Ginger's Heart (A Modern Fairytale, #3)(124)
“That’s why . . . that’s why you said that Woodman deserved better than me.”
He nodded. “But it was my fault too,” he said softly, holding her tighter. “I was so cruel to you, princess. The things I f*ckin’ said to you.” He winced. “When I think of your face—the way you looked at me when you told me I’d never hurt you again, then turned and walked away. I wanted to kick my own ass. Part of me wanted to die for hurtin’ you like that.”
She looked up at him with glassy eyes. “I was so devastated, and . . . he was s-so good to me. My heart was sh-shattered, and Woodman—”
“Princess.”
He stopped her because it hurt. He wished it didn’t, but it was painful to remember her limbs entwined with his cousin’s so soon after telling him she loved him. And yes, he understood his part in pushing her away, in pushing her back to Woodman, and he regretfully owned it. But the loss he’d felt at the time, the betrayal, the sickening sense of “too late” wasn’t something he was anxious to relive.
“If it’s all the same to you? I get it. I do. I know why you ran to him. But I just . . .” Cain scrubbed his hand over his face, looking down at her face, which was cradled on his bicep. “I want to move on from that day. I don’t want to look back.”
She sighed, leaning against him. “Me too. I want to move on, but . . . Cain?”
“Yeah, baby?”
“You think we’re only bound by grief?”
He pressed his lips to her forehead. “Darlin’, I’m not even sure I know what that means.”
“Remember at the BBQ? We were spittin’ mad at each other. We could barely be civil. Now here we are, goin’ out on a date. Are we just doin’ this because we both miss Woodman and we’re sad and we lost him and we’re turnin’ to each other in our grief?” She gulped and he felt it against his chest. “And then, one day, we won’t be as sad anymore, and then you’ll remember I was the whore who told you she loved you and slept with your cousin, and I’ll remember you were the heartless bastard who threw my love back in my face.”
“Is that how you feel about me?” He knew his voice was rough, but it ached to hear her describe herself and him in such stark and awful terms.
She looked up at him, held his eyes in the dim light, and shook her head. “No. Not anymore. Not at all.” She sucked her bottom lip between her teeth and held it for a moment. Her voice was barely a whisper when she asked, “But is that how you still see me? On some level?”
“Not even a little,” he said sadly, “and I f*ckin’ hate it that we ever felt that way about each other at all.”
She was quiet for a moment before saying, “Maybe . . . maybe we had to be there to get here.”
He nodded, leaning back so he could at her face, just inches from his own. “We’re bound by somethin’ much stronger than grief, Gin. We’re bound by memories and dreams and rides in the rain and skippin’ stones. By knowin’ each other as little kids and stupid, dreamy teenagers. By destroyin’ each other but still not bein’ able to let go. I can’t stop thinkin’ about you. And some of the time—f*ck, most of the time—I’m pretty sure that I was made for you and you were made for me because there ain’t another woman in the world who affects me like you do. Maybe you’re right. Maybe we had to go through the bad to get to the good.”
He searched her eyes, his heart hammering as he lost himself in her gaze, surrendered himself to her warmth, which took the icy shards of their broken hearts and was somehow putting them back together. “I don’t know why or how. I only know this: We’re bound, princess. That’s all I know.”
He watched her eyes as he leaned forward, as he kissed Ginger McHuid for the fourth time in his life.
The first time she’d been a twelve-year-old kid, and he’d kissed her cheek on her birthday, stunned by the unexpected jolt of electricity between them . . . and he’d run from her, unable to process his sudden feelings for her.
The second time had been her first kiss. You still want that first kiss? Her sweet, untried lips had parted for his, and it was like no one had ever come before and no one could ever come after. And yet again he’d run away from the overwhelming feeling of want, of more, of knowing that no other woman could ever be what Ginger was to his heart. He’d known it with every mile he’d placed between them.
The third time? Cain, Cain, Cain . . . I love you. God, I love you so much. His kiss had been desperate, had been angry, fierce and wild and unrestrained, because he loved her madly but he couldn’t have her. Because she was sweet and open and offering him everything his heart had ever wanted. He had kissed her knowing he couldn’t have her, and it had just about broken him as he pushed her into Woodman’s arms and rode off into the night.
But Cain was no longer a child or a cocky kid or an angry young man who couldn’t have his heart’s desire. And there would be no running this time. Or ever again.
He cupped her face between his hands, staring into her dark eyes until they closed, until his lips touched down on hers, pursing gently as he groaned in a frustrating mix of satisfaction and hunger. Softly she licked his top lip, then pulled back. As he leaned in again, she gently bit his bottom lip, and Cain’s self-control snapped. He threaded his fingers through the soft strands of her golden hair as she leaned her neck back and opened her mouth for him. As his lips sealed over hers and his tongue slid slowly against the velvet heat of hers, she released the breath she’d been holding—he heard it and he felt it and he tasted the sweetness of it as it slipped from her body into his and became part of him.