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Colin Bridgerton's mum tells him he has to be home for summer.
Bit embarrassing, really, to be thirty and still answering to your mum like that, but he's been in South America for nearly six months doing "research for his book" (read: taking ayuahasca, eating fantastic food, lazily fucking fellow travellers) and he supposes it's probably time to come home. His hair is too long for one, and he doesn't trust anyone except his London barber to sort it out for him.
He passed his thirtieth birthday in an estancia in Argentina with none of his family or friends around him. Just this Dutch girl he'd met who was also staying there, taking care of the beautiful criollo horses. He'd fucked her outside the stables. Afterwards he had sat on the warm earth and looked up at the stars and wondered how a man could misplace so many months that they became years. Years of his life in this endless warm night. How many skies and how many stars and how many pretty Dutch girls with nice round faces?
He hadn't meant to be away for so long. Time sort of slipped, didn't it? It has a way of doing that, slippery and skidding between his hands. It's like he just gets a feel for a place, learning the colour of the sky and the music of a new language and all of a sudden it's been half a year. He is a little absent-minded that way, but what business does he have with that sort of accounting? He has nowhere to be. Nothing to do. Just as he likes it.
(The book he's supposed to be writing is still unwritten, of course, but it doesn't feel urgent. Nothing ever precisely feels urgent for him, does it?)
Still, as he slides out of the taxi at Aubrey Hall (which isn't really his home — more his summer home), he is glad to be back. The cool, pale gravel on the driveway is a pretty bleached white in the July sun, like chipped bone. It feels comforting underneath his feet. There is something to be said for the familiar, he supposes.
His mum cries when she sees him, which makes him feel bad for a moment but he shakes it off. His siblings make fun of his long hair, which makes him feel bad in different ways but he shakes that off too. He feels like a boxer. He dances between upper cuts and left hooks, light on his feet as the blows glance off. He feels like a shark. Like he has to keep moving or he'll die.
They sit on the patio in the afternoon sun drinking lemonade and beer, all twelve of them (nine Bridgertons, plus Simon and Kate and Sophie). Colin laughs genially at their jokes and tells the nice versions of his stories and generally plays himself — charming and amiable and a bit impudent. The sort of impudent that makes the others laugh and makes Eloise roll her eyes and makes his mum forget her tears when she leans over to pinch his cheeks (as though he is three not thirty). Colin does all of that and he thinks about the warm night sky and the misplaced months and he tries to remind himself that familiar things can be good, too.
For example, Penelope.
She appears like a pink-cheeked mirage from round the side of the house. Not just her cheeks: pink all over, her skin glowing with sweat. She's wearing black leggings (he cannot recall ever seeing her in leggings before) and a white tank top over a sports bra and running trainers. Colin keeps his body still, legs sprawled and fingers toying with the label on his bottle of beer — but his entire being sits up straight internally, like a dog's ears pricking forward, at the sight of her.
Colin Bridgerton has a type, and it just so happens that his little sister's best friend is precisely it.
Curvy or plump or fat or whatever you want to call it. Whatever Penelope is, Colin likes. Likes the curve of her sun-pinked arm and the soft roll of her shoulders. Likes the way her big tits press up against her too-tight sports bra, the way they spill out the sides of the black nylon. The way her leggings cling to her arse and belly and thighs, the fabric dark with her sweat.
He can't deny the sharp, keen interest that twangs through his body. If they were somewhere else, some estancia in Patagonia and she wasn't his little sister's best friend and five years younger, he knows exactly what he would be doing. But he's careful around her, controls it. Subdues the interest. Folds it away, so things don't get messy (hitting on Eloise's twenty-five year old pal is not part of the Colin performance, is it? Not genial; not amiable. Not what they want from him).
Her pretty plump mouth drops open and her eyes widen as she sees Colin lounging on the patio chair, her cheeks reddening further. Something kicks a little in his chest to see it — to see the little fold in her brow at the sight of him. She looks pretty when she's bothered by him, he thinks. He's careful but he's only human, isn't he? He can't deny that he has, at times, enjoyed flirting with her a little. Teasing. It's fine, he thinks. Expected of him, actually.
"Colin," she says breathlessly, her chest heaving from her run. She pulls her earbuds out of her ears and slides her phone out of the back of her leggings, her fingers toying with it nervously. "I thought you weren't coming home til later tonight." She gives Eloise an accusatory look, which Eloise seems to miss entirely.
Colin forces himself to move slowly, languorously, though there is something twitching and thumping in his chest. He lets himself give her that lazy, slightly wolfish smile and spreads his arms out.
"Pen," he purrs. "Where's my hug, then?"
It's the sort of thing he says to her, the sort of thing that makes Eloise groan and Ben laugh and Penelope scowl at him as though she has to to keep herself from blushing and grinning.
"You don't want to hug me right now," Penelope says, wrinkling up her nose as Colin crosses over to her, a little apart from the rest of the family who resume their chatter.
"Sure I do," he says, his mouth hitching up at the corner as he looks down at her. She is very pretty. Prettier than when he left, maybe. Even though she's all sweaty and out of breath, her hair in a mad tangled bun on her head. "Can't miss my chance to get a hug in with an Olympic athlete, can I? You training for the marathon or something?"
"Just practicing so I can run away from you faster," she mutters darkly and Colin laughs. A proper laugh, perhaps the first of its kind since he got to Aubrey Hall.
"Bet I could still catch you," he tells her and she glowers at him but he can see the little twitch in her pout. She wants to smile. He feels good. "Now, come on. Give me a hug. I haven't seen you in forever."
She sucks in her cheeks and rises up to her tiptoes, her arms out. That's another thing he likes, actually — she's adorably short. So short he has to bend, his arms winding around her to press one large palm into her damp lower back, drag her close for a squeeze (the other one is still wrapped around his beer). Just a little one, just to feel her softness crushed against him for a second. A little moment of pleasure — a reward, surely, for all the performing he has been doing all day.
Except as he wraps his arms around her, gathers all her plushness to his chest, his nose is filled with her scent.
And Colin Bridgerton forgets the performance. Forgets that he has to be careful with her. Forgets that his family are about two feet away.
Because she smells fucking divine. Not the right word, surely — too exalted for the earthiness, the rich salt that makes his jaw work and his tongue press to the roof of his mouth and his fingers dig into the rolls on her back. Does she always smell like this, he wonders — this dirty, bright and cloying — or did she just forget deodorant? He can't recall — can't recall anything, except the vivid musk of her, fresh and sweet like the cut stalks of flowers, sweat and tang and — fuck — he's hard. Hard and leaking, immediately and so profusely it kind of feels like he's pissed himself. Fuck. Fuck.
He feels like a dog in heat, his toes clenching at his sandals and his hips aching to thrust. He doesn't know what to do — if he doesn't pull away she'll surely feel it and if he does she'll surely see it. He thinks he is melting, maybe, his entire body dripping and dissolving around her, lacquering over her like the sweat beading on her skin.
"Bit too tight," she says, her voice muffled into his chest. Nothing for it but to release her, step back. Quickly he moves his beer bottle to his crotch, holding it with both hands in a way that he hopes seems almost normal. This is how people sometimes hold beer bottles, right? Fuck. His heart stutters and canters in his chest.
Penelope is peering at him, her head tilted to one side and her brow furrowed.
"Are you alright?" she asks softly in that sweet, delicate voice of hers and he wants to say no, Pen, I'm not; wants to grip her soft arm and drag her inside, bury his nose into her and breathe deep until he hasn't got anything left to leak. He is saved from answering by Eloise demanding Penelope's attention, demanding she come and take Colin's vacated seat so she can tell Sophie something Eloise has decided is vitally important.
His throat closing and dick aching, Colin takes the opportunity to slip into the house.
It is cool and dim, his vision throbbing with the memory of the sun, of Penelope's outline. His body moves urgently through the dark waters, fighting the urge to actually start running. His mouth is full of saliva, heart on his tongue as he slides into one of the downstairs bathrooms and slams the door shut.
It is fine, he tells himself, as he tugs on the drawstring of his linen shorts and shoves his boxers down to his tanned thighs (why are his hands shaking?). Pumps out a glob of the fancy lavender hand cream next to the soap and slicks up his palm (though he hardly needs it, his cock sticky and oozing cum already — Jesus). It is fine, he thinks, as he starts to take care of himself, one hand on the counter and his head bowed as he works as quickly and efficiently.
And it is fine that he comes in under a minute, the fastest since he was a teenager, maybe, with a whine that is heard only by the familiar pale blue tiles of the bathroom. Better, actually, that it is over with fast.
He only realises he has had his eyes squeezed shut the moment he opens them to see the copious white ropes he's spilled over his fist and the blue-tiled sink.
He blinks at his reflection for a moment — mouth open, eyes hazy, soft cock in hand. He looks wild. Frantic in a way that is… new. Colin Bridgerton does not do frantic. Colin Bridgerton does not do urgent. Colin Bridgerton is absent-minded with time. Misplaces months. Sits in the dark and watches the night sky while the years pass around him; does not fight with the seconds, his body racing urgently against the minute as his orgasm overtook him.
A bark of slightly hysterical laughter escapes him and shatters the strange wildness, the careening feeling that had overtaken him for a moment. He washes his hands and puts his mouth to the tap like a thirsty dog; rubs his wet hand on the back of his hot neck.
Colin is pretty familiar with his own sexual peccadilloes. He is handsome and charming — sex is readily and easily available to him. Sex of all types has been spread out for him like a buffet, and he has lazily, unhurriedly, sampled much of it. He can't say that this has ever happened to him, precisely, but he is not worried. Human sexuality is weird; these things happen (even though, again, this hasn't happened ever — getting so hard and wet that he thought he was going to pass out over a simple hug).
This is what he tells himself as he straightens his shorts and smooths down his curls in the mirror: Human sexuality is weird. These things happen. It is, surely, a one-off.
That evening after dinner he takes a big pile of his clothes to the laundry room. Living out of a backpack for months at a time, Colin has whittled his clothes down to the essentials. Each of his shirts is familiar as his own skin. As he carries it all over to the big washing machine, he notices the way his clothes smell — kind of like sun and a little of the weed he smokes too much of when he's travelling. None of the lilac and lavender of Aubrey Hall. Funny, really, how he couldn't smell himself until he was here. He supposes he must stick out like an olfactory sore thumb, a wrong note amongst all this floral. He wonders if that was what Pen could smell when he hugged her, while he was salivating over her sweat. He's not quite sure he likes that.
He bends to open the washing machine door but, with a grunt, he realises it's full of someone else's clothes (he supposes he is not the only sibling who brings their washing home for their mum to do). He dumps his stuff on the tiled floor and sits cross-legged in front of the machine, tentatively puts his hand inside to check what's going on in there. His fingers close around something damp and he grimaces until he is hit with that fucking smell again.
He's tugging the black fabric out of the drum before he can think. It's all tangled together, leggings and bra. Colin pulls them apart and with a raw sigh presses his nose into Penelope's sweaty sports bra. He's huffing deep before he knows what's happening, the heel of his hand pressing the damp fabric against his open mouth. He drags in slow, ragged breaths while his other hand fumbles with his shorts, heart racing.
His mind stutters to a stop while his body chases forward, the richness of her smell like a hand on his lower back. Shoving. His dick feels heavy, overly swollen in his hand as he starts to massage it, easing the little beads of precum from the engorged tip that are already starting to form. He watches them roll down his shaft and then collects them to lube himself up.
It would be bad — devastating, probably — if anyone should find him here, cross-legged, hunched over, Penelope's bra in his mouth as he sucks her sweat off the fabric, but the thought of stopping doesn't occur to him. He wonders if Anthony is right — that he is undisciplined. That he has spent the last ten years doing precisely as he likes, following his whims without limit, and now he cannot even stop himself in this. His life unbound, the night sky spiralling into massive nothingness.
He attempts it then. Experimentally he tells himself not to shove the sweaty crotch of her leggings against his face, to not fill his lungs with the scent of her hot pussy. He will not, he tells himself, and instead his fingers grasp at the dark fabric and wrap it around his cock. Better, he supposes dimly, and then he stops supposing anything as he imagines rubbing his cock over her plump pussy instead. Imagines it blazing hot, slick with sweat and cum, how her swollen lips would cradle his aching tip. How he might tease her until she was frowning prettily, her nails down his back. What sort of noises he could get her to make if he finally sank into her all at once, made her take it and —
Fuck, he's coming, coming, vision whiting at the edges as he paints her black leggings with his cum.
Fuck. Right on the crotch, too, over the little seam that makes him think of —
Quick as he can, he uses one of his dirty pairs of underwear to scrape off the cum. Then he throws the leggings and bra back into the washing machine and lobs a tablet in there. He pauses, and then lobs a second one in for good measure. Turns the machine on and tries to steady the knocking of his knees.
He abandons his own dirty laundry in a pile for the morning, and makes his escape, his body still woozy from the force of his orgasm as he slides the laundry room door open.
And finds himself staring into Penelope's blinking face.
"Oh!" she says softly, her wide eyes staring up at him prettily. Another hazard of her shortness. She's always looking up at him in a way that usually he can manage but right now feels unbearable. "I didn't think anyone would be in here — I have some stuff in the machine that I forgot to —"
Colin attempts to summon up his usual charming bravado. "Sorry. I, uh, had a load." He flinches and Penelope frowns. "To do. A load of laundry to do. But yours was —"
"Sorry, I'll take it out."
He shakes his head. "No. No. I started the cycle. Don't worry — I'll do mine in the morning."
Penelope stares at him as if he's grown an extra head. He supposes this is reasonable, given the usual flavour of their interactions. He teases her outrageously, flirtatiously; she huffs and scowls and blushes back at him. He enjoys it a lot and he thinks she does too. Never has he offered to do her washing or anything of that kind. A lot of firsts today, he supposes.
He watches her grasp for some response. "Okay, Mrs Tiggywinkle," she eventually manages, which makes him laugh properly for the second time that day.
"You're welcome," he says, with a genuine smile, and the pleasure of her laugh makes him forget for a moment the perverted sin he has just committed into her lululemons.
Colin lies in bed and thinks about Penelope, and he tells himself he will not touch himself again until the morning.
Of course it is not the first time he has come over her. Not something he does a lot, but she's a regular fixture with the family, given her and Eloise's closeness, so when he is home there is plenty of opportunity for fantasy. He is careful (usually), but she's so sexy. Pretty and lush and shy until she is provoked. Colin likes provoking her. Likes watching those two pink spots appear on her cheeks, watching her tits jiggle as she gets more and more frustrated. Likes how she'll snap at him, all her chocolate-box sweetness melting into sour candy.
It's never like this, though. He supposes he can blame the jetlag for the sleeplessness, but he doesn't know what to blame his erection on. All he can think about is how she smelled, and how she had looked up at him in the laundry room, and how he can engineer another hug from her. It is ridiculous, actually, and even if he let himself masturbate for a third time that day, he's not even sure he has enough in the tank to actually come. He gulps down water and lies in his bed and waits for sleep.
Sleep does not find him. He gives up when he starts to hear the dawn chorus. He gets out of bed, tucks his cock into the waistband of his boxers, and steps quietly through the house. He feels out of sorts (which isn't unusual when he's home, exactly), and he thinks looking at the sky might help him a bit. Might help him feel like the Colin in India and Argentina and Antigua. A man who could stare up at the sky peacefully while the world moved on without him. A man who was not tortured by his own erections.
It helps a bit. He takes a cup of coffee onto the patio and looks out across the rolling estate, the sky lit up pink and orange and even green in some places by the rising sun. His cock wilts as he watches the day form itself around him, birds singing sweetly.
"Shit."
Colin twists around in his chair and sees Penelope standing there in a new set of exercise clothes.
He almost laughs. She's wearing a matching set this time — a lilac bra and shorts. It's kind of obscene, the material clinging to all the little dimples on her thighs, and in his peripherals he can see how it moulds to the little cleft of her crotch. Jesus.
"It's Colin, actually," he says once he has recovered from the shock of seeing her. "What are you doing up this early?"
She rolls her eyes. "I was trying to get a run in before the day gets too hot," she says grimly. "And trying to maintain some of my dignity after yesterday."
"Yesterday?" Colin croaks, his hands gripping his mug tightly.
"Being all red and sweaty in front of you — in front of you all," she corrects. "It's humiliating enough running without your entire family watching me do it."
Colin shakes his head. "You looked fine," he says, and maybe she hears the lie in his voice but she reads it wrong — she snorts and starts to stretch out her quads.
"Whatever."
"I'll come with you."
She looks at him in astonishment and in truth Colin is just as surprised himself. He clears his throat and runs a hand through his curls.
"The jet lag is kicking my arse. A run will help." He gives her a smile with too many teeth, lazy, as though his heart isn't battering at his rib cage. "Tire me out, Featherington."
She's so flustered that she stutters out an okay. Colin legs it to his room and grabs a pair of socks. He realises then that the only shoes he has are leather sandals and walking boots, so he nicks Anthony's running trainers from the shoe rack (even though he's half a size smaller than Colin and the toes pinch).
Penelope raises an eyebrow at him. "You're going to run wearing that?" she asks dubiously.
Colin looks down at his ensemble (ratty T-shirt; loose cotton boxers; his brother's too-small trainers). He shrugs. "This is what peak athletic performance looks like, Penelope."
She rolls her eyes, cheeks sucked in to hide her laugh. Then she frowns. "I don't go very fast," she warns him. "Or very far."
Colin doesn't want to tell her that he's only here to try to get another whiff of her and maybe perv at her pussy in those cute little shorts. So he shrugs again. "I don't care. It'll just be good to move."
It turns out she wasn't kidding about the far or fast. She runs in fits and starts, frequently slowing to a walk to catch her breath before she kicks back up to speed again with a groan. They don't talk much either — Colin tries a couple of times but she's too out of breath to answer. Colin doesn't care, too busy sneaking sidelong glances at her tits bouncing. They do a loop around the gardens and into the copse of trees at the edge of the north lawn where the trail narrows out. That's Colin's favourite, because he has to run behind her and he can watch the large globes of her arse fighting each other in those tight, thin little shorts. As they go a little dark stain appears between the seam of her cheeks, a growing line of sweat than Colin wants to put his nose to and hoover up. He feels his dick twitch with interest and he feels sort of as though she has some sort of leash around him, following her helplessly through the dappled trees.
The further they go the more her skin begins to bead and sheen, blotched patches of red appearing on her arms and thighs. He feels like he starts to smell her but it's hard to tell in the warm green sunrise — it might be the earth and roots they are running over.
When they make it back up to the house, Penelope collapses into one of the patio chairs, her chest heaving and her body flushed red all over.
"That was horrible," she grimaces.
"Was it?" Colin frowns, raising his arms above his head and stretching in the sunlight.
"Running is always horrible." He wants to ask her so why are you doing it then but she's glaring at him with barely concealed dismay. "You aren't out of breath at all. You've hardly broken a sweat."
"Sorry?" he offers but she just pouts.
She gets to her feet with a deep groan. "Ugh. I better go shower."
Colin's heart starts to race in a way that has nothing to do with the run. "Not yet," he tells her desperately. "Let's have some coffee first. Enjoy the quiet before the rabble comes and spoils it."
She hesitates, but he takes her hand and tugs her towards the patio doors to the kitchen. "Come on, Pen."
She doesn't argue after that.
The kitchen is, of course, massive, but Colin finds ways to be close to her. She is delightfully pliant — lets him put his hands on her hips to shift her out of the way of the fridge; crowds her against the surfaces as he leans up to get the mugs out. Places her little hands on the steamer wand and milk jug while he puts a sugar in her cup. Her smell is intoxicating this close, tart and fresh and filthy all at once, and while she's busy warming the milk he tucks his half-erect cock back into his waistband. He feels dizzy, addicted, easing himself as close as he can and sucking down deep, heady breaths of her.
They sit at the kitchen island together. Penelope has gone kind of wide-eyed in a way that engenders a deep satisfaction in him and a sort of protectiveness that he hasn't felt in a while. He can't help shifting his stool closer to hers, leaning on the countertop on one elbow and twisting so he can look at her properly.
And they start to talk.
Colin can't admit to having spent much time in conversation with Penelope. Usually their interactions are limited to his flirting and her blushing; him trying not to look at her tits. An oversight on his part, Colin thinks as he watches her speak. She is clever and wry and funny, and she gets the sweetest little pink spots on her cheeks when she's animated about something. Maybe it's just the intoxication of her scent, or the semi straining at his boxers clouding his judgement, but somehow two hours pass just looking at her.
It's a much, much better way to misplace time than staring at the stars, Colin thinks.
He runs with her every morning for a week. He feels that he is a cartoon character and she is the freshly baked pie on the windowsill, her scent making him levitate along behind her (the image makes him laugh — he jots it down in one of the many dog-eared notebooks that contain half-formed scribbles that will one day comprise his "book").
It would be fine, Colin thinks. The erections and the feeling that there is a rope around his neck dragging him towards her. He could manage it all if it weren't for the fucking dreams.
Wet dreams. Wet fucking dreams. He is thirty years old, he thinks to himself after he wakes up on another morning with his boxers damp, glued to his balls. This should not be happening.
The dreams are torturous, wonderful, depraved — and they are all about her. Penelope, Penelope, Penelope. He dreams of falling to his knees in the forest where they run and eating her out while the greenery covers their heads, growing over them in a viney cocoon. He dreams of bending her over the kitchen counters, though in the dream they transform around him into the estancia in Argentina, and Penelope's scent blends with the smells of the earth and the hay and the animals. The worst — most embarrassing, maybe — is that he dreams of simply kissing her. Sitting on his bed with her sweet little face in his hands and kissing her slowly, her rich scent surrounding them.
Even that is enough to make him come, apparently.
He spends half his days in the laundry room, which doesn't make things easier, because Penelope's always washing her running gear. He is not proud of it, but often he will sit on the cool tiles and jerk off with her sweaty tops in his mouth or her bras wrapped around his cock, the soft fabric brushing against his balls as he comes. Another load of laundry, then — his lungs filled with the smell of her scent and his cum and the detergent.
He draws a line for himself: he will not sniff her underwear or leggings, no matter how much he wants to. He sometimes catches a little hint of her scent there when she is stretching or as she gets down from her chair and it is utterly dizzying, drugging. Makes him instantly so hard that his vision blurs. He draws the line like a fence around his own sanity but it has the opposite effect. Like a child being denied sweets, he wants it all the more. His dreams become vivid, visceral, nose buried in pretty red curls, warm and damp, the taste on his tongue so salt-sweet that he wakes up drooling. He watches her sweaty little arse jiggling as they run and imagines holding her open and pressing his mouth between her cheeks, too. Once — just once! — he bends to sniff the chair she has recently vacated to see if any of the smell lingers (Eloise caught him and he had to pretend he dropped something and was bending to pick it up).
At the end of the first week, he steals a T-shirt from the laundry room.
He has to spend a guilty hour going through laundry with her looking for it, but he supposes it is better he does this than enact any of his dreams. A concession to the obsession that he hopes will ease some of the madness. It doesn't, of course, though it is sublime getting to suck the armpits into his mouth while he masturbates; he cleans himself up with the cotton so he can smell what it'll be like when he comes inside of her.
He has never felt like this before. Colin likes sex — a very good way to lose time, generally speaking. But he can't really say that he ever feels much connection to his sexual partners beyond the physical. If he is honest, he often feels that he cannot connect with anyone, sexually or otherwise, but he feels utterly bound up in Penelope. The more time he spends trying to keep her in his company in order to sniff her, like some deranged and perverted Scheherazade, the more entranced he finds himself by her. Not just her big tits and arse and gorgeous cherubic face, not just the scent that drives him to utter distraction. It is her.
She is interesting; she intrigues him in ways he is unfamiliar with. He finds himself lingering — not just to sniff her chair. Each second he is in her company, it is though he can feel each and every breath. Counts them greedily, a mad king counting his treasure, another breath with Penelope clutched close to his chest. He feels entirely within his body — odd, because he had not quite realised he was without it before now. He wonders if this is how he is supposed to feel (if this is how everyone feels all the time) this agonising present-ness, feeling each ecstatic breath as it is drawn into his lungs, cataloguing the colours of her skin as he watches her drink her coffee. The seconds move through him, raking their way along his body as he waits for her next joke, her next laugh.
Has he been asleep for the past decade? Has Penelope woken him up?
"I wish you wouldn't encourage her," Eloise tells him under her breath.
"Encourage what?" Colin asks, his eyes on Penelope's retreating form as she leaves the kitchen for her post-run shower. He winces as Eloise bangs the coffee arm against the bin to shake free the old grounds.
"The running. She always gets like this after she spends a lot of time with her family." Eloise glares at him, but the effect is spoiled by the fact that she's wearing pyjamas covered in bows. "She always starts a new diet or Pilates or some bullshit. It only lasts a couple of weeks but…" Eloise sighs and rubs her eyes. "I hoped she would have given it up by now. I don't want to go back to London with her waking up at the crack of dawn to go on a fucking run."
Colin frowns into his coffee. He has been wondering about this — Penelope's favourite part of their run each morning has seemed to be the moment they stop. He asked her once why she did it if she hated it so much but she'd just shrugged, too out of breath to answer him.
"I didn't know that," he says quietly, but he feels like he has a thorn in his side. It aches unpleasantly.
"Hm. Weird, considering how much time you two have been spending together," Eloise says sourly, her eyes still puffy with sleep.
Colin ignores that. Ignores the way his cheeks flame up (which — Colin does not blush. He does not understand what she is doing to him). "When are you going back to London?" he asks instead.
Eloise swears as she burns herself on the milk wand. Colin gets up with a sigh and nudges her out of the way so he can do it for her.
"In two days," she tells him, and manages to remove the scowl from her face long enough to thank him for the cappuccino.
The thorn in his side turns sharp, as though Eloise has taken a butter knife from the drawer and rammed it into his ribs. Two days! Two mornings left to press close, to watch her thighs rub together as she runs; to put his hand on the small of her back to guide her into the cool kitchen. Two more nights of sleeping with her T-shirt under his pillow and his cock leaking helplessly at the scent. Two days. Fuck.
Penelope will go to London, and Colin will go… where? Also to London feels like the clearest answer, but he hasn't spent more than a month in the U.K. in years. He's got a flight to Hanoi booked in a week, but every time he thinks about it his chest feels tight, his throat closing.
He doesn't touch himself that night. Tries to control it. What's he going to do, fly all the way to Vietnam and spend the entire time in his hotel room jerking off over this twenty-five-year-old angel who he cannot fucking have? He needs to develop some control. Some discipline. So he tries meditation and mindfulness, tries to count up all the cities he has ever gone to in his head, tries to ignore his throbbing, angry cock.
It doesn't work, and he barely sleeps, and he has to have a freezing shower before meeting Penelope downstairs for their run. It mostly scares away the erection, but it can't chase off the unpleasant feeling in his chest.
"What's wrong with you?" Penelope asks right away, because she always seems to be able to spot his moods.
"You're leaving," he says by accident. He hates how whiny his voice is, a dog begging for treats.
Penelope studies his face for a moment silently, that little crease between her brows. "You'll live," she decrees.
Will I? he wants to ask. He doesn't though, and they start their run.
He lopes behind her even though his legs itch to go faster. To run out some of this gloom that sticks to his chest. But he wants to watch her, drink her down. And yet even though his gaze roves over every inch, the tremble of her shaking thighs and the rolls on her back and the sweat that glistens on her shoulders, his thirst is not slaked. He runs closer to her than he should, his lungs grasping for glimpses of her scent, and though his growing hardness is uncomfortable to run with, the pain matches the dark feelings in his chest and he does nothing to push it away. Moves closer. Breathes deeper.
He wants her. There are so, so many reasons he can't have her. Aren't there? Are there?
As he runs, the dawning sun fills up his veins, pressing on his skin like fingers, and he wonders if he is losing his mind. He has never felt like this, this desperate and needy, like his skin is cracking and the stuff of him might come spilling out. It's only been two weeks and the thought of giving her up is like agony, vivid and wet and bruising. Colin is a shark — has to keep moving or he'll die — but all he wants now is to stop. Stop moving. Stop fucking running. Take her in his arms and tell her he wants her. That she's the most interesting person he's ever met. That he stole her T-shirt and it's practically stiff with his cum and he's never giving it back, not ever.
He hardly dares speak once they make it back to the house, afraid that if he does he'll say something really fucking stupid. He tries to cling to the minutes but they slip through his fingers like water, and for the first time in his life Colin doesn't want to lose time. Wants to savour every second with her, and as each one melts away he wants to cry or scream or drop to his knees and cling to her, beg her not to leave, beg her to take him with her.
"Are you alright?" Penelope asks, frowning at him when he doesn't start crowding her, touching her up unnecessarily to make her coffee, and it makes him feel like he's going to die that she's grown to expect it. That is what he wants. He wants to sit at her side and listen to her talk and make her coffee and sniff her fucking armpits. Wants to finally get to press his face into her little pussy. Fuck — he feels himself hardening again, his vision swimming.
She's twenty-five. She's Eloise's best friend. He's supposed to be in Hanoi. There are a million reasons why they shouldn't be together, but as he looks down at her, craning his neck so he can gaze into her pretty little face, the rich sweetness of her sweat filling his mouth, those reasons don't seem important anymore. All he wants is more of these seconds, clutched to his chest.
"Pen," he says, and he steps towards her, his voice hoarse. "There's something I've been meaning to ask you."
"Yeah?"
He's going to say it — he cannot say it — he has to — her mouth is so pretty like this, pouting open all lush and glossy, her eyes so blue that looking into them feels like skydiving, falling through blue air without a parachute (he did that once, sky-diving in New Zealand, so he knows) — his throat feels swollen and his heart feels swollen and his dick feels swollen — he is going mad, probably — she is frowning and shrugging and leaving and he has not said a word, not a word, and tomorrow she will be gone and he will be alone, alone with the night sky and the missing months and he can't, he doesn't want to keep moving, he wants her —
He takes a step, then another, and then he is running through the quiet, sleeping house, his heart kicking violently in his throat.
His legs take the stairs two at a time and he finds her in the hallway outside of her room, her hand on the door.
"Pen," he whispers into the dark corridor. He doesn't know who else is sleeping in this wing of the house but he doesn't want to risk waking them. She pauses and half-twists to look at him, confusion across her beautiful red face.
"Colin?"
Colin's legs sort of kick and tremble and give out as he gets closer. He drops heavily to his knees in front of her with a painful thwunk against the polished wooden floors and the Persian runner. His arms hang uselessly at his side and he gazes up at her, his tongue working against the roof of his mouth.
"What the fuck," she mutters, her eyes wide and her already-pink cheeks stained like blushing petals. On his knees he is sure he can smell her more deeply, smell the sweetness pooling between her thighs, darkening her leggings. He's also fairly sure he's visibly hard now because her eyes drop downwards and her mouth pops open and she blinks over and over, her throat rippling as she swallows; he doesn't fucking care.
"Pen," he breathes, his voice quiet and rasping. "I don't want to go to Vietnam."
"Okay…" she says slowly, her hand still on the brass doorknob. "So, don't?"
Colin shakes his head, cursing himself silently. "No. Fuck. I mean — I'm fucked. You've fucked me up."
Her head rears back in affront and she scowls. "I've done nothing —"
"No," he says, but it comes out more like a whine. He is so, so bad at this — he's never done it before, he supposes. He sits back on his heels and his shoulders sag. "I can't sleep. I can't — I stole your T-shirt and I've been sleeping with it under my fucking pillow, Penelope."
"Oh. Oh."
"Yeah," he nods, and he gulps, and tentatively, experimentally, reaches out to place his hands lightly on her hips. Penelope stiffens but she doesn't pull away, even when his thumbs slide over the patch of bare skin between her leggings and her bra top. She is so soft there that he groans, his body shaking as he holds himself back from pressing his face to her crotch. "Yeah. I feel crazy. I — I want you so, so badly. I just — I need to eat your pussy, Penelope."
Fuck.
Not what he meant to say, but it's out now. And it's true, isn't it? At least he said something.
"What?"
It chokes out of her in a squawk. Colin licks his lips, his heart racing faster than the seconds, beating the clock.
"Please," he breathes, and he supposes there is no point fighting it now; no Colin performance to put on, no dissembling or hiding or pretending. There is only this: Colin on his knees, begging his little sister's best friend for pussy. He shuffles closer to her, his eyes gazing up at her imploringly, pathetically. "Please, please, please. It's all I've been able to think about. Please let me. Please."
Penelope looks shocked, which he can't blame her for — but not disgusted, which is encouraging. "But…" she says faintly. "I haven't showered."
God. "No," he whispers, and his fingertips slide very, very hesitantly over the waistband of her leggings, sliding just under the thick fabric. He has never felt precisely this humiliated before — and yet nor has he ever felt this alive. "Exactly. I know. That's what I want."
"Oh."
"Please." It comes out in a whimper and he can't help it — his forehead drops against her belly, prostrating himself before her as he breathes hard and fast.
There is a long, excruciating pause in which Colin contemplates the best methods for suicide — and then he feels her fingers wind through his hair. Nails over his scalp, sending electric currents down his spine. She pets him like that for a moment, and then her grip tightens and she drags his head back with enough force that it stings, his eyes watering as he blinks up at her. She looks down at him with dark, commanding eyes, like some sweaty, pink-cheeked god, and then she gives him a little nod.
"Okay."
"Fuck —"
He wastes no time, his fingers groping for the door handle at her back. It opens and Penelope stumbles backwards and Colin almost falls flat on his face, but he doesn't care. He gets to his feet and shuts the door and then she is in his arms and he is kissing her.
Has he ever kissed anyone before? Whatever he was doing before this can hardly be called kissing, can it? Because it never felt like this: hungry and grateful all at once, smearing sloppy, desperate kisses against her pouting lips, his heart cantering like a spooked horse. He gathers her to him, one hand palming handfuls of whatever flesh he can grab while the other cups her throat like he might lose her if he doesn't. She makes all these nice, soft unhh noises as he touches her, her fingers winding into his T-shirt for ballast while he kisses her until he is utterly senseless.
"You smell," he tells her, between sucking her tongue and biting on her lower lip, "so fucking good."
She kind of sags in his arms then, before kissing him back so fiercely he thinks he might tear a hole through his shorts.
"How do you want to do it?" he asks eventually, when the ache and leak become too much to bear. "Anyway you want."
She pauses, drawing back and biting her lip in a way that makes him groan and dig his fingers into the plushness of her arse. Her mouth is all swollen and glistening with his saliva, her eyes hazy and bright at once.
"From behind?" she says tentatively, and Colin groans again. She is perfect, isn't she?
"Fuck, yes. Yes, yes, yes. Whatever you want."
Penelope gives him a shy sort of smile and goes over to the bed, her fingers hooking into her leggings and tugging them down to her thighs as she bends over.
Colin's legs give out for the second time. He crawls over to her, heart in his mouth, and kneels behind her. She's beautiful, her plump arse so pretty and dimpled, lined all over with these gorgeous, stripey stretch marks he can't help but trace softly with his fingers (she sighs prettily when he does that, trembling a little). And fuck, fuck, there's her sweet little pussy nestled beneath, so pink and lush and winking at him. Even cuter than he imagined, plump and neat and glossy, surrounded by her damp red curls.
And her fucking smell. Salt and earth, so bright and sharp and sweet all at once. His mouth waters and his cock throbs painfully and he takes in a big, sucking sniff.
"Oh my god," Penelope murmurs, her voice muffled by her duvet.
Colin nudges her leggings down to her knees (but doesn't take them off — he kind of likes that she's a little trapped, a little at his mercy — he is sick) and then lets his fingers dig into the abundant flesh of her arse-cheeks, dragging them apart so he can see her better, smell her better. He sort of falls forward then, face first into her cunt, and with all her wet, sticky skin cradling him he begins to breathe her in.
Fuck. It's heaven, actually. He would die happily like this — he might already be dead, in fact, because surely this is too sweet, too perfect, for real life. He awkwardly grinds the heel of his hand into his shorts and half-suffocates himself in Penelope's pussy, his nose practically pressed into her hole.
"Colin," she whines — right, yes, he promised her he would eat it, didn't he? He can't just kneel here and sniff like some six-foot dog. He moves his hands back to her arse and starts to knead her, his thumbs peeling her flushed lips open so he can drag his tongue from her clit to her hole in one broad swipe. Then another, and another, forcing himself to go slow so he can work out what she likes, what makes her shiver and keen and kick a little. She's so responsive, so sensitive that he has to go carefully even though he wants to suck her entire pussy into his mouth. The taste of her is maddening, enragingly delicious, even better than her leggings smelled and her bra tasted — eventually he can't help himself and just starts to lap at her hole directly while his fingers gently rub her clit. He needs as much of her against his tongue as possible.
Heaven. Especially because his nose is buried against her arse like this and he can breathe her in deep here, too (which he hadn't even really considered properly — a huge oversight, he now realises). He feels astoundingly perverted but he has never given less of a fuck about anything in his life. All he cares about is Penelope's next sigh and moan, about the soft give of her body under his hands. He nuzzles a little against her hole and she lets out this high-pitched sort of whimper and her hips push back.
She likes it. She fucking likes it. God, she's perfect.
"Pen," he murmurs, pulling back from her pussy and watching a glistening strand of his spit or her cum stretch from his mouth to her hole. "Pen, I'm going to lick you here now, okay?" He sounds drunk. He might be.
"Yeah," she sips in breathily, arse wriggling against the bed. "Please."
"Fuck." And he presses his tongue against her arse.
He maybe blacks out a little. All the blood from his head rushes to his cock so quickly that his vision gets a little blurry. Time gets away from him as he kneels on the floor and plays with her soft, swollen little clit and hazily, devotedly eats Penelope Featherington's arse. He only comes to when he realises she is shaking hard and pushing her hips back rhythmically and repeating his name over and over in this tremulous little voice. He tries to concentrate then, because he doesn't want to miss a second of her orgasm.
It is, predictably, beautiful — she shoves her face into the duvet and moans as it happens, her tight little hole clenching around his tongue and her cunt drenching his hand. She's a fucking squirter —
"I'm gonna fucking —" Colin yanks her leggings off and arranges her so she's sat on the edge of the bed with her legs spread, her shining pussy swollen and spread for him. He's got about seven seconds before he comes and he needs, he needs —
"Take your bra off," he begs, shoving his shorts to his knees and hissing as he touches his sopping, oversensitized cock. She blinks at him in a daze but obeys, tugging her sports bra over her head so her big tits flop free. They hang heavy and perfect, tipped with perfect pink nipples that Colin wraps his mouth around as soon as he can. She squeals as he nestles between her legs and sucks, squeezing his cock hard at the base so he doesn't come right away.
It takes an embarrassingly short time for him to come after that. He wanks between her legs, his face pressed into her tits and then her belly and finally her armpit, nuzzling deep into the soft hair (she doesn't shave them — he is, he thinks, quite possibly in love with her) as he whines and shivers and tugs himself off. Penelope sits there, naked and perfect, and lets him embarrass himself for about two minutes until he comes with a choked whimper into his palm. It is about as hard as he has ever come in his life, the night sky exploding into fire, and when it is over he collapses against her, his sweaty forehead pressed to the cradle of her soft tit.
He looks up at her in astonishment, and he must look utterly ridiculous, on his knees staring at her with a handful of his own jizz, because she starts laughing and flops back onto the bed with a hand over her mouth.
Colin tries not to grimace as he shuffles over to the bedside table and snatches a few tissues to clean himself up with. Something is sinking in his chest, a ship slowly disappearing beneath the waves.
"That was insane."
"Was it?" he asks weakly, as he drags himself up onto the bed beside her. She's stretched out naked and beautiful, her skin flushed and glowing. She looks like a painting and he wants to skim his hand lovingly over her every curve, but he feels uncertain. She's still sort of giggling and he feels a little queasy.
"No-one has ever eaten my ass before," Penelope informs him.
"You're welcome," he mutters, something twisting uncomfortably in his stomach.
"I really liked it." She presses her hands to her eyes. "That was so crazy. I cannot believe I just hooked up with my best friend's brother."
No. Nope. Fuck that.
He grabs one of her wrists and drags it away from her face. "Listen, Pen. I really, really like you," he tells her, his voice low and frank. "This isn't a hook-up."
Penelope's face falls. She props herself up on her elbows and stares at him. She looks so pretty after an orgasm, all pink and swollen and plump all over, as if the pleasure has expanded inside of her. He wants to give her about fifty more. "Oh. It isn't?"
He shakes his head firmly. He is filled with a kind of beautiful clarity, the first of its kind. Purpose, something previously unknown to Colin Bridgerton, brims within him. "No. I'm afraid not. I'm not getting my plane to Hanoi. I am staying here and I am going to take you on a date." He tries to think of the last time he actually took someone on a date and fails. "Lots of dates, actually. Oh," he adds. "And I'm going to fuck you."
"Oh." She frowns. "Are you sure?"
He almost laughs. "Yeah. Yes. I'm sure." He lays a tentative hand over her breast, cupping her softly. She melts under his touch, stretching back out on the bed. "I've thought about you non-stop these past two weeks. I came on your sweaty leggings, Pen."
Her eyes widen. "You what?"
He nods. He feels almost serene, actually. "I snuck into the laundry room and wrapped your sweaty leggings around my cock and jerked off into them. And then I put them in the wash. So, like." He shrugs. "Yeah. I am sure, Pen. I feel sort of obsessed with you."
"But…" Her frown deepens, though she has not run screaming from his confession. "You're Colin Bridgerton."
"And you're perfect." Carefully, slowly, he runs his hands down to the pretty pout of her belly. She is delicate and soft here. "All of you. Just as you are." He says it lightly, experimentally, thinking of what Eloise had told him.
Her eyes turn a bit swimmy and she nods; swallows. "Yeah. Yeah." She looks up at the ceiling. "I really hate running, Colin."
She sounds so dramatically mournful that he can't help but laugh. He pets her belly with a kind of overwhelming fondness. "Then I don't think you should do it anymore."
Penelope turns her giant blue fucking skydiving eyes on him. "You neither," she tells him.
He swallows, his throat suddenly thick. No more moving; no more running.
"Yeah," he says, and his eyes prickle strangely. "Me neither."