Chapter Four
P enny stayed up late that night to finish one of the more difficult editing assignments she’d taken on. Everybody thought they were writers these days.
They poured their life stories into their laptops, paid an editor, a cover artist, and a formatter, and then stuck it up on Amazon. And those who didn’t write stories were philosophers, people with deep, intense, profound messages they thought everyone needed to hear.
With hopes and dreams of saving the world with their sermons, they paid people like Penny to clean it up so it could be packaged and marketed and listed with all the other books just like it in the vast marketplace of the internet.
Most never sold more than a hundred copies. Many never sold more than ten.
But people had dreams and she would do her best to help make them come true. Within reason. She wasn’t a miracle worker, after all.
She preferred suspense and coming of age. Edgy stories written in a powerful voice.
She hated the romance novels. She used to enjoy them, before… They contained too much hope for her now-jaded outlook on life.
Penny couldn’t appreciate hope. She’d hoped once, and look where that had gotten her.
Looking at her screen, the memory of the afternoon’s… encounter prevented her from accomplishing much of anything. Despite the countless times she’d pushed it aside, she couldn’t help conjuring up what had happened with Chaz…
…over and over again.
Well, not with Chaz.
They’d not done anything together – not really. In fact, he’d been very much alone and she’d been… She didn’t like to think about the truth of what she’d done.
She’d invaded his privacy. She’d… Oh, hell.
She would never look into his room again.
Ever.
Except… she wasn’t hurting anybody, was she? They’d both been doing some serious fantasizing. It surprised her that such a good looking guy had to resort to, er, taking care of himself that way.
Surely, any woman he wanted would willingly take care of his needs! He was a pilot, after all.
While Kent had been in medical school, Penny had tended bar at one of the hotels out by the airport.
She’d learned to spot pilots from a mile away. They carried themselves with a certain swagger, an arrogance, unlike other mere mortal men.
And military pilots. They were the worst.
She wondered why she hadn’t pegged Chaz as a pilot before he’d told her. It must have been his injury. It had robbed him of his normal cockiness.
But then she laughed out loud. Of course! Recalling how his fingers had dipped into the back of her shorts. And then the second time, putting his hand on her backside had been no accident!
Definitely a pilot move.
So much sexual confidence!
Her resolve to ignore the window was fading fast. It was right there! Just a few feet from her desk! No, Penny. No!
She subtracted seven commas from the last page, reformatted a paragraph, and then clicked save. It was a relief to be done with this one. It had been rough.
Closing her laptop, she stretched and glanced at the clock; 2:49 in the morning.
Over the past few months, caught up in her isolated lifestyle, time had ceased to matter. She ate when she was hungry, slept when she was tired, and did other things… well, when she wanted to.
Surprisingly, it wasn’t her vibrator beckoning her tonight.
She clicked the overhead light off but then tiptoed back inside the room, to the window.
Lamplight glowed from across the way.
His sleep schedule was apparently as messed up as hers.
Missing a beat, her heart responded when the door swung open and he stepped into his room. He must have woken up to get something to eat, or go to the bathroom maybe, but as he entered, she could see his face.
And without warning, his eyes caught hers. Should she run? But no! That would be even worse.
He lifted one hand and waved. Penny froze. What should she do? Holy crap!
Caught in the act.
Even using one hand, he had no difficulty sliding his window open. Was he going to confront her for watching him?
She had to do something. She was a fricking adult, for Pete’s sake.
It was nothing. She was just looking outside, looking at the … moon?
Penny pulled on the blind string and pushed her curtains out of the way. She couldn’t very well ignore him now!
She opened her window, all the while hoping he didn’t intend to call the cops. “Hey,” he said.
He didn’t speak loudly; in fact, his voice was little more than a whisper.
“Hey,” she said back. “Trouble sleeping?
She pulled up a stool so she could peek out without bending over.
He sat down, too. There must be a bench there that she’d not seen. “Sleeping too much in the daytime – Vicodin. What’s your excuse?”
Penny tucked her knees under her chin.
What was her excuse? That she’d stopped living like a normal person? That she’d given up on life when her marriage fell apart? “I don’t know.” She’d not meant to sound forlorn. “Just kind of messed up, I guess…”
He rested his arm along the sill. The darkness lent an intimacy she’d not felt with him in the car.
“How come you’re messed up?” His voice rumbled across the darkness. The low-pitched gravelly tones surprisingly soothed her.
With the lamplight behind him, she couldn’t make out his features any longer.
And that had been a loaded question. “I kind of, well, I guess I’ve sort of lost track of… stuff… since my marriage fell apart.” She’d lost her dignity, her pride, her self-worth… Why would she tell him this?
“How come your marriage fell apart?”
This night was beginning to feel surreal. His question didn’t make her squirm. It just felt like she was talking to a sympathetic voice in the darkness, in the night. If felt safe.
“He cheated.” But there was more to it. “We’d drifted apart before that. And I didn’t do anything to try to fix things. I guess I kind of just thought our marriage would fix itself.”
“But it didn’t.”
“No.” She’d not wanted to accept any of the blame though. Kent had been the one to break the vows they’d made to one another. He’d met somebody else, wooed her, and then brought her into Penny’s own bed.
“He slept with her. I caught them. And her butt was on my pillow!”
That really bothered her. Nearly as much as the fact that she’d discovered her husband having sex with another woman in their bed. The fact that he’d not respected Penny enough to keep his mistress’ butt off her pillow!
Chaz wasn’t laughing. Maybe, by some strange freak of nature, he understood why that would hurt.
Or maybe he’d think she was crazy.
“Man, that does suck.” He understood! This almost brought tears to her eyes. Such a simple statement.
“Right?”
“I mean, your face was on that pillow, right?”
“Yes!” Oh, bless his heart.
“And this was the man who should have respected, should have thought about how that would make you feel. It would have meant he was at least a little remorseful.”
“Yes!” Oh, God, she was pathetic. “Sorry to dump all this on you… You probably want to get back to sleep.”
“No.” She could barely make out that little hitch in his smile. “I want to talk to you.”
“Why?” She couldn’t help but ask. She knew she wasn’t a total uggo but, heck, she’d forgotten what it felt like to have a man even pretend to find her attractive. And flirting? What was that?
“Can’t you figure that out?” The quality of his voice changed. The rumble goaded her.
It sent a thrill down her spine.
“Are you flirting with me?”
Sexy male laughter drifted through her window. “Would you like that?”
How did this work? Was she supposed to admit that she would? That she’d like more than that? “I did mention I’m thirty-six, didn’t I?”
“And I told you age didn’t matter, didn’t I?” he countered.
“Doesn’t matter for what?” she dared to ask.
“All sorts of things. If my touch makes you shiver, does it matter if I’m twenty-five or fifty? If you get butterflies when I kiss you, does it matter what year I was born? If I can make you want me, does anything else really matter at all?”
He shouldn’t say this stuff to her. He should be scared to death that she might jump across the space between the windows and attack him. “Shouldn’t it?” She barely managed to get the words out.
“Life’s short, Penny.” His voice sounded sad and serious and wise… like that look she’d thought she’d seen in his eyes earlier that day.
“Don’t you have a girlfriend somewhere?” Probably a pretty college girl.
“Not right now.” And then, “Is that your bedroom?”
“My office,” she admitted. “My bedroom’s on the other side of the house.”
“What are you wearing?”
Since she’d turned the light off earlier, she was sitting in total darkness. She knew he couldn’t see her. Glancing down at her nearly transparent old T-shirt, the lie rolled from her tongue ironically. “A lacy silk camisole and matching shorts.”
He didn’t have a shirt on. But when he’d entered the room, he’d been wearing low-slung sweats. The man had problems keeping pants above his hip bones. She’d been able to make out that spot where his abs ended and his groin began… almost.
“You’ve got great legs.” At those words, her heart dropped.
Now she knew he was playing with her.
She’d always considered her legs too short. They were white as a ghost and her thighs were softer than she’d like them to be.
Reflecting on the perfection of his own physique, she determined to get this conversation away from her legs.
“Do you work out every day? I mean, when you aren’t laid up.” She’d felt like less than a woman for so long, it just didn’t seem right, that such an amazing-looking guy would find her legs worth looking at.
“And an incredible ass.” He seemed to be watching her intently. “Am I making you uncomfortable?”
“A little,” she confessed. When it came to this sort of thing, she surprisingly felt much younger than him. In experience, she was likely light years behind him.
“You shouldn’t be. Didn’t your husband compliment you? Before things fell apart?”
Kent had treated her like… one of the guys. They’d had an active sex life at first but it had become… mundane and predictable.
The two of them hadn’t ever actually talked about sex. Their routine had been to turn the light off and climb on top of one another.
She’d tried talking dirty a few times and he’d ignored it at the time. And then later, he’d told her he didn’t like to hear words like that on his wife’s lips.
He’d told her it was a turn off.
She’d not attempted anything new after that.
Sometimes in the morning, he’d wake up hard and pull her on top of him. He’d push her underwear to the side and she’d slide on. Then, he’d close his eyes and maneuver her where he wanted her. Sometimes he’d grip her hips tightly to keep her from getting too excited.
They’d never kissed during these encounters.
Morning breath.
She’d done her best to try to come quickly because if he finished before her, she was out of luck.
“Sometimes,” she said half-heartedly. It seemed disloyal to admit that he hadn’t ever told her she was sexy. Or ever said anything about her legs or any other particular part of her body.
He’d said she was pretty. He’d told her she looked “fine.”
“I wanted to slide my hand all the way into your panties in the car today.”
Penny could hardly breathe. She stared at his silhouette in a daze. “And then what?”
“I wanted to squeeze whatever I could grab and then slide my fingers between your legs.”
She swallowed hard. She’d wanted him to do just that. She wanted lots of things. That didn’t mean she ever got any of them.
“I wanted to pull you on top of me. I wanted you straddling me, grinding against me.”
She still couldn’t talk. Hell, she could barely breathe.
“I wanted to pull your shirt off and taste you. I wouldn’t even bother unhooking your bra.
She reached up and touched her breast for the second time that day. Thank God she was in total darkness!
And then it hit her. “You feel sorry for me,” she dropped her hand.
“That’s bullshit.” He sounded gruff, a little angry. “I don’t say things I don’t mean.”
How had they gotten to this?
But she couldn’t help but summon a mental picture from his words. Would she have done it? Parked in front of his mother’s house. Parked on the street for all to see. She didn’t even have tinted windows.
“Where’s the craziest place you’ve ever had sex?” His voice interrupted her musings.
The first thought that came to mind was this afternoon, in front of a window, watching her neighbor’s son.
But that hadn’t been sex. Well, not actually.
Hmm… It hadn’t been with Kent. It had been at a party, in the bathroom. The guy, what was his name? Wow, she couldn’t even remember his name. He’d been a foreign exchange student from Germany. Sexy accent, incredibly good looking… and not integrated enough to realize that Penny wasn’t one of the “in” girls.
“A bathroom, at a party.” They’d both had way too much to drink, and he’d dragged her into the small room downstairs. She’d been wearing a very short skirt, daring for her. He hiked it up and pulled her panties down before she’d even considered saying no. In fact, she’d reached for his fly and assisted him with his jeans. He’d pushed them down and grabbed her thighs.
She could still remember the feel of the cold granite beneath her. He’d pulled her to the edge and then placed himself at her opening.
That was how she lost her virginity.
At the ripe old age of nineteen.
“The sink?”
Suddenly, she was picturing Chaz lifting her onto the vanity in her own bathroom. She imagined wrapping her legs around his waist. “Yeah.” And then, “How about you?”
Maybe she didn’t want to know. She didn’t want to think of him having crazy, casual, romantic sex with some girl who wouldn’t be self-conscious about how mushy her thighs had become.
“That’s a tough one.” He seemed to be thinking very hard.
“Can’t pin it down to just one?” she taunted him.
He laughed softly. “Well, I am a pilot.”
“In the cockpit?” she asked.
He laughed a little louder. “Obviously, you’ve never been in the cockpit of a fighter jet. There’s barely enough room for me.”
“Hmm…” This was okay. Playing a guessing game. “A car?”
“Of course. Try again.”
“A commercial airplane? I can’t imagine you not being a member of the mile-high club.”
He pounded a fist to his chest. “Alas, I disappoint you again. I rarely fly commercial.”
“A locker room?” She remembered he’d played football.
“With the head cheerleader, of course.”
Of course.
“I give up. Tell me. Where’s the most unusual place you’ve ever had sex?”
“An elevator. A haunted house ride at Disney World. And… the stall in a restroom at a Linkin Park concert. Satisfied?”
She didn’t know what to say. She wasn’t satisfied, nor was she shocked. It was just that his admissions somehow taunted her own limited experience.
“But for the record, I prefer a bed. And privacy. That way I can take my time… not be rushed.”
Her breathing hitched.
“Kent and I had this really sturdy antique dining room table that his grandma gave him. I always wanted to have sex on top of it.” Where had that come from?
“But you never did?”
Penny sighed.
“People ate there, Kent said.”
“There’s time yet, Penny – what’s your last name?”
He would have to ask her that. “Um, it’s complicated.”
“I think maybe everything about you is complicated.” That soft chuckle again. “How can a name be complicated?”
“Legally, I still have Kent’s name, and as much as I want to change it, I can’t bear the thought of going back to my maiden name.”
“Okay, so what’s the ex’s name?”
“Butts. It’s horrid.”
“Penny Butts, Penny Butts…” He paused. “Pretty horrid. How bad is your maiden name?”
“My stepdad’s name was John Pyncher. He adopted me when I was three.”
Chaz laughed outright at that. “Penny Pyncher? That’s not so bad.” Except that he was still chuckling.
“Not until you’ve lived with it. But I don’t want to keep Kent’s name either. I want the clean break… I just can’t bring myself to go back to Pyncher.”
Chaz managed to sober himself enough to look slightly sympathetic.
“So, you see my quandary. A name can be complicated… What’s your last name?”
“Wright.”
Penny giggled a little at that. “Mr. Wright?”
“Lieutenant Charles Ezekiel Wright, ma’am.”
“Of course, Lieutenant.” They sat silently for almost a full minute. “Are you really not going back? You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.” He’d seemed to flinch when she asked.
Maybe he wouldn’t answer her. Who was she anyway? The neighbor.
“My commander mentioned a teaching post. But I don’t know… They’ve invested a lot in me. Even if I don’t fly, I imagine they’ll find a way to get me back to work.”
“How long did it take?” She really was interested…
“After I got my engineering degree from the University of Colorado, I entered officer training in Pensacola. From there, I got jets and that’s an automatic eight-year commitment. So, unless they medically discharge me, I’m theirs for three more years.”
“Flight school? Like in the movie?” She could easily imagine him in the white uniform, girls swooning. What woman hadn’t seen An Officer and a Gentlemen and dreamed of being carried off?
“Like in the movie.”
“That was a great movie. Have you see it?”
“You kidding?” He laughed again. Good grief, his laughter curled her toes.
Focus, Penny. There had been some very sad moments in that movie. “Was Officer Candidate School really that grueling?”
Chaz ran his good hand through his hair. “For some.” He shrugged. “It was a challenge, but I love a good challenge. Others seemed to struggle. A handful dropped out.” His words ought to have made him seem overly cocky, and yet he didn’t sound like he was bragging.
“Pine Springs must seem awfully tame after all the places you’ve been.”
Again, that little lift of his shoulder, the good one. “It’s home. And I gotta admit…” His voice dropped an octave… a very sexy octave. “Things around here are looking better every day.”
Penny squirmed. She wished she could see his face.
She wasn’t used to this. A young, good-looking guy, Chaz probably flirted with every female he encountered.
She’d be a fool to take him seriously.
She was a fool to be talking this way with him tonight.
What would his mother think if she knew her son was being ogled by their perverted nut job of a neighbor?
Penny dropped her feet to the floor and stood up. “Well, you probably need to rest… Chaz.” She needed to keep him in perspective. There was no way he could be interested in her.
“Night,” she added. “I hope you feel better soon.”
“I will…” She could just barely make out his slow smile in the moonlight. “Penny Pyncher.”