kolohe

➸ Ginger ☆

With the work crews arriving tomorrow to start work on the townhomes, the girls and I still need to make final decisions on the flooring and countertop choices. We’ve picked faucets, cabinets, and paint colors.

Though I expected the renovation process to put us on edge, I vastly underestimated how tense the girls would be in our new town. In Little Memphis, we knew the layout, threats, and our allies. Now they assume everyone is our enemy and we ought to come into every situation shooting.

I’ve done my part to keep things calm by staying far away from Oz. Cayenne deals with the club almost always on the phone. We keep our distance, and the Heretics catch the hint and keep theirs.

Until now.

Oz towers over the staff of the home improvement store. I consider pretending I don’t see him, but playing games is beneath me. I’m not afraid of him. Not of his size or violent capabilities or good looks. He’s just a man, and I’ve dealt with plenty of them. No more dodging him, I hold my ground when he struts toward me in the paint department.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” he says, wagging a finger at my face. “Couldn’t handle such drenched panties?”

“More like I had no resistance to your stink.”

“Sounds about right,” he says and taps my nose. “You’re looking damn foxy for a run to the home improvement store.”

“Just between you and me, there’s a sexy fucker who works here. I was hoping to do a little flirting, but I haven’t seen him today.”

He leans closer and glances down the V-neck of my beige T-shirt. “Whatever the twerp has, I’m sporting extra inches.”

“He has a nice smile.” On cue, Oz smiles big, and I instantly shudder. “You’re sporting freak show shit right there.”

“Don’t be cruel, Ginger Snaps. I’m a man with deep, foxy feelings for you.”

“For me or for my boobs?”

“My dick is in love with your boobs, but my heart beats faster for the rest of you. Like your face and ankles and shit.”

“Ankles?” I ask, losing to the smile now on my face.

“I’ve got the ankle fetish.”

“Huh, I find that interesting.”

“Let’s have dinner, and I’ll admire your ankles, and my dick can enjoy its proximity to your boobs, and we can even talk about meaningful shit like the meaning of life and our favorite colors.”

“I don’t eat.”

“Fine. You can sit next to me while I eat. That way, you’ll have more time to talk,” he says and then lowers his lips to my right ear. I refuse to shiver at the feel of his hot breath on my skin. “I know how girls love to talk.”

I turn my face toward him until our lips are maybe an inch apart. He seriously considers kissing me in the paint section of the hardware store. Then my tongue darts out and licks his lips.

I swear this move nearly fucking kills him.

No doubt every drop of blood in his entire body shoots directly to the erection I see bulging through his jeans. Nothing is left for his brain, let alone to keep his heart beating. I wonder if he’ll keel over soon.

Oz takes a full minute to get everything flowing right again. By then, I’ve walked away.

He catches up to me in the carpet area. “Let’s go to the restroom and deal with my dick,” he says while pressing my hand against his erection.

“No. I’m much too dry for sex,” I say while fighting laughter.

“My tongue will get you ready.”

“If I had a buck for every time a guy promised me that.”

Oz quickly wraps an arm around my waist and lifts me off the ground. The bastard carries me to a more secluded aisle. The second he sets me down, I throw a punch he barely dodges. Shit just got very real.

Oz has officially crossed too many lines for me not to beat the shit out of him. Sexy or not, he needs to learn some damn boundaries.

“Do you want to fight?” he asks after dodging my fist.

“Sure.”

“I’m twice your size. Doesn’t seem fair.”

“I know, but I promise I’ll take it easy on you.”

“There’s no way you beat me in hand-to-hand combat, foxy. It’s against nature.”

“Miracles happen, and I cheat, so I can’t lose.”

Nodding, Oz circles me, and I wonder if he’ll make the first move. If this was a real fight, I’d have thrown something at him by now and attacked his knee. Well, his knee is about as thick as a tree trunk, so I might need to go lower to the ankle. Either way, I’d hurt him until he begged for mercy.

Except this isn’t a real fight.

“Boop,” Oz says before reaching around with his long arm and rapping me on the back of the head. “Gotcha.”

“Vermin,” I growl and throw my water bottle at his face.

Batting it away like Kong disposing of an old-fashioned airplane, Oz laughs at my attempt.

“Your cheeks are so red right now. I bet that’s how you look when you’re well fucked too.”

Knowing he’s goading me, I shouldn’t fall for his shit. Unfortunately, whenever he pushes my buttons, I can’t seem NOT to react. This time is no exception.

I run at him, ready to nail him as hard as I can in the face. At the last moment, I pull my punch because I realize I don’t want to hurt him for real.

Oz takes advantage of my hesitation by slapping away my punch and sidestepping my momentum. He wraps his arms around me and pins my arms.

“What do I get for winning?” he asks against my ear. “Wait, is the prize your butt wiggling against my dick?”

Grunting, I try to break free. When that doesn’t happen, I stomp on his feet. Oz responds by picking me up and swinging me gently back and forth.

“Are you ready to give up, blondie?”

I manage to reposition my hand behind me enough to grab his crotch. Rather than his dick, I slam into something hard.

“Are you wearing a cup?” I grumble.

“I knew you’d go for the crotch.”

“Cheater,” I say, laughing at how he out-planned me.

“And I was smart enough not to let you know I was planning to cheat before we got started.”

“True,” I say and go limp. “Now please let me loose before you piss me off and we’re no longer smiling.”

Oz lowers me to the ground, removes his grip from around me, and steps back quickly before I can hurt him. I glance back at him and smile.

“Scared?” I ask while arching a brow.

“A cup can only protect so much.”

Smiling wider, I shove my hands into my pockets. “You won fair and square. I’ll honor that and your cup.”

Oz grins, and I know he’s thinking dirty thoughts. Fucking me is written all over his sexy face.

“Despite what you’ve heard, I’m not a slut. When I fuck, I get attached, and I don’t think you want me to attach to you, Oz.”

“Oh, I don’t know. I’m not afraid of having a woman cling to me. I just never found a woman willing to stick it out.”

“Oh, so they all leave you.”

Stretching his long arms, he murmurs, “The ones worth keeping around do.”

“And why is that?”

“Who knows?”

“You know.”

Oz snorts, fighting laughter, “Yeah, I know, but I’m not telling you.”

“See that’s the problem about you and me,” I say, stepping closer. “We’re both interested, but if we take the next step and get naked, we’ll open a can of worms we’re not capable of closing.”

“Say that again, but with your tits less pouty.”

I ought to ignore his deflecting comment, but I can’t help looking down to my breasts.

“If you and I joyfully dislocate our hips, we’re in this thing for real,” I say, regaining my train of thought. “I’m not someone who thrives in relationships. I suspect you aren’t either. Until we know why we suck at it, should we even try having any kind of relationship?”

“Yes.”

“But you and I injure each other when we’re playing. Can you imagine what kind of destruction we can cause if we’re fighting for real?”

“I sense my cup won’t be enough to protect me.”

“No, it really won’t. My M.O. is castration.”

Oz’s smile falters. “No shit?”

“If the guy dies, I shove his balls in his mouth. Sometimes, I slice off his dick too. Mostly depends on my mood.”

“Is it weird that hearing you say the word ‘dick’ made me hard?”

“Not at all. It turned me on too,” I admit, crossing my arms to avoid him seeing how much his dirty talk is affecting my body.

“We’re too...” Oz pauses and considers his words for once. “What’s a nice way to say this? Huh, we’re too tragically right for each other to not take this shit to the next level.”

“We could make a deal.”

“Yes, to whatever it is.”

“That’s your dick talking.”

Leaning down, he smirks. “Ginger, ninety-nine percent of the time, it’s my dick talking.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, but I still think we should work out the details.”

“Sure. Have at it. Just hurry it along because I need to take off my cup before it bruises my hard dick.”

“You’re a regular Don Juan.”

Oz unzips his jeans and digs around for the cup. Once he pulls it free, the man sighs like he has a mini-orgasm. I’m admittedly curious if that’s the actual expression he makes when he comes.

“We’ll do the date thing normal people do.”

“Sounds about right,” he says, sitting on a display couch and stretching out to allow his dick lots of breathing room.

“On normal dates, people lie or at least fudge the truth, so they’ll look better. Instead, we should tell the brutal truth. If we get through a few of those dates and still want to spend time together, we get a private room and rut like animals until exhaustion kicks in.”

“I like everything you said.”

“Really or can you only remember the part with the rutting?”

“I’m not stupid, Ginger,” he says, spreading his arms out on the back of the couch. “I know from your tower looking down at us commoners that I might seem no more than an uneducated fool unworthy to even kiss your feet, but I’m actually pretty sharp on the intake.”

“That was quite a sentence.”

“As I said, I’m not dumb.”

“So we’ll go out and show our worst sides and see how badly we want to fuck. Like can we overlook each other’s ugly baggage enough to get to the fun stuff?”

“Or we could do all the fun stuff.”

“And I could get attached to you and then stalk you until you reject me and then we’d get to that castration problem.”

“Yeah, we need to avoid that,” Oz says, wagging a finger at me. “I mean, I can take you in a fight, but...”

“I’d crawl through your bedroom window and cut it off while you’re sleeping and defenseless.”

I hold his gaze, making clear how I’m not a sweet girl playing tough. Every nasty rumor he’s heard about me is probably true, and no doubt watered down. If he wants me to share my body with him, Oz will need to deal with my vile past, nasty temper, and every other dreadful quality that comes along with my foxy bod.

“Are we still on the same page?” I ask.

Oz doesn’t reassure me with words. He’s too busy thinking about fucking me to throw out more poetic comments about his dick. His only response is a horny smirk and eyes smoldering with lust.

Yeah, we’re on the same page.