Day one of operation Win My Flower Back had not gone at all like I’d planned or possibly could have imagined. My new part time job at the plant nursery did not appear to endear me to my wallflower of a mate.
Finished helping a customer, she’d looked up, taking one look at me as I showed up for my first day of work, her eyes widening until I could see the whites around her glowing lime green eyes, and then she’d bolted towards the back office area like her butt was on fire. I’d tried to hunt her down for my lunch break, wanting to ask her to join me, but she was proving increasingly evasive.
She’d managed to avoid me for the next two days but I’d felt her eyes on me. My heart pounded whenever I sensed her. No clue where she was hiding, she wasn’t far, I could gather that much.
This was my third week of this, three days at the nursery, three days with the computer repair business I’d started at home last year, one day to catch up on everything I’d put off those six days, and I’d yet to spy hide nor hair of my elusive Marsh woman.
Argh. I didn’t even want to get started, thinking on my work day. Toiling away in the nursery was not so much toiling as… heavy lifting, order pulling. It was so busy. By the time it hit five, I was dragging myself to my car. My slothlike ways were showing, and my pains had pains. As Pen loved to say in that squirrely voice of hers, my owies had owies.
Trudging near the employee only area to collect my things, my dignity lost somewhere between decorative rocks, manure, and shovels, I smelled as bad as I felt and wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed and curl up in the bedding, stink be damned. I’d never worked so hard in my life as I did under those bearded task masters. Those Gnomes were laughing at me. I couldn’t prove it, but they did. Their eyes danced as I passed, like I was a great big inside joke they were all privy to. Har-de-har-har.
Desperate to find Aster, I’d washed up, changed, collected my things, and rushed to her office hoping to bump into her. I’d tried her marsh but last week, every single day slogging through her marsh to try and find her, to no avail. Had I scared her off, I worried. Was I… Had she found me lacking in the bedroom? My throat grew tight. She’d hurried off and was avoiding me.
Shit.
A feeling of inadequacy filled me, what ifs threatening to give me fits. I wasn’t the most experienced man, I knew, but I’d thought- That moment in the marsh had been- It had been- It was- Wow. It had been everything to me.
“Aster?” my voice came out a hoarse croak, cracking like I was going through puberty again. Her office was dark, like it had been vacant for most of the day, but I knew that not to be true. The light had been on, shadows moving about inside as I’d walked past to enter the building that served as a locker room.
Setting down my backpack and lunch pail, I swiped my hands down my jeans nervously and stepped further into the room. “A-Aster, are you in here?”
When minutes passed and no one answered, disappointment filled me. A long sigh left me as I turned to leave. My shoulders slumped as that excited flutter in my chest dropped with the ache starting to fill it.
But then I felt it, that odd, watched feeling. My hand dropped to the doorknob but I paused. Spying a light switch, an idea hit. Shoving the door shut, I flipped the switch and spun around. “Ah-hah!” I shouted, yet found myself still stuck in the dark. Glancing around, I scowled, which caused my glasses to slip down my nose. “Damn it,” I muttered, shoving my spectacles up the bridge of my nose to let out a grumbling sound.
A soft laugh, poorly muffled as it dissolved into a feminine chuckle that bordered on the most adorable giggle I’d ever heard in my life, ended abruptly when she snorted suddenly.
A grin slid over my face as I strode towards the corner that noise had come front. “My darling dearest, did you just snort? Like an adorable little piglet?” I supposed I would have come across more charming if I didn’t slam into her desk, ramming my knee, letting out a very unmanly sound I wasn’t going to discuss, and nearly toppled right over the metal beast with sharp corners trying to maim me. My face hit the short, cheap carpet last, but I was going to have a hell of a rug rash on my face as it was mashed into it. “Ow.” A hoarse groan left me. I was all set to let out a dying moan when she appeared in the darkness, rushing to my side.
“Oh, Gren, are you alright?” Long fingers gripped my shoulder and yanked me, sending me rolling to my back. My glasses were still intact, so there was that. My shoulder was going to smart later for that, her grip firm and strong, as one would expect from a woman of the Marsh; but as her hands fluttered across my face and she began to coo down at me, her ministrations were light, gentle. “Does anything hurt?” she began worriedly.
I whispered my answer, but if her ears were thundering as badly as mine were as blood rushed to them, pounding away at my drums, there was no way she could have made me out.
My hand lifted, sliding down the sleeve of her t-shirt, pressing into her bare skin at her bicep, urging her closer as she asked once more. “What was that?” she murmured, bending her tall frame over me, leaning in. “What hurts?”
Sliding my hand down her arm, taking her hand in mine, I pressed it over my heart and held it there. My other hand cupped the back of her head, and I lifted up to close the distance. Our kiss was quick, impulsive, and just as wonderful as I’d imagined it would be. “I’ve been dying to do that,” I admitted, releasing her to allow her to retreat, if that was what she wished. Her fingers curled where they rested over my heart but she didn’t withdraw. Her fingers clenched and unclenched over the material, until they eventually smoothed out. Her hand was large, her fingers long, possibly longer than mine, but I rather liked how well they spanned my chest, the warmth that filled me at her touch.
“You’ve tricked me. I’d thought you were injured.” There was no real heat to her words.
“You’ve been avoiding me. I was beginning to wonder if I was that bad in the sack or you’d decided you’d changed your mind about me after all.”
“Don’t be cruel,” she whispered, her thumb smoothing over my heart where her hand pressed.
My hand slid over the top and I brushed my fingers over hers. There was something so bold, so frank and intimate to conversations in the dark. “I’d say I’d never, but we both know that not to be true. I was a cad, a blind, rude, ignorant cad, and if you’d changed your mind or thought anything unkind of me, I deserve nothing less.”
“You forgot stupid,” she added softly, chuckling when I huffed with mock affront.
“I really am sorry,” I apologized.
Clearing her throat roughly a few times, she would have pulled her hand free of mine, but I grabbed it and brought it to my lips, pressing my face into her warmth to plant a kiss to the middle of her palm.
Her free hand lifted and fingers curved over the side of my face. Cupping it, she leaned in to whisper, “I do not snort.” Emphasizing her point, she tapped my face with each word, her teasing taps almost slaps, clapping the side of my face until I was wincing as she finished.
Daring to peek an eye open to peer at her in the darkness, making out her outline with the dim light peeking in from the blinds on the far wall, I grinned up at her. “Do I get another kiss if I agree?”
“You get to keep your teeth and ability to chew food,” she said on a snort, pulling back to stand. Her hand shot out, grabbing my arm to aid me to my feet. She nearly pulled my shoulder from its socket as she gave me a good tug upright.
My other hand clapped to her forearm. I didn’t want her to retreat. I had no clue when I’d get to have a moment like this with her again. “Have lunch with me,” I nearly begged.
