Paper Dolls [Book Four]

by Blythe Stone

  “Very romantic and very sad. I prefer the version where we get married and I'm your consort.”

  I scratched my nose, still smelling her everywhere.

  “My queen.” I chuckled. “I wanna get you a crown and scepter.”

  “I’ll not have that,” she said. “I’d rather kiss your feet,” she squeezed my body. “Very romantic and very sad is where I live. It’s true to life. My life at least.”

  “Mine was just the very sad. I'm glad the romance got added.”

  I let out a languid sigh, sleepy against my will.

  “You wanna sleep?” She asked. “I know I took a nap…”

  “Nope. I wanna stare at you.”

  I opened my eyes, blinking and turning my head.

  “There you are. All post coital glow,” I joked.

  “Ew,” she laughed. “Technical words.”

  She looked down on me and pushed my hair back so she could better see me.

  “You are rather beautiful,” she said. “I’ll give you that.” I felt her thumb on my cheek slowly brushing me.

  “Well, thank you but is that all you'll give me?” I pouted and tried to look innocent, like I hadn't just wanted to spank the hell out of her earlier.

  “What do you want?” She asked, eyebrow raising. “You know I’d give you the world.”

  “Five million kisses and a trip to Disneyland Paris,” I kidded.

  “Alright then,” she laughed, pulling me close. “But you’re going to have to count because I get lost,” she moved in further and kissed me slowly.

  “One,” I said. “Now you have a lot of years to deliver the rest so pace yourself. I've been told I'm addictive.” I held up a hand and placed it on her cheek, looking very concerned.

  “Uh,” she whined, kissing me shallowly. “But I want to please you,” she said lowly. “You can’t just tell me you want something and then not allow me to deliver.”

  I rolled my eyes toward the ceiling and considered. “Fair point, Miss Holbrook,” I tapped my lips with two fingers. “Get on with it.”

  She smiled, pushing onto me and allowing herself to sink into me and take.

  “You should know I'll never be able to keep count either,” I got out between kisses.

  “I’ll just have to make sure,” she said, tucking her hair behind her ear as she drown in me.

  “Mmm, yes,” I whispered into her lips.

  We were wrapped up for a long time, kissing and feeling each other. It felt like no time but I saw the clock on the nightstand as I rolled her over.

  It was afternoon. I ignored it and kept kissing her. It was nice. Nothing needed to escalate. It was intense like this. We explored all over again with lips and hands.

  She rolled me back, fighting for dominance and I turned my head, letting her take her need out on my neck.

  “You're very bossy,” I said, smirking.

  “Shhhhhhh,” she begged painfully, her lips coming back to steal mine again.

  Even further proof of my point. I closed my eyes and obliged her, taking it in, letting her control me. I didn't fight. I was hers.

  But I couldn't avoid the inevitable. “Babe,” I broke away. “I'll be right back.”

  I slipped to the edge of the bed, still giving her short kisses.

  She collapsed once I pulled away. Her eyes stayed closed. She was still breathing hard with a semi-pained look on her face from the loss of my contact.

  I watched her a second. She just laid there and quietly breathed.

  “Stop,” I frowned, unable to leave. “You just lying there being all Olivia makes it impossible for me to even go to the bathroom.”

  “Your choice,” she said, not moving much. Her hand pushed into the fabric of the bed. She was feeling it like she needed to feel. Out of mercy, she shifted and carefully pushed herself up to sit and then stand.

  I watched her a second as she walked to the closet to switch modes to get ready for the normal day. I could feel her brain turning back on, switching gears, her thought process shifting as her body carefully moved.

  I ran to the bathroom and came back in time to catch her half-dressed.

  I approached her, slipping my arms around her from behind.

  She hung against my body, her hands coming up to tug at my arms as I kept them there and she sighed.

  “You don't need clothes,” I smiled into her hair.

  I felt her hand come up to my face as she lightly laughed.

  “I guess I'll relent and let you get dressed but I protest- for the record.”

  I released her and watched her pull a shirt on. My own clothes were waiting but I'd rather watch her first.

  “Uh-huh,” she said as she moved. “Girl who wants snacks,” she teased, not looking at me.

  I heard her sniff as she searched for some jewelry in the small bag that she brought.

  After that she straightened her hair in her fingers and pulled it up and back. It was dry now- all the way. She’d usually brush it but right now she seemed like she was trying to be ready to go.

  I watched her shut her eyes as she felt the pleasure of her fingers through her hair and momentarily slowed, remembering the feel of me when I touched her, the feel from before.

  I smiled, wishing my hands were the ones touching her. Another moment and they would be but I made myself turn away and go find something to wear.

  I picked out the first decent thing that matched. I wasn't going to spend much time on anything else either. I rushed through dressing and putting basic makeup on. My hair was a wild mess and I needed to tame it.

  “I hate my hair,” I called out. “It’s very rebellious right now.”

  As soon as I finished this we would be pretty much ready.

  “Your hair is amazing,” she said, coming up behind me and pulling me back into her to stare at me through the mirror. I felt one of her hands on my hip and the other brushing my hair back from my neck as she stared.

  “Make it stop being frustrating,” I sighed.

  “Okay,” she said, sending her hands up into it.

  “Or you could just play with it forever and I'd be happy,” I smiled, closing my eyes.

  “Okay,” she said again, as she tugged a bit and pulled my head back as she breathed shallowly, enamored by me.

  A jolt went right to my center. “Mmmm,” I moaned.

  “You shouldn’t tempt me to play with you,” she said. “I could play with you all day. We’d never leave.”

  “That's not a bad idea.” I wanted her to pull on my hair again. My breathing became faster in anticipation. She could just leave it right here and I'd deal with my hair so we could leave or she could play a little more. I stared into her eyes, letting her decide.

  “Dammit baby,” she said, watching me, her hand going up and gripping my hair again and tugging to see what my eyes would do.

  “Yes,” was all I said. Flexing my abs as I felt her other hand move there.

  “Uh-” She gasped, mad at me. “That’s not fair.”

  “You started it,” I pointed out, unwilling to be utterly complicit.

  “I was just asking for help with my hair. You had to go and pull it, which is a major turn on as you well know.”

  “You know I want to touch you. Don’t give me that,” she said, dropping her hands and backing away to cross her arms behind me.

  “You're mad,” I said. I tried not to smile.

  “I’m not mad,” she smiled awkwardly. Her one arm swung out from her elbow down but still she held it steady by the elbow with her opposite hand. “I just know you want to go do things, so I’m ready. We can go.”

  “Okay,” I said, stepping past her and grabbing her hand.

  I actually liked when she got like this. It was cute. Before I'd been unsure, taking every mood as a sign of serious concern. Now, I just wanted to love her and make her feel better.

  I walked us down and grabbed the car keys. “So, art place and then snacks?”

  “Sounds good,” she said, nodding a
s she let me pull her outside. She brought her sunglasses down and they covered her eyes unmercifully.

  I got in the driver’s side and buckled up. She was in beside me and ready to go by the time I started the car.

  “Hey.” I reached over to the console and got my own sunglasses, stopping before putting them on. “I love you.”

  I just felt like saying it. All that happy was welling up inside me. We hadn’t had this much time alone in so long. To me it was everything.

  “We should put the address in the GPS.”

  “Oh, should we?” She teased, smiling. She knew I didn’t know where I was going.

  “Stop being adorable or we’ll never manage to leave.”

  “I’m not being adorable,” she said, warning me, her tone elevating.

  I watched her fiddle to punch something in. The navigation started up and right after she pressed the button on her dash to start a mix of hers. She pushed through two songs and turned up the volume. The beat hit us. It matched well with the blast of cold coming at us from the vents. Outside it was way hotter than it should’ve been.

  Olivia laid back on her chair and mouthed the words to No Church In The Wild and moved her head a little bit with the beat and the music as I just drove.

  I smiled to myself, sliding my sunglasses on and following the instructions from the GPS.

  The bass was unforgiving and we both felt it vibrate as we drove.

  We got to a few stores, which was pretty busy but manageable. We were just passing through on our way to this art place. It was out in the country a little.

  Everything was pretty out here. Rolling hills and trees sprinkled throughout. The landscape of vineyard country gave me an open feeling, like anything was possible.

  “I really like it here,” I said.

  Olivia smiled at me. “I'm glad,” she said, taking my hand and turning in her seat to push my hair back from the side of my face. “I do want you to be happy baby,” she said sweetly. Her eyes were shaded but I knew how she was probably looking at me. Sometimes it hurt to notice the way… Her heart was mine and she didn’t care how I knew.

  “Which I also love. You take care of me.” We took care of each other. That’s the way it should be.

  “I want to ask you a silly question.”

  My shades covered my eager eyes.

  “Shoot,” she said.

  “Do you remember the very first thing you ever thought about me?”

  “Like, after seeing you or before I knew you?”

  “Both,” I shrugged a shoulder.

  I would like to know what she knew about me before.

  “Well, I sort of didn’t want to talk to you, remember?” She asked awkwardly. “Before I knew you, I thought you were the genuine embodiment of the all-American girl.”

  “And at the end of the conversation?”

  I looked over at her and then back at the road.

  “At the end of the conversation?” She asked, repeating it, like the question was so loaded she didn’t even know how to proceed. “I thought you were the most genuine person I had ever yet met,” she said simply. “Why?”

  “I was just curious. I like knowing what was in your mind when I didn’t know you.”

  I reached over, put my hand on her knee and squeezed. “I find you endlessly fascinating.”

  “I fell in love with you that day,” she said point-blank.

  “Really?!” I raised my eyebrows.

  “Oh yes,” she said. “There was this moment after I saw you that first time, like right after. I felt so strange… I was just sitting in my car and trying to deal with how I felt about what happened with you. I remember I’d even brought my fingers up to my lips, my other hand on my heart as it beat. I wasn’t aware but then I noticed. It was when I was staring at you, when you didn’t know I was staring. It was just so strange Avery, I can’t explain it.”

  “And then I was protective,” she laughed. “I followed Ben because I didn’t like the thought of him doing anything with you. And it wasn’t jealousy. I was upset with him. For you. That was instant. That happened that day just minutes after I’d met you.”

  I was unaware that I’d had an almost instant effect on her. It made me tremble inside. It also made me feel guilty because I’d been slower to wake up to her. She wanted to protect me even then. There was nothing I could do to express what I felt about that alone.

  “I think you just made my heart explode a little.” I said it so she would know that I heard her. I couldn’t understand the enormity of that first day until she told me that. It was exactly why I asked these questions.

  She took her hand away.

  “I’ve tried to tell you before, how intense it always was for me with you… I don’t think you ever believed me though,” she said, settling back in the chair and looking out at the pretty view, her happiness draining. “You couldn’t know how badly I wanted to touch you that day at the piano and how confused I was when it was you touching me first… Or how scared I was when I found you at that lake… Or anything else really. How I felt when I got you away from him… How upset I was inside...”

  “The lake…”

  Sometimes I pushed that memory away. All except the parts where she came and got me.

  “You were the only one I wanted to see that day,” I reminded.

  “Yeah, well…” She looked down at her hands in her lap and squeezed one of them for whatever reason. “You scared the shit out of me. I thought I was going to lose you before I even got a chance to tell you how I felt.” She tensed her lips in the memory of worry. Then she looked outside and laughed before turning back to me and smiling with confusion. “Why are we talking about all this again?”

  “No good reason. I just wondered,” I said. “I’ve been thinking about our past and our future and I never asked you those things. If we ever wanted to have kids I’d need to know all the stories I could tell them about you.”

  I turned off the road and stopped in the little parking lot. The mechanical voice of the GPS announced that we were at our destination. I wasn’t sure about that. We had a long way to go before we were ever finished. However, for this instance, we had arrived.

  “I can tell you everything. It’s all important to me. I remember it,” she said, her nervousness showing. “Or I could just work on writing it down so it really makes sense to you and you can have it forever.”

  “I’d like that.” I reached over and ran my thumb over her cheek. “I’d love for you to do that.”

  When I asked her about writing her a letter I’d been serious but I didn’t want her to expect it. I knew it would mess me up. If I didn’t mention it again I’d be so much better at getting the words down.

  “We should pick up a journal then, at the store. I’ll do it,” she said seriously.

  “We should and we need a new photo album,” I said. “I want a big one and I know people don’t keep pictures like that so much anymore but I’ve loved mine for all these years and I want one of those. Something I can look through and just remember.”

  I couldn’t help but kiss her and then just look. I wished I could see her eyes.

  “It’s settled. A new journal. Maybe they have a gift shop here with one.”

  “Maybe,” she said, optimistically as she unbuckled and opened her door.

  I met her around her side of the car and tugged her into me. “You ready to art it up?” I had to throw a cheesy joke in there so she could roll her eyes.

  “So ready,” she teased, almost blankly.

  “I’m inspired by your enthusiasm.” We strolled into the museum. The place was not what I expected. There were funky pieces everywhere. One was an old car with things welded to it, interesting and I wanted to get close.

  “Babe,” I looked around. “This place is cool.”

  “Were you expecting minimalism?” She asked.

  “More like paintings and classical art.”

  She smiled about something. “Minimal art, I meant,” she nodded her
head. “You know, those paintings that make people so uncomfortable they feel cheated and bruised after they pay to look at them?”

  “Yes,” I chuckled. “But I didn’t expect that, seeing as we can see this gallery for free and the tours are only ten bucks.”

  “Okay,” she said, following me. “We can go someplace like that if you want,” she said. “There are a couple nice galleries nearby.”

  “I like this one though. It’s fun.”

  I walked up to a piece on the wall that was literally an old rusty wrench suspended beside a few pairs of old metal crampons and a piece of tin that had a map of Antarctica on it.

  I let out a laugh. “Look at this one.” I walked up to her and got close to her ear. “I could have done that.”

  “True,” she said. “But you didn’t.” She looked me up and down like she was judging me as she quelled a smile.

  I didn’t mean to make light of someone’s work. It only struck me as funny. Someone had probably poured themselves into making this.

  “Maybe I’ll make Art my major,” I snorted and walked on with her.

  “Why not?” She offered. “You’ll have to choose something. If you wanna go, that is.”

  I hadn’t really thought about college for awhile. There were too many options.

  “I don’t know exactly what I want to do when I grow up. If I grow up. But of course I want to go. I like learning and this way I get to pick.”

  We walked up to a huge canvas with purple sunset swirls and two metal support bars coming off it to sit at angles.

  “This is my favorite so far.”

  “Yeah?” She asked, more interested now.

  “The colors, the lines, and I like landscapes that are different.”

  The whole thing was part of a wall, like the landscape was part of everything.

  “It reminds me of a darkroom,” Olivia said. “Developing photos… Having to wait.”

  “That’s interesting. When’s the last time you did that?”

  It couldn’t have been too recent, I think I would’ve noticed. There were times we were apart but I usually knew what she was up to even then.

  “The week I met you,” she said, walking back and forth and taking in every inch of the large piece. “I used to do it a lot. There was a time when you couldn’t find me without a camera around my neck. I go through phases. I’ve always loved art. Experimenting.”