Second Chance Sneak Peek!

As promised, I have brought you a sneak peek of Second Chance! This week, from Penny’s POV. Disclaimer: this is the text as-is before copy-edit changes have been finalized. The final copy may contain superficial differences from the published version.

So much happens in this story, it was difficult to find a passage that wouldn’t give away spoilers, but I did it! Next week, you won’t be so lucky; there will be a major spoiler in Ian’s excerpt. But for now, let’s check in with Penny.

 

When he dashed into the dining room and returned with a large white gift box, I raised an eyebrow at him.

“I don’t know, Ian. Clothing box, Valentine’s Day… I think this might be a present for you, not a present for me.” I wrangled the lid off. “It’s heavy, though.”

Way too heavy for some skimpy lingerie, unless he’d bought it by the pound. But it was…

“Okay, microfiber, not the sexiest–” Was it a stuffed animal? There were no-skid grips in circles down one of the…tentacles? I squeaked and jumped up, unfolding all eight as the fabric rolled down.

“It’s an octopus onesie,” Ian said, but I had already gotten the hint. I reached down and undid the ankle strap of my pump in record time.

“You don’t have to try it on now, if you don’t want to,” Ian said, almost hopefully.

Whatever. I wasn’t going to ask him to bang me in this thing. “Uh, yeah I do.” I kicked off my shoes and put a foot into the onesie. “This is incredible! I didn’t even know this existed!” Which was odd, considering the high volume of octopus-related products that friends posted to my Facebook wall.

Ian stopped me from toppling over as I struggled my excited and uncoordinated limbs into the suit. He even helped zip me up.

“This isn’t the whole present,” he promised as he pulled the hood over the back of my head. “I have a very romantic mood set upstairs to go with your sexy new lingerie.”

I shuffled ahead of him and caught my reflection in the glass elevator shaft. The hood had eyes on it. I could die from the cute.

When we got to the bedroom door, and I stopped. “It’s dark.”

I don’t know what I was expecting. We’d both come home at the exact same time.

“So it is,” Ian said behind me. “Dark is a mood.”

I turned to him with a puzzled squint.

He nodded at the door. “Just turn on the light.”

I felt around for the switch. The lights came up, and my gaze went directly to the bed. I gasped and covered my face with the sleeves of my octopus. “This is…the most romantic thing…”

Instead of his usual plain white duvet cover, now a beautiful, realistically colored octopus spread across the bed, vibrant against the white silk it was printed on. I almost couldn’t tear my eyes away from it, but I had to, to look at Ian. “I can’t believe you did this for me.”

“I wasn’t just trying to be romantic here. I want you to feel at home. I know you brought a few things–” he motioned toward the dresser– “but everything here was chosen by a decorator, and I never bothered to change anything. And after the…”

Divorce, I filled in for him mentally.

“What I’m trying to say is that I’m not so set in my ways that you can’t change anything, or that we can’t change them together.”

My previous fears about making him unhappy or not being good enough evaporated in an instant. Realistically, they would probably return. But in the moment, I completely understood why Ian had gone to all the trouble he’d gone to. Not to spoil me, but to make me feel like a special part of his life.

“You weren’t trying to be romantic? You’re so stupid.”

“That wasn’t the reaction I hoped for,” he said uncertainly.

“This is probably the most romantic thing you’ve done for me tonight. Don’t get me wrong, the planetarium, the fancy meal…all of that was incredible,” I reassured him. “But this? You get me. You really get me, what matters to me. And that’s the most romantic thing that’s ever happened to me.”

I moved toward him at the same time he reached to put his arms around me. My tentacles got in the way.

“As lovely as you look draped in cheap microfiber and extra appendages, I’d really rather strip that dress off you and make you come so hard you black out,” he said, his voice low beside my ear.

Chills raced through every vein and blood vessel, radiating out from my heart. It made me almost too lightheaded to flirt. I smacked his shoulder. “Why would you want to render me unconscious? That’s not romantic. That causes brain trauma.”

“Figure of speech,” he claimed. “But if you have some objection–”

“Not at all.” I felt really silly wearing the octopus pajamas now. “I probably won’t lose consciousness, but I’m fine with you trying. Let me just slip into something more comfortable.”

I pulled the zipper down, humming my own stripping music as I did a little shimmy he probably couldn’t see beneath the baggy onesie. I dropped the octopus to the floor and straightened my dress. Ian grabbed me, and I made a squeaky gasp as he hauled me up against his chest. I put my hands on his upper arms to steady myself on my feet. “Are you going to ravish me?”

It was a valid question; his hold was super tight.

“I intend to. If that’s all right?”

I laughed. “I don’t think you’re supposed to timidly ask permission if this is a true ravishment.”

“Fine. I’ll try again.”

His hand moved up my back, to the nape of my neck, where he took a hold of me possessively, but not roughly.

“I plan to strip that dress off of your body,” he said, his voice somewhere between a whisper and a groan. “Throw you on the bed, and do unspeakably wicked things to you until you can bear it no longer.”