Page 92 of The Gathering
She handled it with care, moving toward him again. “What is this?” she asked, back in his airspace.
His phone buzzed and she startled.
“It’s just a text.”
She handed the phone back. “You need to go.”
He checked the text while wondering over her meaning.
It was her mother inquiring how the check-up went.
He regarded her. “I’m sorry for offending you.”
“What?” she said, confused. “Why did you offend me?”
“No… I thought you wanted me to leavebecauseI offended you.”
She shook her head. “I was… just saying the facts. I say the facts because it helps me remember them. I also write them,” she said, like a confession of trade secrets. “Would you like tea? Before you go?”
Her hunger for company launched another war on him.
He lost immediately.
“I may as well,” he said, gaze on her sculptures again. “You probably need to test your social etiquette theories.”
Her laugh erupted then stopped almost as quick. He looked at her.
She stood there, her lips pressed together tightly and brows raised, like it had escaped for the first time ever and she worried he’d noticed. “I’ll make tea!” she suddenly remembered, racing to the side of the room dedicated as the kitchen. “What kind would you like?” She began pointing to the hanging plants above her sink, naming them.
“You grow your own tea?” he said, his lust prowling in his blood and muscles, moving him toward her while he used all his gifts to learn everything he shouldn’t. Her blouse was cut in such a way that showcased her breasts and the material was thin enough to prove the soft perfection.
“I grow everything we eat,” she said like it was the simplest thing. “I also grow medicinal plants and my perfume and soaps and shampoos and lotions.”
“You grow lotions,” he said, getting another big laugh that was again cut off sharply.
“I grow the plants and flowers for all of it,” she corrected. “Which tea?” she prompted.
“I’ll have that logic lusting lavender you drink in the evenings.”
Her jaw dropped as she stared at him.
“Your mother mentioned it when I spoke to her upon arriving.”
“You spoke to her?”
“Yes, I thought I was lost and had her number. Turned out I was here and hadn’t yet spotted it.”
She was still staring. Waiting for more.
“And she mentioned you.”
Her lips pursed then tugged to the side as she reached up and pulled stalks of lavender down
Skul tore his eyes from her and turned when the urge to grip his cock nearly overwhelmed him.
“What else did she say?” she asked, moving around the kitchen in his barely safe peripheral vision. “Did she say I was strange and rude?”
“She said the opposite,” he informed, stopping at the sculpture with the twig ladder and clay girl sitting on the top rung. The ladder was braced to nothing.
