Chapter 32 - Olivia
O livia was giddy, frantically picking up laundry off her bedroom floor and throwing it in her hamper. Aiden would be there any minute.
She closed her closet doors so he wouldn’t see the various shoes strewn about, nowhere near their companions.
Attempting to impress Aiden and thank him for his flexibility, Olivia had stayed up late the night before making him a carrot cake using carrots she’d grown and eggs she’d traded for flowers from another vendor. When she’d inevitably snoozed her alarm twice that morning, she had only been shooting herself in the foot. Her house was a disaster, and she still had chores to do. She moved as fast as she could while taking only a moment to shower and shave her legs.
She was excited for Aiden to see her farm in the light of day, and she was curious to see how he’d handle a day in the field, especially if the drizzle didn’t let up. According to Aiden, he’d wanted nothing more than to spend a day at her farm, harvesting cucumbers and green beans. Though she was dubious, she’d accepted his offer because the next two days were the only time he was free for another week, and fulfilling her CSA orders wasn’t optional.
Her intuition told her the stakes for their time together were high. This would more or less be a trial run to see if they could make long distance work given their busy and erratic schedules. If these two days went poorly, she couldn’t help but suspect they would be better off killing the spark before it died.
However, Aiden making a mid-week trip to spend two days with her, and his willingness to go with the flow of her life, gave her hope. With their non-traditional work schedules, this was how it would have to be for the time being. She might be able to get a day off here or there and visit him in Saint Paul, but it wouldn’t necessarily mean he would have the day off. She would most likely be hanging around and waiting for him some days, which didn’t sound terrible. It would alleviate her worries about consistently depleting her Trader Joe’s freezer hoard. She supposed time would tell how realistic it would be for him to tag along and help her on the farm.
She peered through her bedroom window once again and spotted his car coming up her driveway. Skipping every other step, she ran down the stairs to meet him. Given the rainy weather, she’d opted for jeans and a T-shirt topped by her favorite pink and blue flannel. If she had to, she could put on her heavy-duty Seattle rain gear, which she’d purchased after several freezing wet dog walks with Ms. Darcy. She wondered how prepared Aiden would be.
She met him at his car and told him how much she’d missed him with her mouth as well as the leg she teasingly wrapped around his thigh. He pulled back and looked at her, his smile doing that cute, crinkly thing to his eyes.
“Oh, oh, ooooh, Olivia,” he sang her name, and she laughed. “I have been looking forward to this all week.”
“Me, too.” She gave him another kiss on the lips before grabbing his hand. She pulled him toward her house so they could get out of the drizzle. “I can’t decide if you picked the worst or best week to help me harvest veggies. You won’t sweat to death, but you’ll certainly get drenched if this continues.”
“Don’t worry about me. I’m tougher than I look,” he said with mock seriousness.
She eyed him suspiciously.
“What? You don’t believe me? I was a Cub Scout.”
Olivia's head fell back as she laughed.
He feigned outrage. “Hey, I’ll have you know I made it all the way to Webelos before I gave up on my Eagle Scout dreams.”
“Well, in that case, I’ve got a lot of work for you. Really though, I’m so glad you’re here and that you’re willing to put up with my schedule.”
“I’m just glad I get to spend time with you, and I guess we’ll have to figure out this whole long-distance thing one way or another.”
Aiden’s acknowledgment of the bigger picture made her stomach clench. In his tone was a question, and she got the sense he was asking her if she felt the same way. She wasn’t quite ready to go there with words, and they had a million things to do for her CSA.
Instead, she opted to jump right into the work. “First things first, are you hungry, thirsty, need to use the bathroom?”
“Ummm, I think I’m good. I stopped for gas. ”
“Great, let’s get to work. Next question, did you bring any farm clothes?”
Aiden squinted at Olivia questioningly. “What would you say are farm clothes?”
“I’ll take that as a no. In that case, why don’t you put on something you don’t mind getting covered in mud.”
Aiden swept a hand to indicate his button-down shirt, jeans, and black sneakers. Then he held out his arms as if to say, this is it.
“Oh…all right. Well, we can wash everything tonight.” She grimaced apologetically. “You might be able to wear those shoes again.”
He gave her a bashful smile. “I believe I did ask to take a one-on-one course in farming. And to be fair, you didn’t send me a school supply list.”
She bit back a smile. “Right, no, totally. That’s on me. I’ll be sure to send you a required reading list next time.”
“Thank you. I’m nothing if not a good student.”
“Well, we’ll see how good of a teacher I am.”
The image may have brought some sexy thoughts to Olivia’s mind, but she mentally swatted them away. No time for that. Must get work done so we have time for fun later.
To his credit, Aiden was an excellent sport. So used to being alone in the field, Olivia would occasionally catch sight of Aiden out of the corner of her eye and jump, startled by his presence. Then she’d remember that it was Aiden, and then she’d see how inappropriately dressed he was, and that, of course, would lead to uncontrollable giggling.
After the third time, Aiden clued in on the joke. He walked over and pulled her to him before laying them down in the mud. They were immediately soaked and filthy. Mud squidged into her right ear, and she squealed. She howled with laughter so hard her stomach muscles ached. Aiden kissed her on her laughing mouth. She could taste dirt on his tongue, which was not as sexy as she might have otherwise thought. But her laughter made it impossible to shape her lips into anything resembling a kiss.
Aiden didn’t relent. He kissed her along her throat and down her chest. Unzipping her jacket, he had access to the top buttons of her flannel and slipped them through their holes.
She gasped when his freezing-cold fingers touched her skin. “Aiden, what are you doing?”
“Reminding myself why I drove two hours to play in the mud.”
He pulled back to meet her smiling eyes before reaching into her shirt and cupping his hand around her breast. The cold sensation sobered her, and she kissed him back, pulling up his wet shirt to touch his stomach and chest.
The furnace in her core ignited as he played with the bud of her nipple, massaging it back and forth between his fingers.
Between gasps, she said, “We should…go warm up… House… Shower.”
They ran through the muddy field, up and onto her porch, where they stripped off their wet clothes. Down to their underwear, they dashed up the stairs. Their bodies were streaked with mud.
In the shower, Olivia was overwhelmed by the intense response her body had to the sight of water streaming down Aiden’s torso. Her heart raced when he knelt down and placed one of her legs on the side of the bathtub, opening her to him. Beyond the sensations racing across and through her sex, she felt like she could cry because she was so filled with desire for more than sex with Aiden. She wanted him here at her farm to kiss her goodnight and cuddle her awake. The terrifying realization was washed away by a thousand shooting stars rocketing behind her eyelids as her body trembled against him.