“They seemed to slow things down,” she said as she kissed her way down his neck, her hands busy with the button on his jeans. “This seemed smarter.”
“You have the sexiest brain in the world.” Hell, everything about her was sexy—the dip of her waist, the needy moan she let out when he glided his fingers inside her already wet pussy, the feel of her clenching around his fingers. “Jesus, Gina. You feel so damn good.”
He loved seeing her like this, so wanton and free of all the baggage that she carried around all the time. It made him want to push her, give her everything, let her have more than she thought she could take, just so she could have it all. In and out, he moved his fingers inside her, rubbing and stroking the soft swollen lips as she stood there, legs spread, head back, taking it all.
She worked the button of his jeans free and slid her hand inside, curling her fingers around his hard cock. “I need you inside me.”
“What, you’re not going to come for me first?” He pushed a third finger inside her, twisting and turning them together. “I want to feel you come. Show me how you’d take my cock.”
“Ford.” His name came out like such a sweet plea.
Right behind her moan came the sound of Marino’s customers—his fellow officers—passing by the walkway. Gina must have heard them, too, because her hips faltered.
“Oh no.” He plunged his fingers deeper, added the pressure of his thumb to her clit, swirling it around the sensitive bundle of nerves there. “You don’t get to stop. You just have to be quiet. Can you do that?”
…
Gina was going to lose her mind with Ford’s fingers inside her and a bar full of cops on the other side of the brick wall she was leaning against. The voices from people walking by still echoed in her head, and for half a second a dark memory from her past tried to push to the front. A public place. A man she couldn’t get enough of. Losing herself to the moment. The crushing weight of mortification afterward that knocked something loose forever. That recollection tried to take hold, but she shoved it away. This wasn’t then. She could trust Ford. He’d never lie to her like that.
He must have sensed her hesitation, because he stopped that wonderful thing he was doing with his fingers. “Do you want to stop?”
She shook her head.
“Gina, look at me,” he said. “I need to know you’re okay with this.”
Okay with it? That didn’t begin to describe it. She wanted Ford more than she’d ever wanted anyone and she needed him right now. She lifted her head, never more sure of anything.
“I don’t want your fingers.” Her hands went to his jeans again, taking down the zipper with a ruthless efficiency born of desperate need. “I want you.”
Something crackled and sizzled in the air around them as he stared at her, lust swirling in his green eyes. Then everything happened almost at once. His fingers were gone from her wet folds. He grabbed his wallet and pulled out a condom, rolling it on before she’d had a chance to process that he’d ripped the foil package open. Then his hands were on her hips and he spun her around so she faced the wall.
The thrill of anticipation zinged through her as she pressed her palms to the cool brick and spread her legs wide.
“I can’t do slow and easy right now, Gina.” He flipped her skirt up and exhaled a hiss of appreciation as his palm caressed her bare ass. “I’m gonna fuck you hard and fast. Are you ready for that?”
She had a response ready, a good one, but before she could say it, she looked over her shoulder at Ford and everything in her brain scattered. He stood there, his T-shirt rumpled, his jeans shoved down to mid-thigh, and his hand wrapped around his cock as he looked at her with an intensity that made this feel more like a claiming than fucking. Her core clenched in response, and she arched her back in invitation.
It was one he didn’t turn down. He lined his cock up with her wet, swollen entrance and plunged inside her, so deep she felt him everywhere.
“You are so tight,” he said, his voice raw with need, as he withdrew and thrust forward. “I can’t get enough of this. I can’t get enough of you.”
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.”