Ginger's Heart (A Modern Fairytale, #3)(139)
He closed his eyes and pictured Josiah’s face as a freckled little kid—as Cain’s first playmate, his best friend in kindergarten, at family birthdays and summer picnics. Josiah’s blond hair shining in the sun and moss-green eyes crinkled with laughter, and there was Ginger in his memories too—pudgy little Ginger wearing a daisy crown on her white-blonde hair, holding tightly to the cousins’ hands as they ran through meadows together.
For as long as he lived, Cain would miss Woodman.
For as long as he lived, Cain would be good to, and care for, and love Ginger.
Not because he’d promised Woodman, but because loving Ginger was so deeply ingrained into the fiber of Cain. If he concentrated hard, he could still feel those chubby fingers holding fast to his.
But he would be forever grateful to Woodman for finally letting him know that his time to love her had finally come—that he was worthy of her.
Tightening his arm underneath her breasts and bending his knees into hers, he matched their breathing, closed his eyes, and fell asleep.
Chapter 34
Ginger had been in love with Cain for a long time, but there was a precious, inconceivable dreaminess to knowing that her love was wholly and utterly reciprocated. They’d spent Saturday morning in bed, making love, before Cain took her out for a giant breakfast at a local diner, and then to Bed Bath & Beyond, where he asked for her advice in choosing curtains for his living room and a new comforter for his bed.
These were mundane activities—sitting across from one another in a diner booth and shopping for home goods—that millions of couples around the world were engaged in, but for Ginger, who’d waited her whole life to belong to Cain, and whose terrible guilt over loving Cain had finally been lifted, she could barely contain her happiness.
He reached for her easily, holding her hand, placing his palm in the small of her back or dropping a tender kiss to her temple as she held up a chocolate-brown blanket that matched the new tan comforter perfectly. There was an easiness between them, born of a lifelong friendship, and a heat, born of their newfound love, and the combination made her giddy.
Saturday afternoon he showed her around his townhouse complex, and she watched the proud expression on his face, in his eyes, as he pointed out the pond and the pool and asked if she was any good at tennis. She wasn’t, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was realizing that he’d grown into a responsible and self-reliant man who wasn’t just giving her a tour of his community but—in every glance, in the subtext of every word—offering it to her, to share it with her when and if she was ever ready to give him that chance.
And the thing is? For all that she hadn’t been ready, ever, to marry Woodman, thoughts of marrying Cain flooded her mind with anticipation and excitement. She couldn’t wait to hold his hand and leap into forever.
On Sunday he offered to drive her to church, but she declined. She imagined the pain in Miz Sophie’s eyes to see her nephew slipping into the shoes of her son, and she knew that compassion and discretion was the right path for them, no matter how impatient Cain felt about declaring their status to the world.
They both felt the quiet melancholy of Sunday afternoon as the sun set and evening approached, knowing that their perfect weekend was almost over. After kissing good-bye for almost an hour by the driver’s side of her car, their hands reaching for each other, their bodies aching for more, Ginger finally wrenched herself away and cried the whole way back to Apple Valley, bereft at leaving Cain behind for even a day.
Which made her drive back down to Versailles on Tuesday morning all the sweeter. Unable to bear their separation any longer, she’d left McHuid’s at ten thirty, texting Cain that she was on her way. When she arrived, he was waiting in the garage bay, his jeans slung low, his long-sleeved T-shirt hugging his muscular chest, his eyes—dusky blue and clear—fixed on her through the windshield of her car as she parked, cut the engine, sprang from the car, and ran to his arms.
He lifted her easily, and she locked her ankles around his waist, their lips fusing into a desperate kiss as he carried her inside.
“I need you,” he growled, kicking the office door closed with his foot. “Christ, I missed you, princess.”
She pressed kisses to his smooth jaw, to his cheeks, to his eyelids and lips.
“Me too,” she gasped, her panties soaked, her body clenched with readiness.
“I can’t go slow,” said Cain, setting her down in front of the desk. He used his arm to swipe everything—including their laptops and the phone console—to the side, then turned her around, facing the desk. “Lean over.”
She pulled her maxi dress up to her waist, yanked her panties down to her knees, and bent over the desk with her forearms flat and her forehead down. Behind her, she heard his zipper open with a quick fffft and the sound of his jeans being pushed down. She gasped as his erection pressed against the wet, sensitive folds of her sex and cried out when he grabbed her hips and thrust into her completely with one smooth stroke.
“Ahhh,” he panted, buried deeply inside her, leaning over her back, his shirt pressed against the bunched-up jersey of her dress.
Ginger lay her cheek against the cool, slick wood of the desk and closed her eyes in gratitude and relief.
He pushed her hair aside and pressed his lips to her neck, still motionless within her, though he throbbed like a heartbeat. Her sensitive flesh felt every pulse as he swelled inside her, stretching her to fit him.