Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
“Outside?” Elias questioned, his voice leery when the three women went to him, arms full of supplies.
“Yes,” Suzette said, “That way we can make a mess, and it won’t hurt anything.”
“You’re going to paint?”
Olivia couldn’t see him, but she had perfected the art of narrowing her gaze and staring someone down hard enough that they felt like she could see them. She knew it was freaky, but she used it to her advantage at times. “Do you think just because I’m blind I can’t paint pictures?”
His breath hitched. “No. Of course not. I just…” She could scent his nervousness. She’d gotten to him.
“I can do anything anyone else can do,” Olivia informed him, laying it on thick. “You wait and see. My picture is going to be amazing.” She didn’t honestly believe she could paint anything that would be remotely recognizable, but she didn’t care. The freedom lay in trying.
“Okay, okay. I didn’t mean to offend you, Olivia.”
She smiled sweetly and shrugged, cutting back on the snark. She didn’t want to hurt his feelings. “It’s okay. I’m not offended. But Suzette is right. It’s better if we take the supplies out to the picnic table just in case I make a mess.”
Elias sighed. “Outside…”
She was pretty sure he turned and stared out the sliding glass doors that led to the deck.
“I guess it can’t hurt anything.” It sounded like he moved toward the door, and he must have opened it because Olivia felt the slightly cooler air waft against her bare legs.
“You all have on tennis shoes, right?” he asked.
“Yes, Elias,” Jezebel told him.
“Good, good. I wouldn’t want you to get a splinter on your feet or something.” He was grasping at anything.
The three of them were totally running him over like a freight train, and Olivia thought it was pretty darn fun. This was her first foray outside of the house to meet new people, and already she felt like she was part of a conspiracy. Somehow she knew there was a good chance they were going to get in trouble for this stunt.
Daddy hadn’t specifically said she couldn’t go outside, but Olivia figured it was implied. After all, he certainly didn’t let her go outside unattended at home.
She wasn’t sure if Elias would go out with them or not, but she suspected he would.
“Okay,” he said, “but there are ground rules.”
“Of course,” Suzette said in a voice Olivia recognized as overly agreeable. One of the benefits of being nearly blind was that she could pick up on other details better than most. She barely knew Suzette, but she did know exaggerated compliance when she heard it.
Olivia fought the urge to giggle. She had to lower her face to hide her expression. She definitely hadn’t mastered the art of the poker face.
Elias cleared his throat. “Not one foot off the deck, understood.”
“Yes, Sir,” they all said in unison.
“If someone needs to use the bathroom, you all have to come in together, so you better use the potty now before we go out.”
“Okay,” Suzette agreed.
There was a long silence. Olivia suspected Elias was staring at the three of them, trying to come up with more rules. Finally he sighed. “Fine. I’ll fix drinks and snacks while you three go potty.”
Suzette grabbed Olivia’s hand. “Yes, Sir.” She led her back down the hall, and they all entered the bathroom together.
Jezebel immediately started giggling.
So did Suzette. “I hope you’re not mad that we’re being naughty.”
Olivia smiled and shook her head. “Not at all. I’ve been here like ten minutes, and already it’s the most fun I’ve ever had.”
“We are so totally going to get into trouble,” Jezebel whispered conspiratorially. “When Daddy finds out we hoodwinked Elias into letting us go outside…”
Olivia couldn’t help but cover her mouth and giggle with them.
“Does anyone need to use the toilet?” Suzette asked.
Olivia shook her head. “I went right before we left the house.”
“Me, too,” Jezebel added, “but I do think we should drink all the juice he gives us so that it becomes a problem in about half an hour.”
“It’s a plan,” Suzette agreed. She squeezed Olivia’s hand. “The two of us get kind of naughty when we’re together. I apologize in advance if you end up getting your bottom spanked when the Daddies get back.”
Olivia’s face heated, and she licked her lips. “I guess I’m not the only one who secretly likes getting spanked.”
“Definitely not,” Jezebel informed her. “I think it’s in our DNA or something. My day never feels complete if I haven’t been face down over Daddy’s lap at least once getting my naked bottom swatted.” Another giggle.
Olivia knew she was going to love these women to pieces.
“Here?” Olivia asked.
“Another inch to the right,” Suzette said. “Yes there.”
Olivia had presumably painted the stems for a bouquet of flowers on the bottom half of the paper. Suzette had set a small rock at the top of each stem to use as a guide for Olivia to start the flowers.
“Blue?” she asked, holding her brush out to where she thought she remembered they’d told her the blue paint was. She had six jars of paint in front of her. Each was sitting on a different slat of the picnic table wood.
Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple . She repeated the order in her head. The colors of the rainbow. Left to right. It was a great system.
“Yep,” Jezebel responded, “and can I just say your stems look much better than mine. I’m never going to be an artist.”
Olivia giggled. “That can’t be true. Are my leaves anywhere near the stems?”
Suzette spoke next. “Yes. They’re perfect. I can’t believe you’ve never done this before.”
Olivia concentrated as she carefully removed one rock, keeping her finger on that spot. She lifted the brush with the blue paint and went into her head to draw the flower. It didn’t really matter if it was good or not. What mattered was that she hadn’t had this much fun in forever. She hoped her Daddy would maybe get her some crayons and paints and give her the freedom to be creative. She knew he would. He would do anything for her.
“It must be such a relief to find out your wolf can see,” Suzette said, schooling her voice.
Olivia nodded. “It was the happiest moment of my life. Well, second happiest. The happiest one happened a few hours before that,” she whispered. She knew Elias was sitting on the other side of the deck slightly out of hearing range because Suzette had strongarmed him into giving them some “girl privacy.”
Both girls stifled a giggle. “Of course,” Jezebel agreed.
Olivia drew in a breath. “I don’t mind if you ask me questions. I’m not sad or anything. You won’t hurt my feelings. Sometimes kids at school were not nice to me. They used to tease me about my glasses, or because my hair was crooked, or my clothes were not straight, or whatever they could think of, but my mother told me they were just jealous because I had a mark and they didn’t, so I stopped letting them bother me.”
“We would never make fun of you,” Jezebel said.
“I know.” Olivia smiled. “And that’s why you can ask me things.”
“Do you spend a lot of time in wolf form now?” Suzette asked.
“Yes. A lot . Daddy doesn’t like it much, but I can read when I’m in my wolf form. Plus, I can see him. It’s too bad I can either see him or talk to him but not both at the same time. He gets lonely when I spend too much time in my wolf form.”
“Yeah, I guess that would happen, but it would be tempting,” Suzette agreed.
Olivia had questions, too. Or at this point perhaps they were more like observations. “When I first arrived at Damon’s house, I was shocked to find out he wanted me to submit in such an odd way. I thought he was babying me and being overprotective because of my visual impairment. He kept assuring me that every Alpha Daddy coddles their Little girl and enforces such ridiculous safety rules. I wasn’t sure I believed him until I got here today. I’m so relieved to find out it’s true.”
“Yep,” Suzette said, “Brock is extremely strict. That’s why I was in timeout when you got here.”
Olivia smiled. “It may sound weird, but I was so incredibly pleased to see you in time out. Not because I wanted you to get in trouble but because it meant my Daddy had not lied to me. It calmed me immediately.”
“I’m glad my red bottom helped you feel at home,” Suzette joked, giggling.
“I’m going to use purple next,” Olivia said more to herself as she set her fingers around the purple paint jar and lined her brush up with it. She had swished the brush in a cup of water after the blue. She could only hope she washed most of it off, but it didn’t really matter. She was no Picasso.
The girls worked in silence for several minutes. In between flowers, Olivia took a sip of juice and ate another animal cracker. She loved those because they were one bite each, and she didn’t have to worry about crumbs.
When she finished her painting, she blew on it to help it start drying. “How’d I do?”
“It’s really good. I think you’re going to surprise yourself,” Jezebel said.
“I want to see it. Do you think Elias will be mad if I shift?” Olivia asked.
“I don’t see why he would be,” Suzette said. “No one said we aren’t permitted to shift while the Daddies are gone.”
Olivia lifted her feet to swing over the side of the picnic bench so she wouldn’t bump into the table and make a giant mess while she shifted. “Is there enough space behind me?” She hadn’t gotten a good look at the outside of the house earlier.
“Four feet before there are two steps down to the grass,” Suzette said.
Olivia took two steps back, closed her eyes, and let the shift take over.