Full Throttle (Black Knights Inc. #7)(11)

“It’s just…I’ve been dealing with some personal stuff recently.” And how lame did that sound? Personal stuff? Jesus.

“And you can’t forget about it?” The way she smashed the words together until they sounded like fuhgeddaboudit broadcasted her hometown more loudly than an NYC police siren. “Just for one night?” She nudged her hips against his, and his deflated erection took notice, twitching with renewed interest. Praise be to heaven, perhaps he wasn’t on the shortlist for Viagra after all.

“I wanna forget about it,” he admitted, as much to himself as to her. He wanted to forget about it so he could move on, do his duty by his teammates, do right by his country. Maybe then he could begin to make up for…everything. Get over the “toxic shame,” as his sponsor called it. That feeling that he was a mistake instead of having made a mistake. “But, I—”

“You should know I never do this,” she interrupted him. “You probably don’t believe me. I mean, we’ve only known each other for three days and here I am trying to jump your bones.” She pulled a face. “But the truth is, I’ve felt a…I guess you’d call it a connection…ever since the moment we met.” So it wasn’t just him. That was encouraging. Or terrifying. He couldn’t decide which. “All right already. That sounds stupid, doesn’t it?”

He thought about telling her yeah, that’s stupid. There’s no such thing as love at first sight. But what they had going here? Lust? Well, that was a horse of a different color. And although he couldn’t help but feel disloyal to his wife, to her memory, to the love they’d shared, he also couldn’t shake the words he’d heard at his last AA meeting. It’s okay to look back. Just don’t stare…

By God, he’d been staring for nearly two years now. So, was it finally time to peel his eyes away from the past and take a glance into the future? Were Ozzie and Steady right? Could he, should he, begin to move on? “It doesn’t sound stupid,” he finally admitted. “I felt it, too.”

Her eyes rounded. “Really? I thought it was just me. Because recently I decided I’m too career-oriented, that I’ve been letting the job become my life. And I can’t help but wonder if some of my best years are behind me. I mean, I’m thirty-three.” The way she said it, it might as well have been one-hundred-and-three. And what was with thirty-three and personal epiphanies, anyway? First Steady. Now Penni? “Which makes me afraid that if I don’t start taking advantage of opportunities for real human connection, I’ll have blown any chance I have at a future with someone.

“Not that I’m saying I have a future with you,” she quickly added, a look of panic flitting across her pretty face. “But I figured it was because I recently decided to start taking chances that I felt this instant, uh, attraction, or connection, or…whatever you want to call it. I figured it was because I’d finally opened myself up to—”

He pressed a finger against her lips. “First of all,” he said, smiling down at her, “take a breath. And secondly, has anyone ever told you your accent comes out when you get worked up?” She’d started leaving the r sounds off the ends of her words until wonder sounded more like wondah, and years sounded more like yee-ahs. And miracle of miracles, his discomfort seemed to drift away in the face of hers. Maybe because he realized he wasn’t the only one toting around a heaping helping of emotional baggage. Or maybe because, in that moment, he felt certain of something. Like, the universe or Patti’s spirit—although he really didn’t believe in any of that—was telling him it was okay to let go. To finally, finally let go. A lightness unlike anything he’d experienced in a very long time lifted away a piece, just one tiny piece, but a piece all the same, of the heavy burden he’d been carrying around inside his heart, inside his soul.

“They have,” Penni burbled around his finger. “To my eternal dismay.”

Okay, and she was adorable. Simply adorable. With her too-expressive eyes and that little bump on the bridge of her nose…

Everything inside Dan softened at the same time something on the outside of him, something decidedly south, hardened. “The Bronx?” he asked, removing his finger.

“Brooklyn.” She nodded.

Grinning down at her, delighting in how good he suddenly felt, in how good she felt against him, another AA adage drifted through his mind. A man can’t be content with simply getting by. And truthfully? That’s all he’d been doing since rehab. Getting by.

Ozzie and Steady were right. His gentle, loving wife wouldn’t want him wasting away. She’d want him to move on, to find some semblance of happiness. Some semblance of a life. And on his initial attempt to do that, he needed someone kind and understanding. Someone who wouldn’t laugh at him if—heaven forbid—he burst into tears in the middle of it. Someone who would hold him, comfort him, be patient with him. And Penni DePaul, bless her sweet heart, seemed to fit the bill perfectly.

“That’s what I’m gonna call you,” he whispered, gently cupping her face in his hands, lowering his lips to hers. “Brooklyn…”





Chapter Three


Abby’s world came back to her slowly and in pieces…

First there was smell. Too much smell. The dank, salty aroma of dried fish competed with the bloodier scent of freshly butchered meat and the wet, decaying odor of the popular durian fruit. Then there was garlic, pepper, cinnamon…ugh. All of it together triggered her gag reflex.