His panic at her leaving again calmed to a sigh of relief when she pulled her car up to park closer to the front door.
“Unloading time,” Paige announced with a bright, enthusiastic smile and hoisted a box. She was nothing like his ex who’d been older, demanding, and continually serious.
Paige was fascinating and, from what he could tell, able to handle what was thrown at her and still keep her sense of humor. Her sexy, playful nature drew him in. Compared to his exacting ex, who had treated their relationship as if it were another task on her managerial to-do list, Paige hadn’t pushed expectations on him. She even seemed to relish his assistance. Still, the sting from his breakup a year ago made him cautious. Very cautious if he reflected on it.
He watched Paige’s movements as he followed her inside with each load from the car. His reflection on her took on a whole new facet with the fluidity of her backside wiggling up the steps. That made him think other thoughts, naked-under-the-covers thoughts, which let caution take a back seat, a curvy back seat.
And now, out for another load, Michael hadn’t been paying attention to what he had been reaching into and was bitten by Paige’s dead plant, requiring him to pluck out several hurtful spines.
“Ohh…I forgot. I must have brought Cackty, my cactus. I think it must be a victim of my move.”
“As am I, it appears. Ouch.” He shook his head.
She dropped what was in her arms and pulled out the last needle. “Do you want me to kiss it and make it better?”
“Yes, and then I want you to feed it and make it better. I’m starved. Let’s finish fast.” He lifted and carried several more garbage bags of items inside, careful to set them away from the water they dripped near the entry. Aunt Linney gave directions, usually indicating the foyer or downstairs hall since both busy workers were trailing in wet snow.
Paige had unloaded the trunk, including a second basket of laundry, which may or may not have been washed by the looks of the wadded-up clothing. Lamps, gadgets, and a small table somehow made their way out of the car in Michael’s arms. The box of books had shoes thrown in with it. She carried her summer hats stacked on her head as she retrieved more items. Her business clothes were more carefully handled.
“This should be the last of it. Not big on planning this out, were you, Flee?” He picked up a rickety box with a notable, “Oof.” The box rattled, threatening to break the heavy items inside.
“I just threw things together. I think that’s a few kitchen items. Take it that way, please.”
He did, groaning with every step.
Chapter Two
The flimsy box nearly gave way as Michael put it down with a thud on a side chair near the door of the old-fashioned kitchen. He pulled off his gloves and tucked them into his coat pocket. “What was in that?”
Paige shrugged. “Who knows? I left without taking time for organizing. It can’t be the spice jars. I saw those in the first laundry basket, the one with my games and laptop. Looking back, I don’t think I was so clear headed when I decided to leave Atlanta after losing my job that day.”
“Any better now?” he asked with a hint of a grin.
“Of course.”
“Well, let me fog it back up.” His hands slid into her open coat, and his lips poised to kiss her, only to be disrupted by Aunt Linney’s entrance.
Linney groaned. She was wearing an apron with huge splotches on it that read, Schmutz Happens. She wielded a ladle. “Do I need to separate you two? Off with your coats.”
She pointed in the direction of the coat pegs before beginning to ladle out bowls of thick homemade soup. Like young children being cared for by a parent, Michael and Paige kicked off boots and hung coats near the kitchen door and even washed their hands, having been told to do so.
“That should warm you up.” Aunt Linney pulled out a plate of cheesy cornbread from the oven. It was still steaming. She laughed. “And this should cool you down.” She put large glasses of water in front of them.
Paige and Michael mumbled thank you’s and dove right in.
“Delicious.” Paige let the warm bite of vegetable and broth swirl in her mouth.
“Great stew,” Michael added between bites.
“It’s okay, fast-made stew. You’re just hungry from all that hard work shoveling,” Aunt Linney said.
Paige just shrugged again and continued to eat, enjoying each morsel.
“Yup. You two shoveled plenty, even down the meadow. Never can say I shoveled down there on the grass like you did.”
Paige joined Michael in a conspiratory chuckle, knowing full well Linney must have seen their embrace. Paige stopped eating long enough to say, “But the driveway is cleared except it needs salt.”
“Kitty litter,” Linney corrected. Paige looked up questioning. “Better for the land if we can use some kitty litter or sand instead.”
Aunt Linney rose from the table and began to putter in the kitchen. A loud beeping noise came from the living room.
Michael scraped out the last of his soup from his bowl and stuffed a bite of corn bread into his mouth. He stood and mumbled a muffled, “Excuse me. Computer.”
He kissed Paige’s hair on the way out of the kitchen, dashing toward the continuing beep.
She simply brushed the crumbs from her hair and smiled, feeling smitten even by such a simple gesture.
Aunt Linney stood at the sink, shaking her head as she looked at Paige and flung a dishtowel over her shoulder. “What does he do?”
“Uh, business.”
“What kind?” Aunt Linney dug in a cupboard for a coffee mug.
“Technical business. He was an engineer, and now he has some kind of a roll-out coming up. All hush-hush.”
“You don’t know do you?”
“No. Not exactly,” Paige said in a small voice.
Aunt Linney let out a huff in response.
“I do know I’m falling hard for him.” Paige was surprised at the hint of worry in her sincere admission.
“You mean falling fast. You just met him.” Linney shook her head.
Neither said anything for a minute. Linney simply traded the coffee mug with a wine glass and poured a glass of wine. A large one. She leaned against the counter and took a swallow. Paige followed her every move and waited, knowing her aunt had far more to say.
Linney let out a long slow breath. “You’re on a bumpy road, kid, but I can see it’s already too late to tell you to slow down.” She nodded, raised her glass, and took a big swig. “Eh, he’s here for now, and sometimes that’s what counts.” She hitched up her lips into a half smile.
Paige’s worried thoughts stopped with even that slightest reassurance. She took over her aunt’s clean-up efforts.
Linney put down her glass and cleared her throat. “So, Squirt, what do you have in this box that you think will fit in these cupboards?”
“Electric appliances,” Paige said, feeling relaxed, without looking up from her task. “Ones I bet you don’t even have. Shiny new ones.”
“Oh?” Linney pried open the cardboard flaps and dug through the box. “Shiny new ones, you say. I see.” She raised an object for inspection and held back her laughter.
“Yes. And if you are good, you can share it.” Paige finally turned to her aunt. Her jaw dropped. Her aunt was brandishing a bright green vibrator.
“No thanks. I’m good. I don’t think I’ll be sharing this, uh…appliance.” She set it to maximum buzz and burst out laughing.
“Give me that back.” Paige yanked it from Linney’s hands.
Still laughing, Linney said, “And these. Interesting choice of aprons, and it matches your eye color.” She held up a very lacy, sheer bluish-gray nightie.
Michael stepped into the kitchen wide-eyed as each woman brandished the items. “I think I’m really going to like your family.”
“Oh, honestly.” Paige took the nightie away from Linney with a jerk, putting both the vibrator and the lingerie into the box, trying to hold back her own gigg
les while the other two laughed. Linney hooted the loudest.
“Nice packing, Flee,” Michael said.
“Flea? Oh no. I had this whole place fumigated.”
“No, Aunt Linney, he means flee as in runaway. Kind of an endearing nickname for me, isn’t it?” Paige’s embarrassment turned to sweetness.
Linney glared. She huffed an exhaled in exasperation. “I bet all this lovey-dovey stuff is going to become all the more intolerable as we get close to Valentine’s Day. It may make me start drinking,” she said and followed it with a deep swallow of her wine.
“Um, you already are. Hey, that was my wine, a gift from…”
“The Flea-catcher there, I bet. Oh, look it’s called Stop Running Away, Cabernet. Ugh.” Aunt Linney groaned.
“I thought it was tasty,” Paige said, defending her wine, tipping the bottle to assess that it had only one swallow left.
“The wine is, but all of this…schmaltz.” She waved her arms around them with a sneer, pulled off her apron, and hung it on a wooden peg on top of other aprons. “I think I need to go to my room and read some Stephen King to get you two out of my mind.”
“Not good to keep it all bottled in there, Aunt Linney. You have a lot of mushy stuff in you, too. You should speak your mind, you know,” Paige called after her. The response she got was a gesture and a less than kind one, at that. “I saw that.”
“I know you did.” Her aunt said something in Oneida as she started up the stairs and then called to them. “Oh, and take the back bedroom. I’m in the front. I want as much distance as possible so I can pretend it’s the pipes banging not some Groundhog.”
It took all of Paige’s southern upbringing not to do a spit-take on her aunt’s last comment.
****
“What did she say in Oneida back there?” Paige asked, stretching and twisting before leaving the kitchen.
“Glad to have us both here, and that I was to be treated royally for helping you so much,” Michael answered with a flash to his brown eyes, the amber less pronounced until they walked into the brightly lit foyer.
“No way,” Paige protested. “That doesn’t sound like Aunt Linney.”
“Okay, she said we are welcome and not to let you wear out such an incredibly handsome man.” Michael smiled and turned to his computer screen.
“Nope, try again.” She poked at some of her possessions stacked in the foyer, hoping to sort out some clothing to bring to her room. The only neat box was the one of her shoe collection.
Michael came back into the foyer. “She said for me to treat you right, or she would have my balls.”
“Now, that’s more like my aunt.”
Paige handed Michael a box of her ill-packed belongings which seemed to have clothes and toiletries. She then stacked her shoe collection over it and draped a garment bag on top. She gave up her digging efforts and grabbed a smaller garbage bag of belongings and another one with business clothes.
“And don’t worry, I must take after the other side of my family. I am not big on crushing balls.”
He let out a tiny gasp of commiseration and followed her lead, carrying his precarious stack up the mahogany wooden stairs.
Paige let out a huff when she reached the top landing. She stopped at the last door, grinning. “Stroking balls, that is another thing.”
He let out another breath, sounding relieved or perhaps something else.
She opened the door to the room and came to an abrupt halt. Michael stood stock still behind her. A brand-new queen bed on a metal frame sat angled in the middle of the small room. A rickety dresser was in the corner with folded towels on top. Random folded sheets and a quilt were tossed onto the unmade bed, and a few hangers hung on a crooked rack in the closet. A desk with one leg missing was supported by a tall stack of books. The wallpaper was multi-layered, frayed, and peeling. The room smelled of cleaner.
“Your aunt also said one more thing. ‘Bed’s new, but the walls are old. Use the bed.’”
“Huh. I see what she means, but I think we should test them both out,” Paige said brightly.
Michael dropped the load he was carrying with a crash.
****
Michael took in the room when he stepped inside. He had travelled plenty with his work and had to face many substandard hotel rooms. This was not substandard. It needed countless improvements to bring it up anywhere close to substandard.
While no cobwebs hung from the walls, the paper was peeling, revealing layers upon layers of wallpaper and paint. The only light fixture was from some indeterminant age, but mid-century came to mind, as did the fact that it dangled with a few screws loose. He knew if he hung up the garment bag, it would just slide down to the side. If the clothing rail held at all. He didn’t dare raise the stained paper shade on the window. As exhausted as he was, deep inside, he knew he needed to rise the challenge and be strong for Paige.
He was prepared to have her run out, crying. He was prepared to have her collapse on the bed in depressed silence. He was even prepared for her to throw her shoulder back and say “this will not do” and demand to be taken to a hotel as his ex would have done. He was not prepared, however, for her joy. At that, the box slid from his hands with a thud. She’d wanted to test out the bed and the walls!
He turned to face Paige, stunned. She was talking about the room being a small, perfect hideaway. He watched her take the garment bag and hang it to far side of the closet rail so it didn’t slide but hugged the wall. He drank in the vision of her body, with her clothing masking her curves. She flitted, actually flitted, back to the other large suit bag and simply lay it flat in the closet.
“Don’t you think?”
“Huh?” was all that came out of him.
“I said, it’ll feel great to get out of these jeans and into some fresh clothes.” Paige dropped her pants, panties hidden by the sweater she wore, his best cashmere sweater.
Michael closed the door with a soft click. “I agree about getting out of our clothing, but I’m not so ready to put on new ones.” He pulled off his own sweater and tugged his tailored shirt free from his slacks, turning to watch Paige while he unbuttoned his shirt. She was bent over the bed, trying to stretch the worn bottom sheet over the crisp mattress, new tags and all. Her sweater rose as she struggled, showing the lace of her pink panties.
“Oh, this might not be the right size. It looks like a full sheet.” Paige said reaching to the other side of the mattress.
“Let me help you,” he offered, but his hands slid to her sides and under the sweater onto her smooth skin. He nuzzled her neck, one hand gliding onto her belly.
Paige let out a soft moan and murmured, “The bed—”
He kissed her cheek and neck and whispered, “Yes, the bed first. Walls later.”
“Ohh.” Paige’s eyes were wide when he half lifted her, turning her to her side on top of the ill-fitted sheet with a lion print. He crawled up next to her.
“That’s my sweater you borrowed.” His hands pushed the cashmere farther up her chest.
“Do you want it back?” Paige asked in a sugary drawl.
“I want it off,” Michael said in a heady whisper. He followed it with a slow, full kiss. He loved the taste of her tongue on his, the way her gray-blue eyes glowed when they looked at him and how they fluttered closed when she sank completely into his kiss.
“Won’t I be cold?” Paige teased, cupping his face, and surprising him with a deep exploring kiss.
Her eagerness excited him. It was almost impossible not to want to touch her. His hands massaged all over her back, luxuriating in the feel of her silky-smooth body. He wanted more. Much more.
“Cold? I doubt that. I can think of several ways to keep you warm.” Michael helped lift the sweater off. He took in the sight of her. Since they had been thrown together during the storm, she’d been stranded and borrowed his clothing. At times, she was stark naked. She wasn’t now. She wore an amazing bra panty set with lace and silken texture. Her skin was ta
nned. Her hair tangled but spilled over the top of folded, ocean-blue sheet. Her eyes were trusting and something else, something he hadn’t seen in a long time before meeting her, something that shined. She radiated passion.
He yanked off his T shirt, wanting his skin against hers. He pulled her to him, kissing her open-mouthed as they entwined on their sides. He craved touching every inch of her.
They’d come to the room with the intention of a rest. His day started in the opulent bed and breakfast with so little sleep from a work crisis followed by a white-knuckled race to reach Paige before she took the dangerous mountain route to her aunt’s. The shoveling and unloading alone would have warranted a nap. For some reason, none of that wore on him now. He was awake. He was more than awake. He was on fire.
She must have felt the same as she unbuckled his belt and slid her hand inside his slacks. She gurgled something unintelligible into his ear as her hands, her beautiful hands, stroked him. He instantly grew hard and moved to her touch along his length. His senses were on overload. He wanted to touch her, naked skin to naked skin.
He raised himself enough to completely discard his clothing, leaving two packets on the bed. Each breath he took filled his chest so deeply it was as if he were devouring the air and not just the closeness of his Paige. He inhaled her in all ways. Sight, smell, taste, and touch. He was rigid and pulsing with need for her.
He did not wait but sank back to the bed, hands cupping, molding her breasts, biting the part that dipped into the cleavage of her bra. His voice was not his own but some deep growl as he said, “I want you, Paige, every inch of you.”
Her clothing had to go. He divested her of the lace bra and buried his face in her chest. Each moan of consent dripped like honey from her lips. He had to taste those again. His hands had to slide under the lace covering her very grabbable ass cheeks.
They fueled each other. Somehow a condom rolled onto his length. Their hands roved and grabbed each other.
Her panties remained on. The flimsy fabric gave way with a rip when he tried to tug her panties down. He paused only for a second and then completely tore them off, driving a deep tongued kiss into her sweet mouth. She returned it. She whimpered a hungry mewling sound and reached his back, only having skimmed over his distended cock.
A Paige in Cupid's Book Page 2
