Chapter 12 #3
Clearing my throat, I nod. “I can paint some rocks.”
Ellis’s smile reappears, and fuck if it doesn’t make everything else going wrong in the world feel small.
She leaps from her bed, and grabs Vienna by the hand, pulling her past me as the two of them laugh and head right back to the kitchen.
Once I return to the room, I find Vienna pulling her towel off and dropping it to the floor, sopping up the remaining water.
“Daddy, can you get us more water, please?” Ellis asks.
I reach for the plastic container. “Yeah, sweetie. But let’s not fill it up as much this time, okay?”
After I fill the cup only a fourth of the way full, I bring it back to the table and take a seat in the chair opposite the girls. It dawns on me at this moment I’m grateful the chairs are all wood and don’t have cushions on them that can get stained by these types of messes.
“You know what I was thinking would be fun? What if we painted a rock with a wedding dress and one with a tuxedo on it for your Auntie Laney and Uncle Fletcher for their wedding?” Vienna suggests.
“You mean the wedding you suddenly got invited to?” The words leave my lips before I can even think twice.
Vienna arches a brow at me. “You heard about that, huh?”
“Yeah. Just wondering when you were going to tell me. I mean, we are neighbors, after all.”
Vienna dips her brush into the red paint, not meeting my eyes when she replies. “I didn’t realize that being neighbors meant telling you about my plans. I mean, your sister is the one who invited me, which I did not ask for, by the way.”
Ellis taps Vienna on the shoulder. “You get to see me in my princess dress at the wedding, Ms. Lewis.”
Vienna rubs her nose against Ellis’s. “I know. I’m sure you’re going to be the best flower girl ever.”
“I am,” Ellis says confidently. “And my daddy gets to walk down the aisle too, in a tug.”
“Tux,” I correct her before looking back at Vienna to find her staring at my lips. When she sees that I’ve caught her, she darts her eyes back to her rock. “One of my least favorite garments to wear.”
“That’s a shame,” Vienna says. “A man in a tux is one of my favorite things to see.” She licks her lips, glances back up at me, and the hint of mischief in her eyes makes my dick twitch in my jeans.
Fuck. Is she…flirting with me?
“Are you gonna wear a princess dress?” Ellis asks the woman that is making my dick hard in front of my daughter. Thank God there’s a table covering it, but still.
“I don’t know. I’ll probably have to go shopping for something. I didn’t bring anything like that with me to Blossom Peak.” Vienna peers over at Ellis’s rock. “Are you still wanting to paint that rock as a watermelon?”
“Yeah.”
“Then we need to make black dots for the seeds.”
“I hate the seeds,” my daughter says, scrunching up her nose.
Vienna chuckles. “Me too, but it’s going to make the rock look so pretty.” She helps my daughter carefully clean her brush, dip it in black paint, and then paint a border of green around the edge to mimic the rind of the fruit.
Meanwhile, I’m over here just painting my rock green, not sure what else to do because my mind is fixated on so many other things right now—Vienna’s eyes, her smile, her tongue that keeps peeking out to lick her lips.
“Daddy?” Ellis’s voice breaks through my thought spiral.
“Yes?”
“What are you making?”
“Uh…” My eyes dip down to the rock that I’ve kept smearing the green paint over.
“What about a leaf?” Vienna suggests.
“A leaf?”
“Yeah, you can just paint a few brown lines through it and then we can put it next to my rose.” She holds up her rock painted in red, pink, and white, the blend of the colors so intricate to give the illusion of petals.
“Yes, Daddy! Make a leaf so your rock can go next to Ms. Lewis’s!” Ellis practically jumps from her seat at the idea.
“Okay, Ellis. All right. Sit down before you fall, please.”
The three of us continue painting and chatting about nothing really—things that happened at school or in Ellis’s class, the weather, and the upcoming events at the winery.
“Since I’m supposed to tell you my plans now, I thought you should know that your sister also invited me to the yoga night at the winery in two weeks.”
I try to hold back my laugh but fail. “She did, did she?”
“Yup. And I was told that I’m supposed to convince you to join since you never have.”
“I’ve already shared my feelings about yoga with you.”
“Yes, you did, but then I began to think that maybe part of the reason you don’t want to join in on the fun is because you don’t want to get shown up by a girl.” She arches a single brow in my direction.
“I like yoga!” Ellis chimes in, but my gaze remains locked on Vienna.
“Nice try. Did my sister suggest you say that?”
Vienna laughs. “No.”
“You’re a terrible liar.”
Vienna’s smirk builds, and fuck—all it makes me want to do is kiss it right off her face—the desire so natural that I wonder what would happen if I did. How would she react? Would once be enough?
No, it wouldn’t.
But if we were dating, I could do it any time I wanted.
Where the fuck did that thought come from?
“I’m not lying. She didn’t tell me what to say, just that I should try to persuade you to participate.”
“Daddy?” Ellis interrupts us once again.
“Yes, Ellis?”
With her hand held up in front of her, covered in every color of the rainbow, she says, “I think I need to wash my hands.”
Vienna laughs. “Yeah, I think that’s a good idea. The rocks are done anyway, so now we need to let them dry.”
My gaze flickers all over the table to the array of colors. These rocks were just brown, gray, and black before tonight. Now they’re full of life and color—sort of like the woman sitting across from me.
I stand from my chair and round the table, picking up my daughter and carrying her in outstretched arms to the kitchen sink where I help her scrub her hands clean of the paint. Whatever we don’t get off here she can clean off in the bath.
Glancing over my shoulder, I see Vienna beginning to move the rocks onto a slat of cardboard I laid out for them to dry, clicking caps back on bottles of paint, and swirling the brushes in the water to clean them.
Once Ellis’s hands are clean, she leaps down from her stool at the sink and runs to the bathroom. “I have to go potty!”
Vienna laughs.
“I bet you didn’t need to know that,” I say, watching her as she walks the cups of water over to the kitchen sink, pouring them inside. She’s so close to me now that I can see the tiny flecks of paint that are covering her hands and face.
“Um, I teach a class full of five-year-olds, so I hear those words about eighteen times a day. I just didn’t know that would become a part of my day-to-day life when I took this job, but I’m not complaining.” She smiles up at me, resting a hand on her hip.
My eyes dance all over her face, fixating on her lips for the thousandth time, but I keep my restraint intact. Until I decide what I want to do about this growing desire for this woman, I need to keep my hands and lips to myself.
The corner of my mouth lifts in response to my internal thoughts, but Vienna catches it. “What?”
Raising my hand, I brush my finger against her cheek in an attempt to rub the paint away, but it’s dry. “You have paint on your face.”
Her breath hitches from my touch, and without a second of hesitation, she reaches up and wraps her hand around my wrist while my finger is still pressed against her skin. “Hazards of the fun, kind of like getting water spilled all over you.”
I drop my voice lower when I speak next. “Thank you for the way you handled that, by the way.”
“You don’t have to thank me, Rhonan.”
“Yes, I do,” I say, rubbing my thumb over the spot of paint again, even though I know it won’t do anything. But fuck, touching her, staring down into her eyes—it’s making this pull to her nearly impossible to deny.
My thumb moves from her cheek to her bottom lip where I gently tug it down, making her breath hitch again.
Our eyes are locked on each other’s mouths, and for a second, I can feel myself moving closer to her, like there’s no control over my body.
Just a few more inches and I could taste this woman finally—swirl my tongue with hers, nip at those pouty lips, hear her moans that I’m sure could lull me to sleep at night.
I watch Vienna’s eyes flutter closed, but just before our lips touch, my daughter enters the room, throwing water on me this time—metaphorically, of course.
“Daddy?”
Vienna and I jump away from each other as if we’ve electrocuted one another. She clears her throat and turns away, heading back over to the table as I fight to conceal my hard-on in my pants.
“Yeah, sweetie?”
“Can I have dessert?”
I glance at the clock on the microwave hanging over the stove. “Uh, yeah. That’s fine, but then it’s time for a bath.”
“Okay.” Ellis heads to the pantry to pull out the container of cookies she and Joanne baked yesterday, but I glance back at Vienna, who’s tossing her purse over her shoulder.
“I’m going to head home,” she announces, focusing her attention on Ellis.
“No, you need to stay longer.”
“I can’t, sweetie. I need a shower too. The water is making my pants stick to me.”
My thoughts veer to Vienna in her shower—you know, the one that I fixed for her—which doesn’t help my cock calm down.
“Oh.” Ellis nods. “Okay. Do you want to take a cookie?” Holding out the container to her, Vienna walks up and chooses one.
“Thank you so much.”
“You’re welcome. Thank you for painting rocks with me. It was fun.”
Vienna leans down and bops my daughter on the nose. “It was. I can’t wait to do it again.”
“Me either,” Ellis says as she giggles, bopping Vienna on the nose as well.
When she stands, Vienna nods toward me. “Have a good night, Rhonan.”
“You too, Vienna.”
“But just know, I’m going to get you to come to yoga somehow.”
“Is that so?”
Nodding, she grins. “Yup. I’m determined.”
My grin begins to match hers. “Good luck with that.”
And then she’s gone—far enough away that I can’t kiss her, even though that’s all I can fucking think about.