Hey Everyone,
It’s been a while, so I thought I’d share a little of what makes Raul and Penelope’s story so special…
Genre: Contemporary Romance
ISBN: 978-1-60504-685-3
Length: Novel
Price: 5.50
Publication Date: November 3, 2009
Cover art by Scott Carpenter
Once burned is all it takes…
A Rancho Del Cielo Romance.
Twelve years ago, Raul Montenga left home to live life on his own terms. Yet for just as long, his nights have sizzled with erotic dreams of Penelope, the girl he left behind. Enough is enough. It’s time to find out if the sparks are real, or all in his head.
Not that he expected a warm welcome, but her cold shoulder and icy rejection sting more than he cares to admit. So he’s more than a little surprised to find her tomboy daughter standing nervously on his porch…claiming to be his child.
Dr. Penelope Gibson’s worst nightmare isn’t that her daughter wants to know her daddy. It’s facing—and keeping at arm’s length—her biggest youthful mistake. Now he’s back and the feelings she’d thought frozen solid are melting fast. Along with her inhibitions, her clothes and her better judgment.
Problem is, Raul’s not content to stop at getting acquainted with her daughter. He wants it all—Penelope’s love, her body and her soul. After twelve years building a life without him, though, she’s not sure she trusts him—or herself—enough to try.
Warning: This book features a wildly hot Latino firefighter dead-set on a mission to seduce. Contains bad words, fiery tempers and scorching sex. Oven mitts required.
Excerpt:
Raul wondered if maybe hauling ass with a hose over his shoulder was easier than parenting. Chloe’s pizza place in Poway—RDC had yet to get a place of their own that catered to kids—was a cross between child heaven and hearing hell. A little girl in there had hit notes only dogs should be able to hear. And according to Penelope, that had been a happy noise.
Josh was going to kick his ass six ways from Sunday for taking more time off work, but it’d been worth it. Chloe was pretty damn deadly with video games, and the basketball-throwing game was her version of stealing candy from a baby. Two more facts for him to add to his list of things he was learning about his daughter. He was currently up to ten—God, he hoped his parents didn’t know about that Protestant thing already—but he had a feeling he’d lose count soon. There seemed an awful lot about his child to learn.
“I thought my nieces and nephews were loud,” he complained again, walking with Penelope and Chloe to their door.
“They are,” Penelope said over her shoulder as she unlocked her front door. “Your family is just smart enough not to trap them in an enclosed space.”
Kids. No walls. Yeah, that seemed like a good plan.
Chloe wasn’t bouncing off any walls, but she didn’t seem anywhere near as tired as he felt. She thumped her way into the house and was already up three steps before announcing over her shoulder, “I better get upstairs and start my homework. Mrs. Garabedian is gonna be pissed if I don’t turn in my vocab sheet. Thanks for the medal and dinner, R—” She stopped talking abruptly, turning all the way around and frowning at him. “What am I supposed to call you now?”
He blinked at her. Well, crap, he hadn’t thought about that. “What do you want to call me?”
“Well, calling you Raul seems wrong. I mostly just do it ’cause it bugs Mom.”
Penelope rolled her eyes, doing a great job of not sighing.
“What did she call her father?” They both turned to Penelope, who got that cornered expression on her face again. He’d really have to ask her about that one of these days.
“Daddy,” she answered grudgingly.
Chloe scrunched the whole left side of her face. “Lame, Mom.”
“Gimme a break, I was only seven when he died.” She said it casually, but Raul remembered how she’d looked when her father died. For more than a year, he’d had to actually work hard to get her to smile. When he saw her, which wasn’t often. Grade school was all about the grade you were in. He only saw her when she managed to get away from her friends so she could come watch the bigger kids on the recess yard. Back then, their two-year age difference might as well have been a ten-year one.
“Still.” Chloe dismissed the suggestion with a one-shouldered shrug.
“Well, I guess Daddy’s out.” He could live with that. In his family, titles were important. They showed respect, created the framework that gave the kids a sense of security he knew firsthand. It had been soothing, when he was little, to know exactly his place in his world and the place of everyone else. But that place had eventually become a box, one he’d hurt too many people trying to get out of. “How about you stick with Raul until you figure out what you do want to call me? Maybe we can work our way around to Dad or something like that.”
Dad. A moment of complete and utter terror ran through every nerve he had. This was really happening. The little girl looking at him like he was out of his damn mind belonged to him. Was part of him. Was his responsibility for the rest of his life.
Penelope frowned at him before she turned back to her daughter. No. Their daughter. “Go on upstairs, hon.”
“Is he gonna be okay?” Why did he get the sense that the eleven-year-old was laughing her ass off at him?
“He’ll be fine. Just a reality check.”
“Because of me?” His child was nuts—that seemed to make her happy.
“Someday, when you’re older, I’ll tell you exactly how scary you’ve always been. Up, before I give Mrs. Garabedian a run for her money.”
Some thumping, followed by a gleefully evil voice calling down, “Thanks for dinner, Daddy!”
Penelope reached out to him just as the edges of his vision went a fuzzy kind of white. “You better come in here before you fall down.”
Her hand slid around his biceps, a smooth movement that brought the color back to his vision. Tossing the door closed, she tugged him into the carpeted living room and down to the plush couch. Her slim form was next to him, her thigh brushing his, her dark hair slipping over her shoulder. Close enough to touch.
She turned her cobalt eyes on him, the smallest ripple between her brows. “You all right or do you need something cold to drink?”
Raul shook off the unsteady feeling, but the realization that he was being an idiot didn’t fade so quickly. “I’m fine.”
“Sure you are.”
His laugh sounded shaky to his own ears. “You’d think a man who walks into burning buildings would know better than to be scared of an eleven-year-old kid.”
“Why? A burning building can only kill you. Kids can make you beg for mercy on a daily basis.”
He could feel the color leeching from his face and forming a puddle around his ankles. It all rushed back at her soft, mocking laughter. “I’m starting to think maybe Chloe’s evil streak comes from you.”
“Probably,” she agreed easily, separating herself from him and shifting back a whole couch cushion. “But you’ll never get anyone you know to believe it.”
A growing familiar sense of irritation sparked in his gut again. Why did she keep doing that? Even the most innocent of touches and she backed away as if he were the most repellent thing she’d ever known. It made him itch to touch her even more, dare her to admit openly what she’d been doing. Explain it.
It was what he would have done when he was younger. Stupid. Firmly of the mind that while he didn’t necessarily want Penelope the way she wanted to be wanted, he had rights to her. As a man, grown and unfortunately required to acknowledge his own selfishness, he knew he didn’t have those rights. Any rights at all. He’d given those up twelve years ago.
“I’m not entirely a bad guy, you know. Someone might believe it.”
She smiled, bemused. “Oh yeah? Who?”
“My sisters.”
She outright laughed. Warm, inviting laughter that had his fingers knotting. “You’ve had the wool pulled over their eyes for decades. No, your family doesn’t count.”
“Well, hell, that rules out half the county.”
Penelope tucked her hair behind her ears before slapping her knees and rising with nervous energy. “I better get you that water. I don’t want it going to Chloe’s head if she finds you passed out on the floor.”
Yeah, there was something wrong with that girl if she thought freaking people out was a good thing. But that thought wasn’t what had him watching Pen’s lean form head for the kitchen.
“They’re not bad people, you know.”
“Who?” She called as she moved up the steps to the raised dining area.
“My family. They’re really nice, believe it or not.”
She turned, frowning. “I know. I’ve seen most of them pretty regularly the last couple of years.”
The subtle dig was hardly going to get him off the topic. “But you don’t want to see them as family.”
Her arms crossed and the line between her brows deepened. “Why would I? I’m not their family.”
“Chloe is.” A fact everyone in this small town would know within days, he was sure. So was she, if the fine bristle tightening her features meant anything. “They deserve a chance to recognize her, to show her she belongs. She deserves to know she belongs.”
“I never said they couldn’t. They see her every week at her and Danny’s baseball games. The two of them do everything together. I have no intention of getting in the way of that.”
“Then why don’t you want Chloe going to my parents’ house?”
She brushed her long bangs with an impatient hand. “How about I just get that water?”
“How about you answer the question?”
“Because there’s nothing to answer. I don’t have any problems with Chloe meeting your family officially.” She turned away from him, striding through the open doorway to the kitchen. As if she thought that would end the discussion. Really. Didn’t she know him at all anymore?
Feeling a lot steadier, Raul rolled to his feet, following the sounds of clanking glasses and glugging liquid. He stepped in, finding Penelope pouring filtered water from a jug, her back razor straight.
He tilted his head, eying her appreciatively. She’d always been pretty. Not stunning, not flashy or brash, like her friends. Miranda Whittaker and Trisha Arbourdale could steal a room from the Pope when they felt like it. Penelope, though, she was the quiet type—like a treasure you couldn’t find unless you knew where it was. No one saw her, but once you noticed, you just couldn’t look anywhere else.
And for the first time in his life, Raul Montenga was really looking.
Not with the hormonal surges of a twenty-two-year-old kid, though that horny bastard was still itching to get at her. With the mature appreciation of a man who’d seen and touched and found that the glitter other women needed to garner attention wore off after a while. Not Pen, though.
Her hair fell down her back, straight as a waterfall, the strands gleaming with different shades of chocolate, molasses and caramel. Her body was trim, curving gently at the hips and…well, all right, the horny bastard in him unquestioningly loved the round, firm shape of her ass in those black slacks. God knew his dick paid allegiance to it in a daily morning ritual. But there was more he could see now. How poised she was, not to yell or pick up heavy objects to toss at his head. The way she wore her pride around her like a shield. The way she didn’t back down with him or their child.
Tearing his gaze from her butt, he glanced around, noticing the pool he’d expected out on the patio. She’d done amazing for herself, finishing her education, building her own practice. Shit, she’d come home with her fatherless child and faced down every judgmental, gossip-loving ass in this town. For as many as were harmless and kind, there were plenty who were vicious and cruel. But she’d stayed and walked with her head up for twelve years.
“I couldn’t have done it,” he said, making her jump as she turned with the glasses. “You didn’t hear me come in?”
She treated him to a mocking shrug before holding out his water. He took it, noticing she slid her fingers away before he could touch them, even accidentally. Then she positioned herself against the counter, close enough that it wouldn’t be an insult, but far enough away that he’d have to come after her if he planned to touch her. Another notch on his patience gave way.
“Why are you afraid of me?”
“I’m not.” A denial that was too fast to be believable.
“Yes, you are. You’re afraid of me and you’re afraid of my family. I want to know why.”
A flicker of irritation narrowed her eyes. “Just because I’m not leaping for joy at the prospect of visiting your family does not mean I’m afraid. It means this is all moving fast and I’m a little concerned about thrusting my daughter feet-first into an already established family dynamic she won’t know or fully understand. I was hoping to ease her into a relationship with them. Gently. Carefully. To make sure no one gets hurt.”
“Why would anyone get hurt?” But in the back of his mind, he felt the doubt, the concern rise.
Penelope’s scoff told him he wasn’t fooling anyone. “I’ve met your mother, Raul.”
He stiffened, everything in him going angrily still. “And I’ve met yours.”
He knew he’d hit a raw nerve when her cheeks flushed a fast, hot pink. She set her glass down on the counter, untouched, and crossed her arms under her breasts. It wasn’t a calculated move, more as if she were hugging herself tight, but it shifted his attention nonetheless.
“I’ve done the best for my daughter—despite my mother’s personal issues—to make sure she’s been brought up safe, happy and secure, knowing that the people she loves, love her. And I’ve done pretty damn well so far.”
“No one’s arguing that.” And he wasn’t. She might be a little evil , but Chloe was a good kid overall. Better than he’d been at her age, that was for sure.
“I won’t apologize for worrying about her welfare when I know there’s a chance she could be hurt.”
Did he want her to? Heart thudding, he couldn’t answer, but he couldn’t let her walk around ignoring the obvious either. “Word is going to get around soon, Pen. What’s better for her, my brother and sisters finding out when she’s brought to the house for them to accept or when it’s thrown in their faces at the grocery store? How happy are they going to be to see her then?”
Finally, it was her turn to blanch. He took a few steps closer and leaned against the island counter, placing himself directly in her personal space. Let her look me in the eye and tell me what she really thought thinks of me. “Do you really think I’d let them hurt her?”
“I think you close your eyes to things you don’t want to see.” She lifted her chin to meet his gaze steadily. Steely and completely unwilling to cower because he might not like what she said.
And damn if he didn’t like it. Penelope all grown up. Determined to stand her ground. Absolutely irresistible.
Something about her could take him from pissed to aching hard in half a second.
Something he decided right then he had to get to the bottom of. He straightened away from the island, watching her eyes widen as he came within inches of her. “Maybe I’m not as blind as I used to be.”
She shivered, a fine quiver that reverberated through him. Not one of fear or revulsion. No, he knew that kind of shiver. Part of him even vaguely remembered it from his dreams. Arousal. Her eyes turned smoky, deep, and those soft pink lips opened just the tiniest bit, a breath escaping. He heard it. Felt it. Which was the moment he realized he was going to kiss her.
Of course, by then, he was already doing it. Tasting those pink lips, breathing in her gasp, sliding deep into her mouth. At first she was still, but then he felt her moan against his tongue, her hands grasping the open sides of his coat so tight they pulled at his neck. She strained upward, sliding her body against his. In a heartbeat she was devouring him just as much as he ate at her. Lips, tongues, teeth, it wasn’t a kiss so much as it was an explosion.
“No!”
Raul found himself shoved backward, Penelope’s hair slipping from his fingers as he reached for his bearings and found them completely scattered.
“We can’t,” she said, catching her breath faster than he did.
“What?” The only other word in his mind was why but he had enough wits not to ask that.
Pen wrapped her arms around herself, tight, lifting her fingers to her lips as if they were sore. Or maybe they stung, like his.
He had to clench his own hands into fists not to reach for her again and make them sting like hell.
The movement wasn’t lost on her. A curtain slammed down in her gaze, locking him out completely. “No, Raul. I’m not doing this again.”
“This is different.” They weren’t drunk. They knew exactly what they were doing, who they were with. Who they wanted.
“No, it’s not.” She wasn’t cold, but she was sure. “I’m not going back to being that girl everyone pitied because she was infatuated with a dream. I’m not going to get Chloe’s hopes up because I can’t control myself. She’s already paying for my inability to think around you. It’s not happening again.”
Chloe. Upstairs, oblivious to whatever the hell it was that had just happened.
“You should go,” she added hoarsely.
“This isn’t over, Pen.”
“Yes, it is. It has to be. You just keep your distance and I’ll keep mine. It’ll be fine.”
“Fine,” he repeated. For a smart woman, she didn’t have a fucking clue sometimes.
“Yes, fine,” she said, going prissy on him. “Because I’ve already had to pull my life together once after you left. I refuse to put myself in a position where I have to do it again. I have Chloe to think about.” Implying he didn’t. Softer, but no less resolved, “You’re a risk I can’t afford.”
Wouldn’t afford. Raul wanted to say something to her, but he wasn’t sure he knew what to say. He wasn’t going to fucking beg, that was for damn sure. “We’re going to my parents on Sunday afternoon. All of us. Be ready by noon.”
She opened her mouth to argue, but he stalked out of the room, out of the house and into the cool outside air. He was halfway across town, truck windows open and temper slowly starting to abate, when he admitted to himself she was right to push him away. To stop his damn inability to ignore an impulse. Things were getting out of hand quick, and sex was the last thing they needed. Least of all in the kitchen, with a kid possibly showing up at any second. She was right, damn it.
But, he thought, remembering the feel of her—the taste and the impact of her on his senses—there was no way their attraction was going to just go away. Long before he’d started dreaming about her, Penelope Gibson had been Temptation personified.
Trouble was, he’d never been much good at resisting temptation.
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