Spin by Bella Love Page A

doing with the ginger?”
    “Using it on my….” I faltered, not up to his
level of audacity. “In me….” I cleared her throat. “My….”
    “Pussy?”
    “Yes,” I whispered primly. I was cooking a
chicken, for heaven’s sake.
    He shook his head slowly. I stopped all
chopping.
    “Not my…?”
    “Pussy?”
    A long, jamming rush of heat, a hammer of
it, pounded my flesh so hard it pulsed.
    “I mean, we could,” he allowed, running the
neck of his beer along his chin in a thoughtful way. “That would be
fine with me.”
    “But then whe…?” I set down the heel of my
hand on the counter, knife pointing up, and looked at him flatly.
“Do you want this chicken or not?”
    His gaze swept the chicken and all the
accoutrements, from my super-slicing ceramic knife to the bright
green, fragrant basil leaves to the wedges of tomatoes, sitting
innocently in their salty red juices. His gaze came back to
mine.
    “Of course. I can’t wait,” he said, lying
through his teeth. We both knew it.
    I picked up the knife. “Good. It should only
be about an hour.”
    If he stifled a groan, I never heard it.
Which turned him from a sexy, dangerous man into a sexy, dangerous, good man, and that was a turning point I’d never come back
from.
    We talked through the hour that turned into
two, drinking beer (Finn) and water with a hellacious amount of
lemon squeezed in it (me) as the sun set through the windows. I
suspected he missed whatever he was supposed to do that night,
again, and I didn’t care enough to try to fix that thing up, that
error in communication or expectation or agreement, even though
that’s what I did by, trade and inclination and the dug-deep fear
that things would get Out Of Control and perhaps be Broken
Immeasurably.
    Because maybe…maybe this thing wasn’t even
broken.
     

     
    I WOKE ON his sofa after the night had come, my legs
hooked over his lap, my brain half asleep. Finn sat watching a
baseball game, his hand on my belly. I felt his erection against my
hips, but he never said a word, never tried to move on me all
night, not during dinner, not when we tumbled down onto the couch
after, not when he put on one of the Lord of the Rings movies after my eyes lit up when it came up in conversation. I
loved other people’s epic adventures.
    The movie was over now and the Red Sox were
quietly winning on the screen.
    I was so perfectly tired and rested and
happy and content he could have put on big bass fishing and it
would have been fine. I was pretty sure I should have mentioned
that, in case he liked bass fishing, but I’d dozed off and was just
coming to.
    “The movie?” I asked groggily.
    “There was a cave troll. Big, scary thing. I
had to shut it off.”
    I laughed and glanced at the television.
“What’s the score?”
    His hand made gentle swirling motions over
my belly as he replayed for me all scoring opportunities held and
squandered over last few innings. His legs beneath mine, his half
smile, his baseball storytelling, arguing about whether a fake to
third constitutes a balk (it does), his hand on my stomach—it was
all pretty…perfect. Such little things. Such perfect, little
things.
    “So,” he wrapped up, “it’s twelve nothing in
the eighth. Someone sucks today.”
    “Aw, you’re not so bad.”
    He smiled faintly, his eyes still on the TV.
“You don’t think?”
    “No,” I said in a comforting way. “You did
okay this morning.”
    His eyes slid down.
    I smiled. “I’d say we’re tied.”
    His eyebrows went up, then he started
unbuttoning my jeans. “Your math is way off, sister. I let you win
this morning.”
    “Let me see what I can do about that,” I
replied, and for a minute, it was a tangle of hands and mouths
until we got situated, me facing him on his lap. “So what’s this
about ginger?” I asked very innocently.
    He pulled his head back, his eyes searching
mine, then he smiled faintly and shook his head. “We’re not ready
for ginger,