Through her red-wine fog she tried to figure out the best move. She could call the cops but they would take several minutes to get to her and if the person on the other side of the door had ill intent then she probably didn’t have minutes.
As the handle rattled again she realised she was going to have to defend herself.
Had she not had a red-wine brain, she’d have gone downstairs with the dog and the phone and gone out the doors to the beach. But she was in full wine fog and all of a sudden, the violin in her hand looked like an ideal weapon.
Grabbing her phone off the table she hit 999, shoving the phone between her ear and her shoulder so she could brandish the violin. As she crept towards the door in the darkened hallway, an efficient-sounding person on the other end asked her if she wanted police, ambulance or fire.
‘Police,’ she hiss-whispered, her heart rate picking up as the door finally swung open and she lifted the violin.
Fingers appeared, gripping around the door frame just as the person on the line said, ‘Police, what is your emergency, please?’
Operating completely on instinct now, Paige rode an adrenaline surge, mustering all her strength and smashing the violin at the knuckles yelling, ‘Heee-yah!’
Given her alcohol-affected hand-eye co-ordination, it missed the knuckles entirely and smashed into the frame, splintering the instrument. The action dislodged her phone which flew from its position, landing on the floor and sliding along the hallway.
The person – definitely a man – obviously startled by her stealthy, ninja-like attack, yelled, ‘What the fuck?’ as he stepped into the hallway, a stack of file boxes in one arm.
It was Oliver.
Blinking, it was Paige’s turn for, ‘What the fuck?’ He wasn’t supposed to be coming home until tomorrow.
But it went unanswered as Oliver stood on a tiny piece of shattered violin which slid out from under him on the floorboards. Wobbling to remain upright andnotdrop his boxes, he let out a whoop. Unfortunately, it didn’t help. Overcorrecting, the boxes slipped, crashing to the ground, disgorging their contents.
In a last-ditch attempt to stay upright, his arms flailing in mid-air, he grabbed hold of the closest solid thing. Which just happened to be Paige.
Before she knew it, they were down.
Thankfully, Oliver broke her fall as they collapsed in a pile, the remnants of the violin flying from her hand as sheets of escaped paper fell around them like confetti. He let out a wrenching, ‘Ophff’ as he landed on his back and she landed on his front, her face in his neck, her hair spread over his face, her breasts squashed into his chest, her legs straddling his hips and his hands firmly on her ass.
Their groins shockingly aligned.
For a beat or two neither of them did anything, they just lay stock-still, breathing. Paige shut her eyes and inhaled his scent as she tried to harness the analytical centre of her brain to make it make sense but he smelled of old boxes which she didn’t know until right this minute could be such a turn on.
As was the scratch of whiskers against her cheek. And the thick bulge between his legs pressing intimately betweenherlegs. Her wine brain was all wellhello,sailorand she wanted nothing more than to purr and stretch a little.
Stupid wine brain.
Yanking herself back from the ridiculous urge to rub herself shamelessly against him, Paige slapped her palms on the floor either side of his head and levered herself upright, the frizz of her hair falling forward as she stared into his face. Their eyes met and she wondered idly how fair it was that his eyes were almost freaking luminous in the dark. Like a cat. A sleek jungle cat.
Oh,shut up,wine brain!
‘You’re not supposed to be home until tomorrow,’ she accused, glaring at him but the breathiness of her voice softened the effect.
Really, being sprawled on him like this was quite discombobulating.
‘I decided to come back early,’ he replied crankily, also glaring.
‘Why didn’t you knock or use your key?’ she demanded. ‘Instead of rattling the bloody handle like you were trying to break in?’
‘I did knock,’ he griped. ‘But there was some kind of racket going on in here and Iwasusing my key but with my arms full of boxes it was difficult and it took a few attempts.’
Racket?Did the man have no appreciation for classic hits?
Paige glared some more, so did he, the chug of their breathing louder than the background music. But then Paige became aware of his big hands warm on her ass and her heart rate, still elevated from her ninja moves, changed tempo. It morphed to more of a hard thud than a desperate trip as she tried to figure out why in the hell she was suddenly sohotand why in God’s name she wasn’t attempting to get off him.
As if he knew where her mind was or maybe it was just a reflexive thing, his fingers dug in a little. Ordinarily, when a guy had his hands on her bum, Paige would fret about its fleshiness but that was thefurthestthing from her thoughts as the intimacy of their position was making itself more and more known.
Her yoga pants allowed her to easily feel every damn contour of what he was packing behind his fly and it was alot.Between the thinness of the stretch cotton and their position, nothing was left to the imagination. Perfect for a little downward dogging.
