Penny scowled and let her gaze wander around their flat. They’d each come out of their missions battered and bruised. Each raw and needing one another more than ever. But they had The Point. They had what they’d worked so long for and Penny was sure that once the work began on it she’d come out of her funk. She’d stop moping around and feeling like something was crushing her chest. She’d be fine. She would!
Yeah you tell yourself that.
The door opened and Penny started from her thoughts, sitting up and trying for a smile as Rachel came in. Her sister was dressed for the cold in a flowered, chunky sweater and a tight pair of faded blue jeans. Her blonde curls were windswept and her face was red from the cold.
“Hey, gorgeous.”
Rachel kicked off her boots and pulled a corner of the bedspread aside. “Let me in. It’s freezing out there.”
“You’ve been down to the centre?”
Rachel nodded as she cuddled up against her sister. Her hands were freezing and Penny jumped. “Bloody hell, Rach, you’re not wrong. Your hands are like ice.”
“Everything is like ice,” Rachel said.
“Babe…” Penny wrapped her arms around her sister and held her close. Sure she was a mess, but Rachel was worse. Maybe because she was more sensitive? Penny thought again about the moment she’d gone to rescue her sister, the things Rachel had told her and the desire to go hunt down Rimeria filled her all over again. The bastard.
Sebastian at least had been a gentleman, she thought. He’d been kind and considerate. He’d wanted her and he’d taken her, but he’d done it in a way so that she’d never felt used or taken advantage of.
She’d wanted him just as much. Still wanted him…and she missed him. She missed him so damn much. She could admit that to herself now. Hell after almost a month she could admit everything. That the madness had consumed her. That she’d drowned in him. The tender sex…she swallowed. It was so obvious to her now why it had been something she felt she had to run from. The chink in the armor. Only it hadn’t been a chink, it had been a hole and Sebastian had made his way through it before she’d even realized.
“Pen?” Rachel asked. “Did you hear what I said?”
“Sorry, babe, I was in a world of my own. What did you say?”
“I asked how you’re feeling.”
She shrugged, ignoring the lump in her throat. “Oh you know me. I’m fine.”
“No you’re not.”
Penny sighed. “Well, no, but I will be.”
“Do you miss him?”
The lump expanded. “I don’t really want to talk about it, Rach. It doesn’t help.”
“It might.”
“What do you want me to say?” she asked. “That I miss him all the time? That I play the time we spent together over and over again in my mind? That I wake up in the morning freezing cold because he’s not lying next to me? Is that what you want to hear?”
“Pen….”
She swallowed unsteadily and took her sister’s hand. “I’m sorry. Sorry. I just…I do miss him. I want him, but it was never going to happen, Rach, you know that right?”
Her sister nodded and Penny lifted her chin so that their eyes met.
“You get it don’t you?” she said gently, unsure if she was trying to convince Rachel or herself. “The thieves and the billionaires. It was never going to happen. Not for any of us. It should never have even gotten to where it did. Our plans were…” She gulped and shook her head. “We never stood a chance really did we? We thought we had it all worked out, but we were fools.”
“We completed our missions,” Rachel said softly. “We did what we set out to do.”
“And had our hearts broken in the process.”
“Yes…”
Penny pulled Rachel closer and closed her eyes. Tears, those damn tears, were threatening again but she could not allow them to fall. She had to remember her own words. It was never going to happen. And she had to be strong for her sister, for all of them. “It’s all going to be okay,” she whispered. “It—”
Someone knocked on the door.
Penny shot up, her first thought that it was Lyra, but then Lyra would have used the key. So who? Not a neighbor because that was rare. Not a bill collector because they wouldn’t dare risk coming into this block. Who? She turned and shared a look with her sister and almost wept when she saw the hope outlined in her eyes. She wants it to be Rimeria.
And Penny wanted it to be Sebastian.
Never had she wanted anything as much. The suit of armor fell completely away, leaving her open and raw and bleeding. She missed him. She wanted him. It was not going to get better. Not now, not tomorrow, not ever. Sebastian was the man she was supposed to be with. The man she was going to ache for forever. The man who she loved…fuck.