Page 9 of Bonfire and Bliss Bookstore

It feels too easy to use the word copper but that’s exactly what they are; Penelope Darling’s eyes are pure perfection and the color of a shimmering copper penny.

Unfortunately, I’ll now be spending the next few months trying to figure out how best to describe the colors of the freckles that dot her smooth skin.

Well, fuck.

Chapter 4

Penny

“What are you doing here?” I screech as I come face to, well, boobs, with the man whose shirt I was just sniffing.

I’m trying and failing to hide my boobs behind my hands. In books authors always say, She’s more than a handful, and, in my case, add and then some. There’s no way my hands could cover my breasts even if I pushed them together and butterflied my fingers. I know because I just tried. Instead of hiding my boobs, it looks like I’m pushing them up to give Monty an even better show.

While I flail about like a baby bird who can’t fly, Monty remains perfectly calm. I’m not sure he’s even blinked.

“Monty!” I attempt to call him out of his trance. “What are you doing?!”

Finally, he shows signs of life as he pulls off his glasses, rubs at his eyes, and places the black frames back on his face.

What the hell? Does he think I’m an apparition? And is this the kind of apparition he’d conjure up? Me? Naked?

My skin heats to an impossible degree.

“Monty,” I grit out.

He shakes his head and then his lips work up slowly, hitching to one side in a cocky smirk. “What am I doing here? What are you doing here, Xuxuzinho? This is my bedroom.” He motions to the shirt that’s dropped to the floor. The one I’d just been sniffing like a freaking addict. “And that is my shirt.”

The door swings wider and then another voice cuts through. “Is everything all right?” Mr. Montgomery asks as he steps inside. The second he sees me he mumbles, “Meu Deus,” before stumbling back into the hallway, attempting to cover his face.

“Oh my God, your dad just saw my boobs!” I almost-scream at Monty. “Your dad just saw my boobs!”

Monty slams the door, and while I appreciate the gesture, it’s also unnecessary as I’m pretty sure Mr. Montgomery ran downstairs and jumped in the harbor to cleanse himself of the sight of me naked.

“Get out,” I whisper-hiss, finally gathering enough sense to grab the shirt off the floor to cover myself.

Once I’m not completely bare, I take the opportunity to get my fill of Jake Montgomery.

I am struck anew by just how handsome Monty grew up to be.

He still has the same jet-black hair that flops to the right every time he smiles, and those green eyes that remind me of gemstones plucked from deep at the bottom of the ocean. But the chiseled jaw now covered in dark scruff? And the jagged scar above his lip? He didn’t have those when we were growing up.

And don’t even get me started on the tattoos that cover his arms. Are they anywhere else?

He was always muscular in high school because of playing football, but he was also a boy. Now, Jake Montgomery is all man and he has the shoulders to prove it.

A man who is still staring at me. Or maybe smirking. No, smoldering. He’s most definitely smoldering as I stand naked in front of him.

“Shoo.” I point toward the door. “Out.”

“It’s my room,” he says with a coy grin.

I motion to my half-dressed body. “And I’m naked.”

“Yes, I see that.” His hot stare rolls over me. “I definitely see that.”

“Well, don’t. Face the other way. Go”—I scramble for words—“out there.”

Monty remains for a beat before finally walking out and shutting the door, taking his heated stare and slutty glasses with him.