Chapter Twenty-Five
TWENTY-FIVE
“I need a drink.”
Ginny patted his hand and got up, and he didn’t hide the fact that he watched her walk to the mini fridge. His muscles felt heavy, but his brain was light as a feather, flying about in his skull like an angry parrot trying to peck its way out. Was that the true definition of bird-brained?
She handed him an ice-cold beer, and he cracked it open, sighing happily along with the can. He gulped down half of it before wondering how many more she had in that fridge. He needed at least half a dozen after the day he’d had.
“I really can’t thank you enough, Shepherd. You’ve been surprisingly cool about this whole thing.”
He didn’t feel cool. He felt wildly unprepared. Like a newborn giraffe just trying to find its feet. But Ginny had asked for his help, and as it turned out, he was a sucker.
One born every minute, and all that.
He shrugged. “Your mom is a murderer, I’m a murderer. What’s there to freak out about?”
Ginny narrowed her eyes, so blue in this soft lighting they looked almost turquoise. “She isn’t a murderer. Probably. She probably isn’t a murderer, and really, Shepherd, neither are you. Self-defense isn’t murder.”
What had he been defending? Certainly not himself. He’d chosen to go into that godforsaken house. Chosen to follow after her. Chosen to take the bat with him.
The man hadn’t even fully turned around when Shepherd killed him.
The swing of the bat, the sickening thunk it made against a caving skull, felt like someone else’s memories. They were his, and he knew they were his, but it felt like he was experiencing them from someone else’s story.
The explosion, however. He remembered the explosion from a first-person point of view.
Her cold hands on his face brought him back to the present moment. She watched him, her almost-turquoise eyes worried, her plump bottom lip bitten between her white teeth.
“Shepherd,” she whispered. “You saved me twice. You’re a hero. You’re my hero. You stood up to my grandpa for me! Nobody’s ever done that—not even my dad.”
His breathing shallowed. Shepherd forced an inhale, breathing in the coconut vanilla scent of her, and it somehow calmed him down and revved him up at the same time.
He dug his thumb nail under the pull tab, tried to focus on the dull sensation of the tin pressing on his skin instead of her hands on his face.
On the cute little tip of her button nose.
On the perfect sway of her cupid’s bow. On how devastatingly beautiful she was.
“I don’t like your family, Ginny.” He didn’t mean to whisper, but maybe it was for the best. Her terrifying family could be listening.
Her soft hands moved to his hair, her fingers scratching his scalp. “Thank God.”
She smiled softly when she spoke. He smiled back, because she was smiling.
Because he was an idiot, with hearts for eyes and on his sleeve.
Look at what he’d done just today for this woman, and all for free.
Plus, for legal counsel, but he wouldn’t have needed the legal counsel if he hadn’t been trying to keep her safe.
“I really appreciate you, Shepherd,” she whispered. “I’m so happy I met you.”
The pull tab clanged when his thumb jerked away from it. “Huh. No one’s ever said that before.”
She smiled again, so he smiled too. And when she leaned down to kiss him, he kissed her back.
But it wasn’t her tongue making the first move this time.
No, it was his, sweeping into her mouth with the memory of their first kiss behind it.
She responded in kind, with a happy little whimper, and damn it, he needed more hands.
One holding the beer and one tracing the curve of her slim waist. He needed a third to bury in her hair, especially as she melted against him.
Ginny pulled away first, her lips swollen from their kiss, her eyes shining. “Shepherd. It’s been a long day. I’m going to take a nice, hot bath.”
He nodded, because his brain hadn’t been left with enough blood to form sentences.
“It’s big enough for two people. If you want to join me?” Her index finger caressed his bottom lip, dragged a molten trail down his neck and chest, his body leaning towards her without conscious thought. “It’s got those jets that keep the water warm.”
If Shepherd were a good man, he would’ve said, Hey, let’s slow down. You’ve had a really hard, traumatic day. We both have. If you still want to do this after we’ve saved your mom, I’m game. But until then, let’s let cooler heads prevail and keep our clothes on.
That’s what a good man would’ve said. A good man wouldn’t have taken advantage of Ginny in her fragile, emotional state.
But Shepherd was not a good man.