Chapter Text
Penelope Featherington thinks she might be pregnant.
The thought plants its roots in her mind on a Tuesday afternoon in September. In the Zara changing room on Kensington High Street, trying to shove her tits into a cream chiffon blouse.
She doesn't know why she chose Zara. She needs to stop coming in here. She's a size bigger than their largest size and all the fabric looks flame-retardant and it smells weird.
She supposes she panicked. Her job interview is in thirty minutes, and the minute she stepped off the Tube she'd spilled half her oat flat white down her top. She feels like the clumsy, ditsy female protagonist in a bad rom-com (except there's no-one really trying to rom her at the moment).
She fights with the rough, plasticky chiffon, trying to get it to lie smooth over her boobs. In fact the fabric just crushes them flat, sausage-like, which is nothing new, really. Her tits are huge, and Zara's clothes are made for nine-foot-tall flat-chested people. So it's not, like, a huge surprise that the top doesn't fit. Except…
She cups her breasts in the mirror. Turns to the side. Lifts them and drops them — and hisses as a sharp aching pain goes through her. Which, again, nothing new. She's due on her period soon, and she always gets what she and her sisters call "scorpion tits" — namely, the feeling that your tits are full of angry scorpions trying to claw their way out of you.
Penelope frowns at herself in the mirror. Her curls (which she spent hours diffusing and coaxing into some sort of order for her interview this morning) are surrounded by a halo of frizz. Her cheeks are blotchy from her fight with the shirt, and there are little patches of sweat starting to mark the chiffon under her arms and boobs. Very employable, she thinks grimly. Highly professional. A real career gal.
She manages to squirm out of the shirt and in the end just turns her coffee-stained top around. She won't be able to take her jacket off during the interview and the tag is scratching her throat, but she can't face anymore fisticuffs with polyester work-wear. And she doesn't want the job anyway, she reminds herself. Office assistant at a tech start-up. Not exactly her dream job.
Not the right attitude, Featherington, she reminds herself, as she thrusts the now very sweaty shirt into the hands of the changing-room attendant and hustles herself out of Zara as fast as her short legs can carry her. If she hurries, she might still get to the place on time, and she may not want this job but she definitely fucking needs it.
Eight months ago Penelope lost her job at Lady magazine. Not her dream job either, but Lady was so old-fashioned that it was one of the few publications left that still had a) print editions and b) staff writers, and so Penelope had spent the last three years cheerfully writing about where to find the best guest linens and how to condescend to employees at the White Company (not really — but their readership was essentially only fancy old ladies with more money than sense), grateful every day that her boss, Agatha Danbury, seemed to think she was some sort of tech whiz because she knew how to convert a Word doc to a pdf.
But even Agatha's swimming pool of inherited wealth eventually ran dry. She had cried when she'd given Penelope the news, explaining the other members of staff had been there for decades and they had children and mortgages and Penelope was young, she'd find her feet in no time.
Except here she was, eight months later, with no feet found. She was footless, in fact.
It had been fine at first — she'd done some temping, and Eloise mostly, quietly, subsidised the rent in their shared flat. But two months after she lost her job, Eloise had come to her, crying, and revealed she was moving to America for two years to work on retainer for some plant billionaire (that can't be right, can it, but it is what Penelope calls Dr Crane in her head) in his lawsuit against one of the big tech companies. And Penelope had sat on her (Eloise's) sofa and watched tears roll down her friend's face, and she had wondered why other people kept crying when delivering her bad news. It wasn't Agatha who was fired. It wasn't Eloise who had nowhere to live. Shouldn't Penelope be the one weeping?
"I won't go," Eloise had sniffled, gripping Penelope's hand hard. "I'll miss you too much."
"Don't be ridiculous," Penelope told her. "You have to go. I'll be fine."
"You promise?"
"I promise."
Eloise had cuddled her and said, tearfully, that of course Penelope should keep living in the flat, and Eloise would keep paying her portion of the rent while she was away, but Penelope couldn't let her. She had already had so much help from Eloise Bridgerton. She couldn't allow this, too.
So now Penelope is twenty-seven years old. She has no money and no (job) prospects. She is a burden to her parents (well, her mum. Dead dad). And she is frightened.
Well. No. Not frightened, really. More that there is this sort of gripping dread in her belly and she feels as if she is stuck in quicksand, or tar, like the horse in Never Ending Story (her favourite film as a kid, and still a hangover staple for her and El). Like she is sinking, unable to move, while the rest of the world moves on around her. I'm fine, she says cheerfully, trying to kick her legs through the sludge. Just give me a minute. I'll be right there.
Penelope hauls ass through Kensington, pushing past yummy mummies and tourists, yanking her phone out of her bag haphazardly as she fast-walks. Diving through a group of Italian tourists trying to take a photo outside of Harrods, Penelope opens up her period tracker app absently. Her vision fuzzes and focuses on the little red blobs hover over the dates.
Huh. She's late. By five days. Which — she's not exactly dedicated to remembering to mark down her periods in this stupid app (Eloise told her not to use it anyway, says the company is probably selling her data onto advertisers so her personalised ads can sync up with her cycle). And her periods aren't particularly regular.
She is so busy staring at the red blobs she almost walks into a posh old lady wearing a Chanel jacket coming out of Harrods. She apologises and hurries on, opening Whatsapp.
Pen: period's late. what if I'm pregnant
Edwina: haha. with whose sperm? you can't get pregnant from masturbating to pictures of pedro pascal
Penelope swallows, a lump in her throat. Because — right. She never told Edwina about Colin, did she?
Three weeks earlier
Penelope opens the door to a dripping wet Colin Bridgerton, blinking at her like a puppy caught in the rain.
"Hey," she says, and steps inside so he can follow her in and down to the family cinema room, where Penelope has put a case of beer and downloaded the last season of Drag Race for them to watch. Like they always do when Colin comes home.
Except he doesn't follow her. He catches her arm, getting rain all over her skin.
"You don't have any umbrellas at your house?" she asks, scrunching up her nose at him.
"I didn't realise how badly it was raining," he says. His black T-shirt clings obscenely to his chest and shoulders, his dark curls dripping into his eyes. The air has been disgustingly humid for the past three days, so bad that Penelope hasn't been able to drag her overheated body to the corner-shop and back without leaving a snail trail of sweat behind her. She's been holed up in her room with three fans blasting at her at all times. She's glad of the downpour.
"Let's go out," Colin says, still looking like a lost puppy. He kind of always looks like that, if she is honest. A puppy begging for treats or scraps or overexcited to see you. Right now he kind of looks like a puppy that's been scolded for pissing on the couch, actually.
Penelope looks down at her clothes. On the front of her giant T-shirt is a photoshopped picture of Daphne and Simon's faces transposed onto Jack and Rose on the deck of the Titanic doing the arm thing. Eloise got them made up for Daphne's hen party and it's sort of the comfiest T-shirt Penelope owns. Underneath she has a pair of ratty men's boxers that she actually doesn't remember where she got, which is… alarming, actually. Which man did these originally belong to?
Colin's eyes follow hers down her body and he tugs on her wrist.
"Just put some shoes on. You look fine."
Penelope guffaws and pulls her wrist out of his grasp. "Yeah, really excited to show everyone in the pub my vagina." Colin's eyes drop to her crotch and then away again quickly, his cheeks reddening. "Let me go put some actual pants on." She pulls him into the foyer by his T-shirt and closes the door. "What's the rush, anyway?"
"I just… Anthony and Mum are driving me insane. I need to get drunk."
Penelope winces. "Okay. Stay here. I'll be five minutes."
In the end she takes seven minutes to get ready, which is pretty good going. She throws on some underwear and a midi skirt and a different big T-shirt (one with fewer ketchup stains on from her bacon sandwich at breakfast). She doesn't bother brushing her hair, because it'll just get frizzy in the rain anyway, and instead of make-up she just puts on sunglasses (even though the sky outside is black with clouds). The thing with having your family home be in Mayfair is that even the most casual of pub trips require some semblance of An Outfit unless you want a girl in a Burberry trench coat and ballet flats to glare down her nose job at you.
Still, it's much less effort than Penelope used to put in when she knew she would be spending time with Colin. When she was a teenager she used to preen for hours in the mirror, agonising over which outfit might make her look casually sexy and also very mysterious and beautiful. She is glad she doesn't feel that pressure anymore. Hasn't in years, actually.
She grabs a tote bag and stuffs her feet into her trainers and races back down the stairs. Colin lingers right where she left him in the hallway, scowling and shivering slightly in a puddle of rainwater.
"Where do you want to go?" she asks, taking a big umbrella from her mum's umbrella stand.
"Don't care," Colin grunts. "Duke?"
"Fine."
It's really pissing it down outside, but the air is still too warm. Penelope makes a disgusted noise, because everything feels sticky and humid, like stepping into a shower, and Colin's damp body huddled against hers under the brolly isn't exactly pleasant. He's too big and hot and wet.
"Ow," Colin complains, ducking his head. "You keep hitting me with the —"
"You hold it, then." Penelope thrusts the umbrella into his hand.
They don't speak much until they get to the Duke of Hastings. The silence is always comfortable, though. Like the Titanic T-shirt, it settles softly on Penelope's skin. It's part of the reason she and Colin get on so well, she thinks. They don't have to perform for each other. Don't have to fill the quiet moments, or try to be the Fun Versions of themselves. They can slob around and watch Drag Race. They can hit each other in the eyes with the spoke of an umbrella and not have to apologise afterwards.
It's easy.
The pub is pretty busy for all that it's a Wednesday afternoon.
"Don't any of these people have jobs to go to?" Penelope grimaces, as Colin orders their drinks and hustles her into a table in the corner, where it is a little quieter.
"I mean, as the two most unemployed people in London, I don't think we can really cast stones, Pen," Colin snorts. "Now shove up."
"You're so wet," Penelope grumbles as she shifts her arse up on the green leather booth.
"Love when you talk dirty to me, baby," he deadpans, squeezing himself in beside her. He smells like damp skin and wet cotton and his cologne. Acqua di Parma, she thinks.
"Shut up. Tell me what's going on with you."
Colin takes a gulp of his beer. "Am I shutting up or telling you? Mixed signals here, Featherington."
Penelope rolls her eyes and takes a swig of her beer. She doesn't exactly like the taste, but a few years ago she stopped fighting the current and Stockholm Syndromed herself into being a beer-drinker. Now she doesn't mind it, and it gets her less drunk than wine.
"Tell me," she concedes, her concern for him winning out over her annoyance.
Colin glowers and pouts and slicks his wet curls away from his face. His hair is a little longer than she likes it, but he is as infuriatingly gorgeous as always, her breath hitching in her lungs as she looks at him from under her lashes. It's always like this when he comes back from his trips, she reminds herself. She hasn't been inoculated to his beauty yet. It usually takes a few days, at least.
She won't get that this time. His flight to Buenos Aires leaves in the morning. Tonight she'll just have to live with her breath hovering somewhere in her throat, the shimmering feeling under her skin like she wants to sink her teeth into him, consume his beauty.
"Just the usual shit. Anthony was there when I got home so it started right away." Colin fixes Penelope with his gaze (too fucking handsome and blue — she looks at her pint, throat closing). "Did you know, Pen, that next year I'll be thirty and that most thirty-year-olds have proper jobs?" he asks, in a pretty poor impression of Anthony. "That most thirty-year-olds don't waste their lives and inheritance by travelling the world." He gives her a black look. "He called me a trustafarian, Pen. I'm not sure he even knows what that means."
Penelope reaches over to tug on one of his damp curls. "Is that why you're growing out your hair? White dreads?"
Colin bats her hand away, a reluctant smile twitching at the corners of his mouth.
"Maybe I should. Really show him."
"I think they'd suit you," Penelope says, straight-faced. "Unfortunately, we'll have to stop being friends, of course."
"Can't believe you'd make me choose between you and my beloved white dreads," Colin says, shaking his head dolefully. "I can't catch a break today."
Penelope elbows him in the ribs and gulps down her pint. "I'm sorry," she says solemnly. "And I'm genuinely sorry Anthony was being a dick."
Colin grimaces. "Yeah, but, like, I'm used to it. It was more because fucking mum joined in. It's like — et tu, Mummy?"
Penelope snorts. "Nerd."
"I know. It's insane that I'm still single." He pulls a face. "Which, by the way, Mum says I wouldn't be if I had a more stable job."
"Jesus. Sounds like she got possessed by my mum."
Penelope knows this isn't actually fair, because while that sounds like just the sort of thing Portia might have said in the past, it's not really true anymore. Since Pru and Pippa had kids she's mellowed out massively. Being a grandmother has softened her, and though it's sometimes galling to watch her be kinder to Philomena and Phoebe than she ever was with any of her actual daughters, Penelope is grateful for the change. The old Portia would never have let Penelope stay in the house, rent-free, "until whenever you get back on your feet, darling" (the old Portia would never have called Penelope darling, either).
Mostly they stay out of each other's way, which is easy because the house is way too big. Penelope and her sisters have been trying to get Portia to sell it for years, but their mum is stubborn. Penelope thinks it is because Portia had to fight so hard not to lose it after Penelope's dad died that she can't bear to ever give it up. Once Portia Featherington gets her claws in something, she does not let it go.
Penelope rather wishes she had inherited some of her mother's ambition and determination (instead of just her tits, her inclination to hold grudges and her inability to properly process dairy). She worries she is like her dad. Archie let life happen to him, too.
"I want us to get really drunk, and then I want to get on a plane tomorrow and not come back for months," Colin says firmly. He puts his hand over his chest, rubbing back and forth against his breast bone in a way that's annoyingly attractive.
"You're going to be hungover on the flight," Penelope warns him.
"Yeah. Well. Can't remember the last time I wasn't."
Penelope frowns at the bitterness in his voice. Another reason Colin and Penelope get on so well is that they are both… drifting. Penelope wants to be a writer, and Colin wants… what, exactly? Regardless, neither of them have really achieved much in their twenties beyond a reasonable sum of credit card debt for Penelope and what she can only imagine is a plethora of non-curable STDs from fellow travellers for Colin (also not fair — he once told her, whilst plastered in her mother's cinema room watching Below Deck, that he had broken up with a girl because she didn't want to wear condoms, and Colin is a stickler for them).
Which is mostly fine with Penelope. Her expectations from life are low. She knows this sounds sad, but she thinks it's the opposite. It means when things do drop into her lap, when life offers her precious little gems, she knows how to treasure them; how not to mourn them too dearly when they inevitably, eventually slip through her fingers.
She knows it's harder for Colin. He has seven high-achieving siblings, and he's also closer to thirty than she is. She suspects this aimlessness will be a lot less cute when they're no longer in their twenties.
But mostly they manage it together. They drift, but when Colin in back in London they drift towards each other. Like two cut balloons whose strings have gotten tangled together, ghosting up into the clouds (until it is time for him to leave again). They get drunk and they make fun of each other and they go it's fine, it's fine, in the face of each new minor tragedy and major humiliation (like Colin accidentally FaceTiming his old boss from the ice-cream parlour he worked at as a teen in the middle of getting a blow-job in a nightclub bathroom in Dubai; like Penelope not knowing which man she stole those boxers from, whose cock and balls have been cradled by the same cotton she has to dig out of her pussy when she wakes up from her middle-of-the-afternoon, unemployed-person naps).
Sometimes they are exasperated. Sometimes they are wide-eyed and nostrils-flared with panic. Mostly they get drunk about it. Very rarely are they bitter.
She doesn't like it.
"Colin…" she says, her hand on his arm.
He just shakes his head, looking more like a wet dog than ever.
"I'm fine, I'm fine. Anyway, whatever. I just want to chat shit and have fun with you tonight, okay? And preferably only go back home to pick up my bag on the way to the airport."
Penelope groans and puts her sunglasses back on. "You want to stay out all night?" she whines. "Do you know how old I am, Bridgerton?"
She feels big, warm hands on her cheeks. Colin is easing her sunglasses back off, his face suddenly very close to hers. The plastic arms get caught in her hair, but he untangles them, a wild sort of smile on his face.
"Old enough to party, Featherington," he says, and she has to scrunch up her face to keep from laughing. He puts her (black, cat-eye) sunglasses on his face instead, and she hates how good they look on him. "And let's be real, it's not like you have anywhere to be tomorrow."
"Arsehole," she says wryly, because he is right. "And you can't wear those all night. They're my favourite pair."
But he does.
He wears them in the next three pubs (his T-shirt is dry by the third). He pushes them up through his hair, now curling angelically, when they stumble to dinner at the only good local Italian place to sober up a little (it doesn't work, because Colin orders them negronis and red wine). They stay there until the restaurant closes, Colin trying out his Italian on the ancient grandpa who owns the place between regaling Penelope with stories about Bali. Colin puts the sunglasses back over his face when Penelope tells him about Phoebe's first birthday party last month (during which the mid-potty-training Philomena had done a poo in Portia's handbag) to hide his tears of laughter.
He leaves them on when he drags Penelope to a cocktail bar so they can have more negronis (though they do not break their rule of Four Negronis Only, after a terrible night three years ago when Penelope had drunk eight and thrown up red down her dress in the back of an Uber). Colin then asks Penelope if she knows anyone who can get them some coke, and Penelope forces them both to switch to water for the next hour (because they also have a No Drugs Except On Special Occasions rule). It's after midnight by then, and Penelope says that if they're going to stay up all night then they should, at the very least, do some dancing. She's feeling tired and sobering up and she won't make it through the night if they keep sitting in pubs and bars and restaurants. She needs to move.
Like a shark, she tells him, in the back of the taxi he hails to take them to the very crap club in Ladbroke Grove they've been going to since they were teenagers. If I stop moving I'll die.
He wears them inside even though the club is dark. Colin tries to "wingman" Penelope (which involves body-checking her into men until one of them talks to her). It doesn't work, so they just dance, Colin's hands on Penelope's hips and waist and her stupid cat-eye sunglasses on his stupid handsome face. Eventually she gets too hot in her T-shirt and whips it off so she's dancing in her black sports bra, and if Colin didn't have her sunglasses on she might think he was staring at her tits.
They get kicked out at two.a.m., and Colin takes the sunglasses off to wearily google where might be open at this hour — until Penelope suggests they go back to her house. That way Colin won't need to go back home, but they can chill out in the sound-proofed cinema room without waking Portia. Plus, she announces with a flourish, there is a bag of chicken nuggets in the freezer.
Forty-five minutes later they are sitting on the giant sofa in the cinema room, Penelope's bare feet in Colin's lap and a plate of chicken nuggets balancing on her knees. The sunglasses are hooked into the neck of Colin's T-shirt, and he's already dropped barbecue sauce on them. They are, she thinks, a lost cause.
"These are disgusting," Colin says, with his mouth full of nugget.
"Well, yeah," Penelope says, dipping one into some ketchup. "That's sort of the point of a chicken nugget, pal." Colin wrinkles up his nose, and eats another one. "How are you feeling?" she asks, digging her toes into his thighs.
He wriggles and grabs her ankle with his non-nuggety hand. He draws these soft circles into her ankle bone with his thumb. Penelope tries her best not to follow his touch with her eyes, tries not to stare at his mouth while he eats. It is not fair of him to be so pretty and touching her like this when she isn't inoculated yet.
"Tired. Annoyingly sober, given how much we drank."
"Our dancing was too vigorous," Penelope says gravely. "We partied too close to the sun, Colin."
Colin grins around his chicken nugget.
"We certainly did. Can't believe you took your top off in the club." His voice is tinged with an awe that makes Penelope laugh, and because he doesn't have her sunglasses on she can see that he is in fact looking at her tits.
She blushes, which is stupid, and eats another nugget.
"I feel better though," he says, his voice more serious. "Less…" he trails off, and Penelope nods. She understands, she thinks. He squeezes her ankle with a grateful expression on his face, and she really wishes he wouldn't. She feels hot, her skin over-sensitive and touch-hungry after how they were dancing, how he slid his hands over her waist and ground his hips into her arse while Penelope was trying and failing to twerk to Get Low. They were being silly, of course, but still. Her body doesn't always get the joke.
"Good." She looks down at the plate in dismay. "The last nugget." She holds it up like Frodo with the ring. "Do you know, because I am such a good friend and you've had a shit day, I am going to bestow it upon you, Colin Bridgerton."
Colin's eyes go wide. "Even though I got barbecue sauce on your sunglasses?"
Penelope nods solemnly, and leans closer to him. "Even though you got barbecue sauce on my sunglasses. That's how much I love you."
Her breath catches. She didn't mean to say that.
But Colin just clutches his heart. "God. I'm genuinely touched."
In the low light of the cinema room, his face blurred in the medium darkness, he looks like the boy she fell in love with when she was eleven. It makes her heart kick and stutter, makes her breath do the hovering, catching thing in her throat. She feels something jumping under her skin.
Penelope nods solemnly. "Open up," she instructs, leaning forward so she can feed it to him like a princess knighting a squire.
Colin eats the nugget, but his lips close messily around her fingers. He plays at biting her hand and she laughs, snatching it out of his reach —
Except she doesn't. Because he grabs her wrist.
And he swallows his mouthful.
And he looks at her with eyes that are inky blue, dark as she's seen them.
It happens at the same time. She has the thought: is this happening? And then it happens. All at once. As though her mind commands Colin's mouth, somehow.
Colin turns her palm over and presses his lips to it.
Penelope doesn't breathe. She watches, entranced, as his pretty mouth pouts. Watches him kiss her palm again, and again and again. Then move to her wrist, the tender skin over her pulse and she wonders if he can feel it hammering beneath his lips. "Soft," he murmurs, his breath hot against her arm.
She should laugh and tug her arm away. This is so stupid, even for them.
She doesn't. She is still, and she watches him put the empty nugget plate on the ground and she watches him part her legs, slowly pushing up the fabric of her skirt so it pools over her thighs. Watches him crawl between her knees.
Her body moves where he guides it. He props himself over her and she settles her head back on the armrest, blinking up at him. He is so big and looming and handsome, she thinks. Her body feels like raindrops in a puddle, splashing and kinetic; like liquid as he moves over her, his eyes never leaving her face.
"Are we —?" she manages to whisper, one hand gripping the back of the couch.
His mouth curls up at the corners, his curls falling into his eyes. "Yeah, Pen."
She nods, her heart going plink, plink, plink. Rain in her body. "Okay, good." He smiles properly then (too fucking handsome), and she winds her hands into his T-shirt. "So kiss me, then."
It's a good kiss. When she was a teenager and trying to get over her crush on him, she used to tell herself things like: probably, he is a really bad kisser. He's too hot to be a good kisser, actually. Handsome boys never are. As if seventeen-year-old Penelope knew anything about handsome boys or kissing — her first kiss was later that year at the end of term dance with Remmy. He's gay now. Probably was then, too, now that she thinks about it.
It's really good seventeen-year-old Penelope didn't know how fucking excellent Colin Bridgerton is at kissing, she thinks, as Colin kisses her into the couch. She probably would have killed herself.
Because he… Well. He kisses her carefully, soft lips but a firm touch, as if his body is brimming with a kind of barely-restrained need (which is devastatingly sexy for reasons Penelope doesn't want to get into). He brushes his lips over hers experimentally, gentle kisses at first that turner harder, hungrier, his hand running up her leg to palm her thigh. God, she loves when he touches her thighs, his fingertips digging in with just enoough bite to make her moan into his mouth. His teeth catch on her lower lip then, as if he wants to eat the noises she's making.
He hitches her thigh around his waist and lets his hips drop down so she can feel his jean-covered crotch press into her underwear.
Her underwear. Fuck. In her rush she is fairly certain she put on, like, the most disgusting pair of ancient knickers she owns. The waist elastic is, she thinks, holding on by a thread. There are, she is certain, old period stains all over the gusset.
Colin is kissing her throat now, so prettily and perfectly that she cannot think. The rain has turned into a fucking thunderstorm, and his hand is inching over the soft skin of her inner thigh, stroking back and forth in way that makes her feel like she is going to melt all over the couch.
"Wait," she breathes, winding her fingers into his hair.
"Mhm," he murmurs against her throat, teeth grazing her sensitive skin.
She shivers and yanks his head back. "Wait," she tries again, blinking rapidly to clear the fog. "I'm going to take my knickers off but you can't look, okay?"
Colin is giving her those puppy eyes, hazy and needy. Fuck. "What? Why?"
"You won't want to keep going if you see them," she says. "Trust me."
Colin's fingers tighten on her inner thigh and she gasps at the sting, her back arching off the sofa — and pushing her tits practically into Colin's face. He starts to lay kisses over her exposed collarbone, nipping at the flesh above her sports bra. "I actually don't think anything could make me want to stop right now, Pen," he says, and his voice is gravelly.
"I mean it," she says breathily, because now he is running a finger lightly over the crotch of her awful underwear while he has his face buried in her tits, warm breath on her cleavage. Her entire body feels like it is singing.
"They feel fine to me," he murmurs, but it is muffled by her tits.
She pushes him off with a groan and he kneels up, his hair sticking up from where she has been tugging on it, his cheeks flushed.
"Close your eyes," she tells him, because his gaze rakes over her body hungrily. He sighs huffily but does as she says, his lips drawn into a sulky pout.
"I wanted to take them off…" he mutters but Penelope ignores him as she scoots her hips up and shimmies the underwear off. She only accidentally kicks him in the face once, and it is only lightly. She stuffs them under the couch pillow. Then she pauses, and realises she should probably also save herself the humiliation of having Colin watch her try to wrestle herself out of her high-control sports bra, so with some huffing and puffing, she yanks that over her head too. Then she settles back down against the arm rest.
"Okay, you can look now," she instructs.
His eyes blink open as he rubs his (lightly) kicked jaw.
"Oh," he says softly, his mouth popping open as he looks at her lying there with her tits out and her knees spread, her bare pussy facing him (her skirt is tangled pretty uselessly around her waist). "God."
His lovely throat, tanned brown from Bali, convulses as he swallows again and again. He seems dazed by the sight of her, his hands resting on her calves.
"What?" she says, eyeing him defensively. "Don't be weird."
He shakes his head, blinking rapidly. "No. Right. Of course. I won't be weird. I just…" He runs a hand over his face and takes a deep breath. "You're really pretty, Pen."
Has he ever called her that before? If he has, he certainly hasn't ever said it like that. Breathing hitched, cheeks pink, hands trembling on her legs.
"Just — just come here," she says, and drags him back down on top of her. It makes her feel all shivery to be so bare while he's still clothed, makes her want to rub up against him like a cat. So that's what she does, kissing him and winding her legs around his waist to draw him flush to her body. He moans into her mouth, one hand palming her tit while the other keeps him propped up. He's fucking strong, she thinks lustily, her heels digging into his arse so she can grind her pussy against his denim-clad crotch.
His hand slides down her body, petting her belly and her pubes (because of course she hasn't shaved, either) until he gets to her pussy. "Oh my god," he says loudly into her mouth when his fingers find her folds.
"What?" she asks, alarmed at his tone.
His fingers slide over her, exploring her. She is slippery and warm and over-sensitized with need; she gasps as he brushes against her clit. "God. You're just so wet."
"Well yeah," she responds. She drags him back to her mouth for more kissing, lifting her hips so his fingers hit where she needs them.
He's good at that, too. Once he's gotten over his shock at her wetness (which she will tease him about later — now she is too horny), his fingers are gentle and deft, coaxing circles over her clit that make her whole body thrum, pleasure strummed into her flesh.
Colin's touch is unhurried. It feels luxurious, somehow, as he kisses her and strokes her, grinding himself into her hip all the while. She feels insane, actually, at how sweet he is.
She needs more.
"Need you to fuck me," she pants, as he lays open-mouth kisses over her tits.
"Yeah?" he murmurs, his tongue licking over her nipple briefly.
"Ah — yes."
"Do you have condoms?" he asks, mouthing around her nipple while his fingers keep stroking over her clit. God, he is trying to kill her.
"No." She hasn't exactly fancied having sex in her mum's house, so they haven't been necessary in a while. "Do you?"
Colin stops, and groans into her tit. "No. Fuck. Fuck."
"You can just pull out. It'll be fine." Penelope has done it once or twice with exes, and it's always fine. More importantly, if he doesn't fuck her soon she might actually die, and that seems more urgent than the risks of raw sex.
"STDs, Pen," he reminds her.
"I was tested after my last partner." Eight months ago, but Colin doesn't need to know exactly how much of a loser she is. "I'm good."
Colin's eyes meet hers. His pupils are blown out, his lips wet with his spit. "I am too." His eyes drop to her mouth. "Are — are you sure?"
"It'll be fine," she repeats confidently.
Colin nods. "Right. I'll just pull out." His hand, she is pleased to see, is already fiddling with his belt. "It'll be fine."
"It'll be fine," she says again, and then she kind of loses the ability to speak because Colin's cock is out, and he's resting it against her pussy, and it's… it's big. And kind of gorgeous, which is a weird thing to think about a dick, but she can't think of another word for it. Thick and ridged and heavy against her. Its weight feels insistent, needy, and so Penelope does the only thing she can.
She wraps her hand around the shaft and slides his tip through her pussy until it is angled at her opening.
"Fuck," he hisses out through clenched teeth. "Fuck, yes. Yes. Put it in, Pen."
"God," she pants, as she presses him inside. Because he's big and hot and the stretch is almost painful. Feels unbearably good too, but — fuck. "Godgodgodgodgod —"
And then he is all the way in, their pelvises pressed close. And then he is propped over her on both arms, both of them gasping for desperate gulps of air. And then he is moving over her, working her open on his cock, his hips fucking into her in these short, exploratory thrusts like he's trying to see how much they can both take.
And then he is fucking her properly.
So properly that she can barely breathe. So properly that her head smacks into the arm of the couch with each snap of his hips; that her hard nipples graze his T-shirt on each roll; that her breath is fucked out of her in these pathetic little sips. It feels so good, her pussy clenching down on the stretch, his cock hitting her deep (has anyone fucked her this deeply before? She can't remember).
And he keeps saying shit.
Shit like:
"Fuck, Pen, your pussy feels so good. So fucking tight and wet."
"God, you look pretty. God, you take it well."
"You're so hot. Can't believe how hot you are. I'm not going to last if you keep looking at me like that."
And it should be embarrassing (and it is, a little), but it just makes her melt and gasp and reach a hand between their bodies (why is it driving her so crazy that she is naked and he's still fully clothed, cock sticking out of his jeans?) to rub her clit while he pounds into her.
It feels so good. So good that she actually comes on his cock, which is rare for her. She can rarely relax enough to actually come during penetrative sex, but this is… overwhelming. He keeps fucking her through the couch and pouring all of these words out over her lips and tits and it just happens, sneaks up on her. And then her back is arching and her toes curling up and she tugs on her nipple desperately as the pleasure overtakes her, sweet and brimming.
"Oh fuck — god, you're coming — god, oh, fuck —"
And she's too dazed by her orgasm, raindrops in a puddle, to really register what is going on except Colin's cock isn't inside of her anymore and there is something hot and wet spurting over her pubic hair.
When she gathers herself, her legs trembling, she sees Colin kneeling up between her legs, his soft cock gripped in his hand and a guilty expression on his face. Dog who pissed on the sofa expression actually.
"Sorry," he blurts, his teeth digging into his lower lip.
Penelope pushes herself up onto her wobbly elbows. "What?"
"I think — fuck, I was maybe a second too late — I got most of it outside, but I didn't know — you didn't warn me you were going to come," he babbles. "I think there's some inside of you. Just a tiny bit."
Penelope frowns. A little frisson of concern goes through her, but she is too fucked-out to gather much anxiety. "Well. Okay. Maybe… can you try to get it out?" she asks, peering down her belly. She can hear the chirrup of birds outside the window, which with London's light pollution could mean anything, but she suspects it is very, very late and she is suddenly exhausted.
Colin swallows and nods and stuffs his cock back into his jeans, before shimmying onto his front between her legs. She yelps when she feels his finger slide inside her.
"Sorry, sorry," he mutters.
Penelope watches Colin Bridgerton lying on his belly scooping his cum out of her pussy, and a hysterical bubble of laughter swells and pops in her throat. Her body starts to shake with silent giggles, and she flops back down onto the sofa, her exhausted arms unable to keep herself propped up any longer. This was the stupidest idea she's maybe ever had, she thinks.
"What's so funny?" Colin asks, but she can't answer him. Hardly knows herself. She laughs until her belly aches and tears stream from her eyes while Colin does his best to clean her up, fighting giggles of his own.
She gets him to close his eyes while she digs out her knickers from underneath the sofa, dabbing them over her pussy and his finger to soak up the cum, before she tosses them across the room. And then they laugh for a few more minutes, before Colin settles his cheek on her lower belly, his arms winding around her waist. It doesn't look particularly comfortable, but he seems perfectly content. Especially when she starts to run her fingers through his hair.
He falls asleep like that, his hot face on her stomach. Soon she does too, her lips still curved into a smile.
They wake up to the terrifying sound of Colin's phone alarm. Colin groans into her stomach, sliding himself through the pool of drool he has left on her skin. Penelope grimaces, her entire body aching with the remnants of the booze and … well. The other thing.
Colin crawls across the floor until he finds his phone; switches off the alarm. "Fuck," he chokes, his voice a dry rasp. "My flight."
Penelope just moans and grabs a cushion to put over her face. She needs to sleep for another ten hours, at least.
But Colin is kneeling beside the sofa and tugging the cushion away from her face. She looks up at him blearily, her sleep-addled brain unable to quite put together the expression on his face. Though maybe it's just new. Maybe she's not seen this precise kind of puppy before.
"I'm sorry I have to go," he says, and he really sounds it, which doesn't make sense. Just last night he was talking about how excited he was to leave. Penelope blinks, wondering if she might actually still be asleep. Her pussy doesn't usually ache this much in dreams, though.
"Ungff," is all she manages in reply.
"I wanted to… I don't know. Take you out for breakfast or something." He cups her cheek.
Breakfast? She snorts, and he flinches.
"Right," he says. Now he's giving kicked puppy, but she doesn't know why. "Right. Yeah. Okay. Well. Yeah."
"Okay," she mutters, her voice sounding like a family of squirrels have made some sort of nest in her throat. She has no idea what's going on, and she wants to go back to sleep.
"Thank you for last night."
Thank you? She needs the cushion back to groan into, but Colin has it tightly in his grasp. "You're welcome," she says, because she doesn't know what else to say.
Then Colin bends down and kisses her once on the lips. Before she can say another word (like what? or the? or fuck? — or more likely more, please, again), he is gone.
A Month After That Night
Penelope thought the only thing she got from her one night stand with Colin Bridgerton was a mild UTI (she forgot to pee before they went to sleep), but as she sits on Edwina's toilet with a pregnancy test in her hand, she realises she got one more thing.