Page 44 of All Right No
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Ginny grinned to herself as they trooped down the stairs. So far, things had been a lot easier than she’d anticipated. She’d been worried that the guys would be back home before she’d even managed to convince Ash to take a look at her plan, let alone sign up to it. Of course, it wasn’t a legally binding contract, so his signature didn’t mean a lot, but it was something, and she had faith enough to believe the secondary rewards would motivate him enough to stay focussed, without having to worry about the ultimate goal of getting him fit and well and able to rock again, for long enough that the tasks might actually make a difference.
First off though, she needed to correct him of the notion that this was purely about sex, and preferably before he’d wriggled out of his black jeans, so she didn’t end up distracted and lose her focus either.
“Where’d you want me?” Ash asked once they reached the bedroom.
“Floor’s good.”
“Not on the bed?”
Ginny stalked past him, and collected the item they’d need from a drawer, then she perched on the edge of the bed and took off her stockings.
Ash’s mouth fell open in outrage. “Wha—what are you doing? You know I love those things. Leave them on.” He claimed one of the stockings she’d discarded and brushed it against the thick beard growth on his face.
“You can put them back on me later. They’ll get in the way of the task. Here, take this.” She handed him a small pot of coloured-nail polish, the same maroon shade that she currently had on her fingernails. Then she planted her foot on his knee and wiggled her toes. “I need you to make them match.”
Ash stared at her, apparently under the impression that she was joking. “You want me to paint your nails. What the fuck? I was writing, you know? And you’ve dragged me away from that to do this.”
She made a pinching motion with her forefinger and thumb. “That’s how you hold the brush.”
Splinters of hyacinth flashed in the blue of his irises.
“You agreed to the rules of the G-plan.”
“I suppose it was foolish of me to imagine it had anything to do with G-spots.”
At least he’d brought his sense of humour along, even if the remark was delivered with a distinctly petulant snarl.
“Another task might,” she replied cheerily. “Now, the quicker you get on with this, the sooner you’ll earn a reward.”
“This sucks,” he grumbled, nevertheless bowing his head to the task.
“No, I suck good boys when they finish their homework.”
He muttered several more grumbles, but set to applying himself. The first challenge was to get the lid off the bottle. This particular shade always cemented itself closed. It took him several minutes, during which he bounced the bottle off the carpet a couple of times, and clasped it between his teeth. Eventually, it was his fingers that secured him the victory. Ash loaded up the tiny brush and daubed paint on the first of her nails.
Ginny expected him to talk, or rather she expected him to gripe as he worked, but he did neither. He painted in silence, with his tongue poking out of the side of his mouth. Her big toes didn’t cause him too much trouble, but the smaller toes had him sneering and shaking his hand out repeatedly to ease the tightness in his fingers. He growled when he overloaded the brush while attempting to paint her littlest toenail and splodged nail varnish all over her toe and his knee.
“Oh, fucking fuck!”
“Suck it up, big boy. It’s just a smear.” She passed him a tissue.
Ash mopped up the mess and started over.
In the end, he did a decent job of it. He was actually not bad at nail-painting. Him and Spook probably did each other’s black before playing gigs. On the other hand, his issues with his hand did mean there were definite lumpy blobs in places where he’d daubed too much varnish onto one spot and then attempted to spread it out, but hadn’t done so evenly. Also, most of her toenails weren’t actually that long.
Importantly though, it had proved that a pincer grip wasn’t beyond him. If he could grip a paint brush, he could grip a pencil, he could grip a plectrum, ergo he’d eventually be able to play guitar again.
“So, does that get me a sticker on the chart?” he enquired petulantly.
“You already stole five.” She pointed at his T-shirt. “But if you complete three tasks today, then we can talk about a proper reward.”
“Three!” He groaned. “Fine, go on, tell me what’s next. Do I have to thread your eyebrows? Wax your moustache?”
She prodded him in the stomach with her toes. “I don’t have a moustache.”
“Change your clit piercing?”
