Remember When...

by Scarlett Finn

  The blonde slid down his body and took hold of his dick, which she proceeded to breathe in and again, Ginger coughed. That was quite a mouthful, but when Shane groaned in the video, she whimpered and the blonde worked her mouth over him a few more times before sucking her mouth free and kissing his head, but she kept moving her hand up and down his shaft.

  “You don’t like it?” she asked.

  “I like anything you do, baby,” he said, reaching down to stroke her hair. “Blonde suits you, but I prefer brunettes, you know that.”

  The woman in the video rose and whipped off the blonde hair. Ginger gasped, it was a wig! The woman on the camera tossed her head forward and shook her hair over his body before tossing it back. He was still half-asleep when she went back to blowing him and he stroked her hair.

  “Bit, you’re fucking amazing at that,” he said.

  Video-Ginger stopped sucking and worked her fist over him again. “But…?”

  Ginger had heard it too, that unsaid word in his sleepy voice. “Fucking your throat won’t get you pregnant… come up here, let me do it properly… I want to be a daddy.”

  Dropping the phone, Ginger covered her mouth with both hands and watched herself climb up him to sink down onto his cock. There they were on the screen having sex, and she was too shocked to be shocked. She’d have been pregnant in that video. Just a few days later, they were in the accident. He’d been right that they weren’t trying, but he’d wanted Cam. He’d wanted to have their baby and he’d been there. Cam was in that shot with them, only neither of them had known it.

  “I love you, Boo,” Video-Ginger purred, working herself up and down, running her hands through her hair as he took hold of her breasts. “Say it, Boo. Tell you that you love me.”

  His strong arms came around her and he swept her down onto her back, putting their faces at the bottom of the bed. He stroked her face and kissed her. “I love you, Bit,” he said, brushing the back of his fingers down her cheeks. “The world’s got nothing on us.”

  Arching, her video counterpart, grinned and grabbed his face to pull him down into a deep kiss, her fingers lost in his hair. Ginger was transfixed, the sheet was tangled around their lower bodies and they just kissed for three minutes before his hips began to move up and down again. He was making love to her.

  Their mouths never parted and she couldn’t stop watching that movement of their lips, rubbing together, mouths open, tongues twined… They were in love. They had it all and then… it had been taken away from them.

  Tossing the cover from her bed, Ginger got to her feet and began to move toward the bathroom. Creeping through it, she didn’t knock, she just went into Shane’s bedroom, not really knowing why she was there or what she was going to do.

  He was sitting on the end of the bed and had just taken off his boots. The guys had been out on the back porch drinking beer, she hadn’t even known if he was upstairs yet or not, she just had to be here.

  Leaning on the door frame by the bathroom with her hands at the small of her back, Ginger just examined him through the low light coming from the nightlight plugged in by his bed that served as his lamp because the bulb on the nightstand lamp was broken.

  She hadn’t said anything and he was still half-bent over, waiting. When she stayed quiet, one corner of his lips turned up as his eyes moved left and right. “Hi,” he said, probably amused by her inactivity. Ginger remained silent, his word didn’t prompt her to say anything. It prompted movement. Going to him, she sank down onto her knees between his feet. “Babe—”

  “Shh,” she said, touching a finger to his lips.

  He was still confused and it didn’t help that she did nothing to explain herself. Scooping her hands up over his cheeks, she rose and touched her lips to his. He didn’t move or respond, so she kissed him deeper. Then kissed him again. Touching her tongue to his lower lip, she angled her head and exhaled into his mouth. And that was it.

  His hands sank into her hair and he tipped the other way to open his mouth over hers to take control of the kiss. Just like the man on that video, he kissed his love and devotion into her, massaging her lips with the tender need of a starving man. She felt treasured and desired and everything she’d missed since he walked into that church.

  Inching back, she took a minute to compose herself then she sank a bit lower and her hands fell from his face, his were slower but did eventually drop from her hair.

  Resting his hands on her shoulders, he slid them down in a stroke, then gripped her upper arms to draw her higher again, but when he tried to kiss her, she dipped her head back. “Gin,” he breathed, his voice a rasp with desperation.

  “We can’t,” she whispered, touching her fingertips to his lips again. “I just… I wanted to know what it was like… to be her.”

  His grip eased as his head tilted because there was no way he could know what she meant. Part of her wanted to ask, like the woman on the film, she wanted to ask him to say the words. But this was already too much. Kissing was so over the line that she deserved a slap. But sitting on the floor here between his feet made her feel more complete than she had for a long time.

  Rising again, she pressed her mouth onto his. He was amazing at this. Kissing Shane showed her purpose and while he stroked his rough palms up and down her upper arms, she curled her fingers around his shoulders and squeezed hard, feeling the strength of those muscles she’d admired from a distance.

  But she couldn’t stay, the urgency in his touch was growing again, and she wasn’t sure she could trust herself. So Ginger forced herself to withdraw, though her eyes were glued shut. Opening them would signal the end of the moment and she didn’t want this to be over, it felt like she belonged in here, in this second of time and nowhere else.

  His mouth touched hers again and she knew if she didn’t leave now, she might never have the strength to do it.

  Standing up, she forced their kiss to end. But he snagged her wrist before she could walk away, and she looked down at him. “Stay,” he murmured. “Stay the night with me, Bit.”

  The temptation was great, and maybe if she was still as strong as the woman on that video, she would. As it was, she touched his hairline and drew her palm down his temple to his cheek and down to his jaw so she could touch her thumb to his lips.

  “Goodnight, Boo,” she whispered and he exhaled, resolved that she wasn’t going to give in and his hand drifted away giving her silent permission to return to her room and to her bed.

  10

  Ginger slept surprisingly well. But that calm didn’t last into the next day. Cam was up early, so she fed him and took him for a walk with Rocky, managing to get out before anyone else was awake. They’d pushed the therapy session to the afternoon so it would coincide with Cam’s nap.

  He had an early lunch just after eleven. She fed him in the kitchen, and cleared out in time for the others to feed themselves. Avoiding eye contact with everyone was probably conspicuous, and when she went out with Cam again, she knew they’d all be thinking something was wrong.

  Cam had gone down early for his nap, which was part of her design because with the monitor in one hand and Shane’s cell phone in the other, which she still hadn’t returned, she marched down the hall to her brother’s bedroom.

  Except he wasn’t in it.

  “Owen?” she called.

  “In here,” he replied from the bathroom.

  What a relief, he was alone. Heading in the direction of his voice, she went in and closed the door to find him leaning into the mirror with tweezers at his eyebrows. The bathroom was half the size of hers, but with only a shower stall against the wall it was about as spacious.

  “Can I talk to you?” she asked, putting the monitor on the vanity beneath him.

  “Yep,” he said, tweezing. “I’m almost done… where the hell have you been this morning anyway? You’ve been nowhere.”

  “That’s kind of what I need to talk to you about,” she said, sitting in the chair between the vanity and his bedroom
door. “I… I have a problem.”

  He stopped tweezing to frown at her then fixated on something and leaned down to begin tweezing her brows. “Ok, so this is private therapy,” he said. “My light is on, what’s up?”

  “I’m worried I might have slept with Murphy.”

  With his hand still on her head and the tweezers in his other hand, he leaned back to blink at her. “What like by accident? Did you slip and fall onto his cock?”

  A facetious response didn’t make her feel better, so she ignored it. “What do you know about sibling DNA on paternity? I mean, would the test be able to tell the difference?”

  Folding his arms, Owen was trying to figure out what she was saying. “You think you slept with Murphy and Shane and now you’re worried the paternity can’t tell the difference? I don’t know. I guess if they were twins it might be tough to tell the difference, but they’re not, so I think you’ll be fine.” Returning to his tweezing, he smiled. “What makes you think you slept with Murphy? Are you having some memory about waking up with him? Murphy used to party a lot, it wouldn’t surprise me if he crawled into the wrong bed a few times, and he stayed with you and Shane all the time, so… Is that what it is? You’re having a memory.”

  “No,” she said, pushing his hands away to rise and pace toward Murphy’s closed bedroom door. “Not a memory, but I did figure something out.”

  “Figure what out?” he asked, finishing his own brows.

  Taking a deep breath, Ginger was ready to make the confession. “I’m a slut.”

  Owen’s hand dropped and he twisted to look over his shoulder at her.

  Just then Murphy’s bedroom door opened, he stopped entering when he saw them and re-zipped his fly. “I—”

  “In a minute,” Owen said, rushing past her to push Murphy out. Closing the door, Owen turned to gape at her. “You’re a slut? How the hell did you come to that conclusion? Sure, you’re a slut with Shane, you two are… healthy together. But you never screwed around and you trusted me, you would’ve told me.”

  Ginger stepped to him, worried and wringing her hands around Shane’s phone that had been her companion since last night. “But would I? You’re close to Shane, maybe I was worried about putting you in the middle.”

  He exhaled like he was humoring her and then centered himself. “Ok, why do you think you’re a slut?”

  “I’m married to Shane,” she said. “I’m engaged to Calvin. But I’m kissing Shane while in a relationship with Calvin, the man I’m meant to be marrying.” She groaned at the embarrassment. “I dream about him.”

  His brow was down. “Which one? Calvin or—”

  “Shane!” she whined. “I dream about having sex with him. I was kissing Calvin outside one night and then it’s like next minute I’m kneeling down in front of Shane and—”

  Owen closed his eyes and waved his hands as he closed in. “Whoa, wait, is this a dream or real?”

  “Real! Oh my god, Owe, this is fucked up.”

  “Wait… you and Shane were kissing? When?”

  “Last night,” she said. “What kind of woman does something like that?”

  “And the kneeling, that was—”

  This time it was Owen’s bedroom door that opened and Shane poked his head in. Silently groaning, she closed her eyes and crept around her brother to put her back to both of them. “Everything ok in here?” Shane asked.

  “Yeah,” Owen said. “We just need a minute.”

  “Sure,” Shane said and she turned to see him duck out, but he was back before the door moved. “Quick one, anyone seen my phone around?”

  Glancing down at the device she was clutching in both hands, she looked up and spun around to face him, hiding the phone behind her back. “Nope,” she said, making herself grin, but she saw Shane’s focus zero in on her and he slipped around the door to saunter in.

  “What’s behind your back?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” she said. “Can you go and check on Cam?”

  “Already did,” he said, coming around Owen to get up close to her. “He’s fine.”

  “Oh.” So how was she supposed to get rid of him now? “Thanks.”

  He opened his hand. “Phone.” There was no way she could claim not to have it, so she exhaled and slapped it into his palm. “Thanks.” Backing off a step, he began to do something on the phone, his thumb moving fast across the screen. He just loitered in the corner and she looked to Owen. “I’m not listening,” Shane muttered. “Carry on with whatever you were doing.”

  “Yeah, right,” she said. Owen smiled and went back to his tweezing. “We’ll wait.”

  “Seriously, you don’t have to worry about me. I’m great at keeping secrets,” Shane said and winked at her.

  Owen hadn’t seen that exchange, but that didn’t stop him from scoffing. “Gin’s not as great at it as you think,” he muttered.

  Shane straightened and locked the phone to return it to his back pocket. “Really?” he asked her.

  “She thinks she slept with Murphy,” Owen said.

  Ginger gasped and lunged across the room to hit his arm. “Owen!”

  “When?” Shane asked, folding his arms and widening his stance. “Today? She has been AWOL for most of it… and Murph disappeared for a while too… They wouldn’t screw in front of Cam though.”

  “Not today, she’s not really sure when,” Owen said, finishing up with his plucking.

  Shane clarified, “Wait, she thinks she slept with him or she thinks she wants to sleep with him?”

  The men were talking like she wasn’t here and she didn’t appreciate the undercurrent of mocking. “She thinks she did,” Owen said and looked at her. “But I don’t know, do you want to?”

  Murphy’s bedroom door opened again and he groaned. “Shit now there’s a fucking party in here. What’s a guy gotta do to take a piss?”

  “Carry on, no one in here cares about you peeing,” Owen said, focusing on Shane again.

  Murphy actually did go to the toilet and when she heard him unzip, she turned her eyes to the ceiling. “Oh god,” she grumbled.

  Shane moved around behind her and gripped her shoulders in a reassuring massage, he dipped to speak into her hair above her ear. “Contain yourself, baby. He’ll put his dick away in a minute.”

  If this wasn’t already mortifying, she had just had another dose of accelerant that made her body flame in embarrassment. Murphy flushed. Shane kissed the top of her head and they turned, but Murphy headed straight for the bedroom forcing Ginger to exclaim. “Uh, wash your hands,” she said. “You touch my child with those hands.”

  Murphy looked at his hands and shrugged as he went to the sink to wash up. “You think she just wants to be close to him for longer?” Owen stage whispered at Shane and she pushed away from Shane when he laughed.

  “You’re all bastards,” she said, though Murphy was oblivious as she went to snag the towel from the loop beside Owen’s bedroom door to toss it to him.

  “What you talking about?” Murphy asked, drying his hands.

  “You fucking my wife,” Shane said like it was the most normal thing in the world.

  Her mouth fell open and Murphy stopped drying to look at their faces. “You’re kidding… right?” When he fixed on her and looked her up and down he actually looked kind of disgusted making her wish she had something heavier to throw at him. “That’s a really disturbing visual.”

  “Stop visualizing or we’ll have a problem,” Shane said and his arms came around her shoulders to pull her back against his torso.

  Squirming against him, she tried to free herself, but he didn’t seem to get the hint. “Shane,” she murmured and managed to get as far as turning around, but he took that as an invitation to try to kiss her. “Stop! Don’t do that!”

  “What?” he asked, watching her eye the brothers. “You told Owen. I figured we’re public knowledge.”

  Again, Shane ducked to try to kiss her, but she pushed away. “I… I told Owen, I…”


  Owen was peering at Shane and came in close beside them, fixating on something on his brother-in-law’s head. Owen reached up with the tweezers and plucked a hair from Shane’s brow making him wince. “Ow, what the fuck, buddy?” Shane said, rubbing the spot he’s plucked.

  “Suck it up,” Owen said. “That’s been bugging me, Ginny will kiss it better.”

  Shane’s attention flicked to her, but she held up her hands and backed off, coming up against Murphy. “No, I can’t kiss you again… anywhere.”

  “Anywhere?” Murphy asked. “Where did she kiss you the first time, bro?”

  Running her hands into her hair, she twirled a tendril around her finger. “Oh this is bad, this is really bad.”

  “No,” Shane soothed, taking her arms to draw her away from Murphy. “No one in here has any problems with us kissing, right, guys?”

  Murphy and Owen agreed, but Shane didn’t get it and her begging eyes leapt to his. “The more people who know, the more chance Calvin will find out.”

  “He’ll find out anyway ‘cause we’re gonna tell him,” Shane said.

  Shaking her head, she grabbed his tee-shirt, this was exactly what she was worried about. “No, we can’t. We can’t tell him.”

  “Why not?” Shane asked. “The sooner he knows where he stands, the sooner we can start putting our lives back together.”

  “Oh god,” she wailed and her head sank into her hands.

  “Uh, I don’t think that’s what she wanted to hear,” Murphy said. “I feel like I’m missing something major here.”

  “You’re not the only one,” Owen said and she sucked in a breath through her nose and stood up straight, backing away from Shane.

  “Can you give me and Shane a minute alone, please?”

  Murphy began to retreat. “Don’t they have their own bathroom to screw in?” he muttered to Owen.

  Spinning around, she was going to correct him, but Owen was in front of her. “Before you have your moment, I have to tell you, we have a problem.”