“What am I doing? Seducing you?” She reached down with one hand and undid the button on her black shorts, letting them slip down her legs to reveal her lacy pink underwear. “Is it working now?”
She watched him fight a losing battle to keep his eyes locked on hers. His hooded gaze traveled down her stomach, over her hips and legs, lingering on the triangle of lace between her thighs. His tortured groan shot heat straight to her core. “Fuck, baby.”
When he still didn’t reach for her, Ginger’s nimble fingers began working the buckle of his belt. She might be inexperienced, but she’d worked in a bar ever since she’d turned sixteen and lied about her age to get the job. You learned a thing or two about men when you spent your days and nights liquoring them up. Word on the street had always been that a man’s decisions were made with this head, not the one on top of his shoulders.
She listened to Derek’s breath accelerate as she unhooked the leather and slid it through the loops. It dropped to the floor with a clack.
Ginger looked up at him through her eyelashes, daring him to tell her not to continue. Apart from the roughening breath puffing against her forehead, Derek remained silent, his green eyes trained on her hands. She slid down the zipper of his pants. In the quiet kitchen, the zipping noise was amplified. It sounded terribly erotic to her ears.
“I’m trying really hard here,” he panted. “I won’t be able to stop soon.”
“Why would you stop? I don’t want you to.”
“You know why. We’re more than sex, Ginger. Accept it.”
Her heart squeezed, but she kept an innocent expression on her face. She slipped her hand inside his pants and boxer briefs to close her fingers around his straining erection, molding him in her hand.
“Please, I want you so bad.”
His breath hissed out through his teeth. “Oh, God. I want you, too. So fucking bad, sweetheart.”
Then why was he being so damn stubborn? Surely he wouldn’t reject her advances over some doomed attempt at a relationship. Couldn’t he see it would never last? Nothing ever lasted when you put faith in anyone besides yourself. She tried to keep the desperation off her face. If he fought against this much longer, she didn’t want to ponder where that left her.
Ginger stood on tiptoes and placed openmouthed kisses along his neck, all the while stroking him against her palm. “Do you want to put it in my mouth, Derek?” she whispered against his ear.
“Jesus Christ.”
“You’ll be my first. Don’t you want to be my first again?”
“Enough! That’s fucking enough.” Clenching his teeth, he took her wrist and removed the hand fondling his erection, groaning as he freed himself.
Then he pinned her body against the refrigerator and brought his mouth down on hers, hard. Her eager mouth opened under his, letting his tongue sweep inside and take ownership. He wrapped her long hair around his fist, pulling with just the right amount of force and angling her head to accept his onslaught. Ginger’s hands were pinned above her head in Derek’s stronger grip, held there as his mouth doled out punishment. She accepted it greedily and without hesitation.
Arousal mixed with relief. He hadn’t rejected her. Ginger’s head swam with a multitude of unnamed emotions, overwhelming her senses. She could feel his raging need pressing against her stomach and squirmed against it, telling him without words how ready she was for him.
Then the kiss changed. His hips slowly distanced themselves from hers, the delicious friction disappearing. The hands manacling hers dropped lower to cup her face. Instead of being bruising and relentless, his tongue now soothed hers, as if apologizing for his earlier roughness. He brushed each of her swollen lips in turn, then left her mouth to dance across her face, planting soft kisses on her cheeks, eyelids, and forehead.
A sob broke from Ginger’s throat. Tears she hadn’t felt forming in her eyes cascaded down her cheeks. Derek kissed them away.
“Give me a chance, beautiful girl,” he whispered urgently against her mouth.
Something inside Ginger shattered. Self-preservation had her pushing Derek away and frantically pulling on her discarded shorts. Her hands shook so violently, it took her a full minute to get them buttoned and zipped. She could feel Derek watching her the entire time but she refused to look at him, knowing instinctively that his expression would force her to accept something impossible.
Snatching her purse off the counter, she turned and rushed to leave.
“Ginger, wait.”
“Don’t come anywhere near me, Derek. I don’t want to see you anymore,” she half-sobbed without turning around, then slammed the door.