by Bella Andre
Staring at the two of them together in the mirror, Ginger felt that her concerns about her weight were incredibly petty. How could she have spent so much time worrying about her size when her body was, essentially, perfect. Sure, maybe she didn't fit into the current cultural norms of perfection, but she could run and jump and swim and paint. What on earth did she have to complain about?
Connor stroked her hair back from her face. "If you're thinking I just told you all of that to invalidate your feelings, think again."
"But it's true. My issues are nothing compared to what you've been through."
He squeezed her more tightly around the waist, pulling her closer against his rock hard chest and thighs. "Here's how I see it. I've had a couple of rough years with my body, but before that everyone told me how great I looked, how strong I was, how well-built. Crazy as it seems to me, I get the feeling no one has ever said those things to you before now." Holding her eyes in the mirror, he asked, "What do you see?"
Ginger's chest was clenched and tight. "Just me."
"Really? Is that all you can see, sweetheart? There isn't anything else?"
To have such a big, strong man be so gentle with her ... she could feel herself melting in his arms.
"I don't know," she whispered. "I don't know what I see."
His hands and arms still wrapped tightly around her, he whispered, "Then how about I tell you what I see? You're strong." Her breath came faster as he pressed a kiss just above her left ear. "You're beautiful." He spun her around to face him and cupped her face in his large hands. She blinked up at him and got lost in his blue eyes. "And every time I look at you, you completely take my breath away."
He slowly undressed her and she drank in every touch, every caress, every path of his fingers across her skin. He ran his lips, his tongue, his fingertips over every inch of her skin reverently as her clothes seemed to disappear and she trembled everywhere he'd touched.
When she was finally naked, he said, "Turn around, sweetheart."
She couldn't do it. Not with years of self-hatred coming at her. She was stunned. She'd thought she'd beaten down the beast within, had been so confident of her triumph.
But he was already turning her in his strong hands, forcing her to see something she wished she could hide from forever--just as she'd forced him to see it in himself the night before.
God, how she hated this fear. So she forced herself to look.
And lost her breath.
"I look so small compared to you," she whispered.
With Connor behind her, all six-feet-plus of him, she looked tiny. She'd never before thought that word in relation to herself. But he was so big, so broad, that instead of taking note of her bumps and lumps, she saw her breasts, heavy with arousal, the way her skin glowed from the afternoon sun that covered her on the porch as she painted, the fact that her lush curves were the perfect contrast to Connor's hard muscles.
"Tell me what else you see."
"A woman I don't think I've ever seen before."
"She's beautiful, isn't she?"
Looking herself straight in the eye, she tried out the word in her head first to make sure it was really true.
"Yes."
"Let me show you just how beautiful you are, Ginger. Let me love you."
The four-letter word exploded in her head, filled her completely.
There was no longer any room for doubt. Not with Connor seeing her beauty like no one else ever had. Not when he wanted so desperately to make her see it too.
It would be easy, so much easier just to tell herself that she was confusing sex with love like she had with her ex-husband. But she wasn't that naive young girl anymore.
She was a woman who knew her own mind, a woman who knew her own heart.
And yes, oh yes, she loved him.
Turning back around in his arms, she pulled him against her and then she was on the bed and he was sliding into her in one thick stroke, working to heal her with his body as she'd tried to heal him with hers.
His name on her lips as they rocked together, she got lost in the slip and slide of their bodies, the delicious friction of his skin on hers, the way he filled her so completely.
And when he sent her reeling over the edge it was the most natural thing in the world for her to take him with her.
She'd fallen asleep in his arms, utterly content to listen to his heart beat beneath her ear as her eyes closed and she let exhaustion take her. Now she woke up alone in the bed as the sun was setting to the sound of the phone ringing again, alone in the bed again.
In the end she spent a good hour fielding phone calls from not only Connor's brother, but a dozen of his friends on his hotshot crew. So many people who cared about him. So many people who wanted to be there for him.
For every call she picked up, another voice mail came in. His mother sounded like she'd been crying and Ginger was selfishly glad that call hadn't come through. She wouldn't have known what to say. Just when she thought the lull in calls might mean that the rush was over, the phone rang one more time.
"Hi, I'm sorry to bother you again. This is Connor's father. Is he there?"
She thought about everything Connor had told her about his father, flashing next to the letters Isabel had written him and the way she'd reacted to seeing the faded pages again on the bar stool in the diner. Ginger hadn't even met the man, and yet, strangely, she felt that she knew him so well already.
"I'm so sorry, Mr. MacKenzie. He's out, but I promise to let him know the minute he walks in that you called."
"Please," Connor's father said, "just tell him I'm coming. I'm taking the red-eye out of San Francisco."
He abruptly hung up and she held on to the phone for several moments before realizing she was staring blankly out at the sun setting over the lake through the kitchen window, the receiver still in her hand. How, she wondered, was Connor going to react to his father's arrival?
No question, Isabel was going to freak. Instead of three weeks to prepare she'd have eight hours.
Ginger called the diner, but when no one picked up she knew they must be running like crazy tonight.
She was about to leave a message telling her friend to call. Tonight. Whenever. But just as she was about to hang up, she decided, no, it wasn't fair not to just spit it out.
"Andrew's coming, Isabel. He's taking the red-eye out tonight. I figured you'd want to know."
She left the same message on Isabel's home phone, and then, as she hung up the phone for what felt like the millionth time, she saw a flash of light out on the beach in front of the house.
Someone was out there with a flashlight. Looking out the window, she recognized the dark figure as Connor, but couldn't figure out what he was dragging behind him. A hose, she quickly guessed, although she couldn't figure out why.
A couple of minutes later when she got down to the sand she had to speak loudly to be heard over the sound of water spraying out of the hose.
"Connor? Why are you hosing down the boat?
"They're shooting the fireworks off tonight."
She knew July fifth was the makeup day for fireworks if it rained on the Fourth. Still, she didn't understand what any of that had to do with what he was doing right now.
"But everything is still wet from the storm. It didn't stop raining until late this morning."
"You can never be too careful."
Finally, she got it. For all that he was trying to pretend everything was fine, that he could roll with the punches, no problem, he couldn't let go.
Fire hadn't just burned his hands. It was as if it were burning him up from the inside too.
She knew exactly what she needed to do to help him, had known all along that he needed her to help him accept what had happened. "You got a lot of phone calls while you were gone."
"Who from?"
As easy as his voice seemed, she couldn't miss the slight change in the tenor of his voice.
"Your
brother called again, wanted to let you know your friends from the crew would be calling soon. And they did call, Connor. So many of them I can't keep track of their names, but I wrote them down. Your mother left a message too." She paused. "And your father, he called again too."
She waited for him to respond, but when all he did was nod and continue spraying water over the already soaked wood and canvas, she said, "He wanted me to tell you he's coming here. On the red-eye. He'll be here tomorrow."
"You've got to be kidding me?"
Finally, a reaction. "Turn the hose off, Connor. Talk to me. Please."
He did put the hose down, and she was filled with hope that maybe, just maybe, he was finally ready to take his first step toward healing.
"Come swimming with me, Ginger."
Her head spun at the abrupt switch, but also from being pulled back into his arms. Because now that she knew she loved him everything felt so different.
Bigger. Sweeter. A hundred times more intense.
A thousand times more frightening.
"Swimming?" she asked stupidly.
"Night swimming. Right now. Here. In the dark, beneath the fireworks."
She tried to shake her head, tried to put voice to the word no. Sex wouldn't solve anything for him. But his hands were already on her body, stripping her down, and his mouth was on hers, taking, giving, and she couldn't help but go with him. And then her fingers were moving too, pulling at his clothes, wanting them off faster, wanting nothing between them, to be as close to him as she could possibly be.
Sliding his fingers through hers, he took her over to the edge of the dock.
"Ready to jump, sweetheart?"
It was the sweetheart that did her in, that took any chance of protest away from her. And then they were jumping through the warm evening air before splashing in and and going under, the cool water taking what was left of her breath away.
And still, the water had nothing on Connor who had taken her breath away from the first moment she'd met him.
Connor was doing everything he could to drown in her, to keeping losing himself in the softness of her skin, the taste of her mouth, the feel of her tongue against his.
And still, minute by minute, he could feel himself spiraling out of control, like a rope that was unwinding from the inside out, strangling his guts in the threads as it spun faster and faster.
It was taking everything he had to keep it together.
All his life, his instincts had been to get moving, to use blood and sweat to work through the kinks. But this was one hell of a kink. And right now, the only thing that made sense was to go to a place where all that mattered was sensation. Where his only goal was to take Ginger higher, to use his hands and mouth to make her soft and yielding beneath him, to hear her crying out his name as she came.
He pulled her out deep enough in the lake where he could stand, but she had to wrap her legs around him to stay above the water. She wrapped her arms around his neck and he didn't kiss her hard, not this time. He wanted this moment to last forever, wanted the rest of the world to stay the hell away.
Only here, with Ginger, as her tongue slipped and slid against his, did he feel the deep ache inside begin to recede.
Only here, as her hands moved to cup his face, did he let himself accept that being with her was more than just great sex, that he was shaking from the power of their connection.
Only here, in the dark, cold water, as Ginger took him inside in a gasp of pleasure, and he let himself fall completely into her, could he see any light at all.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
ISABEL WALKED in her front door just as the fireworks had ended. She dropped her keys on the front table, didn't hear any music pumping out of her son's bedroom and worried for a second before she realized he was probably still downtown having fun with his friends.
She went upstairs to her bedroom to get ready for bed, her heart pounding as she brushed her teeth, washed her face, put on her pajamas. All afternoon at the diner, all night as she plated dozens of meals, she'd only been half there. She'd wanted to pull out the letters a hundred times. But she'd had a restaurant to run.
Going to the spot in her closet where she'd dropped her purse, she reached in and pulled out the stack of papers. She still couldn't believe Andrew had kept them all. It meant more to her than it should. Especially since she'd burned all of his.
Slipping beneath her sheets, she turned on her bedside lamp. And as she read one letter after another, two years of young love simply burning up the pages, it all came back to her.
Sailing beside him, capsizing the boat on purpose so that he could pull her against him in the water, kiss her until another boat came around the bend to where they were floating and they were forced to pull away from each other and right their craft.
Hiking through the thick forests, holding his hand at the top of the hill, the whole world at their feet, loving it when he pressed her up against a rough tree trunk, shivering as his fingers moved beneath her shirt, to her bra, crying out as his large palms cupped her, caressed her.
Rowing out to the island and lying in his arms beneath a full moon, listening to the strong, steady beat of his heart as shooting stars fell from the sky.
She nestled deeper beneath her blankets as she read, wishing these sweet memories were all there were, dreading the knowledge that they weren't.
Because she only knew too well the letter she'd find at the bottom of the pile, what it would say.
"You wanted her. You can have her. Forever."
Morning came too fast and Isabel was just taking her first sip of coffee for the day while slipping on her clogs when she saw the light blinking on her old-fashioned message machine. She was leaning into the front door only half listening, when she finally realized what Ginger had said.
"Andrew's coming, Isabel. He's taking the red-eye out tonight. I figured you'd want to know."
No. God no. The only trick was the one her heart was playing on her. She wanted so badly to keep from losing her breath, to stop the room from spinning, but it was already too late, and she had to put a hand out against the front door to hold herself up as her most deeply repressed memory came back to life in brilliant technicolor.
Over the past two years, Isabel had gotten used to sneaking out at night to be with Andrew. During the summers at the lake it was easier when he was right there, just next door and they could meet at the island or out by the old carousel late a night. But the rest of the year, when they were back in the city, while she went to high school and he attended classes at NYU, it was harder to see him without getting endless lectures from her parents.
She wished her parents understood her feelings, wished that they could see how perfect he was for her. Instead they said things like, "You're too young." "You have your whole life ahead of you." And her favorite, "First love doesn't last forever, honey." As if what she felt for Andrew was nothing more than some kid crush.
Fortunately, he'd made sure the little apartment that he shared with a couple of friends was close to her parents' house. Whenever her parents were out--which was often, as they were both heavily involved in the local music scene--she'd stuff her bed with blankets to look like a body before she went down the fire escape out back, just in case they came home early and checked on her.
Andrew was always waiting there for her. It was a safe neighborhood, just mothers with strollers and kids playing ball, businessmen coming home late from work. She would have been fine walking the four blocks to his apartment, but he said he'd never forgive himself if something happened to her. If she got hurt coming to him.
They'd go get coffee sometimes and talk for hours, or comb through used-book stores for old books people had written about sailing, but they'd always end up back at his tiny bedroom, lying together on his small bed. He'd strip her down to her bra and panties and tell her how much loved her. How he couldn't wait for her to turn eighteen so that he could take the promise ring he'd giv
en her, the one she kept buried in her sock drawer, and put it on her finger. How much he wanted to make love to her, to do more than just kiss and stroke her. Sometimes when things got too close, when she wanted to go there with him more than she wanted to breathe, they'd barely pull apart in time. They'd sit on opposite sides of his bed, looking at the nautical maps pinned to his wall and plan their trip around the world until they'd caught their breath.
For all the rules she was breaking every time she snuck out to him, Isabel had heard of several girls in her high school who'd had abortions, and had never wanted to be in that horrible position.
But lately when she pulled away, she'd seen something in Andrew's eyes, a waning of patience. She couldn't blame him, not when they were the same eyes that stared at her in the mirror when she got home from his house.
Aching.
Wanting.
A thousand times, she'd imagined what it would feel like. The long, hard slide of him inside her. Filling her with his heat. With everything he was.
It made her hot all over just thinking about it. Soon, she decided.
Before both of them went crazy.
But she didn't want to be rushed, to have to hurry back into her clothes afterward to get home. She longed to fall asleep in his arms, to spend an entire night with him, to wake up with him in the morning and see the sunlight play across his face. So when her parents told her they'd been invited to play an out-of-town concert, and did she want to come, she made up an excuse about too much homework, needing to get ready for her exams.
She couldn't wait to tell Andrew her plans, to share the delicious anticipation with him. They hadn't planned to see each other that night, but after telling her parents she was going out to meet a girlfriend, she headed for his apartment.
She had to knock hard a couple of times to be heard over the loud music. She'd always thought his roommates were a little strange, but she spent so little time with them it really didn't matter.
James opened the door, his eyes bloodshot, his breath smelling like cheap wine. "Hey baby," he said to her, striking her, as he always did, as slightly lecherous. "Bring any of your hot schoolgirl friends with you?"
"No," she said curtly, looking around the room for Andrew. But he wasn't there. Heading through a haze of smoke, past a couple making out on the ratty couch, another against the kitchen counter, she went into the dark hall.