Ginger's Heart (A Modern Fairytale, #3)(116)

“Want eggs?”

He turned to her, his eyes dark and rattled, yet somehow soft, and she felt her heart skip a beat as he stared up at her and nodded. “Yeah.”

***

Fuck. Fuck.

You were f*ckin’ dry-humpin’ her, man! Get it the f*ck together!

Wincing, he felt his cock flinch in his shorts, hot, thick, and throbbing. He had a massive boner, and she was downstairs making f*cking eggs for breakfast.

He took a shaky breath and tried to think of football, baseball, snowfall, vomit, but nothing worked. All he could see was her big brown eyes less than an inch from his. All he could feel was her delectable f*cking body fitted against his like a second skin, like she was made to be with him, and only him. Sitting up, he looked over at her bathroom and considered heading in there to rub one out, but she called upstairs, “Cain! Breakfast is ready.”

There were two solutions: jog in place for five minutes to get the blood flowing elsewhere, or force himself to piss. Option two won out but put Cain in a fairly foul mood that he attempted to fix between her toilet and kitchen.

Three months without a woman sucked.

That was the f*cking truth.

Or it was the f*cking truth until he found himself standing in the kitchen doorway watching Ginger McHuid putting eggs on two plates. She turned from the stove, surprised to find him standing behind her, and her sweet lips tilted up into the most beautiful f*cking smile he’d ever seen. And suddenly he didn’t give a shit about three months of abstinence. All he could think was the same thought he’d had last night before falling asleep:

There’s only you for me. I’ll wait for you.

Which meant he had to figure out a way to see her. Regularly. And if that meant coming up to McHuid’s every weekend, so be it, but he wished he could figure out another way.

“Hungry?” she asked, putting the plates at the little table where he’d shared breakfast with her three years ago, after washing her gran’s truck.

Un-f*ckin’-believably hungry, darlin’.

“Uh, yeah,” he said, sitting down across from her.

“I can’t believe I go back to work tomorrow,” she said, spearing a plump piece of scrambled egg with her fork.

Fuck. That’s right. That’s just goin’ to make seein’ her that much harder. Who was the f*ckin’ genius who encouraged her to go back to work? Oh, right. Me.

“What days you workin’ again?” he asked, taking a bite of eggs.

“For now? Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and every other Sunday.”

“What’re you doin’ on Tuesdays and Fridays?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I’ll try to pick up some extra hours.” She shrugged. “You want orange juice?”

“Sure,” he said. Then, “Huh.”

“What’s ‘huh’ mean?” she asked, taking the juice out of the fridge and grabbing two glasses from the cabinet. She sat back down, pouring them each a glass and sliding his glass over to him. “Huh?”

Is this a good idea? Bad idea? Fuck, I don’t know. I don’t know how this f*ckin’ works. I just know I need to see her. A lot.

“Why don’t you come work for me?” he asked.

Her eyes widened, and she grinned at him in surprise. “Work for you? You mean . . . fix motorcycles?” She wrinkled her nose in a way he’d always thought was f*cking adorable. “I don’t know the first thing about—”

“I need someone to answer the phones, don’t I?”

“Oh . . . you mean, be your secretary?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know what you call it. Answer the phones. Say hi to people.”

“Receptionist.”

“Yeah. That,” he said, taking a gulp of orange juice.

She rolled her lips between her teeth for a moment, then licked them. Oh, f*ck, Gin, I’m a weak man, please stop. He looked away from her, back down at his plate, and speared another cluster of eggs with a little too much force.

“Whoa! What’d that egg do to you?”

This egg is on a plate that’s on a table that’s between my body and your body so I f*ckin’ hate this egg. I want to lunge across this table and kiss you senseless until you’re beggin’ me to f*ck you until the sun sets and rises all over again. That’s why I hate this goddamned egg.

“So?” he prompted her, frowning at his plate before looking up at her.

“What’re the hours, boss?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

Sassy. Damn, but he f*cking loved her sassy.

“Twelve to seven.”

“Late hours.”

“I like sleepin’ in,” he growled. And I’d like it even better next to you, princess.

She grinned. “And how much you goin’ to pay me?”

And that’s when it occurred to him: She’s sayin’ yes. She’s f*ckin’ sayin’ yes. I’m goin’ to see her every Tuesday and every Friday.

“Seventy-five bucks a day.”

“Ninety-five,” she countered.

“Done.”

“Done,” she said, her smile blinding.

He stared at her—at her blonde hair, golden in the sunlight that streamed through the window over the sink, and at her pink lips that he was dying to taste again. Soon, brother. Soon.