I jumped first.
His wide arms were wrapped around me, not moving.
I nodded, reaching behind my back to unfasten the last clasp.
Dale had the perfect poker face, stoic and straight. He used it then, making it impossible for me to read what he thought.
I reached up to lower the lace fabric from my breasts and took off my bra.
His attention flicked to the round swells of my breasts before he held them. He pulled one nipple into his mouth, then between his teeth, tongue teasing, working it to a peak that had me wet and curling around him, locking my ankles around his waist.
“Dale…shit…oh God…”
“You…want more?” he asked, voice a low, gravelly tone.
The vibration was a sweet tease against my skin.
I pulled up his face. Done with everything but taking what I wanted. Done with wanting and having nothing. Done with aching and never being full. Dale watched me. That gruff, trained composure only fracturing when my breathy words came out on one exhale. “I want all of you.”
Those full, wet lips opened a fraction as his eyes went hard, lighting with something that reminded me of a thunderstorm.
He looked hungry and ready to devour me whole.
“Good.” He lifted to kiss me like my lips were oxygen and the last breath was leaving his lungs. “Because I’m going to take everything you’ve got.”
Dale pushed me back, standing with one foot on the floor and a knee on the mattress. He took my ankle, slipping off my skirt and panties. The whole while keeping his gaze on my face and his grip tight on my body. He was calculating, showing me with every graze of his lips against my ankle, my calf, the inside of my thigh, how calm he could be.
When he slipped closer, leaning over me, resting on his elbow, I followed his lead. I returned the stare he gave me as he directed my leg over his shoulder, spreading wide for him when he pushed my knees apart.
“Ginger everywhere,” he mumbled against my pink skin, licking the length of my pussy. He held me steady, tongue wet and strong as I arched into his mouth. He worked me over, up, the frenzy overwhelming. The air around us thickened with my moans, my growling pleasure.
“Like that…yes…” I tugged on his hair, fingers twirling his long waves. He read my body, stroked deeper, longer, slipped two fingers inside me the louder my moans became, the shallower my pants grew. And then I soared and crested, coming hard. My hips lifted as Dale finger-fucked me, held on tight, pulling his mouth away. I blinked to find his sharp gaze on me and an easy, satisfied grin softening those sweet, rough features.
“My Gingerbread.” He sounded awed as his hand slipped up my thigh. “So beautiful.”
I couldn’t wait. I didn’t want the moment to pass me by. I went after Dale, surprising him by sitting up, tugging him close to take his mouth. With his collar between my fingers, breath fanning out against his face, I claimed his mouth as badly as I wanted to claim his body.
“Gin…” he tried, but I couldn’t take the chance that he would try to stop me.
There had been too many close calls.
Too many distractions.
“I want to see you.” I silenced the unflappable SEAL with five small words.
Dale nodded once, letting me strip him. He offered no resistance when I tugged off his long pullover, kissing every inch of perfectly taut muscle I saw. He leaned back, hands on the back of my head when I loosened his belt and went for his zipper, dragging down his jeans.
I’d never seen him so still. He’d never been this quiet. The way he watched me, how curious and observant he was, reminded me of a negotiator trying to talk a man off the ledge of a forty-story building.
But the only jumping I’d do, Dale would follow.
The mattress dipped when I left the bed to rid him of his boots. Still, Dale didn’t move. He was hard. Ready for me. That mammoth bulge tenting the black shorts he wore as I crawled across the bed, kissing his stomach.
“Gin…I don’t expect you to…”
“I told you.” He held his breath when I licked just above his waistband. “Tonight, I want all of you.”
Dale’s throat bobbed, and he dropped his head back when I pulled him out, marveling at the length and size of him. He was wide, thick, and pulsing in my hand. I took him whole, licking the tip, wanting to relish all he had, but I was only able to manage to go slow.
“Christ.” He gripped the duvet in each hand as I sucked him. His chest worked double time the more I swallowed around him. When I cupped him, using one hand to stroke him as I sucked, Dale released the duvet to clutch the back of my head, breath coming faster and faster.
He filled me up. Just this. Dale in my mouth. His smell all around me. His heat on my skin and the memory of his tongue and fingers and the strong, wild orgasm he gave me still humming between my legs.
I could leave right now and be happy.
Not satisfied completely, but happy.
I wanted it all.
When I looked at him, licked around the tip, rubbing it against my bottom lip, Dale shook his head, looking torn between being turned on and half crazed by what I did to him. “Devil woman.”
“Guilty.” I flicked my tongue over the tip before I sucked him all the way into my mouth again.
“Come here, Gingerbread.” The look he gave me told me well enough that he’d fallen over to half crazed. “Now, baby.”
I leaned up, slipping over his thighs, sweeping my nails over his beautiful chest, down his stomach, thinking he’d let me play.
But Dale didn’t seem to be in the playing mood.
The games, it appeared, were over.
He reached for me, hand on my hip as he took my wrist, guiding my hand to his cock. “Take me. Slip me inside you,” he said, voice even, control level. Dale was beautiful in that moment. He stared up at me as if he knew all he had, I’d take. As if he’d give me anything I wanted and would always have more for me.
My movements were slow, precise, and we worked together—him releasing my hand when I stroked him. Me sliding up the mattress to position myself over him. Him lifting his legs to steady me as I rose up and sank back down, taking him inch by inch.
“Baby…holy hell, you fit me…” He held my hips, directing me, guiding my movements.
“Perfect,” I whispered, understanding what he meant.
I did fit him.
We moved together like we always had, like a dance. Shadow and light, working in time with each other because that’s how we’d always existed together.
“So damn perfect.”
And it was. It always would be. I had never doubted how Dale would love me or how I’d love him.
We just…worked.
This would work.
I knew it in my bones.
“Harder, Gin. I need you…” He went silent, his grip on my hips tightening when I increased my pace, my pussy getting wetter. Dale let out a low, gravelly groan. “Too much.”
“Shit!” I yelped when he grabbed me around the waist and flipped our positions, settling me on my back.
“Hell.” His eyes tightened and he leaned back, coming to his palms over me before he dove at my mouth, taking it, kissing me hard. Tongue and lips working together to attack and turn on and overtake.
I let him, meeting him with my hips and my mouth, opening my knees wider and wider just to feel Dale as deep as he could be inside me.
“Christ, baby…” He stretched up, arms shaking but steady. Dale gripped my leg, holding my knee as he pumped into me. He watched my face, his hand against my cheek, his thumb along my bottom lip. “Tighten, baby. Squeeze me.” And when I complied, Dale’s eyes drifted up, the straight shot of pleasure crossing his features.
I was overcome. So lost in the feel of him that I squeezed tighter and touched myself. My eyes slammed shut as I circled my clit, then shot open when Dale brushed my hand away.
“That’s my job.” He kissed me, sucking on my bottom lip. “Mine.” And when he focused, thumb working, cock throbbing
as he moved his hips, my pussy clenched. A rush barreled through my body until I came, squeezing even tighter.
“God…” I breathed, body languid, exhausted, then electrified as Dale moved faster. I held him close, taking his broken breaths, his strangled pants as he spilled himself over and over inside me.
We lay there, Dale still inside me, our bodies sticky, our heartbeats slowing, and I couldn’t feel anything but my thumping pulse and the tickle of my hair as he breathed against my neck.
I thought he had fallen asleep, it had been so long. He was still hard, still draped across me. I was too sated, too mesmerized to move. If I did, I was scared the entire night would have been a dream.
Dale lifted up, coming to his elbows to look down at me. His fingers brushed against my face. I wanted to ask what he thought when he looked at me that way.
Seemed to me, since the night of the party, he’d been looking at me that way a lot, but I still didn’t have the courage to ask him. Naked with him inside me and I still didn’t ask why he looked at me the way he was right then.
“What?” I managed when he grinned at me.
Dale kissed me, slow and perfect before he spoke, hand sliding down my body. “I could live inside you. Always.”
I wished he would.
God, how I wished he would.
11
Gin
Dale sang in the shower. The steam billowed from the half-closed bathroom door as I grinned like an idiot, listening to the worst out-of-tune rendition of Aretha Franklin’s “Chain of Fools” I’d ever heard. He was in a good mood and taking longer than normal to clean up after the long night we’d had.
“Roll over,” he’d told me not two hours ago when my alarm sounded and I was about to leave the bed. The new work schedule I’d assigned myself was unpredictable, likely overkill since we only had ourselves to answer to, but I didn’t like keeping things inconsistent. Six a.m. would always be my wake-up call.
“Why?” My limbs still ached from how pleasantly used my body felt.
“This is why.” Then Dale moved his hips, grinding his hard dick against my ass, before showing me how he’d use me again and again whenever he woke, whenever he thought about it, whenever I did.
The bottom would fall out. I knew that. It always did. But right in that moment, I listened to Dale’s horrible singing voice and enjoyed how my body still hummed. How I’d managed to push back all the things he hadn’t mentioned. What he’d said to me. What it meant. Him not remembering was one thing. Him telling me what he felt now was something else. I needed the words. But at least things were starting, and I’d take that even if it was all I could get.
My mouth ached from the stupid smile pulling my lips. It only dimmed when my cell rang, the ringtone set to The Godfather theme. It was common, stupid, done only to annoy Johnny, but I was glad I’d made it specific to his number.
“Hey,” I answered, leaning my head toward the half-opened bathroom door. I got up, hoping Dale didn’t hear the small click it made when I closed it.
“What was that racket?”
“Um, one of the maids thinks she’s Aretha.”
“Well, she sucks. Ah…hold on, bella.” There was a noise on the other end and then a scratching sound, as though Johnny had covered the receiver. “Listen, we’re going to change the schedule today. You up for a farmers market? David has an idea for a remote shoot and wants you to check out one of the vendors this morning.”
From the bathroom, Dale hit a high note. I moved to the other side of the room, stepping out onto the balcony. “Yeah,” I answered, glancing at my watch. “When do you need me?”
“In a couple hours? It’s just a meeting, then we’ll do an afternoon shoot at two. I’ll get Angelo to tell the crew. You’re good with that, si?”
“Yeah, of course. No problem.”
“Good. I’ll pick you up at ten, then.”
“No,” I hurried to say, though I didn’t know why. Johnny was my boss, not my lover. I owed him nothing but my gratitude and a hard day’s work. “I…ah, have an errand to run on that side of the city. I’ll meet you at the set office. We can leave from there.”
“Whatever you want, tesoro. See you then.”
When I returned inside, Dale was still performing, but he’d moved on to Chris Stapleton, tackling “Tennessee Whiskey” with such abandon, I wished I had a bottle to block out the noise.
The small internal joke didn’t amuse me for long. I’d lied to Johnny for no real reason. There was no errand. No explanation for me not telling him who I was with and why I didn’t want him to pick me up. He clearly didn’t like Dale. God knew, Dale didn’t like him. Maybe it was some sort of alpha male territorial bullshit thing between them that caused this mutual hate. Maybe it was because they both claimed to want me. Though, Dale certainly had proven he did over and over again last night.
Still, something niggled in my head, had me asking myself why I’d kept what happened to myself. I didn’t feel guilty about being with Dale. I didn’t think Johnny would be seriously disappointed.
So why did I lie about it?
That question absorbed my attention as I walked away from the balcony, kept it as I went to the closet trying to decide what I should wear that day. So when Dale’s cell vibrated, it took several minutes for me to hear it.
I should have ignored it, like he did. It wasn’t my business how often his kid brother texted him. It didn’t matter what the guy said or how many times he asked Dale for a rescue. He’d promised he wasn’t going to buy the shit his brother was throwing at him.
But that same niggling voice that had me asking myself why I’d lied to Johnny told me there was something different about the flow of messages that landed on Dale’s phone. One after another, then another as Dale continued his shower. They came in rapid succession, and I told myself it was that flurry and what might be behind it that made me look.
It was the second lie I’d told myself in under five minutes.
He hadn’t changed his phone’s passcode in the time I’d known him. Likely, he’d not changed it since he was active in the SEALs. His stepmom’s birthday: 060562.
I tried it.
The phone unlocked immediately, and when the screen opened and I swiped my thumb across it, nine messages accompanied the five letters I hated most in the world.
Trudy.
Please answer me, Dale.
You can’t ignore me forever.
Sometimes, things aren’t about you, and you know it.
Come on, this is serious! Life and death serious!
This time, things are bad. Worse than they’ve ever been.
I’m trying to help.
Where are you???
You can’t say you love someone and pretend they mean nothing. Love doesn’t work that way, honey.
And then the last message, the one that made my stomach drop. The one that told me what a mistake it had been to believe that someone like Trudy would ever disappear completely.
I threw the phone down when I read the very last of Trudy’s messages. I was convinced she had not let go of Dale. Knowing who he was and how important it was for him to do the honorable thing, he probably wouldn’t let go of her either.
“I’d do anything for you,” he’d told me when he’d thought I wasn’t listening. Then, “You gotta know…you’re the only one who matters to me” when he knew I was.
I heard that so clearly in my mind and every utterance of those words ripped through my heart. Now, I knew. He’d said it to me so many times before, and I’d stupidly forgotten how much he meant it and how true it was.
Words really were just words.
They meant nothing.
Before I could convince myself that any excuse he gave me would explain away why he was still in contact with her, I hurried to the closet, throwing on a pair of jeans, my leather boots, and a thick wool sweater and scarf before I tore out of the room, leaving Dale in that bathroom, alone in my hotel room.
I wouldn’t film t
oday. I’d tell Johnny we’d start over tomorrow.
Today would be a time for distance.
Distance from Dale and the words his wife had used to convince him how much they still needed each other.
Try to push aside your anger and think about the baby. This isn’t her fault.
12
Gin
“That fucker has a vicious right hook.” Johnny winced when Angelo reached for his face, aiming to examine the already purple bruise forming along his jaw.
“Did I apologize?” I lowered my head, covering my face.
Angelo cursed for what must have been the fifth time as he stared at his boss’s injury. “Really,” I continued, glancing between the two men, “I am sorry. I had no idea he’d be so…”
“Possessive?” Johnny asked.
The word was accurate. I pushed down the swell of heat that bubbled in my stomach at the scene that had played out on set this morning—Johnny and Dale fighting. Actually fighting in front of our crew, on our set, because I’d gone AWOL. Because Dale couldn’t handle me giving him the silent treatment.
Because he clearly had a child he neglected to tell me about.
And Johnny Carelli got sucker-punched because Dale wouldn’t listen when security tried to make him leave the set.
Shit, I felt like a drama magnet.
“I wouldn’t say possessive, really.” The joke was lame, and I couldn’t make myself look at Angelo when he sent me a glare.
Johnny caught the look, clicking his tongue before he muttered something low and admonishing to his guard in Italian, sending the man out of the room. “Forgive him.” Johnny poured me another glass of wine. “Angelo is protective.” He toasted me when I picked up my glass.
Johnny’s housekeeper, a thicker woman with graying hair sporting a uniform and a beautiful smile, replaced the wine in the decanter and set two plates in front of us.
“Grazie, Mina,” Johnny told the woman, grinning when she patted his shoulder.
She walked out of Johnny’s sun-room and into his luxury apartment, leaving us alone to eat the impromptu meal she’d made.
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