Ginger's Heart (A Modern Fairytale, #3)(115)

She had no disorientation or confusion. She didn’t wonder if she was still dreaming. She knew where she was and with whom, but what she could barely contain was the rush of feelings that accompanied waking up in Cain’s arms because there was an immediate rightness to it, an organic yes to it, a sense of coming home that she’d never experienced in her life. Not with Woodman. Not ever.

Turning in his arms, she stared at his sleeping face.

The angles of his cheeks were as cut as ever, and his square jaw was covered with overnight scruff growth that was jet black against his pale complexion. She stared at his lips for a moment—they were pink and pillowed, slack with sleep, and she flashbacked to the feeling of them moving over hers. So carefully when she was fifteen, so hungrily when she was eighteen. How would they feel now? The same? Different? She took a deep breath, her breasts pushing against his chest and her nipples pebbling under her fleece sweater. His eyelashes, obsidian and long, fanned out from his eyes, and his eyebrows were thick and dark over his closed eyes.

He was so beautiful, her breath caught, and feelings that she didn’t expect crashed over her in waves. For her whole life, Cain had been a dark angel on her shoulder: the voice of recklessness, the ice-eyed charmer, the shatterer of her heart and executioner of her dreams, throwing shade on whatever felt safe and defying her to choose spectacular. And in return, she had loved him in different ways—passionately, fiercely, furiously—for almost as long as she could remember.

And now here he was, beside her, all grown up, sticking around.

Old someones can be new, Ginger.

Cain had served his country. Forgiven his father. Traveled the world. Lost his cousin. He was no longer a swaggering boy or an angry teen or a rootless, roaming young man. He was a new man, a new person. And yet, if she squinted her eyes and tilted her head so that the sun kissed his inky hair, she saw Cain from forever, in all his forms, in all his phases, right up until this morning, holding her in his arms.

Nothing—no, not anything—had ever felt so right.

Felt right to her heart.

Felt wrong in her head.

Woodman had died only three months ago. Wouldn’t it be wrong to switch her affections so quickly to Cain? It would be. But she’d never loved Woodman the way she’d loved Cain. She’d never been in love with Woodman. The cold reality that made her a terrible person was that she hadn’t been engaged to the love of her life. The love of her life held her in his arms now. She hadn’t lost her soul mate. Her soul mate was lying beside her.

Was it possible that their time had finally arrived?

She winced.

How could they embrace it at the cost of Woodman’s life? Could they truly have a future together? Was she even what Cain wanted? How could she even know? The Cain he was now—coming when she called, staying when she asked—was a new Cain. She had no idea what he wanted.

But hadn’t he hated her when she confessed her feelings to him three years ago? Hadn’t he hated her when he came home in October? What had changed? Losing Woodman? Was it a common bond of grief that bound them now? But their grief would fade. It wouldn’t be this wrenching forever. And then what? What would happen when the sorrow that bound them together faded away?

She took a shaky breath, raking her teeth over her bottom lip as she stared at him, a mountain of emotional detritus suddenly making her feel much further away from him than she had moments before. Too many hard questions. Too much to sort out to clear a path to any kind of future. It felt hopeless.

Cain, however, was oblivious to her struggle.

“Mmmm,” he groaned, pulling her closer, arching against her and fitting them together in his sleep. Beneath his coveralls the hard bulge of his erection found the valley between her thighs, and he rubbed, a low growl slipping from his throat. His hands, which were around her, slid down to her hips, and he pulled her against him, holding her sex perfectly aligned against his and gyrating deliberately against her, into her.

And damn it, but it felt good. So good, her breath caught and a small whimper escaped from her lips.

“Baby,” murmured Cain, his eyes still closed as he leaned his head forward to nuzzle her throat.

She gasped in surprise. “Cain. Cain, that’s enough.”

His lips razed her skin, the tip of his tongue darting out to circle her throbbing pulse. “Aw, let me, baby,” he drawled, his voice still thick with sleep.

“Cain!” she said louder, leaning her head back. No matter how good it felt, she didn’t feel comfortable letting it continue. She had no idea where they were. She had no idea where they were going. There was too much for them to sort out before they could even consider the possibility of more. She pushed at his shoulders. “Cain, quit it!”

His eyes popped open, and he jerked his head back, his eyes wide open. “Gin? What the hell? Where am—?”

She blinked at him, watching his face as he remembered last night and put together where he was waking up. “Good mornin’.”

He rolled onto his back, scrubbing his hands over his face, which was turning very, very pink. “Mornin’. Fuck, I’m . . . sorry.”

Cain, the big bad wolf, who’d been with more girls than she could possibly imagine, was blushing like a preteen found looking at a nudie magazine. She giggled softly and shook her head as she swung her legs over the side of the bed. When she looked over her shoulder at him, he was still staring at the ceiling like his life depended on it.