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When they arrived at the shore, with the top down in Colin's new Ford Sunliner, Colin and Penelope found a crowd there already. As Colin lifted the picnic basket and other bags from the backseat, he heard a shout of "Bridgerton!" and turned to wave and nod over at Phillip Crane, who was hanging about with Robbie Macclesfield and Winston Burberry. As usual, they had a gaggle of chicks hanging about them.
"Come hang with us," Macclesfield called out.
Colin turned to Penelope to ask if that was okay but the words died at the back of his mouth. A light brush fitted itself across the apples of her cheeks and across the bridge of her nose. She wouldn't meet his eye and he had a pretty good feeling she wouldn't argue with him if he said they were joining the others.
"Uh - thanks, Mac," Colin returned. "But we've got our own thing going on." The gang didn't argue, and Colin went back to unloading the car.
Penelope looked at him in surprise. "You didn't have to do that," she said in a short breath. "We could have gone with them."
Colin offered her a bashful smile and a shrug. "No sweat," he said. Colin came round the side of the car and handed her only one thing to carry, the tote she'd brought with her towel and a beach blanket. "I asked you to the shore, didn't I? Not them. We're tight. We can hang some other time.
It made his chest warm to see her so pleased with his answer.
Colin led her away from the crowds right off the car park and to a quieter and less populated section of the beach. "How's this look?" he asked, stopping at a flat spot just past the low rise of a sand dune that mostly blocked them from view of everyone else.
"Perfect," she said.
They got to work spreading out the beach blanket together, made slightly more difficult with the shore breeze that kept lifting the corners. Penelope set the picnic basket on one and her bag on the opposite.
When he realized she was going to strip down to her bathing suit, Colin should have been a gentleman and thus not watched, however he couldn't help himself. With each outer layer of clothing that came off - first her skirt then her summer blouse - Colin felt his face grow hotter and hotter, and it wasn't from the midday sun.
Wowza, he thought. The cherry red two-piece swimsuit accentuated every pale and curve she had. The high-waisted bottoms cut magically at the tops of her generous thighs and highlighted her stomach and the roundness of her bottom. Her breasts, which Colin hadn't spent as much time mooning over as probably should have, filled out the top half of the suit perfectly. The wide straps cut in an x shape across her back, revealing patches of pale skin at her shoulder blades and the back of her neck.
Colin caught himself salivating and made to cover it up with a cough and a quick pass of the back of his hand across his mouth.
Penelope looked at him in surprise. "Colin? Everything all right?"
"What? Yeah," he sputtered. Cool it, he told himself. Get a grip, Bridgerton. "Yeah, I'm cool."
When she smiled, even now as she glanced around nervously before settling back on Colin. "I'll just -" She motioned at the blanket and the magazine in her hand. He just nodded.
His tongue got all twisted in his mouth when he went to say something. Penelope had spread herself out on the blanket on her belly. With all of her hair - all those auburn curls - piled high up on her head, he could see all of the exposed skin along her back and down her legs.
Colin realized he really, really needed to get in the water before he embarrassed himself.
"I'm going for a swim," he blurted out.
She lowered her cheaters a smidge to look at him. "Oh - well, of course. We are at the shore after all." Penelope smiled but went back to flipping through the magazine she had opened in front of her. She kicked her legs up in the air, and Colin noticed her toenails were painted the same shade of red as her two-piece.
He had to force himself to look away. "Right," he said, looking out at the choppy sea for a moment. Then, he moved quickly, removing his shirt and toeing off his Converse. He wriggled out of his denim too then made for the water in only his swimming trunks.
Colin could have sworn Penelope was watching him the whole time, but he couldn't be sure because of course he couldn't see her eyes behind her cheaters. He brushed the thought off and went for the water, jogging through the sharp coldness of it on his feet and ankles and then, once he was out far enough, dove straight in through the swells.
The water was cold as ice and went straight to his bones, but it was refreshing as well and did something to tamper the arousal he had been feeling at watching Penelope undress and then lay herself out in the sun. He went out far enough that he could tread water but could push up off the sea floor if he needed to. All the while, he kept his back to the shore, his back to Penelope, his back to whatever attractive site he might see out there on the sand.
"Colin!"
He spun around to find Penelope at the edge of the water, backing up each time a wave hit and poured toward her. He lifted an arm and waved.
"How's the water?" she asked, voice carrying over the sounds of the waves and the sea gulls and the voices traveling downwind from the car park.
"Cold," he shouted back. And then, because his mouth decided to listen to his body before his mind, he continued. "You should come in!"
Penelope hesitated but then seemed to decide that yes, she did want to wade into the water. "It is cold," she half-shrieked.
"You need to just do it," Colin told her. He swam in closer to her, to where the water came up to his ribcage but before the waves broke against the sand. "Come out here to me, Pen."
She jumped away from one of the bigger breakers and then darted out into the water with both another shriek and a laugh, until she was nearer to Colin. He reached out to her, hand clasping her forearm so he could tug her out through the water. "All right," she said, face bright with sunshine as she looked up at him. "It's not so bad."
Colin chuckled. "It's pretty aces," he said. He ducked down in the water so his wet shoulders weren't exposed to the cool air. "Hey-o, Pen," he said, circling her. "I didn't say it yet, but you're sure a knock-out in that bathing suit. Real gorg."
"You don't have to do that," she said.
He stopped moving. "Do what?"
"Say things like that, things you don't mean."
He stood up and shook the water out of his hair. "So you don't think you look good in that suit? Why did you wear it then?"
"No, of course I think I do," Penelope said quickly. She didn't look at him, but her jaw clenched even as she moved her hands over the top of the water and let the movement of the water keep her stepping slightly more away from him. "But you don't think I do."
"Oh you're a mind reader now?" Colin tried to keep a smile on his face but he found himself frustrated that she seemed to think she knew what he was saying better than he did. "C'mon, Pen, you know I don't lie to you."
At that, she looked at him, eyes wide. Some of her curls had come out from the elastics holding all her hair up onto the top of her head. One of them fell against the side of her neck and Colin had such an intense urge to reach out and touch it, tug on it until it sprung back up, brushing past her ear, that he did. He heard Penelope's sharp intake of breath.
"Pen," he whispered. He moved closer to her. "Do you know what I was thinking about when I watched you take off your clothes?" When Penelope didn't answer right away, he lifted a hand to her shoulder and slipped his finger under the wide strap of her swimsuit. "Pen?"
She nodded.
Colin stepped in even closer to her. "I couldn't take my eyes off you," he told her. "I don't know how - I don't know when - I had to come out here to cool off, yeah?" He smiled when she finally looked at him. "No one else sees it, but I do."
Penelope swallowed. "You do?"
"Oh yeah," he said. His gaze dropped to her mouth, where her lips were pink and full and he could see a smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose. "Can I -?" He gave her time to pull away, to tell him off for it, to tell him she didn't want him to.
When she didn't, when instead she arched her back as he spread his hand out against the wide stripe of skin between the two pieces of her bathing suit, he knew he had to kiss her. He was for sure going to kiss Penelope Featherington, right then and there, in the sea, under the sun, on an otherwise ordinary summer Friday afternoon.
"Colin," she breathed out and tipped her chin up as he lowered his mouth down on hers. Immediately, her hand snaked around his head, her fingers tangling in his wet hair. He curled his fingers into the bare skin of her back. His other hand came to settle at the soft curve of her waist.
Penelope held onto him as though if she didn't, she might fall, and he spread his legs and dug in to keep them both steady. Beneath the water, he felt her thigh press between his knees. He groaned and pulled back, enough to catch his breath.
"Unreal," he whispered. He kissed her again as she swatted at his chest.
"Yeah?" Her gaze up at him was both hopeful and shy.
"Oh yeah," Colin said. "So … wanna go back to the blanket and snog some more?" Truly, he couldn't think of a single better way to spend the rest of the afternoon, and he was very glad to hear her agree.
He took her hand in his and practically hauled her, both of them laughing and splashing, out of the water and back up the beach.
How he had gone his entire life until this moment with having kissed Penelope Colin couldn't be sure. But, he thought as he drew her close to him and slid his hands down her back and over the swell of her bottom, he wasn't going to waste another second.