Penny didn’t know how to respond to that.Danny had trashed her on the phone? Sheryl was forwarding the calls?She saw the last two weeks like a flip book. Her throwing out bids and Danny slapping each one off the ice. “I’m an idiot.”
Brett frowned. “How did anything I just told you lead to that conclusion?”
“Because I trusted Sheryl. She’s the office manager.” Penny’s eyes filled with tears, and she reached for the edge of the pool. She couldn’t blame her though, when she thought about it. Danny had everyone on his staff pinned under his thumb. If he told his office manager to jump, she’d have to ask “how high?” or risk the same treatment Penny had endured.
Brett followed her to the wall as she hoisted herself out of the pool, trying to catch her breath. He pushed himself up to sit next to her, both of them dripping water onto the deck. She tried to hide her tears, but when they blended into the water on her face anyway, she gave up. Penny wrapped her arms around herself and shivered.
“Let’s go to the steam room,” Brett suggested, and Penny nodded. He stood and reached out a hand, lifting her up from the deck. As she straightened, he didn’t let go, instead gripping on tighter and leading her to the door in the wall across from them.
Water trailed down her legs in rivulets from her drenched clothes, and the fabric stuck to her skin, but Penny didn’t care. She didn’t even care that she hadn’t gotten a job now that she had money coming in. It very well could’ve been that Danny had done her a favour, but at that moment, she couldn’t see past the box of shit on her step and the words she imagined him saying in front of Brett.
Whathadhe said? They walked into the steam room, and Penny sat on the wooden bench next to Brett. He didn’t let go of her hand, instead placing it along with his on his damp thigh.
“What did Danny say about me?”
Brett shook his head. “I’m not going to tell you that.”
“I need to know.” Penny sniffed.
“None of it was true.”
She looked up at him, tears still welling in her eyes. “How do you know that? You’ve only known me for a few weeks, Brett. Danny knew me foryears. He was my boss. Maybe everything he said was—”
Brett’s lips crushed against hers, his free hand cupping her jaw as he slid his fingers into her wet hair. Penny reeled as every thought in her mind evaporated.What had she been saying?She closed her eyes and tipped her head back, allowing his palm to cradle her as she parted her lips and tasted him.
Steam hissed from a valve on the opposite wall and billowed around them, layering over their skin like a blanket. Brett was kissing her.Brett was kissing her.Her body whistled like a tea kettle as Brett’s fingertips urged her closer, and she happily acquiesced. Penny pulled her hand from his and reached for his shoulders, dragging herself onto his lap without allowing their lips to part.
This was heaven. Pure, unadulterated bliss. He tasted warm and sweet, and the eucalyptus swirling in the cloud around them made her heady. The heat dilated every blood vessel, making every nerve ending a live wire, and Brett put them to good use. He skimmed his hands over every inch of bare skin, pressing and tugging when he found spots he liked.
Penny sighed against his lips as Brett slipped his hands under her damp tank top and explored new frontiers of slick skin.
“Is this okay?” Brett asked, his voice husky against the hiss of steam.
It was the same question he’d asked in the tent, and she had the same answer. Penny nodded, pulling out the elastic in his hair and running her fingers over his scalp. She’d wanted to do that since the first day they'd met in his living room. Now, her hands were unstoppable as they dragged through his locks, then ran over his neck, his bare shoulders and back and catalogued every contour of the parts of him she’d visually learned by heart.
Brett’s hands dove past the waistband of her shorts and cupped her butt, pulling her flush against him with such force she gasped. “Penny.” He whispered her name as she dragged her teeth over his lower lip. “Penny, I’m going to—”
The door to the steam room sighed open, and Penny jumped like she’d just stepped on a snake, landing hard on the bench.
“Clouds, mommy!” A shrill voice echoed off the walls as the steam sucked through the open door. Penny gripped the edge of the bench, her lips flushed and swollen as she worked to catch her breath.
The toddler’s mother pulled him back, but Penny and Brett sat frozen. What had just happened?Did it have to stop?She didn’t want it to, but that interruption had brought the fact that they were in a public place back to the forefront of her very compromised frontal lobe.
“We should go,” Brett murmured, his voice so husky, it made her thighs clench.
“Mmhmm.” Penny’s heart was going to pound out of her chest. She couldn’t remember why they’d come here in the first place or why she’d been upset in the pool.Had she been crying?Every thought in her head was now singularly fixated on Brett. On his tangled hair and rough chin. On his hands,holy hell, his hands.
Penny stood, and her legs wobbled like she was a newborn foal.
Brett cleared his throat. “Can you hand me my towel?”
She nodded. It was still outside on the chair. “I didn’t bring one. Do you mind if I—”
“You can use it. I only need it to make myself . . .decent.”
Penny’s eyes dropped to his suit, and she breathed a laugh. “You’re saying that paper thin fabric doesn’t give good coverage?” Brett found his elastic on the bench and quickly tied his hair back with a grimace. “I’ll be just a second.”
She pushed through the glass door and gulped down a breath of fresh air. She was going to pass out. Penny strode to the water fountain and drank like a camel in the desert, then pulled the towel off the chair and hastily ran it over herself. She walked back to the steam room and handed it to Brett who dried his chest and arms, then wrapped it around his waist before stepping out onto the pool deck.
