Protecting What's His (11 page)

He produced a condom and slid it down his imposing length. Then he dropped his hands to Ginger’s ass and lifted her against him, lodging her between his body and the door. “Wrap your legs around my waist.”

He groaned when Ginger did as he asked, cradling his erection with her softness. “The first time is going to be hard and fast. Do you understand? This is what you do to me.”

Then he pushed inside her with such force, the door behind her shook on its hinges. Tears sprang to Ginger’s eyes and she cried out, the sound mingling with Derek’s strangled groan. Pain sliced through her, sharp and quick. Clinging to his shoulders, she prayed for the discomfort to subside as their harsh breathing echoed through the still bathroom.

Derek froze against her, chest heaving. His eyes held the unspoken question. Completely stripped of her defenses, she couldn’t hide the answer.

Regret washed over his features. “Oh baby
, no
.”

“Please,” she gasped. “I don’t want you to stop.”

His voice sounded strangled. “Do you really think I could now, even if I wanted to?”

His already-stiff muscles bunched under her fingers as she stroked his neck and shoulders. Having Derek stop now when they’d come this far would devastate her. She laid kisses along his collarbone and his neck, entreating him to continue.

Despite the sting she’d experienced when he first thrust into her, the way his erection filled her so completely thrilled Ginger. There was pleasure to be found in the pain, she discovered. Impaled by Derek’s hips against the hard surface of the door, Ginger shifted slightly in an effort to assuage the building ache.

“
Hold still
.” Punctuating his order, Derek’s hips drove her into the door once more with a powerful thrust. “Fuck.
Fuck
. Just give me a goddamn minute.”

“No. I
can’t
. Derek…
please
.” Her thoughts had scattered with the movement of his body inside hers and disjointed words began to fall from her lips. The pain remained, but she found it manageable when paired with the promise of something more just beginning to present itself. Still sensitive from her own touch during the car ride, she knew that if she could just move a certain way against Derek, she could use his body to find release.

Ignoring his request to remain still, she circled her hips over Derek’s, moaning without restraint when that needy part of her slid against the smooth base of his erection buried deep inside her. She tightened her thighs around him and worked her lower body into a rhythm, concentrating on finding her pleasure. She felt wild. Starved. For him. For this. She wanted to slow down and savor the moment, but her body wouldn’t allow it. Only a few more grinds of her hips…. Her head fell back on her shoulders, anticipating her climax.

Derek’s hands gripped her bottom, his fingers digging in painfully. The friction she’d craved was taken from her and she moaned in protest, pulling on his hair in frustration.

“No, no, you tight little virgin. I’m not going to let you off so easily. We’ve barely gotten started.”

Holding her body still against him, Derek dipped his head and took one of her nipples in his mouth and drew on it greedily. Hot pleasure shot through Ginger, spreading through her belly and lower. She desperately needed to move, to rediscover her rhythm, but Derek wouldn’t allow it. After licking and sucking her nipple to a peak, he moved to her other breast and gave it the same torturous yet reverent treatment. Ginger moved restlessly against the hard surface of the door, needing him to stop. Needing him to
never
stop.

Derek raised his head, his heated eyes landing on her lips and staying there, pupils dilating. His breathing escalated with each passing second.

“Give me your mouth. I want your mouth.”

She pressed her forehead against his. “Then what are you waiting for?”

His lips fell on hers with a growl, biting, soothing, and licking. Their tongues met and tangled furiously. He forced her mouth open over and over again, demanding to be let inside. Head slanting right, then left, Ginger let the kiss consume her, never once thinking to come up for air. As he dominated her mouth, any lingering pain disappeared, replaced with single-minded need. He felt hot and thick inside her, and her body relaxed to accommodate his size.

At some point during the kiss, Derek braced one arm against the door, wrapped the other around her waist, and began moving Ginger up and down his rigid length, slowly torturing her slick, sensitive flesh. The pace grew faster and more determined until she bounced up and down on his erection. Derek’s mouth never left hers, absorbing her cries with his tongue and lips.

Without warning, the pressure building inside Ginger burst and an immense wave of pleasure washed over her. She broke the kiss and screamed, dimly aware that Derek was watching her come apart in his arms as she rode out her orgasm with the use of his still-thrusting body.

When she finished, Derek buried his face in her neck with a groan. “I’m ruined. You’ve ruined me, Ginger.”

With one final thrust of his hips, Derek found his release. He tried to muffle his shouts against her damp skin, but they couldn’t be contained, and Ginger was too slack with pleasure to mind the expletives he chanted against her ear.

When they finally got their breathing under control, Derek shifted her body around so that he could loop his arms under her knees. He gathered her against his chest, carried her into the bedroom, and lay her down on the bed. Body limp, she watched as he returned to the bathroom and came back carrying a damp washcloth.

Derek kneeled in front of her and pressed the warm cloth between her legs. The heat soothed the remaining sting, leaving a sense of contentment in its wake. She watched through half-closed eyes as he ran the cloth along her inner thighs and back up.

When he’d finished his task, Derek tossed the cloth on his bedside table and began trailing kisses down Ginger’s stomach.

Her eyes flew open as the intense sensations she’d just experienced rushed back to the surface. “Derek?”

His warm breath drifted over her most intimate place. “Quiet, baby. Just let me kiss it better.”

Then he gently licked her to a second orgasm.

Chapter Fourteen

Ginger had been sipping a mug of coffee in Derek’s kitchen and staring off into space for close to an hour when Willa startled her by coming out of the spare bedroom. Ginger glanced at her sister, then quickly averted her eyes, positive everything that transpired the night before showed on her face. And even if she tried to hide the myriad emotions fighting their way out of her chest, she’d never been able to hide a damn thing from Willa.

He’d left without a word.

As she’d lain there awake wondering what kind of awkward morning-after speech Derek had prepared, he’d left his bedroom—to take a shower, she’d assumed—and never returned. Waltzed right out the front door, leaving her wearing nothing but her birthday suit in his bed. She’d sat up like a shot at the realization that he’d left, surprised to find she would have preferred the awkward speech in exchange for how she now felt. Empty, exposed.

A little used.

She resented being made to feel that way. He wasn’t required to tell her she was special or cook her an omelet, but anything would have been preferable to silence. Silence could be interpreted to mean too many things. Maybe now that he’d gotten what he wanted from her, leaving without saying good-bye had been his way of gently nudging her toward the door.

Well, she’d be more than happy to oblige him.

Ginger grabbed her mug and went to rinse it out in the sink, giving her an excuse to turn her back. She felt the hot sting of tears behind her eyes, but blinked them away and focused on what needed to be done.

“Good news, sis,” she called over her shoulder. “I called Lenny and since it’s going to take a while to repair our place, he’s letting us move into a vacant unit upstairs. I was thinking of browsing the local swap meet for pieces today, but I think I’d rather get a jump start on moving out of here and into the other place.”

She didn’t need to turn around to see Willa’s confusion. It made no sense, swapping one temporary home for another. All she knew for certain? She needed to get out now. This moment. She didn’t know how to explain that to Willa, though. Or herself for that matter.

“Why the rush? Why don’t we just stay here instead of moving twice?”

“No reason,” she said quickly. “Just want our own space.”

The long pause that followed made Ginger’s shoulder blades itch. “Are you sure it doesn’t have anything to do with last night?”

Ginger tensed, then began cleaning the coffee mug for the third time. “What do you mean?”

“You and the lieutenant weren’t exactly quiet about it,” Willa said jokingly. “But hey, if you want to hit him and quit him, that’s fine by me. We’ll leave today.”

Ginger’s stomach plummeted to the floor.
No, please, no. She’d been careful, hadn’t she?
They’d been in the farthest room in the house.
Had she been so caught up in the moment that she’d actually woken her little sister?
Just like
… She couldn’t let the thought fully form or she would be ill.

Slowly, she turned from the sink to face her sister. “Oh God, Willa.”

Her sister’s smile disappeared and she came toward her with hands outstretched. “Ginger, come on. I was just kidding. Your side of the bed hasn’t been slept in and you’re sitting there stewing, so I took a wild guess. But I didn’t hear anything. Honestly.”

Ignoring Willa’s attempts at denial, she breezed past her toward the bedroom.

“I’m going to pack. We’ll be out of here today. I promise.”

…

“I’d appreciate any information you can pass on.” Derek lowered his voice as he strode down the hallway toward his apartment with a bag of groceries under his arm Monday evening. Adjusting the cell phone against his ear, he repeated the information. “Haywood Devon. Owns a few strip clubs in Nashville, among his other enterprises. I’m specifically interested in any connection he has with a Valerie Peet. Thanks.”

Derek walked through his door and came to a stop. Staring down at the spare set of apartment keys resting on his kitchen counter, an uncomfortable feeling spread through his chest. He’d given Ginger the set when she and Willa moved into the spare bedroom Saturday night. Obviously at some point between Sunday morning and now, they’d left. Without giving him a courtesy call or leaving a simple note.

A muscle flexed in his jaw as he set down his phone a bit too heavily on the counter. He supposed he couldn’t expect a courtesy call from Ginger when he’d neglected to do the same. Every time he’d picked up the phone to call her, he’d hung up, not knowing how to say what was on his mind. He had very little experience expressing his feelings to a woman, especially a woman like Ginger whose reactions he could never predict. No, what he wanted to say would need to be said face-to-face.

Derek hadn’t slept or eaten a decent meal since Saturday night and until just now, when he walked through the door, he hadn’t realized how much he’d needed Ginger to be here when he got home. Work had been hell now that Alvarez’s informant had finally come through with information about a meeting between the two feuding gangs that was set to take place tomorrow night. He’d worked around the clock to get his men in place, organizing the raid and casing the location of the meet so they would know the lay of the land going in.

Those bastards were going down tomorrow night.

For two days, when he wasn’t strategizing or running back and forth to police headquarters to brief the chief of police on their progress, he’d thought of Ginger nonstop. Every time he earned a quiet moment, she materialized in his mind looking like she had Sunday morning in his bed. Rosy and naked, snuggled into his pillows. The image was permanently seared into his brain and refused to fade. He didn’t want it to.

She’d been a virgin. He still couldn’t wrap his mind around it. Besides her age, an age when most woman had accumulated a decent number of partners, the way she moved, smiled,
breathed
—it oozed sensuality. He’d hated every man who’d made her that way, even though her outrageously sexy demeanor undeniably drew him in. He couldn’t fathom a woman like Ginger, who left men drooling in her wake, making it to twenty-three without having been with a man.

He’d been her first. The first man to enter her body and bring her to orgasm. He could still feel the way she’d tightened and shook around him so powerfully, as if she’d been waiting for
him
all that time, needing
him
fill her and satisfy her. God, he’d never forget the way she’d moved and twisted on him like she couldn’t get enough.

The things he’d said to her,
done
to her when she’d been inexperienced intruded on his conscience. If he’d known from the beginning that she was a virgin, would he have still spoken to her in that manner?

Yes
, he realized. If that made him a bastard, so be it. Innocent or not, he found keeping himself in check around Ginger impossible, her positive reactions only encouraging him.

When he told her she’d ruined him, he meant it. He couldn’t go back to the time before he knew what she tasted like, felt like, sounded like as he moved inside her. He’d changed her irrevocably on Saturday night and she’d done the same to him.

If she was trying to send him a message by leaving behind his keys and moving out without a word, he didn’t like it. It made him anxious. An unfamiliar feeling for him. Something about the keys tossed so casually on the counter felt
final
. And their association was far from over.

Derek threw the entire bag of groceries in the refrigerator to deal with later and left the apartment. He strode down the hall to Ginger’s door and knocked briskly.

A minute later when no one answered, he went to knock again when a throat cleared down the hall to his right. He turned and saw Willa standing halfway up the staircase, looking down at him with her default
what the fuck
expression. “You knocked?”

He looked between her and the apartment door. “What are you doing upstairs?”

She inspected her nails. “We moved into an empty unit until they can fix ours.”

What the fuck?
“Why?”

She shrugged in response.

Clearly, he would get nowhere with Willa this century. “Is your sister home?”

“Nope.”

“Where the hell is she?”

“On a date.”

Derek’s chest constricted so unpleasantly he couldn’t breathe for a moment. Then he grew furious. A date? A fucking
date
? He’d find out where the hell she’d gone and with whom. Then he’d go there and kill the motherfucker.

He gripped the doorframe and contemplated ripping it off.

“Relax, man. She’s just working at the bar. But for a second there, I bet you probably wished you’d called her at least once since Sunday.”

The relief staggered him. If he thought he’d been possessive of Ginger before, it had just graduated to an entirely new level. A dangerous one. He needed to see her, but under the circumstances it would be wise to give himself some time to cool off. In his present state, he wouldn’t be able to have a rational conversation about why she’d moved out. He’d only make things worse.

He took a deep breath and forced himself to smile. “Nicely done, Willa.”

She gestured for him to follow her up the stairs. “I try.”

When Derek walked into the third-floor apartment, he encountered Ginger everywhere. Her cowboy boots leaning up against the wall, various furniture pieces she’d decorated, the damn statue.
How had they gotten that thing up the flight of stairs?
The smaller two-bedroom smelled like freshly dried paint and lacked the homey feel of their downstairs apartment. It felt temporary, with scattered furniture and boxes stacked everywhere. Did she really prefer this situation to his apartment? The thought bothered him a great deal.

He turned to Willa. “So she left because I didn’t call her?”

“Partially.”

“Ginger is a grown-up,” he said with a frown. “She doesn’t need me holding her hand.”

She rounded on him, reminding him of her sister. “That’s right. She
is
a grown-up and has been for a very long time. She’s also a girl.”

What did that even mean? Derek tried to suppress a rising sense of panic and failed. “Wait. You said partially. Why else did she leave?”

Willa sank down in a kitchen chair with a heavy sigh. “It’s partly my fault. I let her think I’d heard you guys, um,
doing your thing
on Saturday night. I didn’t,” she added quickly. “I just wanted her to fess up. It was obvious that something happened. She was acting funny.”

He stared at her, unable to believe he was having this conversation with a seventeen-year-old. Then he remembered Ginger begging him at the door to be quiet so her sister wouldn’t hear them. He hadn’t recalled her vehement request until just now. “Why is it…such a huge issue for her?”

Willa looked uncomfortable, like she didn’t want to answer. She buried her face in her hands with a groan. “Oh, for fuck’s sake. It’s like I’m doomed to talk about this all day. Ginger and I were fine until you two assholes came along.”

Derek bristled. “What are you talking about? There’s someone else? You said she was working,
dammit
.”

She waved off his question. “There’s no one else. I’m talking about my…this guy…never mind. You need to get yourself under control, man.”

“Explain.”

Willa stood, pacing around the table toward the window. “Ginger would have an issue with me hearing you guys because of our mother. She used to turn tricks in our living room.”

His face paled. “Shit.”

“Yeah. Shit.” She stared out the window, her back to Derek. “Ginger used to stuff cotton in my ears and blast country music to drown it out. She knew how much it upset me. That’s why she has an issue with it now. She doesn’t realize it only bothered me back then because I didn’t understand it. To her, it’s just plain black and white.”

Derek had seen Valerie Peet’s criminal record, not that he could tell Willa that. He’d known Ginger’s childhood had more than likely been rough. Obviously, he hadn’t even scratched the surface. Rage flowed through him just imagining two young girls being subjected to something so awful. Indeed, Ginger had been required to grow up at a very young age.

He sat down heavily in the kitchen chair vacated by Willa. “I still feel like I’m missing something.”

She faced Derek across the table. “Our mother…she’s complicated. Sometimes her johns would stick around for a few days. They’d make promises to her and then bail once the drugs dried up. She’d get depressed, go on a drinking binge.” Willa plopped onto the back of the couch, crossing her arms over her middle. “I think you care about my sister, Lieutenant, so I’m going to drop some knowledge on you.”

He managed a nod.

“I’m sure I don’t have to remind you how attractive Ginger is. But so was our mother at one time. And Ginger’s biggest fear has always been becoming our mother.”

“Impossible.”

Willa made a sound of agreement. “Still. It’s the real reason she doesn’t date. She watched men use our mother and discard her like yesterday’s trash her whole life. So you see, you literally could not have fucked up more by bailing and not calling Ginger for two days.”

Derek’s throat felt banded by steel. Jesus, how could he not have realized this? She’d needed words, assurances from him, and he’d left without even saying good-bye. And, worse, stayed away while he let his work consume him without sending her so much as a text. Of course she’d feel insecure about where they stood. He’d given her no reason to feel otherwise. But what would he have said?

Thanks for the hottest fuck of my life, baby. Let’s do it again as soon as I get home from work. Twice.

He scrubbed a hand over his face. Just as she’d been innocent of men, he lacked experience being in an actual relationship.