Keeping Gemma (Holiday Cove 2)

Pain or no pain, Gemma was worth it.

33

“I think I’m going to have to misbehave more often,” Gemma declared with a wink as she rolled off of me, lying flat against the bed, her breasts still heaving from the exertion. Little beads of sweat coated her skin and her hair fanned over the pillow in a messy array.

She’d never looked sexier.

“I won’t say no. I knew you were gonna be trouble from the very beginning.”

Gemma laughed, but silence settled between us, and I could all but hear her wheels turning. I rolled over to face her. “What’s wrong?”

“Aaron?” She twisted to look at me, her stare suddenly dark and serious. “I’m sorry that I was such a bitch earlier.”

“You took your punishment like a champ,” I said, teasing her. She smiled but it faded quickly. I could see it in her eyes that she was sincerely torn up about our argument—regardless of how hot the make-up/punishment sex had been. I reached over and brushed her hair back. “You were right. I was being a macho dickhead with a caveman complex.”

Gemma giggled and the sound vibrated through me, loosening the remnants of tension and frustration from the argument in her kitchen. She rolled her had back against the pillow and let out a sigh. “Did you mean what you said…the falling in love part?”

My eyes swept over her profile, following each line and curve of her delicate face. I let her question sink in for a moment, waiting for the truth to come out, but was met with quiet comfort. “Gemma, look at me,” I said softly.

She rolled to her side and waited; her eyes wide as she watched me.

“I meant what I said.”

Gemma considered me out of the corner of her eye for a long moment, just long enough to turn my confidence into uncertainty. “Hey, listen,” I started, pushing myself up into a sitting position beside her. “There's no reason to make this all dramatic. I wasn't saying it to get anything in return. I just wanted you to know.”

Gemma turned to look me full in the face. “Well, don't go backing down now.”

“I don't want you to feel like you have to say something back right now.”

“There you go protecting me again,” she replied with a soft smile. She reached between us and wrapped her fingers around the tips of my fingers that stuck out of the cast. “I'm glad you said what you said. You don’t strike me as the heart on your sleeve type, so I know that must have been a big step...” she paused, and I didn’t correct her. She had me pegged.

So much had happened so quickly that there were moments when it was hard for me to decipher what was real and what was all in my head. But looking down at our interior locked fingertips, I knew that what was happening between Gemma and me was real. Somehow in the middle of the shit storm I'd gotten caught up in—there was a silver lining.

We basked in the aftermath for a few more minutes before the reality of our situation was thrown back onto me with the impact of a sumo wrestler, when Gemma said, “So, there’s something I need to tell you, but first you have to promise not to freak out.”

I groaned. "Don't tell me you're knocked up," I said teasingly.

Gemma slapped my forearm—not so teasingly. “No, but kudos for sensitivity.” She glared at me for a moment before continuing, “There's a little more to the story about my afternoon than I told you before.”

All of my relaxed muscles tensed, one by one, turning my body into a thick wall. Bracing myself for whatever was going to come out of her mouth next.

“I didn't get sent home from the ER early, like I said,” she started. “It was a slow shift. That part was true. But I was the one who asked for a few hours off.”

“Okay…”

She sucked in a breath. “I went up to Stallion Bay and did a little digging—”

“You what?” Fireworks of fury burst inside me. “Gemma please tell me you didn’t. Wait, is that why you were acting weird when I showed up at the hospital? Because you were planning this?”

She refused to meet my eyes and after a moment, she gave a slight nod before setting her jaw. “Hear me out, Aaron.”

I shook my head. I didn’t want to hear her out. I wanted to chew her ass for being so careless. When I’d been at the hospital, she’d blown me off and acted like I was invading her space, or that I was out of line, when really, she had just been counting down the minutes until she could run off to Stallion Bay.

“I can't even begin to explain how stupid that was, especially with O'Keefe on your tail!”