Chapter Five

Ray

I ignore the weird looks Ralph sends my way when I grab the wrong tool twice in a row. These are amateur mistakes, and I haven't been a rookie anything in fifteen years. Well, not to the point of the kind of mistakes I've been making lately at least.

Christ, I can't believe I was so careless with Penny. She assured me countless times that she was fine when she slipped into my bed earlier after a shower. She was out like a light the second her head touched the pillow, and I've slowly come to terms that maybe I am not entirely the cause of her tears, but that doesn't excuse from how careless I was with her.

Fuck! I should have waited.

"So, boss. I don't think you've noticed the oil you're pouring into that engine."

My eyes snap to Ralph and then to the conventional oil in my hand, and I let out a frustrated groan. Another mistake. Heck, even at seventeen when I worked part-time at my old mentor's garage, not once did I put the wrong oil in an engine; this is an all-time low. Now I'll need to drain the oil and use the synthetic oil, which is what I was supposed to do in the first place. What a waste.

"Fuck!" I growl, frustrated with myself more than the situation.

"Want to talk about it?" I flash Ralph a look that would send most people running from me, but he simply chuckles. "I guess you don't."

I figure he'll drop it and get back to work, but that is another mistake. Ralph was the first person I hired when I opened my garage ten years ago, and despite being more of a friend than an employee, he insists on calling me boss.

"So those marks on your neck . . . Get into a fight with any cats lately?"

I sigh, fixing him with another glare, but he doesn't back down. "Yes, I was rescuing a cat from a tree, and it starched my neck raw."

"Is that cat blond and does she wear red stilettos?"

My eyes narrow on his. "How the fuck do you know what the hell stilettos are?"

"My girlfriend asked me to buy them for her on Valentine's, among other things. Cost me a shit load of money, but worth every penny," he says with a devious grin. "So about red-stilettos girl, is she still holed up in your office?"

"Mind your own business, Ralph," I grind out, knowing full well that I am asking a lot from the biggest gossip of Rosewood. I would bet my brother's red truck that the news about the mysterious girl at my shop will make its rounds around town by nightfall if it hasn't already.

And mysterious, she is.

Penny is as mysterious as they come, with her beautiful green eyes. I would have noticed she carried pain in them sooner if I hadn't been so caught up in my desire for her. Everything in me wants to rush upstairs to the girl sleeping in my bed and make it right. Whoever put the hurt in her eyes, I want to strangle them and wipe their existence from the face of the earth if only to put my angel at ease.

It's clear my attention is shot, so I turn around and beckon to one of my apprentices, instructing him to take care of draining the oil I stupidly poured into the engine and replace it with the synthetic one. I don't fully trust myself not to make another mistake.

I figure I'll probably fare better in my office, so I leave to take care of the mountain of paperwork that has been piling up. I really should consider hiring another accountant after my previous one moved out of town last month. I expect to be plagued by thoughts of my angel when I enter the office, but I somehow lose myself in the work.

It's only when I hear the light rap on the door that I look up from the desk. I find Ralph leaning against the frame. I raise a brow and wait for him to speak. "It's a few minutes past seven. Everyone's already left for home."

My eyes shoot to the clock hanging on the wall, and it is indeed seven. How the fuck did the time go by so fast? I pinch the bridge between my eyes and breathe out a sigh, annoyed by the headache that's creeping in. "Sure, go on ahead. I'll lock up," I tell him, and he waves before leaving. I consider shoving the remaining files into the desk and calling it a day—out of sight, out of mind—but rethink it. I should probably leave them on the desk so I don't forget about them.

I leave the office, switching off the lights on my way out before locking it up. I head to the front and lock up as well before taking the stairs up to my apartment, and I am about to open the door when a thought suddenly strikes me.

Penny Moore.

Fuck, how could I have forgotten about the angel napping in my apartment? Well, forget isn't the right word. I just pushed thoughts of her momentarily to the back of my mind, so it wouldn't drive me insane, and now that she's back to the forefront of my thoughts, I can't think of anything else.

Of anything but getting to her.

I walk into my apartment and head straight for the master bedroom, expecting to find her gone, but to my surprise, she's still asleep. I stop in the doorway to watch her, and in her sleep, she truly does look like an angel. I resist the urge to walk over and brush her hair from her face, not wanting to risk waking her up from sleep.

I'm so tired, Ray.

Fuck, I never thought words could haunt me as much as hers do, and I could tell she didn't mean tired physically. I could see by the way she slumped against me that she was mentally exhausted, and I want to offer her a reprieve.

She doesn't move much in her sleep, and I would be worried were not for the occasional sighs that slip her lips. The need to climb into my king bed, draw Penny into my arms, and hug her close is strong, but I push it down, opting instead to head to the ensuite to shower. My thoughts unsurprisingly stay on the girl in my bed as I clean up. I resist the urge to rub one out to thoughts of my angel.

I expect to find her still asleep when I walk back into the room, but I find her sitting up in bed, wiping sleep from her eyes. I stop dead in my tracks, and she drops her hands to stare at me. For an intense moment, neither of us says a word.

"You're up," I say, offering her a smile, but I'm sure it comes off awkward.

"Where am I?" she whispers, blinking owlishly at me, her green eyes pulling my breath from my lungs before her words filter in, and I suck in a sharp breath for an entirely different reason.

"Y-you don't remember?"

She shakes her head frantically, hair falling across her shoulders and over her face so that I almost miss the teasing smile that grazes her lips. "You're messing with me."

She chuckles, the sound light and airy, like balm to my aching heart. "I've seen it work in movies, I wanted to try it out on you."

"Now that's not a nice thing to do to the man whose cinnamon rolls you ate," I say, walking toward the closet and tugging the towel from around my waist to change into something comfier for the night. I hear a gasp from behind me and turn around to find Penny's face buried in the pillow.

"What is it?" I ask in confusion.

"You're naked," she says, her voice muffled, and I realize that I hadn't consider the effect my nudity would have on her. I've dated other women before, none of them virgins though. None of them were shy about my nudity, but something about Penny's innocence appeals to me.

She almost feels unreal, and perhaps if Ralph hadn't mentioned seeing her as well, then I would have been certain that I've hallucinated the girl and everything that happened today.

A smile tugs the edge of my lips as I slip into my sweatpants and put on a T-shirt before turning back to her, her head still buried in the pillow.

"You can look up now," I tell her, and she does, peeking through her fingers to make sure I'm not lying to her. Her cheeks are flaming red and she avoids meeting my eyes when she sits up on the bed, but I don't tease her about it. "Are you hungry?"

She nods, pushing off the covers and climbing out of bed. The shirt I lent her rides up her thighs, and my eyes quickly drop to her porcelain skin, smooth and delicate. The memory of my fingers on her skin as I rocked into her snug sex has my semi-erection plumping up behind my sweats. I bury my hands in my pockets to stop myself from reaching out to her, but when she walks forward, her hair smelling of my shampoo and her skin of my bodywash, I almost sweep her into my arms and toss her back onto bed.

I want her.

Fuck, I want her so bad, my cock is aching like it never has before.

I want to bury my tongue in her sex again, lap at her juices until she is trembling like she did on the hood of her car. Then I'll feed her my cock, watch those beautiful doe eyes tear up and that perfect mouth stretch around my shaft, getting it all warm and wet for me before I thrust it into her wet pussy.

Christ, the image of this girl kneeling in front of me, her head bobbing as she takes my cock in her mouth, has my breath coming out in short pants. I want those perfect lips around my dick, her tongue tracing my length as she makes little noises at the back of her throat.

"Ray?" she whispers, tilting her head to the side and blinking innocently at me, oblivious to the thoughts swirling around my mind.

Christ, she would run for the hills if she could read my mind and see all the dirty things, I want to do to her.

Heck, she probably can tell what I am thinking. It's written all over my face and body with how tight it's strung. And yet, she doesn't move away. She stands so close to me with her cheeks flaming and eyes glistening with something like mischief, and it's a fucking ordeal not to touch her.

With her pebbled nipples poking against the shirt I gave her, it's a fucking test of my will to not tear it off and close my lips around her rosy buds, suck them into my mouth, and . . .

"Fuck!" I growl, taking my eyes off the temptation before me with little to no sense of self-preservation. Can she not see that she's standing too close to a hungry beast, one that is moments away from devouring her?

No, I will not allow myself to make the same mistake I made this afternoon. Despite my desire for this angel, I need to push it back until she's ready for me. I can wait. I have a lifetime to spend with this girl.

All those things I want, they can wait.

For her, I'll wait.