Sunday, March 21, 2010

Chapter 11- Better Slap Some Paint on it

As promised, a double feature tonight! Don't get used to it :) :) And thanks for your support as always. Especially Jay. I have to do a shoutout to you tonight because you faithfully review and your praise makes me happy! Thank you!!!!



"You brought me to Lowes?" This was it. I was officially stunned into silence from here on out. He had just kissed me into submission 20 minutes ago and all for this. All to be brought to a home improvement store. Or in my case, an apartment improvement store.

"Why did you bring me here of all places?" I couldn't lie about this either: I really thought that he was going to take me back to his place. I was undeniably so into him tonight and fully ready to go prove that to him but not here. Not at a home improvement store.

"Trust me" was all he said as he climbed out of the car and left me sitting alone feeling stupid. Trust him? What could possibly be at a Lowes that we needed? Was he going to build something? Fix a drain? What?

"Come on" he said laughing at me again as he opened my door. He even leaned over chuckling to unbuckle my seatbelt when I finally got my wits back and slapped his hand away from me.

"Now you let me be gentleman and open door for you" he commented sidestepping me and anticipating the other swat he was about to receive. He pulled me into his side and shut the door behind me, still keeping his arm snugly around my waist as he led me inside. There was hardly anyone inside as we entered since it was a Friday night and people don't usually go to Lowes on a date. As soon as we entered the store he led me through the store like he knew exactly what he was looking for.

"Seriously, what are we doing?" I asked again trying helplessly to figure him out. Who was I kidding, I never understood Geno. What was going to make tonight any different? Especially right now?

He stopped in the paint aisle and led me over to the selection without saying a word. Then he paused and looked at me expectantly. What did he want? I didn't understand why we had come here of all places. His eyes were glowing with mischief as he watched the pieces come together in my head. I remembered the way he had stared at the paint samples taped up on my wall and it dawned on me.

"Did you bring me here to pick out paint??"

He nodded and I heard him chuckle as he pulled me closer to the selections. "But I don't have any of the samples from my apartment here!" I protested already feeling overwhelmed at the prospect of having to make a decision tonight. Because that's what it was wasn't it? He was going to make me do this.

"I brought them" he said simply, with the same confidence a man might have if he figured out all of the world's problems. To my astonishment, he pulled the paint samples out from his back pants pocket where they had been hiding this entire time.

"You took my samples!" The anger seeped into my accusation as I viewed what was my stolen property in his hands. "You can't just take someone's paint samples from them! And stop laughing at me" I said dangerously close to stomping my high heeled foot onto the concrete floor just to make my point that much more clear.

Instead of chuckling again like I expected him to, he grabbed the hand that he was still holding and laid a kiss onto my open palm. "Come on. Don't be mad. Just try. I help you."

I looked at him sharply and he corrected his grammar. "I will  help you" he emphasized again.

I sighed and looked down at the paint swatches he had placed in the same hand he had just kissed. "Fine" I said examining an egg-shell white that had caught my eye.

"Not white" Geno argued snapping it out of my hands before I could stop him. "It is too white."

"It's not white exactly" I complained trying to take it back from him. "It's eggshell."

His nose wrinkled in disgust and confusion. Who was I kidding, he didn't know eggshell from ivory.

"This is better" he said pointing to a creamy yellow that I had also picked out but was originally unsure of. Yellow, even if it was creamy, was just too yellow.

"You like this one? Seriously?" If I had suggested to Peter that I wanted to paint a room of our apartment yellow, he would have laughed at me and my suggestion. "Yellow's the color of a child's room" he would say. I shook off the familiar bad feeling I got when I thought of Peter and focused on the task at hand. He was gone from my life and there was no need for him to keep popping up like that.

"Yeah, why not?" he responded. I smiled shaking my head at him. Geno would view painting a room as a simple task. For some reason it just didn't carry the same weight in his mind that it did in mine. But maybe he was right. What was the big deal. If I hated it, I could always change it. Wasn't the choice to change part of my newfound freedom in Pittsburgh? Something like that.

I looked down at the color again and decided that I didn't hate it. It would actually look better in my bedroom though which also needed a good splash of paint.

"What about this color for the living room instead?" I asked showing him a mossy green that had caught my eye. He leaned over to look at it and nodded his approval. Our heads were close again and our eyes met, contrasting blue on brown.

"I like it" he said, eyes still resting on mine. I broke the eye contact first, looking back down at the green. It took me a minute to get the brown of his eyes out of my vision so that I could look at the green again.

We looked at other colors for awhile until the loudspeaker announced that Lowes would be closing in half an hour. The poor kid who worked at the paint mixing station looked annoyed with us as we pretended to seriously consider painting my kitchen a hot pink.

"Very female. Very you" Geno teased again smiling at how hard he was making me laugh. He full on knew that I was not a hot pink kind of girl.

"Okay, okay stop" I said grabbing the swatches from him and putting them back where they belonged. "Do you really think I should get these?" I asked again looking at the three colors I had managed to settle on.

He rolled his eyes in response and grabbed them from my hands. "Yes, now go" he said directing me to the paint mixing station. The kid who had had nothing better to do but watch us for the past half hour instantly started to get to work.

"How do you know so much about picking out paint?" I asked curiously. The whole time we had been here he had been so patient and had actually suggested good ideas when he wasn't trying to convince me that pink was 'my color.'

"I have a house. I couldn't let my mother pick out everything" he shrugged.

I nodded trying not to let on that I was too curious about his place. Still I wondered what it looked like, especially since he had decorated it. My mind wandered and I wondered what his bedroom looked like. Even though I internally scolded myself for letting my mind wander there, I couldn't help it. He had done all of the right things tonight to make this truly a memorable date. It was amazing to think that two weeks ago, I would have kicked myself for even having these thoughts but what was I supposed to do? This had been the most fun, considerate date that I had been on in a looong time. Extra emphasis on the long time part.

I couldn't help it at this point if he was making me want to jump him in the middle of a home improvement store with a pimply teenager looking on at us. Especially the way his hand was innocently rubbing my back right now. I wasn't even sure if he noticed that he was doing it but he was rhythmically and innocently rubbing my back while we waited for the paint to be finished so that we could leave.

I endured the torture because it did feel nice and waited in comfortable silence with him. When we had everything we needed, I paid and we both dragged the three cans of paint out to his car, the only ones still left in the parking lot besides the tired workers.

"Thanks" I said a second time as he helped me back into my apartment and set the cans down on the floor for me. "I had a really nice time" I told him feeling suddenly shy. Because it had been awhile since I had gone out with a man, I didn't know what to do next. Kiss him and send him on his way? That's what I should do, but didn't want to do.

Geno solved the problem for me by leaning down to capture my lips with his in a searing kiss that made my toes curl as much as they could in the confines of my heels. He groaned when I pulled him closer to me with my hands on his shoulders, feeling each contour of muscle beneath my palms. He responded by pulling my hips to his so that the lines of our bodies aligned eliminating all air between us. He changed the angle of the kiss and I allowed him better access to my mouth as our tongues met, performing a waltz all on their own.

"Couch" I heard myself say even though we had already started to migrate in the direction of furniture. My body was on auto pilot as I fell backward onto the couch allowing Geno to cover me as much as he could in our awkward position. His mouth settled on the pulse point of my neck as I panted loudly and tried to twist so that I could adjust our position so that we were laying down. I felt like I was running a race and he had already caught up to me dragging me over the hurdles with him.

My hands scraped over his scalp with my nails feeling his soft hair between my hands as he hit exactly the right spot beneath my left ear. He growled slightly when I kicked off my shoes and rubbed my foot along his long calf, silently begging him to continue. I didn't know where this sex-kitten attitude had come from but he wasn't complaining as he kissed me with renewed vigor, pressing the evidence of his arousal into my stomach.

I wiggled eliciting another groan from him before he raised himself up so that I could sit up slightly. I blew some of the hair out of my eyes and groaned when I couldn't get the zipper of my dress down. He grinned devilishly once he realized what I was trying to do and covered my hands with his own taking care of it for me. The cool air and fabric of the couch hit my back as he pressed me back down nibbling lightly on my ear. Now that I was free of the zipper, I wanted him to take the hint and touch me already. If he didn't touch me I was going to explode.

He slid one of the straps down my shoulder taking his time and smiling when I tried to hurry the process along. I wiggled out of the other strap and arched upward against his chest, desperate to feel him against my skin. Within seconds his shirt was gone and the rest of my dress was off leaving me only in my bra and panties. The feel of his calloused hands on my breasts made me outright moan. He knew the exact amount of pressure to apply as he cupped and kneaded them, terminating all of my nerve endings for good.

His mouth led me to the edge where I was ready to jump with him, too far gone to think about consequences at this point. His thigh was between my legs already aligning me into the position his body needed when a phone began to buzz somewhere in the pile of clothes next to the couch. I froze trying to discern if it was his phone or mine and realized that I didn't recognize the ring tone.

Geno's eyes widened and he leaned over me to check the caller ID.

"Is everything okay?" I said trying to get my breathing under control. He didn't answer the phone but he didn't put it down either. "You can answer if you have to get that" I told him wondering if it was an emergency.

"No, it's okay" he told me hitting the ignore call button. My heart was still racing but had slowed down somewhat over the past 30 seconds and I had begun to re-gain my wits. I watched him quickly text on his phone while I discretely looked for something to cover my top half with. I grabbed his shirt off of my own pile of clothing and slid my arms through it, grateful that my breasts were at least covered up now. My bra had been discarded somewhere behind me but with Geno still holding me in place, I couldn't exactly get up and start rummaging around for it.

"Um, can I get up?" I asked already trying to untangle our legs so that I could stand up. My knees felt weak as I walked away from the couch and into the kitchen for a glass of water. I hadn't looked at his face as I walked away too nervous to see if he was watching me or not. I gulped down some luke-warm tap water, not even bothering with the brita filter in the fridge. I took another deep breath trying to calm myself down when two arms enclosed around my body from behind successfully trapping me.

His lips met my shoulder as he pushed the hair off my shoulder making room for his mouth. "Sorry" he mumbled against my skin and sliding me into his body. He took a step back then and looked me over in his shirt.

"I like it" he said gesturing to my outfit- or lack thereof. The comment made me blush even though he had already basically seen me naked and we had been on our way to a whole lot more if his phone hadn't rang.

"Is everything okay?" I asked when what I really wanted to know was who was it.

"Yeah, it was a friend" he answered. I offered him a drink of my water and wondered how I was going to get him back on the couch with me so that we could pick up where we left off.

Instead he surprised me by taking another big gulp of water and setting the glass down in the sink.
"So," I began trying not to embarrass myself.

"Do you want to see the paint?" he asked completely throwing me off guard. He wanted to look at paint now? At my look of confusion he smiled sheepishly and added, "want to see what it looks like on wall?"

He seriously wanted to paint right now? I was basically naked and willing for him and he wanted to paint? I watched him grab a knife from the kitchen and walk, still shirtless back into my living room. He then bent over one of the paint cans that we had left by the door when we first entered and proceeded to start opening up the lid.

I was too baffled to do anything but stand speechless and watch him, wondering what the hell had just happened to both of us.



Hopefully I can update again soon! I have so many plans for these two that I'm excited :)

7 comments:

  1. I love them together!!! And I especially love Geno and how he is about to have sex with her and then decides, lets paint. Okay, well there were events in between those two things, but its essentially what happened.
    Wonderful job Tillie!!

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  2. OH MY GOD AMAZING!!! I love love love this story and was so bummed when his phone rang... right when it was getting hot haha!!! You're awesome... keep the updates coming :-D

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  3. Woo hoo part two! I'll take the large gap between posts if it means we get two at a time! Seriously, Tillie, I love this story. I mean, I've loved all of them, but this one especially.

    I have to repeat it: AHHHHH!!! I had a feeling he was going to help her pick out paint. It's so cute, how take-charge he is. He's a man's man, and I like it!

    They're so cute together, and I loved the way they were together in the paint store, especially when he was rubbing her back. And then back at the apartment! ohymygoodness. I was wondering if they were going to go all the way and if not, who would be the first to stop. I think if Geno turns Ava down, she's gonna be piiiissed. But some shirtless painting sounds nice, no? Maybe they start painting, get into a paint fight, and then finish it off in the bedroom?

    I can hope, right?

    Thanks for the double dose today, Tillie, you totally made my Sunday!

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  4. So good.. I was so happy to see you updated, twice! Can't wait to see what happens between these two. I love how you progressed their relationship. Ava really develops in the past 3 chapters and it's nice to see that in a character... you can tell, especially in this chapter, that she grows to like Geno and it isn't an instant thing.
    Keep it up, can't wait to read more!

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  5. haha poor girl. I can't believe he wanted to look at paint colors after when they just started doing...

    I have a feeling he is still with his Russian girl. If he messes up with Ava I really don't think she will give him a second chance. I hope he doesn't screw things up!

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  6. How you put sex and painting into 1 chapter is amazing, that was hillarious. Great update, mor soon please.

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  7. i love geno! this is so good, i cant wait to see what happens, i hope there is an update sooN!

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