Protecting What's His (14 page)

Chapter Eighteen

Ginger woke on the floor as if a fire alarm had gone off, knocking over a half-full glass of red wine.

What the hell is that noise?

She shoved the heels of her hands against her eyes, blocking out the lamplight. A magazine clipping depicting a cat wearing sunglasses was stuck to one of her hands, and she ripped it off, letting it flutter to the floor. When her momentary fuzziness passed, she tried to piece together the last few hours.

Willa and Evan reuniting in the hallway. Evan staying for dinner. Ginger watching Willa smile and laugh like she hadn’t done in years while Ginger plied herself with wine, lamenting the fact that she was now the only emotionally stunted sister in the room.

Check, check, and check.

She buried her head in her hands and groaned. When had the world shifted and left her sitting in the same spot? They’d been fine before, hadn’t they? Two sisters against the world! Sure, they never discussed their hopes or fears, but they sure as hell had each other’s backs. Now, Ginger wondered if she’d been wearing blinders as her sister developed an entirely new facet to her personality.

She’d been the one to make the decision to leave Chicago for a new start, but the only thing she’d really changed was her location. Willa had found a way to move on from the past. Why couldn’t she?

Derek wanted to talk to her tomorrow. The very idea of discussing a potential relationship between them frightened her. He didn’t realize how impossible a task he faced trying to convince her to take that leap. Did he think a simple conversation could erase the previous twenty-three years she spent not trusting anyone but herself?

We’re more than sex, Ginger. Accept it.

Oddly enough, she had accepted it. Something very clearly existed between them besides their intense sexual attraction. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be feeling sexually frustrated, sitting in a pool of cheap wine. She’d be with Derek, working out those frustrations in a far more entertaining manner.

She couldn’t allow herself to succumb to those urges, though. Every second she spent with him made it harder to keep a comfortable distance. And even if she wanted to attempt a purely sexual relationship with Derek, he’d made it clear that arrangement didn’t work for him. Damn him for that. Because his restraint had accomplished far more than simply impressing her, which it had. It made her wonder if his intentions toward her really were genuine. If maybe a relationship could work if two strong-willed people, such as them, wanted it to.

What would Derek be like as a boyfriend? Controlling, possessive, challenging. Yes to all of the above.

She thought of the man she’d danced with on Saturday night. The humble, comforting Derek with the dry sense of humor. The one who’d held her hand and stroked her hair. She’d barely scratched his surface. Did she want to?

Yes and no. Yes, because men like him were rare. She wanted to know what drove him, made him who he is. To have all that seething intensity focused on her…it would never be boring, that was for certain.

No, because the more she knew about him, the harder he would be to forget.

But Ginger knew one thing. She missed him so badly her chest ached. The thought of letting Derek go without at least making an attempt at something more left her feeling empty.

Tomorrow, she’d listen to what he had to say. Then she’d decide.

Where is that noise coming from?

She peeled her hands away from her sensitive eyes and spotted her cell phone buzzing and dancing on the coffee table she’d been working on prior to passing out. Her clock said 1:45 a.m. The screen of her cell displayed an unknown number with a Chicago area code. Who would be calling her at this time of night?

“Hello?”

“Oh, Ginger. Thank God. I’ve called three times.”

She recognized the thick Chicago accent. Patty, the lady she’d met at the charity event. Something sank heavily in her stomach. No one called at this time of night with good news, and their only connection was Derek.

Stall. Put it off. “How…how did you get this number?”

“We exchanged numbers, don’t you remember?”

She couldn’t think past anything over the pounding in her head. “Oh. Okay.”

“Listen dear, I don’t know if this call is appropriate or not, but you and Derek seemed so close the other night. I thought you would want to know. There was a massive raid this evening at a meeting between two major gangs that resulted in some serious gunfire, and Derek has been taken to Saint Anthony’s medical center. I just thought you’d want to know.”

Ginger’s body felt numb. “He’s been shot?”

“Saint Anthony’s. Fourteenth floor, ICU. I would get there as soon as possible.”

The line went dead. Ginger couldn’t make her body move for a full minute. Everything around her felt too clear. Every sound, even the feel of the carpet under her legs, felt abrasive, like a scrape along her nerve endings. She pushed herself up on shaking legs, stumbled into the bathroom, and stared at her reflection in mirror under the harsh fluorescent light.

She’d barely finished brushing her teeth before her knees buckled and she landed on the tile floor. Pain came screaming through the numbness so swiftly, she doubled over with a cry. Eventually she found the strength to struggle to her feet. She stumbled back through the bedroom and out the apartment door, shoving her feet into her cowboy boots as she went.

Ginger got in her truck and drove aimlessly in one direction before realizing she didn’t know Saint Anthony’s location. At a stoplight, she begged for directions from an off-duty taxi driver, made a U-turn and finally headed the right way. Her drive to the hospital blurred together in a series of stoplights and street signs. Nothing felt real. Maybe she still lay passed out on her bedroom floor and this was one big, wine-induced nightmare. She squeezed the steering wheel, felt the solidity of it beneath her hands, rolled down the window, and breathed in the damp air. No way was she dreaming. That meant Derek could at that very moment be dying. Dead, even.

She’d just seen him hours earlier, solid and reassuring in the hallway of the building. They were supposed to talk tomorrow. He hadn’t even given Ginger the courtesy of letting her know he was on his way to risk his stupid neck, dammit. Maybe she wouldn’t have been so stubborn if she’d known.

Give me a chance, beautiful girl.

Hot, salty tears dripped from her eyes as she turned down the street leading to Saint Anthony’s. Ginger could barely read the sign through her blurry vision, but somehow mustered the capability to park the truck and run inside. Bypassing the front desk, she headed straight for the elevators and punched the button for the fourteenth floor.

Ignoring the flower-toting family staring at her dishevelment with open curiosity, Ginger blinked through her tears at the numbers above the doors as they ticked away, moving so slowly she wanted to scream in frustration. When the doors finally parted, she took off like a shot, her eyes scanning the floor frantically. They finally landed on a desk with an official-looking woman sitting behind it, typing away on a computer.

She didn’t bother wiping her eyes or trying to fix her appearance. None of it mattered.

“Excuse me. I’m here to see Derek Tyler. Lieutenant Derek Tyler. He’s been shot. Please, I need to see him right away.”

The redhead dressed in scrubs looked bored by Ginger’s plea, taking her time looking up from the screen. “Spell the name.”

Ginger bit back an exasperated groan. She needed to see Derek and this woman clearly didn’t get the urgency. How many lieutenants had come in shot that night that she couldn’t remember him? Jesus, had she even made it in time? How much time had passed since the phone call? It could have been minutes or hours for all she knew. “T-Y-L-E-R. As in,
Tyler
. Please, I need to see him.”

Long fingernails punched the keyboard slowly. The woman shook her head. “No one has been admitted with that name, miss.”

Ginger finally lost her patience along with any composure she’d managed to keep since entering the hospital. She got angry. And when she got angry, she cried. Hiccupping once, twice, sloppy tears began rolling down her face once more. She leaned over the desk until her face was inches from the redhead.

“
Check again.
Now.
Or I’ll throw this goddamn machine out the window.”

“Ginger?”

Chapter Nineteen

Her heart stopped. Sagging back from the counter, away from the woman’s stunned expression, Ginger turned to see Derek standing at the end of the corridor, underneath a sign that read
Waiting Room
.

With his ever-present badge clipped to his waist, Derek looked bone-weary, his white shirt wrinkled and speckled with blood. Stubble covered his wide jaw. He looked at her in shock as if he couldn’t believe she stood there, just a short distance away. Her eyes ran over him, taking in every detail, never wanting to forget a single thing about him.

She sobbed. “Oh God. Oh, Derek.”

Ginger’s body shook so severely, she couldn’t run to Derek as fast as she wanted to, but somehow made it to the end of the corridor. She leaped into his open arms, wrapped her body around him, and held on tight. His steady heartbeat drummed against her chest, reassuring her. With her face pressed into his strong shoulder, she wept harder than she could remember.

“Shhh, baby. I’ve got you. It’s going to be okay. God, you’re frozen.”

Derek hadn’t been shot and killed. He was alive and vital, holding her in his arms where she belonged. Ginger repeated those facts over and over in her head. Or maybe she said them out loud. She couldn’t be certain.

Slowly, she became aware of her surroundings. They stood in the center of a waiting room occupied by at least forty uniformed police officers and detectives. With her legs wrapped around his waist. Crying like a baby. Yelping, Ginger buried her face against his neck to block out all the amused grins.

Derek strode out of the waiting room and stopped in the first unoccupied hospital room they came across. Even after the door closed behind them, she could hear the whoops and catcalls echoing from the waiting room. Making no mention of the noise, he set her down on a narrow hospital bed, scanning her tearstained face.

“Sweetheart, talk to me. What’s wrong? Did something happen to Willa?”

“No,” she hiccupped, staring into his handsome, concerned face. “They told me someone shot you. They said I should get here as soon as possible.”

“Me? No, one of my officers was wounded. We’re just waiting for him to be moved into recovery.” Derek looked dumbfounded. “
Who
called you?”

“Patty,” she sniffed. “So you weren’t shot? You’re really okay?”

His jaw hardened. “I’m fine. Though I won’t be able to say the same for Patty much longer.”

“I don’t understand.”

Derek sighed. “Think about it. Did she actually say I’d been shot or did she just let you think it?”

She thought for a minute, paling at the realization. “Why would she do that to me?”

He made an irritated sound. “She must have guessed that based on my mood this morning, we’d broken up or had a fight. I’m guessing this was her misguided way of throwing us together.”

Ginger brushed the final tears from her eyes. “Wow. That is a woman who takes matchmaking seriously. And here I thought she wanted to fix me up with her nephew.”

“Over my dead body.”

“It almost was.”

Derek smiled, but it quickly disappeared. “How did you get here?”

She had to think. “Um…I drove my truck.”

Eyes pinching shut, he took a steadying breath. “You drove yourself here, upset, in the middle of the night. Dressed in your pajamas.”

Ginger glanced down, surprised to find herself in short terry-cloth shorts, a nightshirt and cowboy boots. “Huh. Look at that.” Gazing into his green eyes once more, she stroked his jaw until it relaxed a little. “I wasn’t thinking straight, I suppose.”

Derek still looked displeased.

Her hands moved to his chest, stroking over his shoulders. “So I’ve made my big, dramatic scene. Isn’t this the part where you kiss me, Lieutenant?”

“I can’t kiss you right now.”

“Why not?”

His chest rose and fell with a shudder underneath her hands. “I’m looking at you sitting there all puffy-eyed from crying over me. If I kiss you right now, I’ll never stop.”

Her heart pounded a wild beat. “Just one little kiss?”

Derek groaned. “God, this is how it’s going to be with you, isn’t it? When I can’t make love to you properly, you’ll beg me for it? I think you’re trying to kill me.”

Smiling, Ginger ran her nose along the side of his neck. “I need you alive for what I have in mind.”

His head dropped forward. “Being shot would have been easier than this.”

Ginger jerked back with a gasp, her eyes going wide. “Don’t say that.”

“I’m sorry.” Derek grabbed her wrists and blocked her with his hips before she could slide off the bed and get away from him. “Bad joke.” When a tear slipped out, Derek watched it track down her cheek.

With a soft groan, he kissed her, tenderly at first. She let her head fall back, parting her lips underneath his, granting permission.

Ginger whimpered and molded her body against his harder, muscular frame. Derek’s hands were everywhere, running up her bare calves and thighs, whipping off her nightshirt to reveal her naked breasts, then cupping and kneading them greedily. He gripped her knees and yanked her forward to the edge of the bed so he could rock into her body, despite their remaining clothes.

“If you keep quiet, I’ll give you what you need. Can you do that?” He drove his demanding erection forward between her legs, and Ginger’s eyes rolled back in her head.

“
Yes.
”

“But you’re going to give me what I need first, Ginger. Do you remember what you said to me the other night? I do. Every fucking word.” His mouth found her breast, drawing a nipple between his lips and sucking hard. Ginger bit her lip but a moan of longing escaped, echoing through the room.

“I told you to keep
quiet
. If you don’t listen to me, we can’t do this.”

Her hands clutched at his hair as he tongued her nipples. “I’ll be quiet, I swear,” she whispered.

“If even
one
of my men hears your sweet little noises when you come, I’ll be very upset. Those are for my ears alone. Do you understand me?”

“Yes. Yes, I understand.”

“Good.” He rewarded her with a slow, provocative kiss of her mouth. “You asked me if I wanted to put it in your mouth. You asked if I wanted to be your first again.”

She watched through hooded eyes as his hands worked the buckle of his belt. Then he reached behind him to flip the lock on the door, his savage gaze not leaving hers for a second. Ginger felt drugged, but completely focused at the same time. She desperately wanted to please Derek and didn’t care if that made her weak-willed, because she planned on demanding he please her just as thoroughly afterward. Her body shook and heated under his regard to such a degree, she almost climaxed then and there.

Derek took Ginger’s hand, placing it against the stiff bulge behind his fly, and pressed his hips forward suggestively. “I haven’t been the same since you said those things to me. I’ve been in a bad way, baby.”

Unable to wait any longer, Ginger unzipped his pants and dropped to her knees. She took his hands and placed them on either side of her head. “Show me what you want.”

“There’s nothing you can do that I won’t love.”

Gripping the thick base in her hand, she didn’t allow herself think, just followed her instincts. She tasted every inch of him with her tongue, lips, and teeth, listening to his increased breathing or growls to judge what he liked. His fists wrapped themselves in her hair, indicating when to speed up or slow down. She couldn’t get enough of his taste, the sounds of pleasure he made. When Derek tried to pull her away, Ginger didn’t want to stop and told him so.

“Trust me, I don’t want you to stop either, baby. But I need to feel you come.” He gripped her by the shoulders and pulled her to her feet, kissing and licking at her mouth until her body undulated against his once more. “Dammit, I swore the next time I had you, I would go slowly.”

She tore her mouth away, panting. “No. I don’t want you to hold back. Take me however you want me.”

Before she could finish voicing her appeal, Derek spun her around until she faced away from him. She flattened her hands on the high bed to balance herself as he crouched down low behind her and peeled the shorts from her legs. Absently, she registered the rip of a condom wrapper and the faint sound of Derek rolling it onto his erection.

After he’d finished seeing to their protection, Ginger’s short puffs of breath were the only sound to be heard in the room, until Derek finally spoke.

“No panties again, sweetheart?” He made a guttural noise of either approval or disappointment. She couldn’t tell without seeing his face. “If I didn’t think the sound of my palm against your ass would draw attention, I would remind you how much your forgetfulness pleases me.” Ginger’s sharp inhalations accelerated even more, her chest heaving. “I’ll have to show you a different way, I suppose.”

Then he bit her. His teeth sank into the flesh of her ass, stopping just before they broke the skin. She didn’t dare cry out, instead trapping the scream inside her throat. Before Ginger could truly register what he’d done, she heard his pants hit the floor, belt still attached. One arm snaked around her waist and held her steady as he thrust home inside her.

She couldn’t prevent the hiss of pleasure from escaping through her teeth. The difference compared to last time astounded her. No pain, only fullness and the immediate urge to move.

Derek’s chest pressed against her back, his hips tilting upward into hers so high and deep, the position forced Ginger onto her tiptoes. Then he pulled out, almost leaving her completely, before thrusting deep once more. Ginger bit her lip to keep from crying out, positive she drew blood.

“Do you feel that, baby? That’s your man moving inside you.”

Bracing herself on her elbows, she ground back against him, circling her hips and begging him to keep moving, but he seemed determined to set the pace.

“
Please
, Derek.”

He thrust hard and quick exactly five times, just enough for Ginger to get used to the rhythm before slowing once more. “Who’s fucking you, Ginger?”

She knew what he wanted to hear. Throwing her head back, she reveled in every word. “My man. My man is fucking me.”

With a stifled growl, he yanked her back against him and pumped his hips up and into her wildly. Ginger held on to the bed, absorbing each thrust that carried her closer to release.

“
Fuck
, baby. I’ll never get used to how tight you are.”

Derek’s hand slid over her hip and found her clitoris, applying pressure and friction with his middle finger until Ginger’s body shuddered and shook with the most powerful orgasm she’d ever experienced. A minute later, Derek followed, groaning his release into the side of her neck.

When their breathing returned to normal, Derek kissed Ginger’s shoulder and pulled out of her slowly. Then he turned her in his arms so he could hold her.

“I can’t seem to control myself long enough to show you we’re not just about sex.” She felt him shake his head. “Even so, Ginger, I’m not going to apologize for what just happened. When we touch each other, it’s honest and real. I crave it.”

Ginger remained silent, absorbing Derek’s warmth. She wanted to forget the agony of the last hour and simply enjoy being held, but she couldn’t. The uncertainty of what lay ahead for them didn’t scare her nearly as much as losing him. She’d learned that hard lesson tonight.

“I know that now.” Sucking in a shaky breath, she gave him her honesty. “When I thought you’d been shot, maybe even before that, I realized you were right. What I feel for you…it’s not only physical.”

Arms tightening around her, he started to speak, but she laid a hand on his chest to stop him. She’d just taken a big step admitting her feelings and needed to let it settle.

“I know sex doesn’t define us, Derek. But maybe it’s an important part of what’s between us. And I think that’s okay. We’re people who need more than words. Can we agree on that?”

Derek kissed the top of her head, holding her close. “You won’t get any argument from me.” He tilted her chin so he could meet her eyes. “But someday, when we need reassurance from each other, our words will be enough. I promise, Ginger.”