Chapter Eleven
Ben
The day was setting into the evening, and I found myself pacing in my room. I stopped, facing my door, raising a hand to press fingers against my lips, still feeling that kiss from yesterday.
Fuck, but Ginger still knew how to push my buttons.
I picked up my phone, where I’d left it on the table, and checked the time.
“Seven,” I murmured to myself. “I have a bit over an hour.”
I still wasn’t sure it was the best idea that I went. Ginger lived with her mom, and I was a little afraid of running into the older woman because I’d abandoned her daughter when she was pregnant.
But, I didn’t want to disappoint Ginger or miss a chance to get closer to my daughter, either.
I hurried into my bedroom to pick out a change of clothes. Then I realized how my wardrobe was seriously lacking because all I had were jeans and t-shirts. I had some stuff from before I left shoved back in the tiny closet space in boxes, but they would hardly fit, considering my muscle mass had increased in the past four years. Even now that I was out of service since I didn’t have much to spend most of my day on anyway, when I wasn’t lazing around the house, I was working out to keep up my form.
“Jeans and t-shirt it is,” I muttered.
I dressed up quickly, threw a jacket over the t-shirt, and raced outside. My sister was at the reception desk and must have seen me go by, but I didn’t stop for a chat this time.
By the time I got there, it was a bit early. I debated waiting out in the car, but decided that would seem too suspicious to anyone who happened to look out their windows and just went ahead. I knocked on the door, and Ginger opened it for me a minute later, grinning up at me.
“Come on in,” she said, standing to the side. “And don’t worry. Mom is staying over at a friend’s. She does it every few weeks or so on Sunday night. I figured you’d be a bit awkward around her.”
I smiled a little at her perceptiveness, but then, I’d always been a little afraid of her mom, or more importantly, disappointing her. And this time, I knew I must have, so I was going to put off that meeting for as long as possible.
“Fern,” Ginger called out. “Look who came to join us for dinner!”
We walked into the kitchen, where Fern was sitting at the table, scribbling on a coloring book with crayons spread on the table in front of us. She looked up at Ginger’s voice and saw me walk in behind her. I got a big grin and a wave.
“Hey, mister! Are you joining us for dinner?”
I nodded and swallowed the lump in my throat before replying. “Yes,” I said quietly. “I am.”
“You’ll love Mom’s cooking them. It’s the best, even better than Grandma’s!”
Both Ginger and I chuckled at her declaration, then gingerly pulled me into helping her finish the food.
Afterwards, we ate at the table, all three of us, like a little family. It made my eyes sting a bit, watching how good Ginger was with Fern when I thought back to my mother, who’d passed away. It was why Dad didn’t live at the hotel, or work there when he could have been. It reminded him too much of our mom, so it hadn't really been a surprise to me when Scarlett told me he’d found someone, and gone off to live with her instead of staying at the hotel. Scarlett didn’t blame me for taking off, or the situation she wound up in after Dad and I both left her, but I did plenty of it myself.
Dinner was amazing, and the food was as great as Fern said. But more than anything, I liked the atmosphere. By the time Ginger had to take Fern upstairs to tuck her into bed, I’d already declared my second ‘play date,’ as Ginger had referred to it earlier, with my daughter another great day.
I followed the both of them upstairs hanging in the hallway as Ginger took Fern to bed. She showed up several minutes later and jumped a little to see me standing there.
“Bedroom,” I muttered.
She blinked at me, then headed for a different door, while I stalked her every step. We got to her room and closed the door behind us. My control was slipping, I whirled her around and pressed her against the door, taking her lips in a rough kiss. When I pulled back, I looked down at her, satisfied to see her stunned expression.
“That was for last night,” I said cheekily, which had her scowling at me. I chuckled and ducked my head down lower. “This is because I want you.”
I kissed her again, with more passion and need, and in no time, we were stripping each other off and stumbling over to the bed. It was a wonder we even made it because the lights got turned off sometime during the struggle. We fell on top of it, with Ginger underneath me. Her legs circled my hips, her arms groping my back, and I wrapped an arm around her, rolling my hips gently as I slid inside her. We fit together, just like we always had.
We rocked together as we held each other. I kissed Ginger’s skin, wherever my lips could reach, arching my back so I could kiss down her chest to her breasts, sucking lightly on her nipples. She let out a muffled cry, clutching me when she hit the climax, and I moved gently against her as I hit my orgasm, burying my face in her neck as I groaned.
Feeling tired, but sated, I rolled to the side, worried about crushing Ginger with my weight, not that she seemed to mind much as she kept clutching me.
“I need to leave,” I murmured against her hair after a few minutes, knowing it would be bad if her mother—or worse, Fern—found us in the morning.
Ginger’s arms tightened around me, and I couldn’t help reciprocating, tucking her head under my chin.
“Just a five more minutes then,” I said, sighing, as my eyes slid closed.
Chapter Twelve
Ginger
Neither of us meant for it to happen. When I called him over for dinner, I had every intention of kicking him out afterward. But then we made love in my bed, and I couldn’t bear to let him go.
When I next opened my eyes, the room was a little brighter. I was lying on my side, with a heavy arm slung over my waist and a tall, hard body spooning against my back. For a moment, I savored the feeling, letting out a low moan as I snuggled back into the warm body holding me, a smile on my face. But then common sense started kicking in, and I frowned. When the situation finally hit me, my eyes snapped open as I gasped.
I tried to get up, only for the arm still around my waist to hold me back. I tugged on it and slid out from under it, then rolled around, so I was facing Ben, holding the sheet up to my naked breasts.
“Ben,” I called in a whisper, shaking his shoulder. “Ben, please, you need to wake up! Ben!”
It took a few minutes to get him up, his eyes fluttering open to look up at me. When he caught sight of me, a slow smile grew on his face as a hand reached up to touch my cheek.
“Ginger,” he murmured, stroking a finger down the side of my face. “Good morning.”
I was lost in the moment for a second, but I came back to my senses quickly and grimaced as I gave his shoulder another shove.
“You need to get your ass up quickly,” I growled at him. “Mom will probably be coming home late if she stops by here at all, but Fern can't see you here when she wakes up.”
At the mention of Fern, he seemed to wake up a little. He sat up, raising his arms to stretch his body out, and I couldn’t help but stare. The first time we fucked, I had my back to him, and we were both more or less fully dressed anyway, so there wasn’t anything to see. Then last night, it was dark. Looking at him right then, I confirmed my theory that he had gotten bigger, and my eyes, of their own accord, drifted down to his lap. I only snapped out of my preoccupation with a guilty jump when he spoke.
“What time is it?”
“I haven’t even checked, but the sun is probably about to come up.”
I slid off the bed, hesitating a second before letting go of the sheet so it would stay around Ben’s naked body. I heard him make a rough sound behind my back, but I just walked confidently to the curtains and pulled it back just enough that I could peek outside.
“It’s still pretty early,” I said, looking around. “It’s still too dark for the sun to be up, but it can't be that long.”
After a second of hesitation, I turned back, to find him still sitting on the bed, staring at me. I was suddenly feeling shy and wanted to cover my breasts with my arms, at least, but I managed to walk back to the bed and raised the sheet to slide back under it again.
“Ben,” I called his name, catching his attention. “Please, you need to leave. I can't have Fern wondering why you were in my room the whole night. Please?”
He nodded slowly, moving to slide out of bed. I looked away before he could fully bare himself, and just listened as he put on his clothes. When the sound of clothes rustling stopped, I looked up to find him properly dressed.
“Can you step outside and wait for a minute, please?”
He hesitated, and I thought he was going to ask me why he had to do that when he’d already seen me naked. Thankfully, though, he just stepped out of the room, closing the door part way. I got off the bed and quickly put on my clothes. I left the undies on the floor, though, and pulled the jacket over the dress, crossing my arms over my chest as I left the bedroom.
We were both silent as I walked him down the stairs and out of the house. We stopped where he’d parked his car, and he turned back to face me, but he didn’t say anything. It took a moment to realize he was waiting for me to speak first.
“I think we’re maybe moving too fast,” I managed to say. “I can't have a day like today happening again. Not without giving both my mom and our daughter enough warning, so we don’t shock anybody in the morning.”
That had him pulling a tiny smile.
“I know,” he said agreeably. “I love you, Ginger. I never stopped loving you, not once in the four years I was gone.”
I didn’t say anything, couldn’t say anything. He already knew how much I cared for him, how much I never forgot him either. But this fiasco just reminded me that things were still different. A part of me was still scared, that I would end up with my heart broken once again and no one there to help me pick it up, this time with a child in tow.
So I just watched as he got into his car and drove away, and I couldn’t help mourning the missed opportunity, just a little.