I am about to grab the stool, too, when a big gust of winds hits me from the side. Shit! I stumble and drop the stool, careering towards the edge of the porch and thumping against the siderail painfully. I try to catch my footing but it’s too late, and before I can stop myself, I go tumbling over the edge.
And right into the arms of the man that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about since the moment that I arrived here.
6
GAGE
"Shit!” I exclaim, as I grab her before she hits the ground. Olivia grabs hold of me tight, letting out a squeal of shock.
"Are you okay?" I ask her. I knew that there was something I had come here for – something that told me I needed to do something, needed to help her before something bad happened. When I spotted the storm brewing, I knew that I needed to come over and make sure that she brought her stuff inside. When she hadn’t answered the door, I had come out to the back where I had last seen her, and sure enough, she was out here – and about an inch away from losing her footing.
"Oh my God," she gasps, and she grips my arms tightly. She is trembling slightly, hanging on to me for dear life.
"Olivia, you okay?" I ask as I slowly put her back on her feet. Holding her like this, even though I know I am just doing it to help her, is way too intimate for my liking. The smell of her – vanilla mixed with paint – floods my senses, and I do my very best to ignore it.
"Yeah, I’m fine, better now, actually," she replies looking into my eyes. She tucks a loose strand of hair back behind her ear. She looks a little shaky, but she finally lets go of my shoulders.
"What are you doing here, anyway?” she asks, crossing her arms, trying to ignore the few drops of rain that are landing on her face and in her hair.
"I wanted to warn you about the storm," I reply, and she cocks her head at me.
"But how did you know that I would be out here?"
I know what she is doing, that she is trying to test me. And there is no way that I am going to fail her test right now.
"I saw you out here earlier," I reply, meeting her gaze steadily. I see that little pink tinge to her cheeks again, so endearing and so cute that it takes all that I have not to reach out and grab her and pull her close to me right here and now. But instead, she just nods.
"Hmm," she murmurs, and she glances back inside the house. "Well, can’t have you going back to your place in this weather. Want to come in?"
"I’d love to," I reply, and she grabs my hand and leads me inside.
My head spins. She must have known that I was watching her. Does that mean that she put on that show earlier especially for me? Was she thinking of me when she was grinding on her hand like that?
"Thanks for coming over," she tells me as she heads to the kitchen; I follow her. I’ve been inside Leanne’s house a couple of times before, but never with someone like this, and I’ve never been so distracted as I am by the sight of the woman in front of me.
"Guess you saved my ass," she continues, and she reaches into the fridge and grabs a bottle of white wine. She pours us each a glass, then hands one to me before taking a sip of her own.
"What were you doing out there, anyway?" I ask, taking a drink, my eyes on her. The way her lips glide over the top of the wine glass is making it hard to think straight.
"What are you, my stalker?” she teases me lightly. "I was bringing my easel in so the painting I was working on didn’t get ruined."
I’m not much of a white wine drinker, but I feel like she could ask me to do anything that she wants right now and I would be helpless to resist. I’m not usually the guy who gets taken in by a pretty face, but when the face happens to be as beautiful as this one, how can I resist the pull?
"You paint?” I ask as we head through to the living room. She nods to the easel that she was working on outside.
"Allegedly," she jokes. "This is the one I was doing out there."
"It’s gorgeous," I remark, and she cocks an eyebrow at me.
"You think?"
It’s the start of a picture of the peonies in the back yard, the ones that have just come into bloom, but honestly, the way that she has painted them – they look more like the lips of a pussy spreading. I can feel my cock ache, something electrifying passing through me, something overheating inside of me.