Irresistibly Yours - Lauren Layne Page 0,30
little more…”
“A little more what?” Riley demanded.
Penelope blew out a breath. “I’m not his type.”
“Fun fact,” Julie said cheerfully, “Cole doesn’t have a type.”
“Well, he does, sort of,” Grace corrected. “Boobs.”
“See, there you go!” Penelope said, snapping her fingers and then pointing at her chest. “I’m lacking there.”
“Take it from another not-well-endowed gal,” Emma said, “the menfolk find all sizes very interesting.”
“Well, Cole doesn’t find these interesting,” Penelope said. “And I don’t want him to.”
“Well, this is disappointing,” Julie said with a pout. “I could have sworn my matchmaking instincts were dead-on.”
“Rumor has it we should have gone with plan B,” Grace said to her friends, sounding just a tiny bit smug.
“Plan B?” Penelope asked. “You had multiple plans?”
“Multiple men, she means. For you, sweetie,” Julie explained.
“Plan B is Lincoln,” Grace said.
“Mmmm, Lincoln,” Riley said with a dreamy sigh. “You like him, Pen?”
“He kissed her,” Grace said, before Penelope could answer.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” Penelope muttered.
But nobody heard her. Riley was too busy pretending to swoon, Julie was fanning herself, and even the ever-cool Emma looked supremely interested.
“How do you know this?” Julie said, slapping at Grace’s knee.
“Jake saw it,” Grace replied. “Lincoln did it right there in Penelope’s office. Something about an article he was working on, and—”
“It seriously wasn’t romantic. Or sexy,” Penelope cut in. “Really. It was playful and—”
“But it was good, wasn’t it?” Riley asked. “I mean, I may be an almost-married woman, but Lincoln Mathis is hot.”
“The kiss was…” Penelope replayed Lincoln’s mouth on hers. “It was nice.”
Silence descended on the room.
“Nice?” Riley said, sounding aghast.
“You know, it was…” Penelope glanced around the room at disappointed faces. “I don’t have much to compare it to.”
She supposed she should be embarrassed by the admission—and she was, a little. But Penelope had never really seen the point of pretending to be something she wasn’t.
And she absolutely wasn’t an experienced femme fatale.
For all she knew, maybe Lincoln’s kisses were as good as it got. It had certainly been more skilled than most of the groping kisses she’d endured in college. And better than Erik’s, a guy whom she’d dated for a few months and who had borderline halitosis.
“Penelope,” Julie said slowly. “I don’t mean to pry—”
“She does,” Emma interrupted.
“Okay fine, I do mean to pry,” Julie continued. “But are you seriously telling me that the best kiss you’ve ever received is merely nice? From a guy you barely know, for the sake of work?”
“Wait!” Grace said, holding up a hand. “Don’t answer that until I fill up your glass!”
Penelope happily obliged as Grace topped off all their glasses. She was more of a beer girl, but hey, it was Friday and a fancy dinner party, and well, she was having fun.
The only time Penelope ever got to indulge in girl talk was with Janie, but her sister wasn’t here….
“I don’t think I’m over the guy I left in Chicago,” she blurted out.
Riley leaned forward. “Was he a bad kisser? Is he why you’re all anti-kissing? Because I’d move to another state if Sam was a bad kisser. Hell, I’d leave the continent.”
Penelope smiled sadly. “No. I mean…I don’t know. We never, um…my feelings were one-sided.”
“Oh, well, honey, if you’ve got feelings for a guy, you have to tell him!” Julie said.
“I planned to,” Penelope said, taking a sip of wine. “I mean, like, I actually had a plan. I made dinner reservations, I bought a dress. It was red….”
Riley whistled. “Red dress, huh? Busting out all the stops.”
“Exactly,” Penelope said. She looked down at her glass.
And then I found out he stole my job and had been shacking up with a flight attendant for the past six months….
To the other women’s credit, nobody pried. They sat there silently, waiting for her to continue, and she knew that if she didn’t say another word, they’d change the subject.
But it was time to tell somebody—it was time to move on.
She went for it. “He took the job that I wanted. I don’t know if he meant to, but he did. But that’s not even the worst part. Before he could tell me any of this, I’d decided to make my move. I got brave. Or stupid. I’m not sure which, but…I kissed him.”
Penelope took a deep breath before continuing. “Needless to say, he didn’t kiss me back. Not when he was waiting to introduce me to his new girlfriend, who saw the whole humiliating thing go down….”
She put a hand over her eyes for just a moment, reliving the moment.