Chapter Ten

She didn’t know whether she should kiss him or hit him.

Ginger pulled back, wanting to get a good look at his face, needing all the facts to figure out a plan of attack even though her best option was to continue to avoid and dodge the avalanche of questions and memories that seemed to follow them around. Beckett made her feel things, made her want to do things that terrified her while they excited her. He wasn’t good for her, she knew this.

He challenged her carefully constructed boundaries, her plans at every turn.

Changing the subject was the best option.

“DRAGON Slayers is a great organization. Michaela said you are doing amazing things in the community.”

He looked over her shoulder, his body tensing a little at her comment. “It’s not enough, but it’s a start.”

“Not enough?” She began naming all the things she knew about. “The mobile health clinic, tutoring, partnering with the local girl and boy scouts…”

“Okay. Okay.”

“DRAGON,” she ignored his discomfort. This was a side of Beck that was…unexpected. And intriguing. “What does it mean?”

“Each letter stands for a principle for the kids to follow. Something for them to use as a compass.”

“Tell me.” He stared at her, his eyes searching her own with a “really” expression. She refused to break eye contact. “If you want me to write a modestly-large-for-someone-who-works-for-a-living-check…tell me.”

He huffed out a laugh, shaking his head. “Extortionist.”

“I’ve been called worse. I’m a lawyer, remember?”

Since Beckett had been thrown back into her life, her curiosity about who he was and why they’d imploded were always just under the surface. But the Beck who founded and ran this amazing charity? He didn’t answer anything for her. He just generated a whole new set of questions.

He sighed, maneuvering them as he navigated them through the growing crowd on the dance floor. “D is for dream big, R is for respect yourself and others, A is for achieve, G is for give of your talents, O is for open your mind, and N is for never give up.”

“Wow. Those are…really big words.”

“Underprivileged kids from around here need to dig deep to get out and make something of themselves.” His brown eyes were thoughtful, his jaw tight. “They need help, too. Just a hand, someone to believe in them.”

She nodded, trying to catch all the emotions that flickered across his face. It was impossible, his level of control was impressive and she knew what she was talking about.

“And someone helped you?” she clarified. “When you were a kid?”

“Yes.”

If his one-word answer didn’t tell her that the conversation thread was closed, his tone did.

“And DRAGON?” she asked, choking off the urge to lower her hand from his shoulder and touch the part of him covered by his tattoo. She stared at him, waiting out his silence, willing him answer her. She needed to understand him and then maybe she could figure out what had happened and what was going on between them now.

Because this guy? The guy who started this charity? The guy who saved people at the hospital? Who helped kids gunned down on the street? That guy was someone she wanted to know better. Someone who touched something other than her libido.

“Someone’s got to slay them,” he answered, his smile was almost too quick to capture and not quite reaching his eyes. Beck looked over her shoulder, nodding to a couple that passed by. He surprised her with the change in topic. “So, you and Pete?”

Ginger tried to pull away from his hold but he tightened his arm around her waist. She didn’t want to talk about her. Or Peter. Or them.

Because that is where this would be going. She knew it.

“I’m only asking because you didn’t tell me you had a boyfriend before you put your hands down my pants earlier today.”

That got her attention. She snapped her eyes back to his. His face was harder, his eyes searching.

“Because I may be a lot of things, but I’m not a guy who gets in the middle of things.”

“Middle of things?” She let out a little of the anger that flared in her chest. “Am I the type of woman who would let you get in the middle of things?”

He paused, answering carefully. “No.”

“This is our first date if you don’t count the coffee we had the week before I moved here.”

“So you aren’t a thing?”

Ginger debated where to go with this. She’d worked very hard to construct a life for herself that was drama-free, steady, and calm. She was in control. It worked.

Nowhere did her plan have room for a Beck-sized tornado. She could lie but that wasn’t her.

“We could be. I don’t know.” She swallowed hard, needing to find that area that straddled reality and her dreams. “Peter is a nice man.”

Beck huffed out a scoff at her words but he didn’t break eye contact.

“He’s stable and normal. What you see with him is what you get,” she explained, rankled that she had offered any justification at all.

“He sounds like a good used car,” Beck drawled, his arms tightening on her and pulling her even closer. A little too close for a friendly dance between old friends. It made her body flush with heat, made her breasts grow heavy with wanting this man. Beck showing back up in her life now was the worst timing ever.

She ignored his comment. “He sounds like the kind of man I need in my life.”

“You mean he’s safe.”

“Yes,” she answered, making sure he heard the steel in her voice. She hoped to God that he didn’t hear the tremor that vibrated in her throat. “He is safe. I want safe.”

“You want to hide again, to put up the walls and shut out feeling anything because you can’t put it in a box and lock it down.”

So they were being honest? She could do that. “The last time I unlocked the box Pandora pretty much kicked my ass. I got hurt. Pretty badly if I recall.”

“That was…” he stumbled over the words, his gaze clouded now with regret. She was surprised to see it there, flinching when her gut twisted with the realization of how sorry he was. “I’m sorry for that. Hurting you.”

She cut him off, her anger mixing with the desire to dip her toes back into the whirlpool of their heady, sexual chemistry. This afternoon when she’d acted so rashly, so emotionally, she’d created a fracture in her protective shell that needed to be repaired. With the way that Beck had been looking at her all evening, she needed him to back off if she had any chance of keeping him at arm’s length.

“Beck, it’s what I need. Not reckless. Not over-the-top. Not breathless. Not surprising.” She sucked in a deep breath and tried to regulate her emotions. “I don’t need fireworks. I don’t need rollercoasters. I don’t need ambulance rides that require a police escort.”

He stopped in mid-step to the music. It was just a split second and didn’t even ruin their rhythm but she felt it with the impact of a car hitting a concrete wall. Like a collision on the freewayjarring and painful. His eyes were dark with his emotions. Hurt-lined understanding swam in their depths and made her want to look away but she dug down deep and maintained eye contact.

“It sounds like the thing you don’t need in your life is me.” He started their gentle sway again, letting his breath out in a whoosh and a shake of the head. “You don’t pull any punches.”

She gentled her tone. “I’m not trying to hurt you but you know what I need in my life. The kind of man I need.” Ginger swallowed hard, the next part was hard to admit. “And I know you know why.”

Another pause and then he nodded. “I do.”

Beck had seen firsthand what her home life had been like. Two people who loved deeply and ferociously but hurt each other at every turn. Her mother, fragile and leaning on the bottle and desperately in love with a man she could not pin down and was terrified of losing. Her father, non-stop energy, bravado, daring, and a personality that pulled everyone to him like a moth to flame. But he could also be selfish when it came to considering the people in his life who cared about him. He didn’t set out to hurt anyone but he didoften. In many ways, he was just like Beckett.

Yeah. She had daddy issues and the first step to dealing with them was acknowledging them and not following the path of destruction her parents had acted out on a daily basis. Especially when there was a part of her that reminded Ginger of her mother, the part that had fallen for Beckett all those years ago and then grieved the loss of him so acutely that she terrified herself.

“You’ve told me what you think you need, Ginger. You rattle them off like they are requirements on a checklist. But you haven’t told me what you want,” he said, low and intimate, as if they were the only two people on the planet. “Do you want the fireworks? Do you want the rollercoaster? Is that what you need to be happy?” He moved in even closer, his voice sliding over her flesh like a piece of raw silk. “What do you want?”

Oh, hell. She wanted him. He knew it but she couldn’t say it. The words were the last vestige of her defense. The last line in the sand that she would not cross.

But her body was a traitor and she found herself leaning in and he moved toward her. His eyes slid down to her mouth and her lips parted slightly, an invitation in the tiny movement that he did not miss.

The end of the song, clapping for the band from the other dancers snapped them out of the crazy fog of each other. Ginger blinked, stepping back and out his arms with a little jump. Once the physical connection was broken she could breathe, her limbs waking up as if they had been asleep or under his spell. Beck rolled his shoulders, flexing his hands and fingers like a fighter prepping for the ring.

They stared at each other. On her part, she was unable to look away. He was so…mesmerizing.

“Beck, I’m going to claim my date back,” Peter said as he approached, interrupting the emotional eye fuck that was happening in the middle of the crowded dance floor.

Ginger fought off the automatic stiffening of her body as Peter slid his arm around her back. It wasn’t that she didn’t like Peter but standing here with desire for Beckett making her skin sensitive was disconcerting. She wasn’t the type of woman who played the field and even though there was nothing going on with Beckett, she felt like being here with Peter was wrong.

“Sure Pete,” Beckett said as he extended his hand to Peter with a smile. “It was a chance for us to get caught up. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. It’s good to know that my girl will have someone looking out for her here.”

Ginger’s gaze snapped to Peter and it took every bit of her control to keep her mouth from gaping open. His girl?

Beckett’s eyebrows raised a tiny fraction but the grin twisting his mouth couldn’t be missed. Peter had just done the absolute wrong thing, he’d given Beckett a challenge.

“I didn’t realize it was that serious.”

“Well…” Peter pulled her closer and smiled down at her and then returned his gaze to Beckett. “Like you said, it’s bad timing, but I don’t plan on letting her get away.”
The unspoken like you did hung in the air, suspended on the current of male testosterone and jealousy coursing between them.

“Good to know, Pete.” Beckett started backing away but not before he got in the parting shot with a cocky wink. “But your timing is still bad and mine might finally be right.”

Silence covered them like humidity on a summer night in the Shenandoah. Ginger had no idea what to say. She was angry that they thought they could quarrel over her like a prize. She was surprised that Peter had the stones to put Beckett on notice.

She was stunned that Beckett had implied…something she could not consider.

He was just being Beckett Sutherland. Rising to any challenge with a careless word and devil-may-kiss-my-ass attitude. She shouldn’t take him seriously. She couldn’t.

There was something still lingering between Beckett and herself. Lust. But that didn’t mean anything. People went their whole lives without dropping their panties for a guy they thought was hot. When you were an adult you chose someone who would complement you and what you wanted out of life.

“You want to grab another drink?” Peter asked, completely ignoring the big purple elephant that had landed in between them. His smile was charming but it didn’t quite reach his eyes as he led her off the overcrowded dance floor of people ready for the next song.

She should say something, clear up what was clearly bothering him but she didn’t know what to say. When Peter dropped the subject she took the easy way out, following his lead as they circulated the room and pressed the flesh. The whole time she could feel Beck’s eyes on her, compelling her to seek him out but she resisted. Nothing good could come of giving in.

It was a relief when Peter called it a night, pleading his drive back to DC since he had a meeting on Capitol Hill the next day. When he pulled over in front of her building, the silence was heavy, a weight on her shoulders that kept her rooted to her spot in the passenger seat until she could figure out how to explain tonight.

“So is it right?” Peter asked, breaking the stalemate of their solitary thoughts.

“Is what right?”

“The timing. For you and Dr. Beckett Sutherland.”

She paused. Her brain was making the sound that rang out when they tested the emergency broadcast system, and she couldn’t think straight.

Peter held his hand up quickly, something in her hesitation or in her expression causing the brisk edge to his tone. “Don’t answer me now. When you figure it out, call me.”

“Peter. I…” She snapped her mouth closed, examining her jumbled thoughts about Beckett and what happened tonight. “I haven’t seen him in almost ten years. We work together. We have mutual friends.”

“It’s complicated. Isn’t that what people say?” His tone carried the first inkling of his own emotion, irritation mixed with a teaspoon of anger. She wasn’t sure if it was directed at her.

“And in this case, it’s true.”

“That’s fine. Just call me when it isn’t complicated.”

In the span of a quick kiss on the cheek and a promise to be in touch, Virginia was on the sidewalk in front of her condo and watching his taillights disappear as he turned the corner. Her neighborhood was quiet, and she considered taking a walk to clear her head but her feet were killing her in these ridiculous shoes. Right now, pajamas and her bed were so appealing she almost ran to the elevator in the lobby.

The doors slid open with a mechanical sigh, and she stepped out into her hallway, fishing in her purse for her keys and almost missing the figure leaning against her door. Beckett was still wearing his dark suit from the party but his tie was gone and his hair was mussed and curling a bit over his collar. The dark of his five o’clock shadow accented his jaw and the full, curve of his mouth. He was sporting one of those grins that made him resemble a lion about to pounce and Virginia shivered with the impact of it.

“What are you doing here, Beckett?” she asked as she moved a few paces closer. What was she doing? She should be getting back on the elevator and putting as much distance between her and the ghost-of-desire-past haunting her doorway.

He moved even closer, stopping only when they stood chest-to-chest, thigh-to-thigh. The twist of his lips wasn’t a smile, but it was decidedly and deliciously feral. “You told me what you want and I’m here to show you what you need.”