“Boyfriend,” Jonas corrected Galina, tucking a strand of hair behind Ginny’s ear. “Of the eternal variety. If you’ll excuse us.” He guided her past the table, leaning down to mutter in her ear, “Fruit flies.”
Five minutes later, with the help of Roksana, Tucker and of course, Jonas, her table was not only in the light, it was in the dead center of the room.
Ginny shifted on her feet. “Can’t we scoot it toward the wall a little—”
Jonas quieted her with a kiss. “This is where you belong.” Next, he brushed his lips across her forehead, seeming fascinated by her widow’s peak. “Do you want my help?”
“You’ve done more than enough.” Her fingertips slid over his ribcage and he let out a low groan, stilling her hand in a tight grip. “I have to do the rest by myself.”
He seemed reluctant to let go of her hand, but eventually did. Keeping Ginny in his sights, he went around the back of her table and fell into a metal folding chair the way royalty falls into a throne, one ankle crossed over the opposite knee.
Ginny took a deep breath and faced the room, which she had to admit, was a heck of a lot easier with the addition of Jonas at her back. Half of the guests were still gaping at him…and yet, he gaped at her. Before Jonas, she’d had tiny little seeds of resourcefulness inside of her that couldn’t grow without sunlight. But they’d been there nonetheless. They were products of Ginny. Perhaps they just needed some encouragement to bloom.
She squared her shoulders and took a long breath, painfully aware of the people circling her table, scrutinizing her months of work and still not stopping.
Still not stopping.
Until someone did.
“Hi,” whispered the young woman with a starburst brooch, punch clutched between her fingerless gloves. “Everyone is talking about the Christmas dress and I love it. I do,” she assured Ginny in a scratchy Brooklyn accent. “But…I have my eye on the white silk. That faux fur collar is to die for. Can I bid?”
“Yes,” Ginny exhaled, stepping aside. “Please.”
As the woman crouched down at the table and scribbled her number on the white square of paper, Ginny turned and met Jonas’s eyes over her shoulder.
He winked and mouthed the words, “That’s my girl.”
She smiled, huger than she could ever remember doing. It reached all the way to her pounding heart—and she knew in that moment, she would never love anyone or anything more than Jonas Cantrell.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Jonas carried a laughing Ginny into her bedroom over his shoulder. She was tempted to scold him for handling her like a sack of potatoes, but she was in too good a mood. The best mood of the century. The millennium.
“I can’t believe it,” she said, directly to his butt. “The highest bid of the night.”
“I’m not surprised,” he sniffed, ever the prince. “I know nothing about dresses, but I know I’d most like to see you in the ones you made.”
Her face burned with pleasure. “That’s how you judge, is it?”
“Yes.”
“I guess the one downside to selling them all is you’ll never see me in them.”
“That is regrettable.” Gently, he lifted Ginny off his shoulder and settled her on her feet, keeping steadying hands on her waist. She gasped when he used the belt to tug her up against his body, nipping at her mouth. “Speaking of dresses, love. This little fucking red one…”
Her knees turned to rubber. “What about it?”
“You know.” Using his hold on the belt, he turned her in a slow circle, raking her with hot eyes all the while. “Yes, you knew when you put it on that I’d be obsessed with getting it off you.”
“Obsessed?”
“Ginny, don’t question my obsession with any and every part of you.” Turning her to face him once more, he unfastened her belt and let it clank to the ground. “Just start assuming.”
If only her lungs were working properly. “Are you going to spend the night?”
His fingers paused. “Would you like that?”
She nodded, never more sure of anything. Never wanting anything more than she wanted to forge that final connection with Jonas. “In my bed.”
Jonas seemed to rein himself in with a deep, shuddering breath. “We’ll go slow,” he said, thickly. “God, I’m scared out of my mind I’ll hurt you.”
“That whole thing about the rules? Breaking one means breaking them all? That can’t apply to us,” Ginny said, pushing the jacket off his shoulders and running her palms up the cool cotton of his white, long-sleeved shirt, feeling his muscles strain and flex at her touch. “Nothing else seems to apply. I’m your second mate in a lifetime. I feel your pain. Until someone can explain any of that to me, I’m operating as if this is a-a…totally unique situation.”
“We’re nothing if not that,” he agreed unevenly, watching her hands mold over his body. “You’ve done some thinking about this.”