Free First Time: Penny's Story (First Time (Penny) Book 1) by Abigail Barnette

mentally. I waved at
the picnic basket between us. Suddenly, it seemed like a total
third wheel. “Here.” I moved it then scooted a little closer to
him. “We still have room to stretch out. I want to do something I
haven’t done in a really long time. Since Pennsylvania,
actually.”
    It was a little difficult to lie down on the
blanket and get comfortable without my skirt flying up, but I
managed, and folded my hands over my stomach because I was far too
aware of my body in the moment. “You have to look up,” I told him
with a nod.
    He hesitated but got down on the blanket,
too, close enough to me that his arm brushed mine. “I assume we’re
looking for shapes.”
    “ Yes. And then I’m going to
judge whether or not you’re a weirdo or a pervert based on the
shapes you see.” And speaking of weirdos and perverts, there seemed
to be a giant set of tits floating in the sky. “Oh my gosh, that
one looks like boobs!”
    “ I was going to say an ice
cream sundae, but look who’s the pervert, now,” he said dryly. “The
sky today looks like something out of a cartoon.”
    “ Those are cumulus clouds,”
I said without thinking. After years of hearing “no one likes a
know-it-all, Penny,” from my mother and seeing exactly how true
that was with guys I’d dated, I should have learned by now. “Sorry.
I didn’t mean to sound like a know-it-all.”
    He gave me a strange look. “You don’t sound
like a know-it-all. But you do apparently know it all. First
octopuses, now this?”
    “ Octopods,” I corrected him
automatically and cringed. “Sometimes, I can be overbearing, I
know.”
    I couldn’t face him. I felt like everyone I
met got the same idea: that I was full of myself, that I thought I
was a bigger deal than I was or smarter than everyone else. And I
didn’t feel that way, not one bit. Most of the time, I felt the
exact opposite of smarter-than-everyone-else.
    “ Hey, no. Don’t do that,” he
said softly. He sat up a little, propped on his elbows. “There’s
nothing wrong with being smart, Penny. Jesus, I’m fifty-three, and
I didn’t know what that kind of cloud was. I don’t remember what
any of the clouds are. I would have said cumulonimbus.”
    “ Nimbus is only added if
there’s precipitation involved,” I said, and I bit my lip to stop
myself from saying anything else.
    His expression shifted, like a barrier had
crumbled between us. I’d shown him more than I’d realized. I’d
shown him vulnerability, a hole in my super-peppy-positive-Penny
armor.
    “ Penny…can I kiss
you?”
    My throat closed up. I became dizzy with the
ridiculous thought that this didn’t feel like just a first kiss,
but a first step. And maybe it was too early to think that, but I
wanted it, as badly as I wanted to know what his mouth felt
like.
    I nodded. “Yes, please.”
    He rolled to his side, rising on his elbow
and leaning down. He planted one hand on the blanket beside my
waist, so his forearm lay across my ribs. I was sure he could feel
how erratic my breathing was.
    What the heck was I doing? This was a public
park, with people all around, and I didn’t care one bit if they saw
me kissing a man in broad daylight. Public displays of affection
weren’t really my thing—at least, this public—but as Ian’s mouth
touched mine, I couldn’t worry about that anymore. Just the
smallest contact flushed all shame from my brain. I lifted my head
and just went for it, opening my mouth under his, hoping he would
follow my lead when I darted my tongue against his lower lip.
    He didn’t just follow my lead, he took the
lead, sweeping his tongue into my mouth, stealing the breath from
my lungs.
    There’s nothing in the world like a first
kiss. Tingles zipped from my mouth to the very best place. Ian
quickly rose from top five to number one first kiss of my life. It
was the most toe-curling, vagina-clenching kiss I’d ever had, first
or not. Now I understood how this could have woken Snow White.
    I