Page 41 of Rushed: Christopher

My own head hurt like hell, but the sight of Rush bleeding had me rushing forward. Unfortunately, Rush unknowingly stepped off the porch step. He tried to catch himself, but in my haste to grab his arm, I too lost my balance and fell forward.

And that was all she wrote.

Our only saving grace was that we landed on the grass next to the walkway leading to the porch.Mysaving grace was that I landed on top of Rush’s hard body instead of the harder ground.

Sadly, grace wasn’t watching over Rush, who took the brunt of my weight when he hit the ground.

“Oh God, Rush, are you okay?” I asked as I instinctively reached for his face.

“You were soooo close to getting the Tour Guide of the Year award,” Rush groused. He let his arms fall flat on the grass. I scooted up his body to examine his nose.

“I’m so sorry,” I said as I tried to gently wiggle his nose back and forth.

“Son of a bitch,” Rush growled, but he didn’t make a move to stop me.

“Well, the good news is it’s not broken,” I said.

“What’s the bad news?” Rush said, his head rolling enough so he could look at me. Despite the injury, he didn’t actually seem all that upset. In fact, one of his hands lifted to cradle my hip as I held there on all fours with my face just inches from his.

“The bad news is you didn’t break anything of mine, so I’m not going to get another antique out of this.”

It took Rush a second to process my words, and then he burst out laughing.

“Ow, shit, that hurts,” he moaned as he grabbed his nose.

“Let’s get some ice on it,” I said. I began to lift off him, but that hand on my hip tightened. I got the silent message and stayed put.

Rush’s eyes grew serious. “Why were you running?” he asked. His hand moved from my hip to my face. He brushed some stray hair behind my ear as his eyes pinned mine.

“You didn’t take any clothes,” I admitted, my cheeks heating.

“What?” Rush said with a shake of his head.

“At the hotel, you didn’t grab a change of clothes or a toothbrush or…” I let the words die off as I considered how ridiculous I’d acted.

“So you thought I wasn’t going to stay with you tonight,” Rush murmured. “So while you were spending the entire ride home upset about me leaving, I was trying to figure out how to convince you to let me spend the night with you again.”

“What?” I asked in surprise. “You… you want to stay tonight?”

“For starters,” Rush said. Then in one graceful move, he rolled our bodies so I was beneath him on the cool grass. Rush turned his head so he could wipe the majority of the already drying blood on his sleeve. “Did I get enough off?” he asked.

I didn’t need to wonder why he wanted to know that. I already knew. I answered him by pulling him down and brushing my lips over his. I was mindful of his injury and kept the kiss soft. He returned the kiss with the same level of sweetness. It wasn’t until someone discreetly coughed nearby that we both remembered where we were.

I was horrified to see three older women standing not more than two feet from us. I put them in their late thirties, early forties. One of them was holding what looked like some kind of wicker basket, another had a covered cake pan, and the third was carrying a bottle of wine.

“Oh, God,” I said as I tried to push Rush off me.

“Ladies,” Rush said in amusement as he made a big production of climbing to his feet and then pulling me up against him.

There was no missing the women’s responses as they eyed Rush up and down. I was the one who had to cough to get their attention so they’d stop ogling my guy.

My guy? What the hell?

“Oh, um, good evening,” the woman in the middle said. “We’re the official welcoming committee,” she added. “I’m Margie, and this is Amanda, and that’s Theresa.” She pointed at the other two women as she introduced them. “Is one of you the homeowner?”

“Um, yeah, that’s me,” I said. I felt like my cheeks were on fire. So much for living unnoticed in the neighborhood. I’d be lucky if there weren’t religious zealots pounding on my door within the hour to tell me I was going to hell.

“This is Christopher,” Rush said. “And I’m his boyfriend, Rush.”

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