Page 25 of Finding Forever

“You looked tense when you first got home. Well, you did until you almost tackled me.” She laughed. “How was your day?” Gina prompted, looking over at me from her Adirondack chair.

How was it possible that she could already read me so well? Telling her about my day, I reached out and intertwined my fingers with hers. The warmth of her touch was another comfort I was starting to crave whenever she was away.

“It sounds like things are getting back on track, finally.” She’d listened to me groan over the last few weeks about everything. “As much as I know you hated the delays, it’s a good thing you only hire the best.”

“Yeah, it is lucky.” Lifting our joined hands, I placed a kiss against her knuckles.

“Are you sure you’re not stressed about more than that?”

“More like what?”

Gina shrugged, in an attempt I was sure to seem unfazed, but it had the opposite effect.

“I don’t know. Our exes shook up a lot in the last few weeks. And sometimes I wonder.”

“What are you saying, love?”

She took a long sip of wine and looked at me. “Are you dating me out of spite?”

It didn’t take me a full second to respond. “No.”

Why would she think that?

“Our exes are the reason we even met. Sometimes it crosses my mind that maybe you’re just dating me to spite her for dating her driver. Aka, my ex.”

“I’m here with you because this is what I want. Nobody else has anything to do with why I’m drawn to you.”

I could see the wheels spinning in Gina’s head before she gave a subtle nod.

“When Penny splashed you on the beach, I didn’t know who you were aside from the mother of Penny’s new friend. I was instantly attracted to you.”

“Okay.” Her voice was lighter, a sign that some of her fears had been alleviated.

“Come here.”

Gina didn’t hesitate to abandon her seat and sit across my lap. Her firm bottom felt like heaven against my lap and I snaked my hands around her waist.

Needing to put my mouth on her, I trailed a lingering kiss from her neck up to her earlobe. Gina shivered against me, spurring me on to kiss her more. When she inhaled sharply, my lips found the fullness of her decolletage before brushing over her shoulders. From what I’d seen and felt, Gina’s body was the perfect balance of soft feminine curves and toned muscles. Her beautiful long neck and shoulders had caught my eye the first time I saw her in a bathing suit. Now that my lips were getting acquainted with the soft skin there, I was in heaven.

“Maverick,” she gasped beneath me.

“Yes, my love?”

“Kiss me. Please.”

Her voice was tight with an emotion I could only describe as deep-seated desire, and the last thing on my mind was denying her request.

When our lips met, she sighed into my mouth like she’d been waiting for this all her life. She kissed me with an urgency I wasn’t used to from her, but welcomed all the same. With her hands wrapped around my neck, we deepened the kiss as the intensity of my pulse kicked into overdrive.

Because she was sitting in my lap, it was impossible for me to hide my body’s primal reaction to her. The weight of her enticing curves pressed firmly against my hardness made me question my resolve to let our relationship evolve naturally and take things slowly with her.

In that moment, all I wanted was to strip her bare, sink into her warm heat, and never come up for air. Instead, I ended the kiss but kept my lips against hers until my heart returned to a steady strum instead of the erratic thumping it had been doing.

“Kissing you is dangerous.” Gina sighed blissfully, pecking my lips one last time before fully pulling away.

“Victoria and I are history. I need you to know that.” There was no place in my heart for my ex when Gina had so easily moved in and claimed every free corner as her own.

“I believe you.”

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