19. Chapter 19
Chapter nineteen
Benji
I drain the entire glass of water, then stare out the window at the bird feeder. No birds in sight as thunder rumbles.
Milo left with a pack, heading into the woods. I watched him go through the RV windows. My first thought was that Gina had called the wedding off. But she’s acting skittish, rushing off to a shower.
I’d thought, after the day we spent together, that we’d crossed a line deeper than wet humping. We might even be in the same place again, like in Vegas.
Maybe not. Maybe Milo’s giving us privacy so she can ask me to divorce her and leave.
But with a pack that big? It would only take five minutes to break my heart—not exactly something he needs to pack for.
I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. The air smells like rain. Outside the window, leaves flutter in a restless breeze.
How long can a shower last? I want her to finish so we can do this.
The shower goes off. Okay, I wish she’d used up all the hot water because I am not ready. I rush over to my bag, grab some clean clothes, and station myself outside the bathroom door. I’ll use up all the hot water. Not that it will buy me more than five minutes.
Gina opens the door and startles at the sight of me. She’s wearing short, light-weight, loose-fitting cotton shorts and a thin cotton T-shirt with no bra. I forget all about my shower.
“All yours,” she says.
I grin because, for a stupid second, I think she means she’s all mine, but no. She’s motioning to the shower. Dammit.
We both move in the same direction, bump into each other, then move into the other direction and bump into each other again. Gina grabs my arms and rotates us until we’ve switched spots. At least we’re both smiling now.
My plan to take the longest shower goes down the drain as thunder rattles the window.
My mom always told us we’d get fried if lightning struck while we were in the shower, and I don’t know if that’s true or not, but it's best not to chance it. I wash off the lake with Gina’s body wash and use her shampoo.
If she ends this thing between us and I have to smell like her until my next shower, I will have so many regrets.
A few raindrops splatter against the window as I get out of the shower, so I close it. Once I’m dressed, there’s nothing to do but drop my dirty clothes into the hamper and walk out to my fate.
My fate is fucking hot. She’s standing by the sink, holding her thick hair off her neck for the breeze coming through the window.
She’s all long legs and luscious thighs.
The T-shirt is too thin to hide the curves of her tits or the hard peaks of her nipples.
Now that I know how those legs feel wrapped around me and how her freckles stand out against her rosy cheeks as she comes, I’m not sure I’ll hear a single word she says about breaking up with me.
Gina’s eyes flick down, and she frowns. “You’re wearing a shirt.”
I glance down at the white cotton undershirt. “Huh. I am.” Maybe I should take it off and make this harder for her. But it feels like a shield or armor, so maybe I’ll keep it on.
“We need to talk,” she says.
“Figured as much.” I roll my shoulders. I’m as ready as I’ll ever be, which is not even a little bit. “Okay. Drop it on me.”
Mother Nature picks this exact moment to open up the skies. Not a good sign.
Gina partially closes the window behind her, then turns back to me. “Milo and I are just friends.”
That’s…not Gina breaking up with me. It’s also not news.
“We’ve never been together.” She blushes and makes a vaguely obscene gesture with her hands. “Romantically or…sexually.”
“I know.”
“You do?”
“You don’t have chemistry with him. You’ve admitted you aren’t sleeping together. I know you’re friends. I just don’t know why you’re getting married.”
“It’s the only way Diana will sell us the lodge.”
Ah. The one fucking thing I can’t compete with. I can ask her to leave Milo for me, but I can’t ask her to give up the single most important thing in the world to her.
Gina sighs. “Diana—like everyone else in Havenwood—thinks Milo and I have been together for years.”
Because they’re friends and living close to each other? Have they never watched them interact? Milo has more chemistry with his chainsaw than he does with Gina.
She fiddles with the hem of her shirt. “Benji, I really like you. I want to try…us. But I can’t lose Happy Lake. I have to marry him, which means we need to get divorced, and if you’ll have me, we need to stay a secret.”
She’s not dumping me? The relief is so sweet I want to scoop her up and kiss her breathless, until I realize what she asked for.
More secrets.
“For how long?”
“I’d have to stay married to Milo for at least a year to make it look real. Diana won’t be entirely out of our lives when she moves to Florida, but we won’t have to sneak around as much once she’s gone.”
“But we would still have to sneak around. Anyone in Havenwood who sees us could tell her. And you told everyone we were second cousins—how would we handle that?”
Gina frowns. The fear that I’ll never be more than her dirty little secret sours in my stomach. Maybe she married a twenty-five-year-old stripper in Vegas, but in here, where she knows everyone, maybe a dirty little secret is all I’m good for. I’m not enough for her to want more.
“Is it?”—I have to clear my throat when I choke up—“is it just about Happy Lake? Or is it because we got drunk-married?” I drop my gaze to her bare feet. “Or is it because…I’m me?”
“It’s only Happy Lake,” Gina says fiercely, stepping closer to tip my face up, forcing me to meet her eyes. “I’m not ashamed of you or anything we did in Vegas. You are perfect.”
Relief weakens my knees momentarily, and I tug her close, wrapping my arms around her for balance.
“I can’t lose my home,” she whispers. “I can’t lose you, either.”
I nuzzle my nose to hers, then kiss her softly. “I don’t want to lose you or for you to lose your home. The whole secret thing kinda sucks, but you’re worth it. We can make this work.”
She pulls me back into a kiss. This time, the kiss goes on and on until I’m hard as a rock and desperate for her to touch me. “Milo’s not coming back tonight, is he?” I ask when I can bring myself to break away.
She smiles, that pretty blush coloring her cheeks. “No.”
Okay, good. It's better than good, but I want whatever happens next to be special. “We never finished our first dance after we got married.”
“We didn’t?”
Her hair is loose, her still damp curls tumbling over her shoulders. I pluck one up and wind it around my finger. “After we got married, we went to a club with the tourists from our wedding. We did shots with them, and they wanted us to dance, so we went onto the dance floor.”
“What was our song?”
I think back, but I can only see how she smiled at me in the dancing yellow and purple lights. “I guess I was too distracted to notice the song. You had this smile on your face, but it wasn’t like the other smiles I’d seen from you. It was so pure, so happy.”
Gina smiles, but it’s a little self-conscious. Nothing like the one that dazzled me that night. I release her curl to brush my thumb over her cheek. “Not quite there yet.” I kiss her, just a brief one to make her smile widen. “Closer,” I say when it works.
She tucks a lock of hair behind her ear. “Benji.”
I kiss her again, a little longer, and pull back to see. “That’s it.” A perfect match to the big joyous smile.
She shakes her head at me, but now she can’t stop smiling. “What happened on the dancefloor? Why didn’t we finish our dance?”
“You stepped on my foot.”
She cringes. “The one in the moon boot?”
“Both, actually.”
“I’m sorry.”
Crap, I should’ve lied. Her smile is gone now, and she ducks her head.
I tip her face back up for another soft kiss.
“I’d sprained my ankle pretty bad at rehearsal the day before—it was my fault for ignoring the pain and walking around for hours.
But when I admitted it hurt, you insisted we call it a night.
We booked that room at a nearby hotel and crashed there.
We never got to finish our dance.” I kiss her again.
I never want to stop kissing her. But I do stop to check, and the smile is back on her face. “Dance with me now?”
“I don’t know where my speaker is. I can put something on my phone—”
She takes a step back, but that’s unacceptable, so I tug her back into my arms. “We have the rain.” It’s still bucketing outside, but I don’t need music to dance with my wife.
“I’d like that.”
I take her in a closed position, her right hand in my left, my right hand resting low on her back. I nudge my right knee between her legs, which places her right knee between mine, and we move—slowly because she’s hesitant—across the kitchen, dancing barefoot to the sound of the rain on the roof.
“Don’t look at our feet,” I say when she stumbles. “Look in my eyes. Feel for my body to show you where to move.” Her green eyes lift to mine, and she smiles ruefully, but she relaxes, and the movement becomes more instinctual as she stops overthinking it.
“Are we waltzing?” she asks.
“No.” I’m moving us around randomly to an imaginary beat of one-two-three-four. “Did you want to?”
“You know how?”
I shift us into a box step to the beat of one-two-three. She stumbles a little at the change and laughs when I pull her closer. “I’ve done some ballroom,” I admit. “Though I’m not great at it. I’m out of practice.”
“What else can you do?”
“Tap—badly.” I stop and pull her flush against me so we can sway cheek to cheek. “A little jazz. Most of what I do on stage comes from hip-hop and breakdancing. I’ve been doing both since I was thirteen.” I wish she could’ve seen me on stage doing what I’m best at.
I don’t need a stage.
“Let me show you,” I say, stepping back.
When Gina nods, I drop her hand to grab the nearest chair, placing it in the middle of the small space.
“You won’t have a lot of room,” she says.
“I don’t need it.” I retake her hand, spin her slowly, and back her into the chair.
“Oh, it’s for me,” she says in surprise. She has no idea. Fuck I hope she enjoys this as much as I will.
“It’s for you,” I confirm as I lift her hand to my lips to kiss her knuckles. I step back, letting her hand drop. I’m wearing an undershirt, but I flick an imaginary collar up and give her a sharp nod, and she giggles.
One step and I go to my knees, sliding toward her, lifting the hem of my shirt like I’ve done thousands of times before on stage.
I don’t need music—not when the way she watches me has my heart beating louder than any base.
I don’t have to think about the moves, which means I can focus on the soft scent of her clean skin when I slide beside her, so close my nose brushes her arm.
When I stand behind her, she turns her head to track me. I can feel her shaky exhale when I cup her chin, gently turning her head back to face forward. I drag my hands down her arms, and her skin breaks out in goosebumps against my palms.
Her hands tremble when I lift them over her head, pressing them against my pecs. Can she feel my racing heart? Does it match hers?
She doesn’t seem to know what to do with her hands when I release them.
They drift down to her lap. I take her arms to tilt her to the side and silently pray to the gods of woodworking that this chair is as sturdy as it looks.
I grip the back. The chair takes my weight as I lift my legs, swinging my entire body around to land lightly on her lap.
Gina’s wide green eyes stare up at me in astonishment.
“Hi,” I whisper.
“Hi,” she says in a breathy voice that turns into a squeak when I move my hips in rolling thrusts up her stomach. Maybe free-balling it in these joggers was a bad idea. Cock-slapping her tits isn’t romantic or sexy.
Wow, I am fucking this up.
I stand and step back, recapturing her hands, placing them on my chest, rolling my body, and dragging them lower and lower until I release her at the waistband of my joggers, a fraction too late. Her fingers graze my hard-on. Maybe it was an accident, but I groan.
Yeah, fucking this up.
Somehow, I make it through the next part. It doesn’t involve touching, only some dancing in front of her. Dolphin kicks and some floor humping that again makes me regret not putting on underwear—until I notice Gina’s darkened eyes.
Maybe I’m not fucking up.
Her eyes follow me when I stride toward her until my hips press against her chest, my hard cock happily nestled between her breasts.
I lift her hair, cradling the back of her skull and rolling her head back.
She blinks up at me. I stare down at her and forget what comes next.
I forget everything I know about dancing.
Time slows. I sink onto her lap, wrapping her in my arms and holding her close.
I can’t seem to catch my breath or slow my heart.
I tighten my fingers in her hair to get her attention. “Touch me.” I will die if she doesn’t.
She does, her hands cupping my thighs, sliding up to my hips.
“That’s it,” I murmur, dragging my lips lightly over her jaw. “I don’t do this part on stage,” I say, working my way to her mouth. “It’s only for my wife.”