Chapter 21 Hutch
Hutch
Ginger is already in her bunk when I come back from putting out the fire. A small part of me wishes it were raining so she’d be forced to sleep against me all night. I don’t know what the fuck that’s about, but our conversation earlier has me in my head.
I find myself craving to talk to her and learn about her. I’ve loved watching her come out of her shell a bit. She’s smart as hell, determined, and fiercely loyal. I hate that her parents, particularly her mother, have made her feel like she wasn’t enough exactly as she is.
I click out the light, then put my back to the bunk, and kick off my shoes before pulling my shirt off over my head.
That’s when I feel it. Soft, but confident fingers run along my shoulder from where she’s laying on the top bunk. Goosebumps break out over my skin, and my cock instantly wakes up.
“I love your hair down,” she says softly, and I feel her fingertips toy with the ends that hang just past my shoulders. My scalp tingles and it lights a fire in my gut. “It’s lighter too,” she adds in that same low tone.
I nod and turn toward her, the air between us charged with electricity. She blinks back at me from where she’s reclining on her side now. The thin cotton of her T-shirt hugs her tits, the V-neck showing off a bit of cleavage, and her copper curls spill over her shoulders.
Then she says something that surprises me.
“Could you help me stretch out my back?”
I swallow hard but don’t allow myself to overthink it. I’ll help her stretch out anything she wants. “Sure.”
She climbs down off the bunk, and when I gesture for her to lay on her back, she does immediately.
Eagerly. But like she said, she probably worked a lot of muscles she doesn’t normally use on the zipline course, and we’ve pretty much been sleeping like two big sardines in a little can.
Not to mention the two-hour conversation we had sitting in the sand on the shoreline of the lake.
She’s bound to have a little stiffness. Even my back is a little stiff.
Five minutes later, I’ve worked on her lower back and had her flip over to work her quads a bit. I’m surprised she didn’t fight me, especially since I’d been working in such close proximity to her ass.
I lean into the hamstring stretch I’ve got her in, and she lets out a long moan that goes straight to my cock.
I nearly groan, looking down at her. She’s lying on her back, her bright copper curls fanned out on the pillow in the low light in the ceiling behind me.
“Feel good?”
She nods with a grimace. “Yeah, just tight.”
I can’t help it. Her words are so close to what I was thinking and with the position, I chuckle.
She rolls her eyes, and her lips tip up a bit before she shoves my hand off her bent knee. “You’re ridiculous.”
My shoulders shake with laughter as I dig my thumb into a particularly tight spot on the front of her thigh. “You said it.”
“And you’ll use every opportunity to turn everything I say into a sex joke.” She lets out a groan when I work over the knot with both thumbs and I smirk down at her.
“Well, yeah, I’m a guy. Sex is my thing.”
Her lashes flutter the slightest bit, bottom lip tucked between her teeth. It’s distracting as fuck. Not as distracting as what she says next.
“But it’s not our thing.” It’s not a question, but her eyes give her away, an unspoken challenge in them.
We’ve been dancing around this sexual tension for days.
Maybe it’s finally getting to her. Christ knows it is me.
I already miss how she tastes, the sounds she made as she worked her hips while I teased her through her panties.
My cock had been so hard, it was all I could do not to jerk off when she’d gone out to take that call.
Would she be pissed if she knew I actually did jerk off to thoughts of her the next morning when I showered?
Then again, maybe she’s been thinking about it as much as I have, and she’s afraid to bring it up. I’ve been thinking about getting my hands on her since that first day.
I would absolutely love to make sex our thing. I let my gaze take a slow sweep of her body, then run a hand up the outside of her thigh, making her breath hitch.
Tilting my head, I pin her with a look and my heart pounds, betraying how even my voice comes out. “It was once our thing. Or twice.” I shrug. “Could be again.”
She eyes me hesitantly, but I can see a new light glimmering in her eyes, the anticipation simmering below the surface.
I don’t know who moves first. Her or me. All I know is one second I’m kneeling on the bed above her and the next I’m on top of her, our bodies colliding, being welcomed between her spread thighs, her hands are in my hair, and our lips are crashing together.
And fuck me.
Her mouth is warm and pliant when I slide my tongue against hers, and I can’t help the groan that vibrates my chest at the way she feels, the way she tastes.
I haven’t kissed anyone but Ginger in over a decade.
Feeling her lips on mine, her tongue in my mouth, her sweet whimpers against my lips, robs me of breath.
It sounds cliché as fuck, but kissing this woman feels like nothing I’ve ever experienced.
I’ve had my hands on her body for the last ten minutes, kneading her thighs, helping her stretch, and although nothing about working out her sore muscles was sexual, everything about this moment is.
I rock my hips against her as our tongues tangle, desperate for friction on my aching cock.
She lifts her hips, meeting my thrust, and lets out a whimper that is music to my ears. I’ve waited six months to hear that whimper again, and it’s flawless, just like I remember. I want all the little sounds she makes to be seared into my memory forever.
Her tongue swipes over mine, her grip in my hair tight and desperate.
I lift a hand to palm one of her tits through her shirt, and she moans again, lightly licking into my mouth before she sucks my bottom lip into her mouth.
She tugs on it with her teeth, and I put a bit of distance between our bodies so I can slide her free hand down to palm my cock through my jeans.
“Are we doing this?” I rasp, kissing her again.
“Do you have a condom?” she asks, chasing my lips.
I freeze.
Shit. I used the last of them with those two surfer chicks.
And just like that, the heat in my gut turns cold.
The memory—careless hands, fake moans, a night I barely remember—makes my stomach twist.God, what the hell was I doing back then?My cock deflates like it’s in agreement, retreating with slow, humiliating clarity.
What the fuck, man?
Luckily, Ginger doesn’t seem to notice. She latches onto my earlobe, sucking hard, then nipping like she’s trying to restart me from the outside in.
And it’s working—sort of.
I focus on the feel of her mouth, the sharp tug of her teeth, willing myself to stop thinking about everything I’m suddenly not proud of.
“I don’t have one,” I admit, opening my eyes and shaking my head like it might knock the memory loose.
She kisses me deeper, rougher, shoving her tongue into my mouth like she wants to shut my brain off entirely.
And shit, that’s nice.
She pulls back enough to meet my eyes, panting, wild and gorgeous and maddening.
“How does the self-professed town fuckboy not have condoms?”
Her tone is pure Ginger—snarky as hell—and somehow it doesn’t piss me off.That mouth has never failed to get my dick hard.
And sure enough… We’re back, baby.
I fist a handful of her hair and tug her head back so she can’t look away from me.
“I wasn’t expecting the fuckin’ ice queen to beg for my dick,” I snipe, and I swear little flames light her eyes.
Tension crackles between us. It lights me the fuck up.
Her eyes flash in challenge as she glares up at me.
“I wouldn’t beg for your dick if it was the last dick on the planet,” she bites out, and I tighten my fist in her hair.
I shove my hips forward again, and she whimpers. “Liar.”
You’re such an asshole,” she bites out, grinding her hips forward. It catches me off guard, but I’m loving this game she’s playing—and I’m not going anywhere. I can feel the heat in her movements, like she’s chasing more friction, and I’m more than happy to meet her halfway.
I trap her wrists in one hand and hold them above her head, then drive my hips forward, pinning her ass to the bed. We’re nose to nose, both breathing hard. “Yeah, and you’re a little shit.”
Her eyes flare with heat and she struggles to buck her hips, tugging against the hold I have on her wrists.
“Get off me,” she says but it’s breathy, lust swirling in her eyes, and the imperceptible squeeze of her thighs around my hips tells me she doesn’t really want me to.
I shake my head once, looming over her. “No.”
I wait, chest heaving with anticipation, hunger, tension.
I’m so turned on I can feel precum slick in my boxers.
My eyes flick between hers before dropping lower, catching on the peaks of her nipples through her T-shirt—so hard they could cut glass.
I grind my hips against hers, and she whimpers, her eyes rolling back. I lean in, running my nose up her neck.
“The pretty little sounds you’re making, and those hard nipples are giving me mixed signals, California.”
I turn my head and run my tongue along her bottom lip, and she opens for me, allowing me to sweep inside. I fuck her mouth with my tongue like I would my cock as I keep her arms pinned. She writhes underneath me.
“F-Fuck you,” she grunts softly, rocking her hips the slightest bit, as if her body and brain are at war with one another—eyelashes fluttering closed.
I chuckle against the skin of her neck, then suck hard before soothing the spot with my tongue. “Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
She grunts, bucking her hips again.
“You know, the more you fight this, the more I want it.”
“Maybe if you want it, you should stop being a little bitch and take it,” she grinds out, a challenge flashing in her eyes.