Butterface

Words. They were in her head but they were beyond her as she rocked back against him, meeting his every push forward and undulating her hips to change the angle so that with every forward plunge into her, he rubbed against that spot just inside her entrance that made her toes curl and the tight ball of energy inside her tighten and expand at the same time.

“Ford,” she cried out, closing her eyes and letting her head drop. “Please.”

She didn’t know what she was begging for, she just needed it.

“Is this what you want?” His slid his hand from her hip to her abdomen and lower. He parted her tight curls with two fingers and circled her clit—soft and hard, fast and slow—until the only thing tethering her to earth was him. It was too much and not enough, and she needed it all.

The brick wall ate into her palms as she pushed against it and thrust backward to meet him. Again and again they moved together and apart until her thighs started to tingle and her orgasm hit her like a lightning bolt that exploded inside her, filling her with a blinding light and fullness. His hand came over her mouth to muffle her cries as he fucked her through her climax, his chest pressed to her back.

“Gina,” Ford called her name in a guttural whisper and came hard inside her.

The world came back to her in bits and pieces, slowly, as if time or their location didn’t matter. The feel of Ford against her. The smell of the flowers starting to bloom. The unconcerned chatter of people walking along the sidewalk on the other side of the beer garden. Ford kissed the back of her neck and withdrew, getting rid of the condom in one of the nearby trashcans as she stood and let her skirt fall back into place. They grinned at each other like they’d just gotten away with stealing the Hope Diamond, that post-sex high too strong to let reality intrude.

Once he had himself tucked away and fastened his jeans—necessary, if unfortunate—he took her hand and they walked to the beer garden’s dark entrance. There he paused and looked around, making sure no one was heading their way from the sidewalk in front of Marino’s.

“Okay.” He started walking forward. “The coast is clear.”

The fact that he’d bothered to make sure no one would see them come out of the beer garden probably looking every bit like they’d just screwed each other’s brains out, that he’d protected her like that, made a comforted warmth spill through her.

True, he hadn’t said he loved her in that speech of his, but he’d surely meant it. Why else would he have said all that?

She may not need a man in her life to make her happy, but with Ford holding her hand as they walked to his car, she was finally beginning to believe that she was going to get everything she hadn’t let herself believe she wanted.

Chapter Seventeen

The Hartigan house was, once again, in total chaos. Gina kinda loved it.

“So, no Honeypot?” she asked Felicia, the smallest and quietest Hartigan who, unlike the rest of the brood, lived across the bridge in Harbor City with her billionaire fiancé, Hudson, and her one-eyed cat.

“No way,” Felicia said, pushing up her glasses. “She has been banished from this and all future family functions. That was the edict that came down from on high.”

“You mean Kate?” Gina asked as she spooned potato salad on her plate, since today’s lunch was being served buffet style to accommodate everyone who wanted to watch the hockey game playing in the living room. The fact that it was the playoffs do-or-die time of the year was the only reason Kate had relented to the many pleas of her family.

“You can’t go higher than Mom,” Felicia said with a chuckle as she and Hudson made their way through the line behind Gina.

“How did you come up with the name Honeypot?”

Felicia’s whole face lit up. “It’s the kind of ants I study.”

“I’ve never heard of them, what are they like?” That seemed like a nicer way of saying she’d always thought an ant was an ant was an ant.

“Don’t ask,” Hudson interrupted, his face an exaggerated mask of disgust. “They are gross.”

Felicia turned to her fiancé with a teasing gasp. “How can you hate on the ant that brought us together?”