your toast ready?”
He patted his jacket. “Color-coded index cards and all.”
“You really know how to get a girl’s motor going.” She purred and moved back to her seat. She straightened the top of her dress and winked at the elderly man sitting at the table in front of the head table. He blushed and turned away.
Penny and the town of Tawnee Valley hadn’t always been on the best terms. As one of the juvenile delinquents most likely to be pregnant at sixteen and most likely to have an arrest record by the age of twenty, she’d surprised them all with the success of her store. But that didn’t mean she didn’t enjoy poking at the town’s notions of propriety now and then.
The wedding coordinator, Rebecca, directed Maggie and Brady over to the cake. Rebecca had performed miracles to turn this old men’s club into a ballroom worthy of Maggie. Given it was the woman’s first time coordinating an effort this big, she had done an amazing job. Penny was impressed with the transformation of the hall, and even the chapel had been given an overhaul.
Everyone watched Brady and Maggie cut the cake while the photographer took at least a dozen photos. When they gave each other bites, they were respectful of each other and didn’t goof around as Penny would have.
The couple returned to their seats as the waitstaff brought everyone a piece of cake and poured champagne into their flutes. Down the table, Luke picked up his spoon and clinked it against his glass as he rose to standing.
“I’d like to say a few words.” Luke reached into his pocket and pulled out a stack of index cards. He glanced her way slyly as he fanned through the colored cards.
Penny stifled a laugh. She’d thought he’d been joking.
“I could tell you lewd jokes or make fun of my brother for the way he used to run around the farm in his underwear and a cape when he was seven, but I won’t. I could talk about the fights we three used to get into and the trouble we helped each other out of, but I won’t. I could tell you about Brady’s adventures overseas or his high life in New York City, but I won’t.” Luke set the cards on the table and his gaze went over the crowded room.
Penny found herself leaning forward to listen to whatever he was going to say next. When Luke spoke, even back in grade school, he commanded his audience’s attention. He made sure to meet everyone’s eyes in the audience to make them feel included. His even tone and that deep voice kept her mesmerized. His raw emotion and honesty bonded him with the audience.
His gaze briefly met hers before settling on Brady and Maggie.
“Everyone in this room is aware of the struggles our family has had to endure. We didn’t always make the right decisions, but in the end, it looks like Brady found the one thing that matters most. Someone who loves him and wants to share a life with him. A hidden treasure waiting for him to come home.”
Penny could feel a thickening in her throat and blinked to hold the tears back.
“We brothers have lost so much, but Brady has finally found his family. Here’s to many years of shared joy and love. To Maggie and Brady.”
The crowd repeated, “To Maggie and Brady.”
A pause lingered while everyone took a drink. Penny met Luke’s eyes over the rim of her glass. As the crowd applauded the speech, Penny smiled at Luke before standing.
She waited for the noise to die down and then cleared her throat. “I may not be as eloquent as our doctor, but I’ll give it my best shot.”
She turned to Maggie. “When I was a little girl, there was one place I always knew I’d be welcome. Maggie has been my best friend, my confidante, my family for as long as I can remember. She’s always been there for me and I’ve always tried to be there for her.”
Maggie reached out, took Penny’s hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. They both had the battle scars on their hearts to prove their long-standing friendship.
“If anyone is capable of loving forever, it’s Maggie, and I know I’m not the only one in the room thinking that Brady is the luckiest man alive.” Still holding Maggie’s hand, Penny looked at Brady. “There aren’t many people I would trust with my best friend’s heart, but I trust you to keep it safe and to love her until you are old and gray and need to yell at each other to be heard. I love you both and wish you happiness.”
Clearing her throat, Penny blinked back the tears that had snuck up on her again. She turned to Amber. “Amber made me promise to wish you one more thing.” She held up her glass and gave a grin to the rest of the hall. “To a wonderful family, and may they be blessed with a little brother or sister for Amber.”
The crowd chuckled as they clinked glasses once more. Penny sank into her seat and took a drink. The DJ put on some background music and the low din of conversations grew again. Maggie and Brady were lost in their own little world. Amber had wandered off to the kids’ table to be with her friends.
Suddenly Penny felt isolated. Maggie had always been the person she talked to at these types of things. Not that she needed constant attention. Lord knew she spent more than her fair share of evenings at home with no one to talk to but the dog.
She used to see Maggie everyday. But now... Brady, Maggie and Amber would be leaving to go on their two-week vacation slash honeymoon at Disney World in a few days. It would be only a few weeks, but Maggie had been preoccupied with the wedding and Brady for months now, giving Penny a lot more alone time than usual. Penny was happy for her friend, but it didn’t make her miss Maggie any less.
“I think this empty chair is a better conversationalist than Sam.” Luke sat in Amber’s seat. His smile warmed her down to her toes.
Her heart pounded a little harder. The champagne must be going to her head because all she could do was smile at him.
“The chair has definitely improved since you arrived,” she said. She could spend hours just listening to the sound of his voice. Her whole body flushed with heat and tingled in anticipation of just the slightest touch.
It was crazy. For years, she’d avoided the emotional and clung to the physical. But with Luke, it had been different. Still, that was a long time ago. They were adults now. She was more than happy to bask in the warmth of his smile for the hours they had together.
Chapter Three
“Presenting Mr. and Mrs. Ward for their first dance,” the DJ announced.
Luke stood next to the dance floor with his hands in his pockets as the strains of some slow song pounded out of the speaker behind him. This was how Penny and he had started. A school dance. It had been the social hour after a football game. The student DJ was set up in the cafeteria. No fancy lights had lit the floor then. In fact, most of the lights had been turned off, making the small space feel even tighter. He’d been standing on the side with the other football players, and Penny had appeared out of nowhere in a pair of cutoffs that would have gotten her sent home from school and a T-shirt that hugged her young body.
He knew Penny Montgomery. They’d shared classes since fifth grade. In high school, she’d transformed into the kind of girl who was hard for a teenage boy to ignore. From her red hair to her smoking body to her devil-may-care attitude, she was a high school boy’s fantasy.
“Dance with me.” She’d smiled with her red lips and pulled him onto the dance floor before he could say anything. The music had heavy bass and a bump-and-grind rhythm.
“I don’t dance,” he’d managed to protest once they were in the middle of the floor.
She gave him a pout and the wicked glint in her eyes had made his pants tighten. “Don’t worry. I’ll show you what to do.”
A touch on his shoulder brought him back to the present. Penny stood there with a smile on her lips. Her makeup was softer now, but she was just as beautiful. The slow song was about halfway through.
“Would the rest of the wedding party join in?” the DJ said over the speaker.
Luke shook off the past and held out his hand to Penny. She slipped her hand in his and followed his lead out to the dance floor. She moved into his arms like a missing puzzle piece.
Sam and Amber followed them onto the dance floor, drawing everyone’s attention. Amber put her feet on top of Sam’s and he held her hands. It was strange watching Sam with a child. As Luke’s pseudo-parent, Sam had been distant but controlling. Now he seemed perfectly at ease talking with his niece, even if he didn’t smile.
Luke’s attention returned to the woman he held in his arms for the first time in almost a decade.
“Looks like someone’s been practicing,” she said. That flirtatious tilt was back in Penny’s smile.
“I try to maintain appearances.”
“I’m sure you have your admirers.” A teasing glint in her eyes and a soft smile on her lips betrayed nothing of what she really felt, but that was Penny.
“I do love compliments.” He led them toward a darker area of the dance floor as other couples joined in.
“I bet you do.”
Years ago, that first night, when the music had slowed down she’d moved into his arms and her breasts had pressed against his chest, her body close to his. Hormones had flooded him, making it hard to think... Why was he getting wrapped up in the past?
His fingers tightened into the softness of Penny’s waist.
She closed the slight gap between them and whispered, “Stop thinking, Luke.”
“Why aren’t you with someone, Penny?”
“I’m with you right now.” Her eyes may never reveal her inner thoughts, but he noticed a slight hesitance in her words. Her body pressed slightly closer until there was no more than a whisper between them.
“You know what I mean.” Luke tried to hold on to the thoughts in his head as his body tried to make them all vanish. Her light perfume smelled like spring flowers, the scent’s innocence at odds with the seductive woman. It surrounded him, begging him to bend down and breathe in. To touch the warmth of her neck with his lips.
“Who should I be with? The town drunk, the divorcé with the ex from hell—”
“Sam.”
She stopped dancing and her lips drew tight. “Sam?”
Penny was in his arms and he wasn’t about to back off. Not when her soft curves filled in his rough patches. This was important. He didn’t want to step in between his brother and anyone, even if that anyone had been the only girl Luke had ever given his heart to.
“You two were pretty tight last time I saw you.” The last time he’d seen Penny, at his graduation party, she’d been kissing Sam.
She pushed against his chest, but he didn’t budge. Her eyes flashed up at him. Was that hurt? It had been there for a moment, but it was gone so fast he must have imagined it. It felt as if she was going to push again, but instead she softened. The walls closed in her eyes.
“Sam never meant anything to me.” She placed her hands back on his shoulders. “We never had more than a kiss. I’m surprised he didn’t tell you.”
“Why would he?” Some of the tension released from his grip. Luke’s brain was quickly losing the battle with his body’s needs. It shouldn’t matter why she kissed Sam or even that she did. It had been years ago. It had stopped him from making a major mistake.
Sure it had hurt then, but he’d brought it up now to draw out the woman he’d known from this seductress before him.
She shrugged. “You don’t really want to talk about Sam, do you, Luke?”
He didn’t know what he was trying to prove. He looked around the dance floor. Now wasn’t the time to rehash the past. No time would be the right time. “No.”
“How about a drink?” she said. Her gaze flicked over his face.
“A couple of glasses of wine between old friends? Why not. Wait here.”
* * *
Penny’s heart pounded as she sank into a chair and watched Luke walk away. Her knees had barely held her up. Without Luke’s arms around her, she would have been down on the ground. She watched him move through the crowd.
Sam had been a means to an end. She’d hated herself for using him, but it had done exactly what she needed it to. Luke had to leave for college without her.
As the DJ cued up some fast dance music, Penny took a deep breath. Tonight had turned out perfectly for Brady and Maggie. They were dancing with Amber in the circle of people on the dance floor.
If her knees recovered, she might go join them. A glass of wine appeared over her shoulder and Luke’s breath teased the hairs on the back of her neck. “I had to turn down a lot of eligible ladies to get back here.”
Glancing over at the bar, she took the wineglass and felt him sit in the chair behind hers. All of her cells were attuned to whatever frequency Luke gave off. At the bar stood a gathering of white-haired women all giving Luke come-hither looks and finger waves.
Penny choked back a laugh. She tried her hardest to look serious when she turned to Luke. “I hope you let them down easy. It’s just as hard to find a man at their age as mine.”
Leaning in so he could speak in her ear and be heard over the music, Luke’s cheek rubbed against hers, sending a wave of heat through her. “I always try to be gentle.”
“I’m sure you do.” She could feel his cheek lift in a grin. A shiver rippled down her back.
He moved back until they were eye to eye. “They were actually encouraging me to hit on the wedding coordinator.”
Penny glanced over at Rebecca in her peach suit. She was a few years younger than Penny and looked as if the pressure of this wedding was about to make her explode.
“I suppose you could go for Rebecca....” Penny put on a pretend thoughtful look.
The music changed to a slow song again. “Come on. You can tell me all about what that look means on the dance floor.”
Luke pulled her out of the chair and guided her into his arms. She’d given up on love songs when Luke left, preferring the rawness of modern rock. Slow songs messed with her brain and made her think about things she couldn’t have.
“So are we for or against chatting up the wedding coordinator?” Luke raised his eyebrow as he looked down at Penny.
“I think she’d have an aneurysm if ‘we’ approached her.” Penny mocked Luke’s look.
Luke laughed. “Fair enough. Besides, I’m only here until tomorrow. Wouldn’t be fair to get anyone’s hopes up.”
“No, you wouldn’t want to do that.”
He pressed his hand into the small of her back and she allowed herself to move closer to him. To breathe in his scent. To feel the heat of his body against hers. The song didn’t matter as long as it didn’t stop.
“Besides—” he leaned down as if he had a secret to whisper in her ear “—I always heard that the best man was supposed to hook up with the maid of honor.”
Penny’s breathing hitched as she met his eyes. “I think it’s actually a written law somewhere that if both parties are single, it’s required.”
“So we’d be in a lot of trouble if we didn’t at least attempt to...” He wiggled his eyebrows.
“Heaps of trouble.” Her heart beat hard against her chest as she tried to keep a teasing tone.
“We wouldn’t want that.” Luke gave her a cocky smile. “But then you were never the type to follow rules.”
“I’ll have you know I’m one of the upstanding citizens in Tawnee Valley now.”
“Really?” His sarcastic tone made her laugh.
“I’m a valued member of the Chamber of Commerce. My shop brings in tons of tourists.”
“I guess that nails it, then.” He made a serious face even though his eyes were twinkling. Still dancing, he led her to the side of the dance floor. “Rules are rules, after all.”
She swallowed as liquid heat flooded her system. Her fingers locked around the back of his neck. “I suppose after the reception...”
The heat in his blue eyes made her breath catch. He didn’t have to say he wanted her. It was there and it scorched her through to her soul. She didn’t want to wait. It had been too long since she’d held him, since her skin had brushed against his.
His smile grew cocky. “Why wait?”
Penny glanced around them. The music had shifted to a fast song again. Most everyone was on the dance floor. Amber was dancing with her parents. Sam was brooding in a corner with a glass of liquor. The older folks were on the other side of the dance floor gathered around a few tables. It looked as if they were shouting to talk above the music.
His hand closed firmly around hers and she met his eyes. Apparently they’d reached the same conclusion. No one would miss them if they ducked out at this moment. She doubted anyone would even think anything of it if they did disappear.
Luke started backing up, pulling her with him. Giddiness welled inside her, the same feeling she used to get in high school when Luke would pick her up for a date. Anticipation mixed with the knowledge that no one would know what they were doing. Something hidden that was hers alone.
“You know, I’m not this type of guy.” He stopped and pulled her hard until she stumbled into his chest. His teasing smile made her heart skip a beat. “I usually require dinner and wine first.”
She smiled up at him. “Good thing we came to a wedding, then. Dinner, check. Wine, check.”
“I wouldn’t want you to think less of me.” He was joking around, but her heart wouldn’t let her say something flippant. It demanded she let him know this much.
“Nothing would make me think less of you.”
He glanced over her shoulder toward the rest of the party as they approached the exit. “Where should we go?”
When he turned back to her, she forgot to breathe, let alone think. She knew that in Luke’s eyes, they were equals, but she’d always known she wasn’t as good as he was. During sex was the only time she felt like his match.
“Follow me.” She led him past the curtain and into the darkness behind it. The closet door opened easily and she slid in with Luke behind her.
“Classy,” Luke muttered. The door closed and the small space seemed to close in on them. Even the music was muffled beyond recognition. The smell of lemon cleaner tinged the air.
“If you’d rather go out in the parking lot and risk causing Bitsy heart palpitations when she sees me straddling you in your brother’s truck—”
“Stop thinking, Penny.” In the darkness, he moved closer until she felt his whole body pressed against hers. Her breath quickened as she waited. For his next move. For his touch. For his kiss.
She felt the brush of his arm next to her and caught her breath. The click of the lock could barely be heard over the sound of their breaths. The warm, clean scent of Luke filled her.
“You don’t have to do this.” Luke’s whispered words caressed her earlobe. “Just because we’re here at a wedding doesn’t mean we have to have sex.”
“Are you trying to give me an out, Luke Ward?” She laughed, releasing some of the tension that had been welling within her. “I must be pretty darned good if you think this is all your idea.”
He chuckled and his knuckles brushed over her jaw, ending her own laughter. “I don’t want you to think I only want sex.”
“What else would you want?” She didn’t bother trying to hide the breathiness of her voice.
His forehead pressed against hers and his hands ran up and down her arms. “I don’t know.”
Her heart beat with his quickened breath. Once, twice, three times.
She slid off her heels and lifted onto her toes. Pressing a kiss to his jaw, she could feel his heart beat in time with hers against her palm. “I want you.”
His lips closed over hers. Sparks rippled through her as he pulled her in close. Relief spiraled out of her heart even as her pulse quickened. Her memories of his kisses collapsed under the weight of this one. It wasn’t the technique that had her clutching at his dress shirt—though the technique was definitely good. It was the man.
In an instant, she knew if it were ten years from now, even a hundred, and Luke kissed her, it would still feel like this. Explosive, powerful, soul shattering.
Desire pulsed within her, and that little piece of her that would always belong to Luke throbbed with satisfaction. He was kissing her as if they had only moments to live. Maybe they did. Maybe she felt alive only when Luke was here. Kissing her.
His hands clutched at the fabric around her hips, slowly easing the silky material up her calves and over her thighs. It was as if the silk were his fingers trailing ever higher, stealing her breath.
She unclenched her fingers and started undoing the buttons of his shirt. The need to feel his skin against hers was overwhelming. His warmth beckoned beneath the fabric. The cool air caressed her legs as her dress slipped up over her hips. The crisp fabric of his tux pants brushed against her skin.
Pulling his shirt free of his pants, she opened it. His fingers brushed under the edge of her panties at her hips. She leaned back against the door as his lips left her mouth and trailed kisses along her jaw.
The warmth of his chest beckoned. She ran her fingers over the muscles, making a mental picture in the dark. Memorizing the contours. As her hand slid down his abs, he sucked in his breath and nipped at her neck.
Power coursed through her veins as she eased down his zipper and brushed the hardness underneath. He grabbed her hands and pushed them against the door, reclaiming her mouth.
The silk dress rushed down her thighs, but caught as his knee moved between her legs. The door and Luke had her captured, unable to escape. Not that she wanted freedom. If she could, she would spend eternity in this little closet with Luke.
This wasn’t like a one-night stand or even a booty call. Luke wouldn’t fill just her need for an orgasm. She craved relief, but she didn’t want this to end.
She’d made a mistake.
Having Luke one more time wouldn’t fulfill some need for closure. The sound of his pants dropping filled the space between them.
Even knowing this was a mistake, she wanted him. Even though it would only widen the hole he’d left behind. Even as her body hummed from his touch, she wanted to cry.
She’d take what she could from him and he’d leave. That would be the end of it. She’d survived before and she’d survive this time.
“Are you okay?” He kissed her next to her ear as his fingers teased the edge of her underwear.
She sucked in a breath as his hand slipped under the fabric and touched her skin. Wrapping her hands behind his head, she pulled his mouth to hers. She was beyond being okay. She needed to shut down her brain and feel. Brand him the way he branded her.