Chapter Nineteen

Asa’s jeans were still open, so the V of tawny skin and that tantalizing trail of hair made her a little dizzy. That was why he’d gotten so close in the first place. He gave her such a smoldering look it made her wobbly. Despite the fact that they’d just had sex minutes before.

“We should go back to bed. You look stressed. Let me help you with that.” His voice had gone low and coaxing. Teasing, laid-back Asa was one of her favorite flavors and as a result, even harder to resist.

“Stay back.” PJ held out a hand to ward Asa off as he started to close the last three feet between them with that look on his face.

He pouted but then grinned as he ignored her and continued to stalk her way. “You can’t honestly say that. Beautiful, you’re so sexy right now. How can I be expected to get anything done the rest of the day if I can’t have you before I go back to work?”

She burst out laughing. “Fuck off. I’m just putting my underpants back on because I let you get away with that the first time when you talked me over here for a lunchtime quickie! Was I so forgettable?”

“This is totally your fault, PJ.” He gave her a very serious face and inched forward. She shook her head. “You’re irresistible. I can’t not want you. Even when I’ve just had you.”

He was like a sex cobra. Swaying and dazzling her with his looks and all the stuff he said as he got closer and closer until he made a grab for her.

Yelping and then laughing, she hightailed it out of his bedroom and into the entryway, where she’d left her bag and shoes.

“I have things to do. I work with really demanding customers.” PJ gave him a pointed look.

Which he ignored as he followed her out. “My hands still smell like you.”

She shivered, loving it when he said stuff like that. “Good. I should rub all over you to scent you to mark my territory.” It was a joke, but she meant it. She’d started to think of him in terms of mine. Since that day three weeks ago when they’d been out at sushi they’d drawn closer, and it had been so intense and wonderful and fantastic. She’d never been happier in the whole of her life.

She stopped in the entry and he was right there, his hands on her. Her resolve to go to work wobbled.

“You can rub on me any time you like.”

“I plan to always take you up on that. Call me later.”

He backed her against the front door and kissed her until she was goo all over again. He kissed her so long that she’d forgotten she was in the process of leaving until she opened her eyes to find him, gaze roving over her features.

He made her feel so fucking beautiful.

“Every time you touch me you do this.” She looked up at him, reaching to brush his hair away from his eye. Unless he was working, he wore it down a lot more often around her because she’d mentioned how sexy she found it. And that was sweet and holy shit she was so fucking gone over this man.

“I always do what to you? Sex you up? It’s because you’re too delicious. I can’t resist,” he said.

“You make me forget everything else.” She petted his beard because she could. He was hers.

He smiled, that softness he showed so few people, that tenderness he showed only her.

“I like it when you pay attention to me. What can I say?”

“That’s good right there. You saying something, I mean.” She kissed him and then managed to get out to the porch unmolested. “Bye. Don’t forget to eat. I know you, you’ll be at Twisted Steel until nine tonight and you’ll get caught up and won’t remember food until you have a headache.”

His expression softened. “Okay.”

“Not just ice cream and energy drinks either.”

“Too far.”

She laughed and he went out to the porch, watching her until she’d pulled away from his house and was heading down the street before he went back inside.

She had a job up north, so she called ahead to arrange lunch with Shawn. On the drive it hit her: the years she’d spent making this drive, the energy she’d put into building a place for herself at Colman – it was never going to happen.

It didn’t matter how much she bled for her father, it wouldn’t be enough. And maybe a life where she didn’t worry every moment what her father might think, but instead thought about what she wanted, was better.

Fifteen minutes later Shawn and PJ sat at a rickety table in a hole-in-the-wall Mexican food place facing an overgrown parking lot in a strip mall many people had long forgotten.

But the tortillas were freshly made, the tamales were to die for, and for six bucks it was the best lunch within an hour of Colman’s building.

“I’m glad you called,” Shawn said as they cracked open their bottles of orange soda. “I’ve missed you.”

“I know. You’re coming to the dinner Mom is having, right?” PJ asked.

“The show trial for your boyfriend? You know Dad sees Asa as the source of your leaving Colman, right?”

“Um, no. Mainly because no one said, least of all him. He avoids me. I can’t imagine why he’d care anyway. It’s not like he makes an effort to have contact of any kind with me.”

Shawn heaved a sigh. “He loves you, Penelope. But he’s fucked up. He isn’t a good dad. That’s the truth. I don’t know if he ever could be. He’s telling everyone that you were finding a place at Colman just fine before Asa came into the picture. Whether he believes it and says it for that reason, or he’s said it so many times he believes it by this point, I don’t know.”

Begging for scraps of her father’s affection had left her disheartened and worn out. When she’d left Colman and had also been estranged from Asa, she’d been able to pour everything into her business, and it had been exactly the right thing.

“There are a lot of things I don’t know. But I’m good at custom paint. It’s not glamorous. It’s hard work. It’s expensive to do it right. I have to constantly innovate and update my skills. And I love it. I don’t need to defend my life to anyone. And I’m not going to for Howard Colman Jr.”

Shawn put his hands up. “Preaching to the choir. I just think Mom expects this dinner to be something it won’t. As far as your work goes, I’ve always been proud of you. But I’ve seen enough to be thrilled by your success. You don’t have to defend yourself to me. I love you. I just thought you should know.”

“I appreciate it. I do need to know, even when it’s tiresome and it makes me sad.”

“I’ve only talked to you here and there for the last six weeks or so. I get updates through Julie but I don’t know much about your private life. Tell me about him. All I know is that he’s big, bad, and inked,” Shawn said.

She nodded. “He is all those things. But he’s kind. And gentle. He worries about how I’ll feel about things. It’s nice.” She didn’t need to tell Shawn about the bare-knuckles fighting or the kind of crazy stuff he and his buddies did on the regular. Shawn wouldn’t understand, though he’d try because he loved her.

“He’s smart and really talented. He and his partner, they’re geniuses with machines. He…” PJ looked up at her brother. “He listens to me, Shawn. He listens to me and he takes me seriously.”

“All right. Well, that’s what I need, really. If you’re happy, I’m good. You and I need to get together with Jay and Julie and work out when you’re coming back to Colman.”

She sat back and shrugged. “I don’t know if I want to.”

Shawn shook his head. “No way, PJ. You said resigning was your way of making your point but that you’d come back. That was the only reason I didn’t make a bigger fuss at the time. You not being part of Colman isn’t what I agreed to. Neither did Julie. Even Jay is unhappy. I’m holding you to the promise you made.”

“As I was driving up here I realized how many times I’d made this trip just hoping I could get him to see how hard I was trying. And I realized it was never going to happen. Whatever his reasons, he’s cool with not being close with me. Worse, he’s cool forcing me into a place that would slowly destroy me over the years. Why should I do that? And make no mistake, if I returned I’d be saying that was what I was worth,” PJ said.