by LJ Evans
“Thank you,” she said.
I nodded. “Glad I could help.”
“I’d still like to buy you dinner. As a thank you.”
If it kept her near me for a little while longer, it was worth the knock to my pride to let her pay for my meal. “I think I’d like that.”
She smiled her real smile again. I was damn proud of myself for knowing the difference after only two days in her presence.
I carried the machine down, she popped the trunk, and we angled it inside. Once she closed the door, she headed toward the back door of the bar, but I halted her with my words.
“Can we go somewhere else? I’m not sure I can handle the noise or sleazy-eyed Phil.”
It was the truth on both counts because the noise of the machine for a couple hours had been enough. I’d been surrounded by noise all day. People. Machines. Crowds. I was ready for some peace.
She came back to the car. “It’s eleven. It’s either this or the Dairy Queen.”
“I don’t have a problem with the Dairy Queen.”
“But they don’t have any seats indoors.”
“We can take it back to the hotel.”
She flushed again, and I realized her thoughts had traveled all the way to my room. I wanted to take her there, but I wasn’t going to do the whole one-night stand thing with a woman I’d have to see again—probably many times—if Mayson and Grace stayed together.
“I don’t mean it like that,” I said. “We can eat in the lobby. If you want to come up to the room, you can eat on Grace’s bed, and I can eat on mine, and I won’t even blame you for the crumbs when she asks.”
She hesitated, and her car keys swung around her finger like she’d done with her cousin’s the day before.
“Or you can just drop me off and head on your way, and I’ll see if the hotel still has room service available.”
I was leaving it up to her. I knew I didn’t want the time with her to end. I knew I wanted to know more about this Ginny who was as witch-like as her namesake. She’d wrapped herself into me and was calling to me in words I hadn’t yet deciphered, but I wasn’t going to push. That wasn’t me. Would never be me.
“Okay,” she finally responded. “Dairy Queen it is.”
I didn’t know if that meant she was coming in with me, but I’d take it.
We climbed into her little car, ordered at the drive-thru, and then she zipped us along the wet streets to the hotel. I didn’t ask, but she parked in a spot and got out. I followed as she led the way into the lobby, and she didn’t stop there. She kept going, right over to the guest elevators. I couldn’t help the smile that took over my face while we waited, and she could easily see it in the reflected surface, but she was smiling, too. My heartbeat picked up at it.
When we got to the room, I shed my layers, toeing off the new boots, and landed on the bed nearest the window. She unraveled herself from her knit beanie, jacket, scarf, and shoes. She fluffed her hair, but she didn’t need to. Even slightly smooshed from the hat, she still looked gorgeous.
I handed her the bag that held her items, and she took them to the bed Grace hadn’t slept in once since arriving in town. Ginny sat cross-legged again, facing me as we ate in silence.
“So, what’s your movie about?” she asked.
“It’s a musical,” I started, and she rolled her eyes. “It’s about three people who grow up together. Two guys and a girl. Both the guys are in love with her, but she doesn’t get together with either of them. She meets and gets engaged to a third guy. One of the best friends offs the fiancé by poisoning him, and when he dies, she suspects both of her friends.”
“Um. Wow. And it’s a musical?”
I laughed. “Yep. Dark moments, light moments. Ends happy, though.”
“How can it end happy for her? She lost the love of her life?”
“How do you know it’s the love of her life?”
“Well, she chose him over the two best friends, so he had to be.”
“Ha. Little do you know. She really loved the one who didn’t kill the fiancé, she just didn’t realize it until everything went to hell in a handbasket.”
“Hmm. She seems wishy-washy.”
“Wishy-washy?” I laughed. I took my garbage, and hers, and tossed it into the can by the desk, then I went back and leaned against the headboard of my bed. Even sitting, my feet went damn near the end of it. It was the one thing about being tall: nothing ever fit right.
She watched me the entire time, and her gaze was still on me when I turned my eyes back to her, making it hard to keep my body in control in this environment. Damn near midnight. Hotel room. Nothing but a few clothes and air between us.
“Haven’t you ever thought you were in love with someone and then realized it wasn’t love at all?” I asked.
She shook her head, curls flying everywhere. “Nope.”
“So, you’re still in love, then. Who is this lucky man?” Asshole. Bastard. I hadn’t even thought about her being in a relationship with someone. I’d seen all the couples in the family, and her with no one, and had assumed she was single. Just like I’d assumed a lot of things about her. I really was an idiot.
“No one. I’m not dating anyone,” she answered, and relief soared through every part of my body. Not that it would matter. Not when I lived in L.A., and she lived here.
“Have you ever been in love?” I couldn’t help the way my voice went down as I spoke, thinking about how sad and wrong and also how wonderful it would be if she hadn’t been.
She picked at the hem of the jersey she was wearing. It wasn’t what she’d been wearing earlier in the day. This one looked old. Worn. Like one you’d only wear at home and never journey outside in. I liked it because of just that. Because it was something not many people would ever see her in, but I was lucky enough to.
“There has to have been a line of guys at the door, asking to take you out.” I pushed the topic further, needing to know more of the details, even if they stabbed at me.
She shrugged. “Yes and no.”
I chuckled. “What does that mean?”
“The few who came calling didn’t really interest me.”
I was already shaking my head. “You must have left a trail of broken hearts behind you, but you can’t tell me you’ve never dated anyone.”
Her turn to laugh. “I’m not saying I’ve never dated. I’m saying...I just…” She trailed off, looking away.
“You just?”
“Never mind.”
“You can’t start something like that and not finish it.”
Her cheeks were turning pink again.
“Let’s just say,” she started. “I was never…interested…”
I couldn’t quite put all the pieces together. She was trying to tell me something that was obviously embarrassing her, but I felt like I was missing the corner piece to the puzzle.
I frowned. “I must be an imbecile. I still don’t get it.”
She breathed out a heavy breath, as if it were costing her more than she wanted to give to say any of the words. “I wasn’t excited by any of them. You know…turned on. Honestly, most of the time, they repulsed me almost as much as Phil did tonight. I just didn’t get what all the hubbub was about.”
Holy crap. It hit me hard in the chest. She was telling me she’d never gotten hot and heavy with a guy. She was probably telling me she’d never had sex. She was in her junior year of college, and maybe it shouldn’t have been, but it was rare to find someone who hadn’t had sex by then. Maybe if more people waited to sleep with a partner, there would be fewer breakups. In my experience, sex messed with your head and your heart. Often putting feelings there that were far from the truth, simply because of what the sex itself felt like. Glorious. Good. Almost perfect. But never quite perfect. Like you were always looking for the next high, and you thought the person you were with was the one to give it to you, to land you in that heavenly state.
I
got up off the bed, moving so I was standing right in front of her.
“Ginny, are you telling me you’ve never slept with anyone?”
Ginny
SANTA TELL ME
“Let it snow, it's blasting now
But I won't get in the mood
I'm avoiding every mistletoe until I know
It's true love that he thinks of.”
Performed by Ariana Grande
Written by Grande / Kotecha / Salmanzadeh
My face was a flame of color. I couldn’t help it. I didn’t know what had provoked me to state the truth to Cole. Probably because he was doing things to me and my body I wasn’t accustomed to. Feelings I’d never had were being brought to the surface. Like Snow White or Sleeping Beauty being slowly dragged awake.
But we hadn’t even kissed, so it wasn’t an apt analogy. What I did know was I wanted to kiss him. I wanted to know what it would feel like to put my lips on his. I wanted to know if I’d feel nothing again, like I had with every guy who’d ever put his lips to mine, or if I would feel more of the tingly energy surge I’d felt every time Cole and I collided.
He was so dang tall that looking up at him from my sitting position on the bed was enough to give me a crick in my neck. I stood, socked feet sinking into the mattress, and when I wobbled, his hand reached out to my waist, stabilizing me. Once I had stopped swaying, he didn’t remove his hand.
The heat of it seeped into Ty’s old jersey I was wearing. It seeped all the way through, leaving a mark just below my ribcage that I could feel getting warmer the longer it stayed there. It caused more delightful currents to coast over me.
“It’s ridiculous, right?” I lifted my chin and met his gaze. I didn’t have anything to be ashamed of, I reminded myself. In my freshman year, I’d tried my damndest to get rid of my virginity. I’d wanted to give it away. But the guys I’d dated, a couple of football-player friends of Ty’s, a couple of guys in my classes, and even one of the older baristas at our favorite coffee shop had all made me want to gag when they’d touched me.
I’d thought it wasn’t meant to be. I thought my expectations from all my romance novels had been too high and that reality was just a bitter disappointment.
Then, in sauntered Cole, and I was feeling every delicious brush just like in the stories. I was feeling it all for someone who was going away. For someone there was a good chance I’d see rarely, if at all, in my life. But it gave me hope for the first time in ages. Because if there was one guy who could bring out these feelings, there certainly would be more. Maybe it just meant I was choosier than most.
“No, it’s not ridiculous.” His tone was deep and guttural, hardly words as much as grunts.
We stared at each other for a long moment before my eyes drifted down to his lips. I wanted so badly to know what his mouth would feel like against mine.
“I would have kissed you yesterday,” I told him. His hand on my waist tightened, and his other hand found the other side of me. “But the truth is, now that we’ve waited, I’m afraid.”
“Why?”
“I’m afraid it’ll be like it was with the others. I’m afraid I’ll feel nothing.”
He groaned and tipped his head so our foreheads met. It was just those three places where our skin touched, and I could feel every single one of them stronger than when anyone had ever touched me intimately before, but I was still scared. Terrified the hope I had―the hope he’d raised in me―would be a false one.
Our gazes locked as he rubbed his thumbs on both my sides, and even through the layer of clothes, it made my body prickle, goosebumps littering my skin.
“Can you feel that?” he asked.
I knew he could see the goosebumps, but I nodded anyway.
The circles he was making got wider, stretching up, coasting underneath my bra, and then back down to my leggings. All over the top of Ty’s old jersey, and yet the soft circles continued to leave hot trails on my body. I wanted more. I wanted every single vein and nerve to be awake.
He inched forward so his body was up tight against the bed and tugged me so I had to step toward him, our bodies colliding, touching in places I hadn’t touched another human being in a long time. More than a year. It had been more than a year since I’d given up on this. The physical piece of a relationship.
Our foreheads were no longer joined, but our lips were so close I could easily jut my chin and join them. I wanted to. I wanted to take the leap and see what happened.
“Kiss me.” The dare was still in his voice, the same teasing goad from yesterday, but layered with something else now. Emotion. Hope. Longing.
It pushed me across that final line of fear. I let my lips settle on his, and holy waters of hell, it felt beautiful. It was tantalizing. Like the first whiffs of the butter being browned into fudge. Sugary. Sweet. But with so much still to come.
I crushed my lips to his, and his arms circled me completely, pulling me until there was no longer any air between us. No space. No break. It ached because it felt so good. Just like it ached when he pushed his tongue gently against the seam of my mouth and I let him in. It ached when those slow, delicious strokes caused my body to quake. A good shiver. A shiver of joy.
I dug my fingers into his hair as our mouths continued to explore. Slow. No rush. Just an enticingly languid journey of lips and tongues, gradually waking those sleepy pieces of me until I felt like my entire body was going to burst into flame.
Just like in the books. Just like in my friends’ stories. Just like I’d doubted for so long could really be true.
Cole’s lips inched from mine, barely a breath, barely space, but I wasn’t ready for it to be over, and I pushed mine against his again. A groan went through his entire body. It rumbled through me just as I felt the push of his erection against my stomach. A heady rush of joy went through me. I felt powerful. Attractive. Wanted.
His arms tightened around me, and I was suddenly lifted in the air before we both landed on the bed, me on my back, him half on and half off of me. This time, when his lips left mine, they did not leave my skin. Instead, he trailed kisses along my cheek, and my jaw, and down onto my neck.
Everywhere he touched me, my body coiled awake. It felt like a brand against my skin. I wasn’t sure I’d ever be rid of it. I didn’t want to be rid of it. I wanted the brand and the feeling to remain. It all made so much sense. The longing in my friends’ voices. The ache to be near someone. The desire.
His hands had found their way under the jersey and were slowly trailing up and down along my stomach. I let my hands lead their own exploration. Over his wide shoulders, lean but taut with muscles that flexed underneath my touch. Down the muscled arms that had picked me up with such ease. Along the sides of his thermal Henley that felt and smelled new. As if he’d bought it at the same time he’d bought his new boots. I pulled the shirt from his waistband so my hands could explore his skin, just as he was exploring mine.
It was so damn beautiful. Him. The moment. Me feeling more alive than I’d ever felt before. The emotions and the pure relief after years of doubt filled my eyes with tears, and before I could help it, they had trailed down my cheeks and over the side of my jaw to where they landed on him, the salty wetness jerking him away from me.
His eyes went wide. “You’re crying.”
I closed my eyes, feeling so damn stupid. “I know.” My voice was full of contempt reflected back at me.
His voice was gentle, concerned. “Why? Did I hurt you?”
I shook my head. “It’s…relief.”
He rubbed my chin with a finger, and I risked looking up at him, hoping I wouldn’t see disgust, and was overjoyed to just see tenderness.
“Relief…” he repeated my word with a frown. “I feel like I need to batter a whole host of men until they are bloody and bruised.”
“It wasn’t their fault.”
I could tell he didn’t believe me. As if it was their lack of skill that had made me sta
y cold and frozen. It hadn’t been them. Some of them had been quite skilled with their hands and their tongues. But it had just made me clam up, shut down, turn to stone.
I didn’t know why it was different with Cole. There was no logic or reason behind it, but it had happened, and it was wonderful. Beautiful. Addicting.
“Do it again,” I said quietly, not straying from his eyes.
He stared at me, jaw ticking, eyes wandering to my lips and back.
“Make me come alive,” I breathed out.
He groaned before complying. Touching lips to lips while our bodies, still fully clothed, bent and twisted together. Mouths and hands discovering each other. Discovering the new reactions in me that I never wanted to end.
Minutes…maybe days later, he groaned again and rested his forehead on my chest. I ran a hand through his dark hair. So similar in color to mine in many ways. Shades of color that blended: copper and bronze and onyx. My heart was full. Happy. When was the last time I was happy for myself and not for someone else?
“Thank you,” I breathed out.
He pulled away some, and I missed the weight of him on me. He propped his head up on his hand, but his legs were still twined with mine. I would take it. At least he wasn’t running for the hills.
“Ginny…” His eyebrows were drawn together, and I knew he was thinking. He had done the same thing many times over the last two days. It happened whenever he was trying to decide what to say. Eventually, he continued. “I think your name is perfect.”
A laugh escaped me. That was the last thing I expected him to say. He grinned back. “Laugh all you want. You are a witch. Maybe I need to write an entire screenplay about you.”
“I bet you say that to all the ladies you make out with,” I told him back, but the smile was still on my lips. I didn’t think I would stop smiling for days. If I felt like this after one make-out session, what would I feel like if we made love? Had sex. Done the deed. I wanted to know but didn’t. I didn’t want to ruin this moment with something that might not live up to the pure heaven I’d just experienced.