Chapter Seven #2
Footboards creak in the hallway as he makes his way back toward the bedroom. “I’ll call you again soon. Love you.”
“Love you more.” She grumbles something to my father before hanging up the line, and I shake my head as I go back to painting, waiting for the bedroom door to swing open, butterflies swarming in my stomach like a hoard of moths on a porch light.
“You don’t even have a window open? You’re going to gas yourself out.
” Rhett steps across the creaking wood floor and slides open both windows, letting a fresh evening breeze in.
I’m thankful for it and feeling a little dumb I didn’t think of it myself.
I paint houses for a living. I know to crack a window at this point.
“How are your friends?” I ask, still focused on my brush so he doesn’t think I was waiting around for him to come back. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah,” he groans. “They’re annoying, but they mean well.”
“How so?”
“Oh,” he clears his throat and dumps paint from the can into the waiting tray, “deadlines. They wanted this lake house done yesterday. Imagine my surprise when I come in here and you’re already working.
You know I was kidding about putting you to work, right?
You don’t have to paint. It is your wedding day and all. ”
This has me laughing out loud. “Oh, right. My wedding day. What am I thinking?”
He rolls a brush into the paint and smooths it onto the wall with long hard strokes, his biceps flexing with each push of the handle. “I think I have some cake mix if you really want to celebrate.”
“Yeah?” I say quickly, suddenly realizing I’m starving. “What kind?”
“Chocolate, I think.”
“And you haven’t baked it yet?”
“Nope.” He shakes his head. “I don’t bake, but I could tonight, considering it’s your wedding night and all, though I can’t promise the decorations will be as nice as the ones you had waiting for you.”
I try to focus on the edging and not his muscles, but it’s a losing battle with his corded forearms taking the win. “I think we should definitely make a cake.”
He stares down at me for a long moment, his gaze softer than before. “You’re so beautiful. I don’t understand why you’d ever put up with someone treating you the way Nathan did.”
I pinch my lips together and focus on the paint brush as it slides against the lower edge of the wall.
I’ve already gone over this part at least twice, but I need to focus on something other than his body as I talk or I won’t be able to think straight.
“It’s funny the things you say you’ll never put up with in a relationship, isn’t it?
I mean, I never thought I’d let someone touch me the way he did.
Hell, I never thought I’d let anyone talk to me the way he did either, but I did,” I laugh, “and I was about to marry the man. Had you not shown up, I’d probably be halfway to New Zealand right now. ”
“New Zealand, huh? Another of his ideas or is that where you wanted to go?”
I grin. “Not my idea. I’d have been happy to rent one of these lake houses for the week, but Nathan likes grand gestures.
He had some villa rented out for us on the coast. A helicopter glacier landing, hot springs mud treatments, a cruise out to the fjords, and some wine estate tour thing.
” I shrug and refocus on the line of paint until I’m as far as I can go without crawling beneath him.
“Sounds like any woman’s dream.”
“Not mine. I like low-key. Something without a lot of travel time or set up. A place where the whole goal is to relax and unwind, find romance, ya know?”
“Like a little cabin tucked next to a river?”
“Kind of.” I smile at how easily he got it. “That, or a quiet little lakeside retreat where we have the whole shore to ourselves.”
“Beach fires, music, and listening to the waves.”
“Yes!” I grin again, finally crawling beneath him, painting the wall where his streaks meets mine. “I like seeing new places, but I don’t like the act of traveling. There are too many variables, especially planes. I get way too much anxiety from the security.”
“Flying is exhausting. By the time you get to where you’re going, you want to turn around and go home.”
“Exactly!” I say, finishing the line beneath him. He’s stopped moving now and I feel the heat of his body gathering behind me.
I turn back quickly, the paint cup steady in my hand, though it spills a little on the plastic beneath me. “What?”
“Nothing, there’s just a pretty, baby girl crawling around on the floor with lacy, white underwear on. I couldn’t miss the show.”
My cheeks heat, and I sit back quickly, blocking his view.
I didn’t realize how much I was missing this with Nathan because I didn’t have much experience before him. Sure, I had a few boyfriends here and there, but most of them quit me quickly after I told them I was a virgin who planned on staying that way until marriage.
Apparently, Rhett makes me rethink all of that.
If he piled on top of me right now, tore my panties to the side, and told me to call him daddy again, I would let him do whatever he wanted.
“You’re funny,” I say, climbing up from the floor, my hand slid into his for assistance. “Is this how you are with all the girls? Begging them to call you daddy?”
“I don’t beg for anything, baby girl.”
I roll my eyes and tuck into the bathroom to wash the paint off my hands.
I’ve always liked this part of painting.
The part where you finish with splotches of color on your hands and elbows.
It’s a reminder that I’ve created something real.
Considering these days most everything is done on the computer, painting feels tangible in a way that grounds me.
“So, you don’t beg,” I smile, turning off the faucet before drying my hands on a nearby towel, “but how many women does this whole dominant daddy thing work on?”
“None,” he laughs. “That’s why I’m here alone. Granted, I haven’t really tried it either. There’s something about you, though. Something soft and innocent. Something I want to protect.”
“Well, I don’t need protecting.” I follow him down the short hallway and into the wide-open kitchen where a kettle sits on the stove. “I can protect myself just fine.”
“Like today, when you were about to marry some man you didn’t love?” He laughs under his breath as he speaks.
I roll my eyes and turn away from his stupid remark, going through his cupboards like I own the place. “You better have everything I need to make this cake. I’m starving.”
“Maybe you should eat something with substance first. I have steaks in the fridge I can put on the grill. I’m sure you haven’t eaten much today.”
Considering my diet today consisted of the three cookies I took from the wedding basket and nothing else, I could absolutely use some protein. Protein and bread. I shut one cupboard and open another, noticing a whole lot of nothing. “I really want a huge piece of Italian bread.”
He shakes his head. “No bread, but I can make you some biscuits.”
“Like the ones your grandma taught you to make?”
“I don’t do them justice, but they’re edible enough that you won’t starve and they’ll go good with the steak.”
He grabs the meat from the fridge and some tongs from the drawer before he turns toward me. “I’m going to throw these on the grill. I’ll help you with the cake when I get back.”
My brows narrow inward. “You want to make the cake with me? Are you sure this is in the kidnapper handbook?”
“I’m still your kidnapper?” He offers a crooked grin. “I was fingering you an hour ago.”
My breath catches as he says the words so bluntly. “Yeah, well… I’m exhausted, and I made a very bad decision.”
“It was a bad decision to let me touch you?” He stalks toward me, his frame wide and strong, dwarfing me immediately. “Are you sure about that?”
I stare up at him, wetting my lips for some unknown reason as I try to gain control of my suddenly aching thighs. “Yes, I’m sure it was a mistake. I’m not thinking straight today. I’m emotional and you preyed on me.”
He laughs. “I preyed on you? Okay,” his big, calloused hands fly up into the air, “I’m sorry.” He grabs the steaks and walks away, sliding open the back door before I hear the hiss of the propane tank and the creak of the grill top open.
That’s it?
I don’t know why I expected him to protest. I want to keep pretending like I don’t want it, while he tells me I do. It’s our thing now, and I’m really good at it.
Ugh… who knew a kidnapping could be so emotionally exhausting?
Most people, probably.
I’m about to search for a bowl, when I catch a pony-sized figure out of the corner of my eye lumbering into the house.
“You must be Charlie!” I say, leaning in to greet the massive, slobbering mastiff.
He scrubs his head against my stomach, knocking me back a little as he licks my hands.
I’ve missed having a dog around the house.
When I was growing up, we always had a dog.
I haven’t felt settled enough as an adult to adopt one yet, but it’s on my list, and I think Charlie can sense that, given the fact that he’s taken to me so easily…
or he’s like that with everyone. Heck, I think that might be the thing I love most about dogs.
They read the room and respond to your energy.
When Charlie has had all the scratches he can handle, I turn to search the cabinets for a mixing bowl, preheat the oven, and grab the eggs, butter, and some milk from the fridge.
Today has been exhausting and I’m sure tonight I’ll sleep like a baby, which will inevitably give me a more stable mindset come morning. Lord knows I need it.
The patio door slides open slowly. Rhett steps inside, his footsteps echoing inside the cabin as he closes out the wind. “Butter and milk? I thought those box recipes called for water and oil.”
“They do,” I say, peeling the cardboard top open, “but if you substitute with butter and milk, the cake tastes way better. So… we’re substituting.”