Chapter Fifteen
Nacho’s hands tore at Derek’s grip, trying to free his neck so he could breathe. Likewise, Nacho’s friends appeared frantic, trying to pull Derek away from Nacho, but he wouldn’t budge.
Derek’s turbulent gaze met hers briefly and she read his silent question there. She nodded at him once to assure him she was unharmed. Then without warning, he slammed Nacho’s head against the bar with such force that Ginger jumped back to escape the blood spurting from his nose. Even the crunch of cartilage breaking could be heard over the pulsing music.
“Derek, no! Stop!”
The club had ground to a halt, everyone turning to see what the disturbance was about. Customers moved back and out of the way as Derek pulled Nacho off the bar and launched him onto the ground, then straddled his neck, clearly intending to continue the one-sided fight. Ginger knew she had to take action or Derek would seriously injure the other man.
Using the ice machine for leverage, she leaped on the bar and jumped down on the other side. She winced at the pain in her right leg, but pushed forward through the gaping club-goers to throw herself on Derek’s back. Ginger wrapped her arms around his chest, dug in her feet, and pulled to no avail. He still landed a punch squarely in Nacho’s face and reared back to hit him once more. She grabbed his arm and held on with all her might.
“Listen to me! You need to stop!” Out of the corner of her eye, Ginger saw the club’s two burly security guards pushing their way through the crowd. Thankfully, a different fight had just broken out between two girls and drew the guards’ attention away from Derek.
As pissed as she felt, it occurred to her that Derek, being a police lieutenant, would definitely not benefit from being involved in a bar fight. She needed to get him out of the club before the guards realized the real fight was on her side of the bar and tried to detain him. In his current irrational state, he might even fight back and the situation would only escalate.
She put her mouth against his ear and tried to reason with him. “Derek, please. I’m fine. You need to stop right now. You are going to kill him. I’m fine.”
His body shook with adrenaline. “He had his hands on you.”
“It’s my fault. I provoked him. But it’s over now.”
Derek turned his head and met her eyes. “Your fault?”
She flinched at his fury. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the security guards parting the sea of club-goers, nearly upon them. As an employee, she would have a better chance of getting Derek out of the bar without being held up by security.
And he had been defending her. Despite his extreme and unnecessary methods, a tiny part of her felt grateful that after years of inexcusable behavior from male customers, someone besides her had finally stepped in and put a stop to it. No accounting for subtlety.
“Get your shit.”
Ginger recoiled. She’d already made the choice to leave with him, but his high-handed tone infuriated her, made her want to change her mind. “You can’t just demand I leave in the middle of my shift!”
“I can shut this place down with one phone call. Give me a reason to do it. Please.”
Anger rapidly building inside of her, she shot to her feet. Nacho writhed on the floor in front of him, hands clutching his shattered nose. Beside her, Derek growled. He’d noticed the bleeding cut on her leg and looked ready to turn on Nacho once more.
The security guards reached Derek then, but he extricated his badge and barked something at them before they made the mistake of touching him. He turned to her, his eyes nearly black with fury. “Ginger. Get. Your. Shit.”
She turned toward the bar and signaled Amanda. Already having anticipated her request, the other woman tossed Ginger her purse, which she’d stashed in a cabinet beneath the register. Ginger mouthed a thank-you just as Derek put a hand on her back, then steered her, through their rapt audience, toward the door.
“Where is your coat?”
“In the back room,” she snapped. “You didn’t exactly give me enough time to go get it.”
He whipped off his jacket and settled it on her shoulders just as they exited the club into the cold Chicago evening. Smokers hung around in packs outside, oblivious to the scene that had just taken place inside the club. Ginger vaguely registered the bouncer at the door calling her name questioningly before Derek boosted her into the passenger seat of his SUV.
They didn’t speak on the ride home, the air thick and tense between them. Derek gripped the steering wheel tightly under knuckles smeared with blood, a muscle ticking dangerously in his jaw.
His obvious anger only fueled Ginger’s. The second they pulled up in front of the building, she jumped out of the car and slammed the door, stomping toward the building without looking back. She sensed Derek right behind her as she turned her key to unlock the front door to the building, but she refused to acknowledge him. When they reached the third floor, she flung off his jacket and threw it over her shoulder at him without breaking stride toward her temporary apartment.
She heard Derek’s dark laughter behind her. “We can have it out in your place or mine, Ginger. It doesn’t matter to me. But it happens tonight.”
“F*ck you.”
“Inevitably.”
Ginger froze outside her door. If she ignored him and went inside, she would fume until the sun came up, imagining all the insults she could have thrown at him. A fight would be infinitely more satisfying.
She marched back down the stairs toward Derek’s place. No way would she wake Willa up with an argument between her and Derek. Furthermore, she didn’t want her sister knowing what had taken place tonight at Sensation. It would upset her.
He wants a fight? I’ll give him one to remember.
Derek unlocked the door and gestured for Ginger to precede him inside, which she did with a toss of her hair. After flipping on the overhead light, she flung her purse on his kitchen table and faced him. He was looking for something under his kitchen sink, which he eventually found. A first-aid kit.
Ginger scowled over his concerned gesture. She’d come here for a fight, dammit.
“All right, Derek. You proved tonight you had the biggest dick in the room. You’ve clubbed me over the head and brought me back to your cave. Where do you want me? We don’t even have to be quiet this time.” She hopped up on the kitchen table and lifted her shirt. “How about right here on the table? Or maybe the couch?”
Derek took two quick strides toward her and slammed the metal box down on the table. He pulled the hem of her shirt back down before it reached her breasts. But not before she saw a familiar hunger tighten his features. “All right, you’ve made your point.”
“Really? I feel like I haven’t even started.” Her eyes flashed with heat. “What were you doing at Sensation tonight?”
“I came to see you.”
“Why?”
“You damn well shouldn’t have to ask me that.” Uncharacteristic regret flashed across his features. “Look, Ginger, I should have called you. Or at least said good-bye Sunday morning. The fact that I was practically handcuffed to my desk for two days is no excuse. I handled this badly.”
Her eyes widened in surprise. “Handled what badly, Derek? There is nothing here. We had sex. People do it all the time. I don’t need you to write me a poem.”
“It was your first time.” Anger infused his tone. “You deserved more than a quick f*ck against my bathroom door.”
How dare he tell her what she deserved? He didn’t know what growing up with Valerie had been like. Watching her mother’s self-worth wither or thrive, depending on who occupied her bed. She’d made the decision at a young age never to give anyone the power to destroy her ability to reason. That included the man standing in front of her.
Ginger leaned forward, getting right in his face. “I decided when, where, and with whom my first time happened. No one made that decision for me. And I don’t regret it. I’m sorry if you do. Won’t let it happen again.”
“Don’t put words in my mouth. I don’t regret it. I’ll never regret it. I just wish you would have told me.” He brushed the hair off her shoulder, his fingers lingering against her skin. “I could have hurt you, baby.”
The Derek who hadn’t called her for two days then started a bar brawl vanished, replaced by the gentle, caring Derek who scared her so much more. Recognizing the shift in his demeanor, she pushed his hand away in panic and tried to slide off the table.
He gripped her legs until she stopped struggling, then knelt down in front of her with the first-aid kit.
She stared at the top of his head, dumbfounded. “What is this? What are you doing?”
Derek began cleaning the wound on her leg with peroxide and cotton. “I’m taking care of your cut before it gets infected.”
“No. That’s not what I meant. I don’t need this from you, Derek. Do you have some misplaced sense of guilt because you bagged a virgin? Because you shouldn’t.” She banged her fist on the table to get his attention. He ignored her, produced a bandage, and applied it on top of her injury. “Stop this bullshit! I don’t need you to pretend you want me for more than sex.”
Derek shot to his feet, looming furiously above her. “You have no idea what I want.”
Except, she did. And, oh God, he really meant it. He wanted her. And not just for her body. She could see it in his face, hear it in his words. How had she gotten here?
Push him away.
“What if I don’t want more with you? Did you even consider that?”
“If you didn’t want more with me, Ginger, you wouldn’t have made me your first.”
Her laughter came out sounding hysterical. “God, you’re so f*cking arrogant. You think I want to be your girlfriend or something?”
Jaw clenched, Derek rose from the floor to toss the bandage wrapper in the trash can. “I don’t care what you call yourself. Titles are irrelevant to what I want with you.”
Ginger stared at his retreating back, trying to stop his words from sinking in, from taking hold. What I want with you. Everything she thought she’d known an hour ago had been tossed out the window. He wanted more from her than a one-night stand, but what did more entail? A month? A year? Once it ended and he moved on, Ginger imagined it would be like taking the way his noncommunication had made her feel over one weekend and multiplying it by a hundred.
No, thank you.
One little problem remained, however.
She still wanted him.
Ginger watched Derek move around the kitchen, unstrapping his shoulder holster and removing his gun. Her heart kicked up the pace as he untucked his shirt, giving her a glimpse of his tight stomach. Oh God, she needed him inside her. Once hadn’t been nearly enough to extinguish the fires he’d stoked.
Could she have it both ways? Sex without commitment? Men were supposed to be the ones who wanted that, right? Perhaps as long as their relationship remained physical, Ginger could resist developing any kind of feelings for him. Eventually, she would work Derek out of her system for good. He’d probably need very little convincing to see things her way. She still wasn’t entirely convinced his guilt over taking her virginity didn’t drive the argument.
He just needs a little convincing that this relationship business isn’t necessary.
She tugged down the neckline of her top, then slipped off the table to sway toward Derek. His head whipped around, as if sensing the shift in her attitude, and watched her approach through wary eyes.
She paused in front of him, hoping the look she gave him was contrite. “I’m sorry, Derek. I don’t want to fight.” She ran a finger down the row of buttons on his shirt, playing with the final one against his lower stomach. “Not when we could be doing something else.”
When he could no longer resist looking down at her cleavage, Ginger felt a jolt of satisfaction at the way his Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat. “I know what you’re doing. It’s not going to work.”
“What am I doing? Seducing you?” She reached down with one hand and undid the button on her black shorts, letting them slip down her legs to reveal her lacy pink underwear. “Is it working now?”
She watched him fight a losing battle to keep his eyes locked on hers. His hooded gaze traveled down her stomach, over her hips and legs, lingering on the triangle of lace between her thighs. His tortured groan shot heat straight to her core. “F*ck, baby.”
When he still didn’t reach for her, Ginger’s nimble fingers began working the buckle of his belt. She might be inexperienced, but she’d worked in a bar ever since she’d turned sixteen and lied about her age to get the job. You learned a thing or two about men when you spent your days and nights liquoring them up. Word on the street had always been that a man’s decisions were made with this head, not the one on top of his shoulders.
She listened to Derek’s breath accelerate as she unhooked the leather and slid it through the loops. It dropped to the floor with a clack.
Ginger looked up at him through her eyelashes, daring him to tell her not to continue. Apart from the roughening breath puffing against her forehead, Derek remained silent, his green eyes trained on her hands. She slid down the zipper of his pants. In the quiet kitchen, the zipping noise was amplified. It sounded terribly erotic to her ears.
“I’m trying really hard here,” he panted. “I won’t be able to stop soon.”
“Why would you stop? I don’t want you to.”
“You know why. We’re more than sex, Ginger. Accept it.”
Her heart squeezed, but she kept an innocent expression on her face. She slipped her hand inside his pants and boxer briefs to close her fingers around his straining erection, molding him in her hand.
“Please, I want you so bad.”
His breath hissed out through his teeth. “Oh, God. I want you, too. So f*cking bad, sweetheart.”
Then why was he being so damn stubborn? Surely he wouldn’t reject her advances over some doomed attempt at a relationship. Couldn’t he see it would never last? Nothing ever lasted when you put faith in anyone besides yourself. She tried to keep the desperation off her face. If he fought against this much longer, she didn’t want to ponder where that left her.
Ginger stood on tiptoes and placed openmouthed kisses along his neck, all the while stroking him against her palm. “Do you want to put it in my mouth, Derek?” she whispered against his ear.
“Jesus Christ.”
“You’ll be my first. Don’t you want to be my first again?”
“Enough! That’s f*cking enough.” Clenching his teeth, he took her wrist and removed the hand fondling his erection, groaning as he freed himself.
Then he pinned her body against the refrigerator and brought his mouth down on hers, hard. Her eager mouth opened under his, letting his tongue sweep inside and take ownership. He wrapped her long hair around his fist, pulling with just the right amount of force and angling her head to accept his onslaught. Ginger’s hands were pinned above her head in Derek’s stronger grip, held there as his mouth doled out punishment. She accepted it greedily and without hesitation.
Arousal mixed with relief. He hadn’t rejected her. Ginger’s head swam with a multitude of unnamed emotions, overwhelming her senses. She could feel his raging need pressing against her stomach and squirmed against it, telling him without words how ready she was for him.
Then the kiss changed. His hips slowly distanced themselves from hers, the delicious friction disappearing. The hands manacling hers dropped lower to cup her face. Instead of being bruising and relentless, his tongue now soothed hers, as if apologizing for his earlier roughness. He brushed each of her swollen lips in turn, then left her mouth to dance across her face, planting soft kisses on her cheeks, eyelids, and forehead.
A sob broke from Ginger’s throat. Tears she hadn’t felt forming in her eyes cascaded down her cheeks. Derek kissed them away.
“Give me a chance, beautiful girl,” he whispered urgently against her mouth.
Something inside Ginger shattered. Self-preservation had her pushing Derek away and frantically pulling on her discarded shorts. Her hands shook so violently, it took her a full minute to get them buttoned and zipped. She could feel Derek watching her the entire time but she refused to look at him, knowing instinctively that his expression would force her to accept something impossible.
Snatching her purse off the counter, she turned and rushed to leave.
“Ginger, wait.”
“Don’t come anywhere near me, Derek. I don’t want to see you anymore,” she half-sobbed without turning around, then slammed the door.