Lone Star Lovers

Her date’s face darkened. Pen looked away from his intense stare. Diners quietly chatted at their tables, points of candlelight dotting the dimly lit room, mimicking the city lights outside the windows. The blue sky had gone black.

“Long story short, he went from involved to over-involved. I found out he’d been meeting with my clients in my place, cashing their checks and never following through. He left the city with a lot of my money after destroying my hard-won reputation. I didn’t want to leave Chicago, but I didn’t want to stay, either.”

“Why Dallas?”

“A college friend of mine started an organic cosmetic company. She lives here and needed help maintaining her pure reputation in the face of a nasty divorce. So she hired me.”

“And you stayed.”

“I did.”

They shared a silent moment. Pen wondered if he was thinking what she was thinking—that had it not been for her friend Miranda’s phone call, Pen and Zach may never have seen each other again.

“It’s a beautiful city.” Pen swallowed some more wine, smoothly changing the subject.

“You’re beautiful in it.”

See? When he said things like that, she forgot all about her past and her rules and her personal struggles.

She forgot everything—including her promise to herself about not letting a client get too close. Especially a male client.

The waiter approached after they’d finished their plates.

“Madame, sir,” the older man greeted, hands clasped in front of him. “Might I interest you in our fine dessert selections, or perhaps a glass of port wine or coffee?”

“No,” Zach answered for them. “We’ll pay and be on our way. My compliments to the chef.”

“Such a gentleman,” Pen teased.

“I grew up right.” He leaned over the table and then, tossing the idea of his humble upbringing on its ear, took her hand and murmured, “I’m making you my dessert, tonight.”

* * *

“Your post-dessert dessert.” Zach’s hand appeared from behind Pen, a glass of port wine in his grip. “It’s a tawny, which I prefer. That bit of vanilla goes a long way.”

She accepted the miniature wineglass and a kiss to her cheek. Zach rounded the enormous brown leather couch wearing nothing at all, another miniature glass dwarfed in his large hand.

Pen wasn’t wearing anything, either, but had curled up in a blanket she’d found tossed over his ottoman. A blanket she now opened to include Zach. He accepted, cradling one of her breasts and delivering a tender kiss to the side of her mouth.

They’d stepped foot in his expansive apartment and stripped off each other’s clothes in record time. She hadn’t so much as seen the bedroom yet, though she did make a quick stop to the bathroom. Zach’s apartment was a manly array of exposed brick, lights suspended from long, metal rods, his furniture deep browns and grays. The overall vibe was more industrial than rustic, yet had warmth that mirrored the owner himself.

She sipped the super-sweet wine, savoring the vanilla notes that Zach mentioned and quirking her lips at the way her dress had been haphazardly tossed over a chair along with Zach’s discarded suit. Their shoes made a line from the foyer to the living room, the first articles of clothing they’d kicked off.

“You have a really nice apartment.”

“Thanks.”

“No billionaire mansion for you?”

“Nah, that’s Chase’s style.”

“What about Stef? Does she tend toward high-rise apartment or sprawling mansion with horses and twenty-two bathrooms?”

“See, you think you’re being cute, but my parents’ house has twenty-two bathrooms.”

“I know.” She sipped her wine and peered over the tiny rim at Zach. “I looked them up and their house was in Architectural Digest. It’s incredible.”

“It’s ridiculous. But my mother likes to redecorate. With thirty-seven thousand square feet, she’s never at a loss for a room to have painted or altered to her ever-changing preferences.”

Zach leaned back on the sofa, his arm draped around Pen. She snuggled closer and he adjusted the blanket to cover them both.

“Do you get along with them? Or are you the classically overlooked middle child?”

A low laugh that might have been confirmation bobbed his throat. “I get along with them. I joke about my mother’s frivolity, but she’s a great mother. My dad became sick and her world stopped on a dime.”

“How is he now?”

“Good. Misses his bacon and sausage.”

“And strip steaks?” she teased.

“It’s Dallas, sweetheart. Men eat steak.”

“Right. Heaven forbid you do something as effeminate as not eat a cow.” She grinned, liking the way she could volley back at him. He was one of the easiest people she’d ever been around.

He moved in on her again and the kiss lasted a little longer than either of them intended. “Glad you packed a bag, Penelope Brand.”

Her heart kicked into overdrive when Zach set aside his wine and took her wineglass from her hand. His insistent kisses peppered down her throat and collarbone. When he reached her stomach, his hand flattened on the space between her breasts and he pushed her to her back.

Then he lifted one of her legs onto his shoulder and made her dessert.

Again.

Seven (#uabe5f72d-6942-5069-a507-4b21679a60ea)

“Tell me everything,” Miranda’s bubbly voice, on speakerphone, filled Pen’s office.

Pen had called her friend to thank her for the generous basket she was now digging through. She pulled out a tube of lipstick and spun it to examine the lush red color.

“I love this lipstick. ‘Red Rum,’” she read off the bottom of the tube with a laugh. Sassy. That was Miranda.

“It’s long-wearing, not tested on animals and one hundred percent organic. Now, if you don’t tell me everything about the man you’ve been having sex with for the last month, I’m going to come to your office with torture implements.”

She laughed at her friend’s colorful description. Pen had casually mentioned Zach and that she’d been seeing him.

“It was supposed to be one night, and then we had a two-week gap.” She lifted the basket from her desk and put it on the couch. She was so giving herself a makeover later. “But when I saw him again at the mayor’s party, well... I couldn’t help starting up with him again.”

“And you ended up engaged! It’s a fairy tale. It’s a fantasy!”