The Clinch

Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine: three months on

Holding my face between his hands, I lick my lips nervously and try not to watch his impenetrable black gaze as it skitters over my face. I flinch a little at the tickling sensation of his fingertips on my cheeks, and stifle a giggle as the sensation skates along my cheekbone and down under my chin.

"Don't move!" Gabriel orders, sticking his tongue out in concentration as he gets to work with making my face look like I've been hit by a truck.

Yep; we're face painting. It's a charity event that the gym is a part of every year, and Gabriel signed us up to man the face painting booth. Now I'm naturally talented when it comes to painting, so I don't doubt that I'll make the kid's faces look halfway decent. But now, as I access Gabriel's work on my face, I come to realise that he can't work a paintbrush to save his life.

Looking at the mirror in front of me, I cringe at the purple eye he's given me - which barely resembles a bruise - but smile when I see he hasn't done half bad at the tyre tracks running down one half of my face. "Hmm, not bad. Now it's my turn."

I greedily grab for the equipment and set him down on the floor in front of me. He settles obediently and trustingly leans his face towards me. I flip through the book and settle on a pirate, quickly snapping the book shut before he can see my choice.

"Hey" he protests "no fair! I let you pick what you wanted to be."

Leaning in towards him, I check to see if there's anyone around us. My brother's, AJ and Ray are at the stool next to ours, setting up their shooting game. They're far enough away that I don't have to worry about them overhearing my next words. Tipping Gabriel's face towards mine, I run my nose down his neck and place a rewarding kiss to his collarbone.

The groan that leaves him makes me grin from ear to ear, and I know that I've got him right where I want him. "If you want any tonight, you should keep on my good side."

He gulps and meets my eyes as I draw away, his burning with intense heat. "Yes ma'am."

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The fair is in full swing halfway through the day and I still haven't let Gabriel look in the mirror yet. Well, actually, we've been too busy painting faces to get a chance to stop. Girl after girl have bombarded me, wanting the same face as Gabriel. Whilst Gabriel on the other hand, has been tackled by all the boys wanting some sort of gruesome face or another.

When a particularly boisterous group of little girls starts giggling at Gabriel, he scowls over at us. "What, what' so funny?"

Before I can come up with an excuse, some little girl in pink points at Gabriel's face and snickers in joy. "You're face! You look so, so, girly!" All of her friends join in her laughter, and a second later Gabriel snatches the mirror out of my hand to take a look at himself.

"A princess pirate? Darryl you are so done! You were supposed to make me look bad ass, not like a princess pirate!" He growls at me, inspecting his face with a sour expression.

"But I like princess pirates." I pout back at him, and after a challenging second of just staring one another out, he finally relents and casts the mirror aside to drop a kiss to my cheek. 

Gabriel bristles as we get back to work and a couple more kids terrorize him for looking like a princess in pink. "This so isn't helping my rep."

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A couple of hours later, when a large majority of the fair has been made up with colourful paints, my mother saunters over and flips our 'open' sign to 'closed'. We've been just sitting here, flipping through the book for a couple of minutes now as we talked, but my mother's presence is a huge relief because I've been wanting to get up from my kiddy seat for a while now.