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Penelope should be excited.
She's eighteen. She's going to university. She has her whole life ahead of her.
That's what people keep telling her, anyway.
When her mum and Violet and Anthony say this to her, Penelope nods and fakes a grin and pretends that she's thrilled, actually, to be moving across the country to an entirely new city with only Eloise. Eloise who is beautiful and clever and funny and will no doubt find new, better friends and leave Penelope behind.
She doesn't feel ready. Just one more year would do it, she thinks. She's barely kissed a boy. She doesn't have her driving license. The only thing she knows how to cook is scrambled eggs on toast. She's not a real person yet. She shouldn't be allowed to move to Glasgow and live without parental supervision, should she?
"Shotgun!" Eloise yelps, once the car is packed full.
"Fuck that," Colin mutters, flinging Penelope's penguin plushy into the car, slamming the door shut and racing around to the front passenger side to try to slip into the seat before Eloise can get it. Benedict just rolls his eyes at Penelope dramatically, conspiratorially, and Penelope blushes and giggles and looks at her feet, as she always does when one of the older Bridgerton brothers looks her way.
Colin and Benedict offered to ferry Penelope and Eloise (and all of their stuff, of which there seems to be mountains) up to Glasgow. Benedict will drive them up, and Colin will drive him and Ben back home again afterwards, so no-one has to make the nearly seven hour journey alone.
Penelope feels a little jittery and hot at the thought of spending so much time alone (or nearly alone) in a car with Colin Bridgerton. She thinks this should be placed into the file of evidence for her not being a proper person yet, because it's pathetic, really. Mind you, she can barely manage to string together a sentence around him usually, so she isn't sure what she thinks is going to happen, but pathetic or not, she is excited at the prospect of basking in his presence for seven uninterrupted hours (eight with toilet and snack breaks).
"Eloise Bridgerton, you are a brat," Colin says affably, putting up his middle finger at his sister, who is sitting in the front passenger seat with her tongue out at him behind the window.
"Can we please get going?" Ben asks with a sigh, getting into the driver's seat and putting on his sunglasses. "It's going to be midnight before we get there."
Penelope hurries to open up the door behind Eloise — and panic floods her, her mouth bitter and her throat closing.
Because in their haste to pack up the car, to squeeze in suitcases and plushies and Eloise's favourite monstera plant, they had not accounted for the fact that they would need room for two people. Least of all Colin's giant, hulking frame and Penelope's…
She wraps her hands around her waist and tries not to cry. She tries her best to not take up too much space. She shrinks and she is quiet and she sits on the edges of things in tummy-control underwear so she does not get in the way.
But sometimes physics gets the better of her. There are somethings tummy-control underwear cannot account for.
Like a single available seat in the back of this massively overstuffed car.
"Hm."
Penelope starts. Colin is standing behind her, a frown on his face and a pout on his lovely plush mouth.
"This is going to be tricky," he puzzles.
"Will you two get in the car?" Benedict calls out.
"It's really tight back here," Colin says, and then he puts his hand on Penelope's shoulder. He is always touching her, pressing the small of her back and tugging on her elbow and pinching her nose. It makes her burn and tremble and stutter but Colin never really seems to notice her discomfort. He is so blithe, so happy and unbothered. Penelope wishes she could be like that. "Just working it out."
"Should we stuff the girls back there?" Ben suggests.
"No fair!" Eloise protests. "I won shotgun!"
"Won't do much good anyway," Colin frowns. Then he straightens up, and nudges Penelope aside. He climbs into the available passenger seat and pats his thick, broad thighs. "Nothing for it. You'll have to sit on my lap."
Penelope blanches. He cannot be serious.
"You can't be serious," she breathes, clutching the bottom of her pleated skirt. Her mum always told her short skirts make her legs look longer, so Penelope always wears them. "For seven hours? I c-can't —"
In the back of her frazzled mind, Penelope is rather proud of herself for managing almost three complete sentences.
Colin just scoffs. "We'll be fine. You're tiny, Pen. Come on." He grabs her wrist and pulls her closer.
"Just get in, Pen," Eloise groans. "Let's get going."
Penelope wishes to remind El that it was not her that spent two hours agonising over which books to pack this morning, but she manages to bite her tongue.
"Come on," Colin says again, and he tugs her harder this time, so Penelope stumbles a little, loses her balance. She gasps and flails, her Adidas-clad feet (she got them because Daphne did) slipping on the kerb, and for a moment she thinks she might smack her face into the car, but large hands grasp her waist and there is an awful, tummy-swooping moment where her feet lift off the ground and she lands hard.
Onto Colin's thighs. He lets out an oof, and his fingers dig sharply into Penelope's waist.
"I'm so so sorry," she pants breathlessly (even though he almost knocked her over). "Sorry — are you okay?"
"Fine, fine," Colin says, and then he shifts and settles and his hands leave her waist (she feels shaky, heart racing) so he can clip in his seatbelt and close the door.
"We're good to go back here," he announces.
Are we? Penelope wants to whine, because she is perched upon the end of his knees, her feet in the footwell, and she feels completely off-kilter. As though with one sharp corner she might topple sideways into the tower of nonsense she and Eloise have packed. She feels as if she cannot breathe.
But she doesn't say that. Penelope makes herself small. She does not voice her discomfort. She does not want to be a burden or a lag, especially not to the Bridgertons who do her so many infinite kindnesses.
So she doesn't say anything. Ben starts the car, and they are off.
She makes it nearly an hour like that, which she is proud of. An hour of her thighs burning and her core muscles screaming as she hovers over Colin's knees. She grips the metal bars of Eloise's headrest and keeps herself like that; suspended, perched, in pain. Better than the alternative, she thinks, as her body aches and trembles and fire floods her muscles. She is glad El and Ben have the music turned up so that she can muffle little whines of pain into the headrest and no-one is any the wiser.
"You excited about uni, Pen?"
It takes her a second to register that Colin is speaking to her, his words piercing the fog of pain she is suspended in.
"Hm?" she murmurs tightly, her eyes burning.
"Oh, for God's sake —"
Those hands — large, casually possessive, as though it is normal to touch your little sister's best friend over the soft skin of her waist, on that strip of exposed skin where her T-shirt has come untucked from her skirt. As though it is perfectly rational to wrap your arms around her and tug her back to your body without giving her time to pull down her skirt, so her arse is pressed directly against your denim shorts.
"Colin!" she squeals, and tries to move forward again but he is strong and large and she cannot move.
"You're being ridiculous. Just sit down properly. It'll be much more comfortable for both of us."
"I'm going to squash you," she whispers, and it's stupid that her eyes are watering, that she feels so ashamed. And of what? She's not a real person, she thinks.
"You guys okay back there?" Ben asks, eyes on the road.
"Just getting comfy," Colin answers, and he clutches Penelope a little tighter around her waist, keeping her pressed against his broad, warm chest. He smells like cologne and shampoo and laundry detergent and sweat, and Penelope feels her body heat up by about four degrees at the proximity.
"Isn't that better?" Colin says firmly, and then leans forward, digging something out from behind his back. "There," he says, and shoves her plushy into her arms. "Hold Mr Penguin. That always makes you feel better."
I'm not a kid, she wants to protest, but the truth is Mr Penguin does, in fact, make her feel better. So Penelope holds the stupid toy to her chest and wonders if Colin remembers that he won it for her at the fairground when she was nine years old; if he knows that this is why she can't get rid of it, even though she is much too old for stuffies.
They make it another hour like that in some bizarre sort of cuddle chain, Colin holding Penelope holding Mr Penguin. It is certainly better than the first position, but Penelope wouldn't say she is comfortable. How could she be, this close to Colin Bridgerton? She keeps her legs squeezed shut and her back straight and tries not to think about how her skirt is crumpled up underneath her, how it rides up her thighs. She is afraid that adjusting herself will only draw Colin's attention to how exposed she is.
"Are you sure you're comfy like that, Pen?" Colin asks. "I think it'd be better if you just relaxed a bit."
"I'm fine," she grits out.
"It'd be nicer if we could just cuddle a bit though, don't you think?" Colin says, and Penelope's belly swoops, her heart in her throat. His voice is low, as if he doesn't want El and Ben to hear over the blasting pop synth. "You're so nice to cuddle with." He buries his face into her neck and gives her a squeeze. "So soft. And the journey is so long. Wanna be comfy." He sounds almost drowsy, dazed, as he attempts to snuggle her into him, wriggling her against his body. Penelope's breath catches at how he manouvres her, how easily he seems to arrange her. It makes her feel small. "Lean against me a little, maybe," he says, and his hand moves from around her waist for the first time in an hour and up her body.
To her throat. Cups her gently, but she still shivers, something strange and wobbly in her chest. She opens her mouth to protest but he only hushes her as he pulls her back so her head lolls against him. He keeps his hand right there on her neck, his fingers stroking gently over her pulse.
"Maybe if you let your legs just fall…" he suggests, and his right hand moves down to her leg. Fingers cupping bare skin, he gently drags her knees apart, so her right leg falls to the side of his thigh. Opening her, her skirt tenting between her spread legs.
No boy has ever touched her like that before.
As if her body is his to move and arrange and hold.
Maybe that's why her tummy feels weird, she thinks, and she squeezes Mr Penguin tighter to her body. She wants to push Colin's hands off, and maybe roll out of the moving car. But she doesnt'..
Because Colin isn't really a boy, is he? He's twenty-five. He's a man, with a job. A proper person.
Maybe this is normal. They're just cuddling; she does this with Eloise during Sunday movie nights, doesn't she? Maybe she should just do as he says.
"Is that a bit better?" Colin asks, his voice a contented hum as he rubs his nose against her hair. She shivers at the feel of it. "Your shampoo smells so nice, Pen. You're so nice to cuddle with."
His hand is still on her thigh. Penelope cannot stop looking at it. So big and tanned, how his fingertips dig ever so lightly into her plump, wobbly flesh. How her skin dimples under his touch. She swallows with some difficulty, her heart thudding dully.
"Don't you like cuddling with me, Pen?"
She starts, her insides clutching anxiously at the hurt tone in his voice. "N-no, I mean. Yes. Yes," she stutters, and Colin hums again, his thumb stroking her throat. Penelope wonders if he can feel how fast she is breathing, how hot her skin feels. She wants to sit up, to lean away from him, but the hand on her throat feels pinning. She feels useless in the face of it. His touch is very light, but somehow she feels that he controls her whole body like this. Like if she moved in a way he didn't like, he might hold tighter, might squeeze and —
He would never.. Its Colin, she reminds herself. Colin who is always so kind and happy and sweet, always joking people out of their bad moods and winking at Penelope when Eloise says something ridiculous.
Colin, who always touches her.
Not like this. Not like — and she is so dizzy, so useless, with his hand on her throat, that she hasn't noticed the hand on her thigh creeping up. Up, up, up. As in, under her skirt. As in, his fingers are creeping towards her underwear.
He cannot be —
She tries to lift her head, but slumped and lolled against hsi body her centre of gravity is off and her core is too shaky from earlier to put up much of a fight when Colin gently eases her back down onto him.
"Colin," she whispers, and maybe she should speak more loudly, or drag his hands off her, or do something.
But — but it's Colin, and she doesn't want to make a fuss. What is she going to say? Ben, pull over the car because your brother's hand is up my skirt? It makes her sweat to even imagine it, her heart hammering under his fingers.
"Sh, Pen. We're just cuddling. Hold Mr Penguin."
Penelope does as he says. Buries her face in him, actually, so she can breathe deep. The scent of him is comforting, though a little unfamiliar. She wonders if it is because he's outside of her bed, like how you can't smell yourself properly until you're in someone else's house. He smells like her banana shampoo and her lavender pillow spray and sleep, musky and warm.
She takes a deep breath and it steadies her, focusing on unravelling the scent so she does not have to think about the large fingers brushing slowly, lightly, over her upper thigh. They move back and forth in slow, teasing paths, catching every now and then on the cotton of her underwear. She feels as if she is sinking, or drowning; as if she would do anything to stop him, but that she dares not move a muscle. Trapped.. Frozen. Useless.
"So soft here," Colin murmurs, and she trembles when his hot breath hits her neck.
Penelope braves a glance down, and sees that her skirt is rucked up even higher. She freezes, feeling sick. "What if," she pants, each word a struggle. "What if Ben sees?"
Colin's fingers tap against her neck. "He can't see," he whispers confidently. "Just relax, Pen. Maybe you should take a little nap, actually. Close your eyes."
Penelope would laugh at the implausibility of sleeping when she is this tense, when she is drowning and she cannot move to save herself, but she cannot even muster that. Instead she just squeezes her eyes shut and cuddles her plushy and hopes Colin will stop this soon.
He doesn't.
"I love your little skirts, Pen," he whispers, his words warm and knowing, as if there is some secret the two of them share. "I love how you always wear them around me, bending over and showing off. You're so cute, Pen. Knew you'd be so soft and easy like this."
No, she want to sob.
No.
But she cant speak, because his fingers slide further inwards, and then he is cupping her. His palm, warm and heavy, pressing against her mound over her cotton underpants, the ones with the little bow. His thumb moves back and forth over the fabric, sliding up to play with the silky ribbon every now and then, pressing the cotton to her curls.
"Oh," Colin breathes into her ear, and his fingers tighten against her throat. Not enough to hurt, or restrict her breathing, but enough that she can feel them. "You don't shave your pussy?"
Penelope thinks she might be going mad. Or she is stuck in some nightmare, some terrifying hall of mirrors where someone who looks and sounds and feels like Colin Bridgerton, her sweet, happy-go-lucky crush, has stolen his body.
"I—" she croaks out, unsure how to answer.
"It's okay, Pen. I like it anyway."
God, she is pathetic. Because past all the crawling, strange feelings in her tummy, she glows a little at the praise. What does this say about her, actually, that she can feel her cheeks heat at Colin Bridgerton telling her he likes her unshaved pussy? She is half-finished; not a real person.
Maybe if she had more experience with boys. Maybe if anyone had ever wanted to kiss her, or feel her up, or fuck her, she would know what to do. Maybe it always feels like this (squirming, drowning, shivery). Maybe if she wasn't such a loser, she would know how to react when Colin Bridgerton slips a finger under the elastic leg of her knickers, and strokes her pubic hair.
As it stands, she just lets out a little squeak.
"You guys okay back there?" Ben asks, and Penelope feels faint, black spots fluttering at the corner of her eyes.
"Yeah," Colin says brightly, and does not move either of his hands. Ben keeps his eyes on the road. "Just getting comfy."
"Okay. We can stop if you need to rearrange?"
"No, no," Colin says quickly. "We're all good. I think we'll try to nap soon. Right, Pen?"
"R-right," Penelope manages to croak.
"Sure, sure," Ben mutters, and changes lanes.
Once he is certain they are not going to be bothered again, Colin's finger continues it's slow sweep over her curls, tracing lightly over her outer lips. Penelope's thighs shake, her belly in knots.
"Oh, Pen, you're all sticky," Colin whispers, but the sound of it is raw and ragged, an exhale through his nose. "You like cuddling me, don't you?"
No — can that be right? Is she…? She is drowning and sinking and she feels liquid, but she's not — she can't be wet, can she?
Except Colin pulls his finger out of her underwear so he can smear it over her inner thigh, as if to prove it — and yes, yes, she is wet. Soaked, actually, and it only gets worse when Colin puts his finger back to her pussy. Starts sliding it slowly, slowly, up and down her seam. He pushes the very tip of his finger between her slick lips, his touch so gentle that she wants to scream.
She has touched herself, of course. She knows what an orgasm is (she is not that ridiculous) — but usually she doesn't put anything inside, just grinds against her pillows with her fingers stuffed in her mouth so she doesn't wake up her mum. She almost never does what Colin is doing now, these lazy, feathering strokes. She starts to shiver uncontrollably in his arms, her entire lower half fizzing and sparkling with the feeling.
"You're so silky," Colin breathes. "So nice to touch. Spread your legs a little wider for me. Let me cuddle you properly, baby girl."
Baby girl. Her heart pounds and her stomach drops and Penelope thinks she might be dying, actually. Her head drops back harder against his body and she feels as if she might be sinking into Colin, as if the borders and outlines that make her Penelope are dissolving. She might sink and sink inside of him until she has disappeared for good. She thinks it might be for the best, actually.
Because her legs spread wider, just as he says. She opens herself up to him, and when he shushes her softly she stays quiet, even though she knows this isn't quite right, that he shouldn't be — not with his brother and sister in the front — not when he hasn't even kissed her yet —
He lets out a long, slow breath and slowly presses into her pussy. Into the hole, the bit she never really touches. So even though she is wet and drippy she is also tight, and it hurts.
She buries her face into Mr Penguin and tries to stifle her cry.
"So tight, Pen," Colin hushes, as his forefinger sinks in deep. "I knew you would be. I could tell. You feel so sweet — that's it, clench on me, baby."
She doesn't mean to, but her pussy flutters and pulses at the invasion. He moves his finger in and out a few times experimentally and Penelope bites down on Mr Penguin's head to stop herself moaning. It feels wrong and sore and good all at once, and she wants him to stop making her feel this way, so jumbled and confused and ashamed.
But then he stops moving his finger altogether. Goes still with his forefinger tucked up inside her, his other hand on her throat.
"I think you should try to nap a bit, Pen," Colin says softly. "We've got such a long journey."
"N-nap?" Penelope stumbles. She fights the sick urge to buck her hips, and she tells herself it is to push him out but she fears it is because she wants him to move again, to thrust slowly in and out of her pussy..
"Yeah." And then his lips ghost over her jaw, and she shudders. "Nap. Just for a bit. I'll take care of you, don't worry."
And the worst thing is, the most embarrassing, ridiculous —
She does. She drift off, splayed and helpless on Colin Bridgerton's lap, with his finger buried into her wet pussy.
She wakes up and she is —
She gasps, her fingers tightening in Mr Penguin's fur. She is close, so fucking close, pleasure teasing and spindelling through her lower limbs in easy threads.
"Sh, sh," Colin shushes, and Penelope's fogged, sleep-addled brain pulls itself together, her body teetering on the edge of something. She does not know how, only that her nipples are pressing painfully against her bra cups and her legs are still spread and shaking and she is sipping in ragged gulps of air. "You have to be quiet, sweetheart."
She doesn't know what's happening, why she is so close, why her nipples ache and her clit —
"God, your clit is so swollen, baby," says Colin and Penelope realises then what is happening. His fingertips are tracing slowly, slowly over her pussy, trailing circles that he has been doing for God knows how long. Unravelling her while she slept in gentle, arching spirals. Never enough pressure to wake her.
She swallows and realises his hand is no longer on her throat.
No; it is under her T-shirt, gently plucking at her nipple through her bra and palming her tit.
"You're so soft. So soft and big. So nice to feel, aren't you?"
Penelope feels sick. She was asleep — it's not her fault, she didn't know — she is so, so close, and he's not stopping —
"Oh," she hiccoughs, as she feels herself pushed, gently, inevitably from the edge. Her feet kick in the air for a moment, suspended. "Wait, wait, wait," she begs, though she knows it is too late, that she is about to fall.
"God, baby, are you coming? Fuck, fuck, you are, aren't you? Good girl," he whispers, his words rough and hungry.
The bottom drops out beneath her and she falls helplessly into the pleasure.
But it has hardly started when the car is slowing, and turning. Benedict is pulling into a service station.
Penelope's heart thumps and kicks and she pushes herself upright, her orgasm ruined and sputtering away, her limbs flailing as she tries to right herself. Colin does not stop her this time, pulling her knickers back over her pussy and helping to tug down her skirt, unrumple her T-shirt.
"Toilet break!" Benedict announces, while Penelope sits upright on Colin's lap and hopes her face and chest are not too red.
"Snack break," Eloise corrects him, and leaps out of the car.
Penelope wants to whine at the lost pleasure, but she supposes this is what she deserves for being so… Easy. Letting this grown man put his hands on her, just going still and taking it when she should have fought back. Said something, at least. She lay down and went to sleep for Christ's sake. Let him play with her pussy and didn't do a thing to stop him.
Her legs almost buckle when she steps outside. She has to clutch onto the door to keep upright.
"You okay, Pen?" Benedict asks, frowning, as he fills up the petrol tank from the other side of the car. Penelope gapes at him, and for a moment she imagines telling him, imagines saying the words. Your brother touched my pussy while I slept. I couldn't stop him. Help.
"She's just stiff," Colin says smoothly, before her brain can even formulate the words properly. "It's pretty cramped back there. Right, Pen?"
And then he gives her a look. A look that is like his words, that makes it seem as if they have some… secret. Something precious and a little wicked that belongs just to them. Blue eyes twinkling, eager.
Penelope has never really had a secret before and she feels… well, she feels stupidly sort of grown-up.
This is what people do, she tells herself, as she finds her land-legs and follows Eloise inside, Colin just behind her. This is what adults do. Maybe. Maybe she can be a real person for once.
She trails the sweet aisle in the M & S while El grabs handfuls of snacks and stuffs them in a metal shopping basket.
"Remember to get us some actual foodd, El," Colin says genially, ambling after Penelope. "Something with nutritional value beyond just, like, E numbers."
Penelope chuckles at that and Colin looks pleased, and for a moment Penelope feels normal. As if the last few hours never happened. Maybe she dreamed them, actually. Because this is Colin, and he makes sweet jokes and is always smiling and he would never —
"Go to the bathroom and take your knickers off before we get back in the car."
He is bent close to her, as though he is inspecting a packet of gummy bears. His words are low and coaxing and they make Penelope's spine prickle.
She can't. She can't, she can't, she —
Does. Stands in a stall with legs that shake like a newborn foal's. Steps out of her underwear (they are a wet mess anyway, the cotton drenched) and tries to clean up the mess he made of her pussy. She feels shame run through her as she looks at the glistening tissue paper. She should stop this, she should tell Elose or Ben or —
"Pen? You in here? Ben's about to drive off without us!"
El's voice cuts through her fog. Penelope wants to weep, wants to throw herself into her friend's arms and tell her what Colin made her do, confess it all and let Eloise take care of everything.
She doesn't. She balls up her underwear into her fist and marches out of the service station, one hand clutching the hem of her skirt in case of errant breezes. Even with how she cleaned herself up the air feels sharp on her pussy, her clit still throbbing, and she wonders just how long Colin was playing with her before she woke up.
When she gets back to the car the rest of them are already in there. Ben toots the horn impatiently and Penelope skitters over as fast as she can, heart pounding anxiously.
"Hurry up, Featherington," Ben calls out the window. "We're losing daylight here."
"Sorry, sorry," she mutters, and without thinking she slides into the back passenger seat, onto Colin's waiting lap.
She gasps, her mind tumbling over herself, but the noise is covered by the slam of the door, the roar of the engine as Ben peels out.
Penelope bites her lip, her stomach clenching. Because unless she is mistaken, that is Colin's cock nestled between her thighs. Hard and heavy and resting upon her mound, covered by the pink plaid of her skirt.
She feels like she is going to start hyperventilating — her eyes dart around wildly but of course there is no real escape. Just the hot velvet pressed against her sticky lips, trapped between her squeezed together thighs, the head nudging against her clit.
"Hi, baby," Colin chuckles, his hands finding her hips over her skirt. "Keep your thighs pressed together for me — yeah, just like that. God, you feel so good sliding over my dick, Pen. Sweet little pussy."
"Colin," she says, and her words tremble out of her, in time with the shake of her body. "You can't put it — I've never —"
He lets out a choked groan, his hands tightening on her hips. "Really, baby?" His hips buck up and she feels the heavy slide of his cock rub through her folds, bumping against her clit. Can that really be all him? It feels too hot, too thick. She's seen dicks in porn once or twice but never felt one here — but maybe he only feels big because she's not used to it?
"Colin," she pleads, as he thrusts up between her closed thighs, his wet tip smearing over her clit.
"It's okay, it's okay," he says soothingly, though his voice is a little broken. "We're just going to rub a little while I cuddle you. Just wanted you to feel how hard you make me. You're so soft and warm, Pen."
It is — well, Penelope thinks it is not quite as bad as the other thing he did to her. Because with her legs closed she's not so afraid of Ben or El looking back and seeing her, and she doesn't really have to do anything, just loll against him and let him hump into the triangle of warm flesh he's made between her pussy and her thighs. It feels sort of nice when he bumps his tip against her clit. Nice enough, anyway. Not enough to make her come, but she's glad of that — she doesn't want to.
His hands are a problem, though. He keeps cupping her in all the soft places she hates. Her belly, groping handfuls; her thighs, digging his fingers in. And worst of all her tits. He slides his hands under her T-shirt and cups over her bra while he uses her warm little pocket, breathing hard in her ear. But soon that's not enough for him, apparently, and he tugs down the cups, so her tits flop out under her T-shirt. And they are too big, it's embarrassing, even worse when he groans and kneads them and mutters how godd she feels.
"Big, slutty tits," he grunts under his breath as he thrusts up into her. "Always teasing me with them. For years."
Her breathing hitches, her hands winding into her skirt. She blinks, her eyes hot and burning.
"No," she insists. "No. I didn't —"
"Used to parade around in those little pyjamas at sleepovers, no bra on," he says, and his voice is darker than before, something dripping through it. Penelope swallows the poison, swallowing over and over as though that might rid them of it, but it only makes her nauseous. "Made me feel so sick for wanting you."
"I didn't," she repeats, hot shameful tears in her eyes. She grabs Mr Penguin and holds him over her chest, so that if Ben turns around he won't see what Colin is doing to her big, slutty tits —
God. She was fifteen when her tits grew in. They were always big, and she hated how they made people treat her. Girls at school got bitter and strange and the boys were meaner to her, snapping her bra straps under her school uniform and leering. Her mum got all concerned and ashamed and started putting her in weird, frumpy sack dresses. The only people who didn't treat her differently were the Bridgertons. They all just kept treating her like herself, like Penelope, and she had loved that, loved that she could just exist at their house and not worry what she looked like.
Or worry less, at least.
She feels queasy. She puts her face in her stuffy and tries not to cry, tries to sit still and let Colin do what he wants with her.
He massages her tits, fingertips digging in, his thumbs flicking her nipples in a way that makes her feel hot, makes it impossible to escape her body.
"Used to —" his words are choked, like he has a hand on his throat, punched out between his thrusts. "Used to — hide in the bathroom — jerk off over you — used to think about — about dragging you out of El's room — making you show me —"
She wants him to stop., wants him to shut his mouth, but he doesn't, he doesn't. Just keeps dripping out poison that she can't help swallowing, feels it melt and burn in her belly and lower, lower. Just keeps stroking her tits and bumping against her clit (and it's already so oversensitized, so throbbing and needy)and she doesn't want to come, she doesn't, she doesn't —
He does, though.He buries his face into her hair and she feels his body stutter and thrust and convulse beneath her. Feels something wet and spilling and spurting between her thighs, all over her pussy. Sees a wet stain on her skirt, right over where his dick must be.
Relief floods through her. Surely it is over now. Surely now he has come, he won't try anything else. She feels sick and shaky and teetering, pleasure still wound up tight in her body. She breathes into Mr Penguin's fur and goes very still while Colin pants and heaves underneath her. He extricates his hand from her top and she quickly puts her tits back into the bra cups, her heart hammering.
The relief is short lived when she realised they just stopped at a service station. And unless something drastic happens, she is going to be sitting in the back of the car with Colin's soft, wet cock pressed against her cum-covered pussy, her thighs a mess, for hours.
She stifles a groan and tries to sit up a little straighter, but Colin winds his arms around her waist again, keeping her flush to him. Keeping her thighs cradling his dick, too.
And so Penelope is forced to sit there in the mess he has made of her for two hours, watching the cumstain on her skirt grow larger, darker. She watches it harden and dry, her stomach in terrible knots. She feels sure she can smell it — not just him but her, and she asks El to open the window a little bit. The cool air helps somewhat, but then Eloise decides that this is the moment she wishes to talk to Penelope about which classes they have chosen, and what she thinks her favourite course is going to be, and what colour should they paint the flat that Anthony bought for Eloise in Glasgow (a ridiculous extravagance, but they are Bridgertons, and this is the sort of thing they do). Penelope tries her best to answer with Colin's cum dripping sticky over her pubic hair, tries to ignore the very strong feeling she has that she is dying, while Colin pretends to be asleep beneath her. Or maybe he really is— his breathing has slowed and he doesn't move at all.
Eventually — eventually — Ben agrees to stop for more snacks and a pee break. The moment the car stops and the engine is off, Penelope is up and out, holding her skirt tight around her body as she runs into the service station. "Really need to pee," she calls behind her as she legs it. It's barely more than a few petrol pumps and a corner shop, so the only toilet they have is one of those large disabled ones. Penelope is just glad of the door with a lock and the sink.
She runs to the sink, careful not to look at herself as she cups handfuls of water and splashes them over her pussy, rinsing off the white ropes that have matted her pubes. Then she scrubs at the cumstain.
She cannot bear what she'll find in the mirror, what he's made of her. So she scrubs and scrubs and then she stands under the hand-dryer with her skirt held out in front of her. She feels so exposed without her knickers, and she hates her mother for telling her to wear short skirts and she hates herself for wearing them.
She's in there a while, and she knows they are probably waiting but she doesn't care. She needs the stain gone, needs to feel clean. Eventually the wet patch dries and Penelope feels satisfied — she can barely see the mark.
So she unlocks the door, steps outside —
And Colin pushes her right back in, locking the door behind him as he crowds her up against the mirror.
"I'm a mess, baby," he says, as he pushes her against the sink. He cups her cheek, tipping her face up to his. Penelope keeps her eyes averted. She cannot look in the mirror, and she cannot look at his face. She knows what she'll see in both: the fun house version of herself, distorted and stretched and all wrong.
And then his other hand is under her skirt, fingers dragging through her pubic hair. He clucks his tongue as she squirms, breathing hard. "Did you clean up? You shouldn't have. I was going to do it, sweetheart. Use my mouth."
Penelope shivers, the porcelain sink digging into her lower back. "S-sorry," she says, but she doesn't know why.
He makes a little crooning noise. "It's okay. You'll just have to clean me, won't you?"
She doesn't understand, and in her confusion blinks up at him. His eyes are so blue and he is so handsome and it isn't right, isn't right that this smiling, gorgeous man can be so — that he can be doing these things to her —
His press into her shoulders and he pushes her down firmly. Onto her knees in this grotty bathroom, the cold tile pressing hard into her shins. Her eyes sting and her vision bends because she knows what this means, knows what it means to kneel for a boy (he's a man), and she thought it was done. Thought it was over.
She has never seen a cock in real life before. Even flaccid he looks too big, veined and heavy and swollen at the tip. His cum is spread in a creamy, pearly web over the tip and shaft. Colin holds himself at the base, his other hand cupping the back of Penelope's head and petting her hair all too tenderly. She doesn't like it — would almost prefer if he was hard and cruel with her, because then she could fight and hit and cry and it would feel right, like she was doing something, like she wasn't just melting and blinking at his cock and opening her lips obediently when he smeared the sticky, cum-covered head over her lips.
But he is so soft. He coaxes and hushes and strokes her cheeks. Gives her gentle instructions, even praise — tells her to open up her pretty mouth and to run her tongue along the side and oh, baby, that feels so good, you're a natural and just swallow, sweetheart, swallow around it and you'll stop gagging.
He drags himself out of her mouth when he is wet with her spit instead of his own cum; when his cock is hardening, swelling up before her eyes. Penelope pants and hugs her middle and ignores the way her pussy feels when Colin gets her to her feet; cups her cheeks; kisses her softly on the forehead.
"Perfect," he says, and Penelope feels herself dissolving again, because she cannot think if anyone has ever called her that before. Why does he have to do it now, here, in this grubby toilet where she can still taste the unpleasantness of his cum and her pussy is bare and leaking beneath her skirt? Why now?
"We better get back to the car before they get suspicious," Colin says with an indulgent smile, and he leads her out of the toilet, her little hand curled in his. He drops it as soon as they are in the sight of the car, but Penelope feels all joggled up inside by it, by the casual intimacy of the gesture, of the way it makes her way to hide behind his broad form and let him lead her anywhere. Away from this horrible service station and away from the next three years of uni and… away from herself.
The spell breaks when he lets go and then Penelope feels herself being hustled back into the car, hands on her waist and hips and arse, Colin pressed all over her.
"Remember, you have to be quiet, Pen." The words are whispered hot into her ear, and she doesn't understand until she finds herself hovering again. Her breath catches and she grips the headrest, balancing on her toes with her thighs burning. She feels Colin's hands on her butt, holding her up and off him and —
Open.
Splitting her, dragging her apart, fingers kneading her plump cheeks. The car starts and she gasps, rocking and unsteady, but he keeps her there, hovering over his lap. He is so strong that it makes her belly ache, makes her feel helpless and melting.
And then he lowers her.
Down, down, down, his hands guiding her back and down and onto —
He told her to be quiet but she can't be — she whines as the wet, swollen head of his cock presses against her entrance.
"Pen?" Eloise asks, and she twists in her seat, peering at Penelope through the gap between the headrest and her seat. Penelope shakes and burns and tries to move away but Colin's hands are too strong, dragging, dragging. His cock splits her hole, the tip nudging at her entrance, and Penelope gulps and gasps and tries to arrange her features into something normal.
"Pen?" El repeats, concern in her blue eyes.
"I —" she chokes, her throat thick. He's so, so big, so much bigger than his finger and so much harder. She needs to say something now — needs to stop this — but what can she say? El, your brother is trying to fuck me. I don't want him to, I promise. I'm so sorry.
But how will she explain why she let it go so far? How will she explain that she laid still and let him use her body to come, how she came on his fingers in the back of the car while Ben and El sat up front? How will she explain why she didn't say no, why she didn't stop him?
"I— I'm just trying to…" she breathes, sweat beading on her forehead as he keeps lowering her, not stopping even though her face is inches from El's. It hurts, her pussy stretched around his tip, and she's still wet from sucking his cock (she cannot deny it) but it's not enough to dull the pain. The insistent ache and pressure, like he's going to tear her in half.
"Get comfy," she finishes weakly, and gulps in air as his swollen head makes its way inside her. Her knuckles are white around the metal bars of the headrest as she grips on tightly, trying to keep herself from sinking fully onto him.
El nods and shrugs and turns back to face forward, turning up the dial on the radio so the music blasts out.
"It'll go easier if you relax," Colin mutters behind her, voice low. "Pussy's too tight, Pen. Stop fighting it."
No, she wants to scream at him. She wants to scream full-stop, wail and yell around the pain of his cock splitting her open. Is this how it's supposed to feel? He drags her down another inch and she sucks her bottom lip into her mouth, inhaling shakily so she does not cry out.
"Can't believe I'm your first," Colin murmurs, and she doesn't understand how there is always more, how he keeps pulling her down onto him and it doesn't end. She feels as if he is in her belly and throat and mouth, like she can taste him on her tongue. "Wanted it to be so special for you, sweetheart. Do you feel how hard I am for you?"
She would laugh. Can she feel it? She can do nothing but feel, her skin throbbing and her pussy aching and her tits feeling swollen, heavy in her bra. She feels as if her body is trying to split her skin, as if she is being ripped in half by his dick, and she won't ever be able to put herself back together again.
And then, after what feels like forever, her butt hits the rough scrape of his jeans. She feels stuffed, so full that every gasp of air feels hard-won, as if there is not space in her body for her lungs and her organs and Colin's dick too. Her face is wet, she realises, and she hadn't known she was crying, her teeth digging so hard into her lower lip that it feels numb. She shakes on his cock, her body convulsing and her teeth clamped together to stop them from chattering.
"Come cuddle," Colin says then, his voice a rough rasp, and then he wraps his arms around her fucking waist again and drags her back. Penelope tries to keep her grip on the headrest, to keep herself upright and away from him, but he is too strong. She finds herself once again pressed close to him, his arms around her like she is the stuffed toy. And it's much, much worse like this, because the angle shifts her hips and his cock presses against something inside of her that makes her see stars, her pussy stretched so wide she thinks she might die.
Her legs loll either sides of his thighs, and she knows if Ben looks back he'll see, he'll see up her skirt, see her bare pussy stretched around his brother's big dick, and she swallows over and over, her fingers scrabbling uselessly at Colin's arms.
"Just relax, Pen. You're taking me so well." His lips find her cheeks, pressing soft little kisses on her cheeks that make goosebumps erupt, that make her feel sick and hot and useless. "I've waited for you for so long, baby. You were too little to take me before but now you're perfect, aren't you? Sweet girl, so good and soft and wet.."
Penelope sucks in wet, hushed breaths, her stomach churning and her ears buzzing. Her pussy hurts but he's pressed against that spot that makes her feel like she's going to burst open at the seams. And he's right — she's really wet. She feels it leaking sticky over her thighs, dripping down over his cock.
"You just relax, sweetheart," Colin hushes, one hand reaching up to stroke her hair. "Just relax,and I'll make it feel so good. You can take a little nap on my cock and I'll make you feel good like before, yeah?"
"Colin," she whimpers, his name a beg on her tongue. She doesn't know what she's begging for — for him to stop, or stop talking, or move — something. Anything. Anthing to distract from the feeling in her pussy and belly and thighs.
"Sh, sh," he croons, and his hand skates down her body to the waistband of her skirt. He traces over her tummy for a moment before he slips his hand underneath the band, threading through her still-damp curls to her wet, stretched lips. She feels taut and sensitive and when he traces his fingertips lightly around where he is splitting her she squirms and pants, strange tendrils of pleasure wisping through her.
"No," she whimpers, but he ignores her. Keeps tracing lightly, sliding over her wet, fuzzy lips until eventually he finds her clit.
Why is he so gentle? It's maddening, terrible, how he teases and teases her, how he skates over her clit so tenderly, with so much care. And it makes her insane with the relentless stretch of his cock, how immovable and strong he is, because she shouldn't, she shouldn't like it, shouldn't wriggle in his hold and gasp and dig her fingers into his arm while she struggles to breathe. She shouldn't whimper when he sticks his tongue in her ear, kissing and nibbling so sweetly that she cannot stop shaking.
She shouldn't come.
"Oh, baby, are you coming again? I feel it on my cock — yeah, yeah, just like that, Pen. You feel so good, just keep nice and quiet."
"No," she whispers, tears streaming from her face as the pleasure rises and rises. "No, stop —"
She hiccoughs and sobs and stuffs her fingers in her mouth so she doesnt make a sound while she comes on his cock, her pussy clamping down painfully. He shudders and groans underneath her, his body hot and hard and surrounding.
"God, that feels so good," he pants in her ear, his fingers splitting around his cock, teasing over her lips again. "You're going to keep doing that until I come, okay?"
"Wh-what?" she gasps, hazy from the forced pleasure. "N-no — wait —"
But he's touching her again. Stroking light over her sensitive clit, circling and brushing light enough that it doesn't hurt. Light enough that her body starts to melt again, that her mind starts to get hazy and she sucks on her tongue helplessly, eyelids dropping with the spirals of pleasure that undulate through her body. His other hand snakes up her T-shirt again, and he pulls her right tit out of its bra cup so he can feel her up while he plays with her.
And then he doesn't stop.
It must be hours.She knows it is hours.
He keeps her spread and aching on his cock, not moving (and she wishes he would, wishes she could get a moment of relief from the stretch when he pulled out to thrust back in), for hours. One hand toys with her clit, the other groping and tugging on her tit. And she's so ruined and fogged and strung out that she doesn't even cry out when he hurts her, when he pinches and tugs her nipples too hard. It just makes her pussy spasm and leak more.
He makes her come again and again. She doesn't know how many times, how he drags and draws her over the edge over and over. How he keeps his touch so light that each time she comes it doesn't feel like enough. Especially because he starts pulling his fingers away right as she tips over, so she bucks and searches and squeezes down on his cock to wring out more pleasure, frustrating, desperate little half-orgasms that make her sob silently and lay still so he will keep touching her. So this time he might let her have a proper one, like the first few.
Each time she comes he grunts and huffs in her ear, his cock throbbing inside of her. "God, yeah, squeeze my cock, sweetheart," he moans. "Let me feel your tight little pussy coming on my cock."
And each time his breathing gets more ragged, and he palms her tits harder, and his hips start to buck a bit as they approach the outskirts of Glasgow. "I'm close, Pen," he grunts, and his teeth nip her earlobe. "One more for me. Just one more."
Penelope bites back a whine and her head lolls against him, her entire body burning and pulsating with ruined pleasure. She feels wretched in it, does not know what is wrong with her that she wants more and more, that she spreads her legs wider and goes limp and lets him use her like this. He uses his thumb to circle her clit and she pants as she feels another orgasm approaching. Her fingers grip his arm for ballast as it winds through her, tendrils and threads of helpless pleasure that she does not have the energy to fight.
"It's — I'm coming," she whispers, and she is not sure why she tells him.
He moans and pinches her tit and he thrusts up, deeper, so deep that black spot flutter around her vision and she comes then. He doesn't pull his fingers away this time, keeps stroking and stroking as the orgasms wrecks her, and then she feels —
He tenses, tightens, his cock swelling inside her —
"Gonna fill you up, Pen," he groans.
She tries to say no, wait, no, I'm not on birth control, you can't, but the orgasm has stolen her voice, and she doesn't have the strength to get away. So instead Penelope sits on his lap and her pussy clenches rhythmically on Colin's cock as he comes deep in her unprotected pussy. And he keeps rubbing, and rubbing, and she keeps coming and she can't stop, she can't, can't, can't —
"Yeah, Pen, take it all," he grunts as he fills her. The feeling is so strange and wrong, hot spurts that make her breathing hitch and her skin feel itchy and hot.
"Colin," she whimpers, as her orgasm starts to fade from her body and terrible, desperate feelings take its place. She feels sick and dirty and terrified, like she wants to scramble away from him but her body is too fucked-out and exhausted. "You — you shouldn't — I'm not on — birth control," she manages to choke out.
But that just makes Colin moan again, his fingers moving to pet over her damp curls. "Don't worry, baby. It'll be fine. Just rest on me. You must be sleepy, poor thing. We'll be there soon — you should try to sleep."
Penelope swallows and shivers and realises she can't actually move, her body too exhausted to lift herself off his soft cock. Where could she go anyway? There's no space here.
So, she does as he says — grabs Mr Penguin, and lets her eyes flutter closed.
And just before she does — and she must be dreaming, surely, because it can't be — he would have said something, would have stopped it — or maybe there's nothing wrong, actually, maybe this is what adults do, because wouldn't he have said something? — her eyes find Ben's in the rearview mirror.
When she wakes up they are outside the flat, and Colin's cock is still inside her.
Plugging his cum into her pussy. Soft and sticky and unpleasant. She grimaces and wriggles, her body aching and sore. She feels as if her mind has detached itself from her body, as if she is drifting, floating, loose. She watches Eloise and Ben get out of the car; lets Colin lift her off his cock and place her feet on the kerb. She wobbles upright, gripping the door, and she remembers that her ruined knickers are in the footwell. But when she turns she sees Colin shoving his dick back in his shorts and bending down to stuff her knickers in his pocket. Right. Okay.
Eloise takes her hand excitedly and Penelope lets her friend drag her around the flat, showing her the nice high ceilings and the reading nook and their bedrooms with the ensuite bathrooms. The sun sets through the bay windows and everything is orange and melted, and Penelope wonders if maybe it's all been a dream. Maybe the car — Colin — maybe it never happened.
Except she feels something leaking over her inner thigh, and when she goes to the bathroom she finds something white and creamy on the tissue paper.
So. Not a dream. Dread and panic swell inside of her but she pushes it down, follows El around and robotically instructs the boys where to put her furniture. Ben won't meet her eye but Colin won't stop looking at her, giving her that secret smile that makes her tummy feel weird.
They get all the furniture inside and Penelope thinks soon, soon they'll leave but Colin says he is hungry and El and Ben agree and so they order pizzas, eat them on the living room floor. Penelope realises as she sits on the carpet that she hasn't put knickers back on and she makes sure to use a pizza box to cover her lap, so her skirt won't ride up and everyone will see her sore, swollen pussy. Colin catches her and his lips pout into a smug, knowing smile. Soon, Penelope tells herself, chewing her food and not tasting it. Soon it'll be over.
But then Colin says he's worried about driving in the dark, and Eloise says they should just stay the night and drive back fresh in the morning. Ben says he isn't sure but Eloise insists and Penelope stays silent, the dread swelling in her belly. She doesn't say anything when it is decided that Eloise and Penelope will share Penelope's bed, and Colin and Ben will sleep in Eloise's, and the boys will set off in the morning after breakfast. She doesn't say anything for the rest of the evening, dread clawing at her throat. Doesn't say anything when she and El get into bed, and the dread swells up so large Penelope thinks she's going to be sick.
She knows what will happen. When she wakes up with Colin's body over hers, his shape blurry in the dark, she knows what is happening. She wonders if the dread conjured it into reality, somehow.
She goes still. Doesn't cry.
Colin puts his hand over her mouth anyway, hot and firm and plastered over her cheeks.
He moves slowly at first, careful not to wake Eloise. Rucks up her nightgown and fingers her sticky pussy. It feels swollen and puffy under his touch, throbbing from how he used it earlier. He scissors his fingers inside of her, which makes her hips jerk automatically, legs twitching — she's so sore inside. Distantly Penelope wonders why she doesn't reach her arm out, grab Eloise, wake her up. She could stop this, couldn't she?
She doesn't. She just lies there (she's not a proper person). Lets Colin stuff her full of his hardening cock, pressing in and in until he's buried deep, while his sister sleeps besides them. She tries to suck in a gasped breath from the sudden sting but just tastes his palm. He pushes her knee up and starts to rock into her.
He is slow and careful at first but that doesn't last long. He starts to fuck her properly, hard and fast and so deep she feels as if she's going to die. She realises she was wrong in the car — it's not better when he pulls out to thrust back in, because each time he enters her it feels like the first time, like he's going to rip her apart, splitting her at the seams.
"Pull on your nipples," he whispers into the dark, and Penelope obeys him. She pulls her nightie up and plays with herself, pinching and plucking her sore tits like he did in the car. Colin moans when she does that — and freezes.
Because Eloise moves in her sleep, muttering something nonsensical. Penelope's heart hammers in her throat, Colin's hand on her mouth and her pussy stuffed with his cock.
Colin moves quickly then. Pulls out of her pussy and tugs her out of the bed, stumbling, into the living room. The living room, which is bare of furniture and stacked with moving boxes. He arranges her onto the floor, hands and knees, nightgown shoved up, and thrusts back into her all at once.
She gasps and her arms give out, face pressed to the Ikea rug. She wonders if she'll always think about how it feels against her cheek now; if she'll be able to look at it without remembering how sore and wet Colin Bridgerton made her.
"Isn't that better, baby?" Colin mumurs. "We can make a bit more noise. Want to hear how sloppy I can make your pussy when I fill it up."
Penelope whimpers as Colin fucks into her. He goes hard, thrusting in brutal strokes, his hips hitting her arse with a fleshy slap. Penelope feels her tits and belly sway with each thrust and she buries her face into the rug, letting herself dissolve. She is not a real person, she tells herself, pain and pleasure winding in her pussy. She's not a real person, so maybe this isn't so bad, actually. Maybe if she's not a real person she can just be a body, just a hole for Colin Bridgerton to use, and that's fine. This is fine.
"Glad I'm your first, baby. Were you waiting for me like I was waiting for you?" The sound of his cock inside of her is obscene, as if her pussy is sucking him in. "I'm gonna make you think about me all the time, baby. Just as much as I think about you."
She presses her cheek further into the rug, wishes she could press through the floor, evaporate and melt and disappear.
"Do you know how long I've waited for you, baby? Years, baby, while you showed off your tits in those tight T-shirts and your arse in those slutty little skirts. Made me wait, didn't you? It's why I offered to drive, sweetheart. Hoped I'd get a chance to show you how much I want you. This sweet little pussy is even tighter than I imagined. Wetter. God, so soft for me, aren't you?"
If she's not real, then it doesn't make her feel good when Colin calls her baby and sweetheart and tells her how sweet her pussy feels, how good she's being. If she's not real, then when Colin reaches around to stroke her clit it doesn't make her shudder and come almost instantly, her pussy drooling helplessly over his cock. If she's not real, it doesn't matter that Colin leans forward to grope her tits as he fucks into her desperately, his body slick and hot; doesn't matter that he comes inside her again, shivering and collapsing over hers as he pumps her full of his cum.
Somehow he keeps fucking her after he's come, his cock softening so slowly that she hears the sick squelch of his cum in her ruined pussy. He was right, it's sloppy and disgusting and she whines into the carpet as he makes pleased little grunts, his palm pressing into her head to keep her still.
Afterwards he makes her fish a pair of knickers out of her suitcase to put on under her nightie. "Keep my cum inside of you, Pen. Where it belongs." Then he puts her to bed and kisses her cheek and leaves her with knickers full of his cum, her pussy dripping uselessly.
She doesn't sleep after that, of course.
Part of her thinks that the next morning maybe he won't leave. That he'll be here forever, actually, that she won't escape him.
"You know, I really like Glasgow," Colin says over his cereal, with a blithe smile. "I should come visit you guys."
Eloise's face lights up, and Penelope realises then she was right; that she won't escape him. That there will be holidays and visits and Bridgerton family's lunches, and the only way she can get rid of him is if she gets rid of Eloise. And then she'll have no-one.
Penelope does not want to be alone.
In the hallway outside of the front door, Colin manages to corner Penelope while Ben and El say goodbye at the car. He pushes her against the wall; slides his hand up her nightie to finger her wet knickers into her pussy; smiles down at her with those soft blue eyes of his.
"Don't cry, Pen," he says. Penelope touches her face. She did not realise she was. "I'll be back soon. You're mine, aren't you? I can't stay away from you."
"Yours," Penelope repeats softly, her mind miles away.
And then Colin smiles.
And then Colin bends down, and gives Penelope Featherington her first kiss.