Gina and Mike Read Online Free

bitch.” 
    I stiffened as Mike kissed one breast and then the other. He moaned. “Oh, Gina, baby. I missed you.”
    I stiffened.
    Mike stopped his trail of kisses. “Tell ya what,” he said, pushing back the strands of hair that fell across my face. “Not sure what’s going on with you, but I’m just going to hold you. We don’t have to do anything. Just let me hold you.”
    I nodded. “Sorry.”
    He lay on his side, and I backed up as close as I could to him. He slipped his bulging bicep around me and pulled me even closer. His bare chest was against my naked back. I could feel his warm breath on the back of my neck. 
    “You know that I love you, right Gina?” he whispered. “I love you more than anything.”
    I reached down and pulled up his pitching hand and kissed it. “I know. And I love you, too.”
    I hated Smith. I hated him for what he did and for how he made me feel. I hated myself for allowing it to happen. If only I would have said no to babysitting. If only Mike hadn’t been working that night then we would have been together. If only, if only. I hated those two words, too.
    I loved Mike. I wanted to be with him. I wanted to marry him and have his kids, but every time he touched me I became defensive, like he was trying to hurt me. But Mike would never hurt me. He loved me. I kept telling myself that I would get better; that these feelings I had would pass. That I just needed time.  And I also realized how much I was dreading Monday. I was scared to death of Smith and how he would react the first time he saw me. The dread shrouded me like a morning fog, only this fog never gave way to sunshine. 
    “You’re not mad, are you?” I asked Mike as he pulled in front of my house.
    He turned off the car. “I’m not mad; I just don’t understand what’s going on. We haven’t been together for a while and I know that you were looking forward to tonight as much as I was. And then the way you acted, like you didn’t want to be with me or something.”
    I looked at Mike with his puppy dog droopy eyes. His smile had run away from his face.  I hated that I was disappointing him. “It’s not you. I swear. I just have some things I need to work through. Things I’m not ready to talk about.”
    He slammed the steering wheel. “But we tell each other everything.”
    I sighed. “You’re right. We usually do. But…”
    “But what, Gina?”
    Mike was practically shouting and it startled me. I wasn’t used to him raising his voice.
    “You just have to trust me on this one, Mike. I love you. It has nothing to do with you or my feelings for you. They haven’t changed. They’ll never change. But I need to work out some things and you have to let me and trust that I love you more than anything.”
    He reached over and lifted my chin. “Damn. OK. I’ll give you time, but I still wish you’d let me know what’s going on inside that beautiful red head of yours.”
    I smiled. “Just remember that I love you.”
    We kissed long and deep before I said goodbye, got out of the car and walked inside.
     
    ****
     
    I sat in church and listened to Pastor Greg’s sermon about Jesus going into the wilderness for forty days.  He said that we all have our wilderness stories, times in our lives when things didn’t go right.
    “Some of you might be in the wilderness right now,” he said. “Jesus went into the wilderness as a carpenter’s son and came out as the Messiah.”
    He told us to find meaning in our wilderness, glimmers of grace.
    I was definitely in the wilderness, and I was not seeing any glimmers of grace. And I was pretty sure that when I came out of the wilderness, I wasn’t going to be changed for the better.
    Screw the whole wilderness saga, I thought. There was no way I was going to find meaning in a wilderness that I had been forced into by a drunk teacher who I was pretty sure was also high on something.
    Sue found me after church and asked if things went better on Saturday with Mike. I