Alice meets Donahue...er...Hatter?

Alice smiled as she watched the muscled back of the shirtless man tending her vast garden. Her pale cheeks flushed as the memory of their first encounter rushed through her minds-eye.

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Alice had just moved into the neighborhood and had attracted plenty of attention in the midst of it. Not only had she repainted the small cottage a sinfully dark blue and silver combination she also brought with her a small rabbit. Normally a rabbit would be welcome in any situation, but Alice’s rabbit, Nix, was suspected of devouring the neighborhood felines. (That’s another story, though.)
         The day really began as any other day would for Alice. She opened her kitchen window and smiled at the small herb garden resting on the sill. With a sigh she slipped into a pair of shoes that she thought would go well with her gardening outfit and trekked her way to her unruly garden. It had been about a month since she had moved in and she had yet to control the ungodly amount of red rose bushes in the space. Alice simply loathed red roses, she always had since childhood and no one ever quite understood why.
         Well, that day Alice was working on pulling up yet more bushes of the bloody red things when she felt someone watching her work. Behind the neatly trimmed hedge stood a man wearing small, black glasses with a large top hat perched atop his mahogany waves.
         The man was enchanted by Alice’s milky white thighs which were ample in size and gleaming from sweating in the humid air. He felt his heart stir.
         “That is a job meant for a man, my dear,” he said as he adjusted his glasses slightly.
         Alice jumped and stabbed herself with a thick thorn.
         “God dammit,” she cursed, “Who the hell are you? And I am perfectly capable of tending my own garden, thank you!” Alice examined her bleeding finger and wiped her bloody and soil caked hand on her denim shorts.
         “Well, my friends call me Hatter, but the birth units officially named me Donahue,” his cheeks turned a slight pink as he said his name aloud.
         “I like Hatter,” she couldn’t help but smiling, “I’m Alice,” she offered as she tossed her pruning shears to the gravel pathway.
         No more than a moment later did Alice trip over an unseen root that she didn’t remember. She fell quite hard and sprawled ungracefully on the gravel, her ankle twisted in an unnatural position. She felt tears threaten to fall as she tried to pull herself to her knees.
         Gravel pitted her scraped knees and palms, and her ankle had already began to swell inside of her shoe.
         With a rustle of leaves and a grunt, Hatter was at her side.
         “Did you really just jump the hedge?” She looked up at him and cleared her throat which felt thick from tears of pain and embarrassment.
         “Yep,” he said with a smirk as he hooked on muscled arm under her knees and the other around her thick waist, “Here, let me get you cleaned up and look at that ank… Why the hell are you wearing high heels while in the garden?!”
         “Uh… They make my legs look nice…” Alice blushed deeply as her silly decision was brought out to air, “But really, you don’t – HEY!” Hatter jostled her playfully, to make her wrap her arms around his neck, her large chest pressed against his muscled one.
         “Just hold on, Alice, you will be fine soon, promise,” he murmured.
         Alice’s eyes suddenly felt very heavy and dry…
         Maybe I’ll just… rest against his chest… his heart beat is… soothing…
         Hatter looked down at Alice as she drifted into a deep slumber.
         “Sleep, my love,” he smiled at her and walked casually across their front yards.
         Alice’s rabbit, Nix, watched contently from the bay window as he gnawed on a chicken bone and nodded toward to two figures moving across the emerald green lawn.
         Finally, Nix thought with a rabbit grin.