While You Were Writing: Watkin's Pond, Book 2

by Virginia Nelson

  “Again, I won’t point out the ignorance of that comment considering I simply was offering to share warmth.” His defensive answer left her smiling, but he couldn’t see that since she still couldn’t see his face. “If you care to continue this conversation, I’m going to have to insist we either relocate to a warmer place or you cooperate with my quite generous offer.”

  Crawling to him, she tried to tamp down her imagination which offered a plethora of ways he could warm her up. “I researched your mother.”

  He stopped any further words by practically scooping her out of the grass and dropping her unceremoniously into his lap. He’d positioned her back to his front and she pulled up her knees so he basically hugged his arms across her shoulders and around her legs. Immediately washed in both his warmth and scent, she shivered again. He tucked her closer, his voice close to her ear. “I’m assuming the idea of this exercise is that I will reveal more to a disembodied voice in the dark than I would to a face, full of expectations, staring at me? The psychology of it is logical.”

  “You approve?” She snickered.

  Ducking his head to rest it on her shoulder, he cut off her mirth with his presence and she forced herself to stay still in his embrace. “I grew up here.” The confession startled her and she jerked. He answered the motion with a small squeeze. “I thought you wanted late night confessions?”

  “Go on.” His hand was beneath hers and she stroked her fingertips along the outside of it. “You grew up here.”

  “I wasn’t the healthiest of kids, preferring the solace of books to the company of others. My mom raised me, single parent, and she encouraged my dreams of someday becoming the next Stephen King.” His soft snort near her ear shifted her hair and tickled, but she managed not to move. “I’m really not sure what she thought about my choice to write basically romance novels, exploring the relationships between people rather than digging for the monsters inside us all with my work… Anyway, she didn’t like to go out, preferring to stay home with me, and we lived off the death benefits of my father.”

  Encouraged since he hadn’t snapped about her touch on his hand, she squeezed his fingers in her own. “From what I’ve read, he died just after you were born.”

  “Yeah, drunk driver hit him when he was coming home on third shift. I don’t remember him, of course, but Mom tried hard to bring him to life so I’d know of him.”

  She waited, not sure how much more he’d give her. Already more words than he’d spoken since she arrived, but so much left unsaid. “You went to college in California.”

  “Your ass bone is digging into my calf. I’m going to shift you to a more comfortable position.” He didn’t give her a chance to either agree or disagree, simply rearranging her like a doll. Once he’d settled her closer, with her legs unbent and his arms tight around her waist, he buried his nose in her hair. “Plus, my face is cold.”

  His left hand was dangerously close to her breast and she couldn’t find words past the breathless hunger his touch caused. If she reacted, he might stop talking. If she pretended it was simply an innocent embrace, that she couldn’t feel the hardness of him under her ass, he might go on with his story. She let her head fall back to his shoulder, melting into the sensations. “College,” she repeated.

  “Yes, I wanted to go someplace new, become someone new, I think. I excelled at university, finding my feet and I met Lila.” His head moved, his lips just grazing her ear, and she rested her palms on his crossed arms as they kept her locked close to him.

  “Your wife.”

  He snorted, face moving so that he almost rubbed his head against hers and he leaned back until he reclined against a tree. The movement shifted more of her weight on top of him, but again she didn’t protest.

  “Yes, for a brief moment, my wife. I think I thought we could live the normal American dream—two point five kids, a white picket fence—but my mother, she got worse about leaving the house. We didn’t have a word for it, not that I knew at the time, nor did I have the money to take her to doctors…simple country folk and all. Now I’d call it agoraphobia with some hoarding issues. Mom was afraid of people, mentally ill, but I never managed to get her help while she was alive.”

  His fingertips clenched against her, the bottom of one thumb almost grazing her breast. Her breath caught and he shifted, moving her against his hardness in a way that nearly made her groan. “Are you still cold?”

  He’d whispered the question near her ear and she didn’t trust her voice, so she shook her head.

  “Anyway, so I brought Lila back here for a while—or rather, that was the plan. We’d help Mom get back on her feet, only long enough for her to be okay again, and then we’d go start our lives. As an added bonus, I would have time to write.”

  Reaching up one hand, she touched his face and bit her lip when he turned into the touch rather than away. “I found that much out. You wrote your first novel, got your first contract and followed with the second before that first year back home ended. A lot of people were very impressed.” She could feel the hard bones of his cheek under her palm and his eyes were closed because his lashes didn’t move against her hand.

  Sliding her hand down, since he didn’t stop her, she stroked his neck. His hands clenched against her belly again, bunching the fabric. “Small town boy gets New York contract—big news—but things between Lila and me were more than strained. She didn’t like small town life, didn’t like a husband who lived with his mother, and the money hadn’t started rolling in yet. Times were hard and I couldn’t be the husband she’d planned for me to be—not while Mom needed me and I still tried to grasp the final straws of my dream rather than ending up in the factory full time.”

  Her heart raced and her blood was on fire. She needed to focus on his words, not the feel of him behind her, so strong and alive. She should feel bad for lusting after him while he finally bared his heart to her.

  Arching her back, she attempted to gain space. He snuggled her closer, not allowing her retreat. The move did grate her against his hardness and his soft gasp and the harshness of his breath finally caught her attention.

  He wanted her, she was sure of it. Right then, as much as she burned for him, he felt it too.

  The knowledge allowed her to relax back into his hold, stretching like a contented cat against him. “I think I’m supposed to ask how that made you feel.”

  He bit down hard on her earlobe, sending delicious pleasure arcing through her. “Sheri, I don’t think asking that right now will give you answers you’d be comfortable with.”

  The sensual warning in the words only tempted her to push. Breathless, she reached back again, raking her nails down his arm. “I’m trying to focus on the conversation, but to be honest, I’ve never had a session that worked out exactly like this and I’m pretty sure we should go back to the house.”

  His fingertips splayed across her stomach, pressing her harder against him and his mouth found her neck. “Thank God. I don’t want to talk about my mother right now.”

  “So we’re heading back to the house?” The breathless whisper came out so soft she wasn’t sure if she hoped he’d heard her or if she hoped the crickets drowned out the sound.

  “Since we’re breaking the no-touching rule, and since you don’t seem afraid of me even though you should be, perhaps we should.” He didn’t move to release her. Instead he ran a trail of kisses along her neck and she rolled her head to the side to give him better access. One of his hands had managed to work her shirt up so he touched, barely, the skin of her stomach.

  She bit her lip hard to hold back a moan. “Okay, then let me get up.”

  He growled, turning her in his arms so she straddled him and caught the hair at her nape to pull her face close to his. She should protest—should call a stop to it immediately and walk away in a huff.

  Instead, her lips parted and she ground herself against him. “You’r
e not letting me up.”

  “Fuck no.”

  And then he kissed her.

  Chapter Twelve

  He hadn’t planned to seduce her. She’d wanted to talk, he’d wanted to escape Candice, so he’d come up with the walk to meet both needs.

  If he’d been entirely honest with himself, he wanted to be with her, no interruptions, and would take whatever road led to that end.

  Her soft voice, all whiskey-husky and whispering in the darkness, kept him from relaxing in the grass. The feel of her shivering waked guilt but offered up an excuse to touch her that he wasn’t gentleman enough to pass up.

  But she’d undone him with her boneless relaxation in his arms. The smell of her, like some heady drug, tempted him to see how far he could go. He kept talking, whispering his past and giving her truths to keep her there, touching him.

  He hadn’t realized how starved for contact he’d become in the past few years. Not until she’d relaxed against him, all soft curves and sinuous movements, and any arguments he’d presented himself as to why he shouldn’t taste her evaporated in the heat between them.

  Amazed he even managed to string words together, he lost himself to the flavor of her neck, the sound of her rushed breathing, the weight of her pressing into him in a twisted torture of an embrace.

  They should go in, back to the house where he’d feel compelled to keep her at a distance.

  Instead, he turned her in his arms and buried his fingers in the silk of her hair. He’d resisted kissing her once, he could do it again.

  She twisted her hips, the pleasure from the contact frying any last lingering sense of control he might pretend to have, and he slanted his lips over hers.

  Meeting him and tangling her tongue with his, she answered and demanded more. With her in his lap, he couldn’t gracefully flip her onto her back, couldn’t do more than guide the angle of her head and pull her tight against him as he tried to fulfill the aching hunger she’d awakened with the merging of their mouths.

  He broke the kiss, looking down at her face. He’d lift her, push her back onto the blanket of grass, tug that T-shirt up and fill his hands and mouth with her breasts…

  Her hand clapped down on his chest and she forced space between them. He allowed it, especially since it would make it easier for him to tumble her onto her back and—

  “Stop.”

  The word froze him and for a brief second, he fought the urge to beg her to allow him one more kiss. Her hand shook though, and her lips looked plump from his kisses even in the shadows of night.

  “This isn’t a good idea.” She scrambled away from him and he just resisted yanking her back.

  “I might beg to differ.” He shifted, attempting to ease the tightness of his jeans against his rock-hard cock.

  “I—I’m not good at this. Besides, I need to help you, not hump you.” She’d made it to her feet and adjusted her clothes, turning her back on him.

  He painfully stood, his dick not nearly pleased with the motion that didn’t involve freeing it. “Felt pretty damned good to me. You can do both. I’m not going to complain.”

  Her choked laugh didn’t change the fact that she hadn’t turned back to face him.

  “Sheri, look at me.”

  She shook her head. “Not quite up to that yet. You’re tempting.”

  Although she couldn’t see it, he grinned at her in a freer way than he’d smiled at any one in a very long time. “I’m tempting?”

  Her growl sounded like a damned good impersonation of his own. “You’re not helping.”

  Pulling her up against him from behind, he ran both hands up her thighs, stopping when he reached her waist. “I’m happy to help.” He whispered the words close to her ear, feeling her shudder in response. She wasn’t saying she didn’t want him.

  Her hands echoed his movement, nails scraping against the denim covering his legs and pausing just shy of where he most wanted her touch. “I can tell. However, I’m not good at this and you’re drifting me into waters that are way over my head.”

  Pushing aside her hair, he tried to make her change her mind about stopping by kissing his way across her shoulder. Her fingertips clenched against his legs and she sighed. “You’re doing fine. Turn around, let me kiss you.”

  Her body quaked, a shudder trembling through her like a war went on inside her and he couldn’t see it. “I gotta go.”

  With that, she sprinted away from him, leaving him alone in the darkness with a raging hard-on and not sure what he’d done wrong. The only thing that kept him from chasing after her was the sure knowledge that she’d headed back to his house.

  Staring at the ceiling, she tried to force herself to sleep. If she concentrated hard enough, surely she’d doze off soon. She’d read once it took seven minutes for a person to transition from wakefulness to the first stage of the sleep cycle.

  Glancing at her cell phone on the charger, she looked at the time. No biggie, she’d be out by three oh four if she closed her eyes right then.

  She pinched them shut and focused on breathing in on a count of three and then exhaling on the same. Clear her mind, empty it of all thoughts and she’d be out.

  Peeking out one eye, she saw she’d managed to get one minute closer to rest.

  No cheating, she decided and stopped looking. She’d just relax her muscles one at a time. Start with the fingertips, muscles relaxed, tension gone…

  And she remembered the feel of his face under her hand, the contradictory sensation of his strong jaw and soft hair. The shiver that quaked through her ignited her nerve endings until even her hair tingled with sexual energy.

  Another glance showed her she’d hit three minutes. Four more to go and she’d be lost in dreams.

  If she could stop thinking about how his breath had rushed over her face right before he’d covered her mouth with his own. Damn, the man could kiss, tracing his tongue across her bottom lip just before nibbling it, and then he’d dove back in, tangling their tongues while his strong arms held her so close. His hands, they’d shook as he’d framed her face and that show of weakness empowered her, making her want to get lost in him.

  Her breathing had sped, so she went back to the three count and wished she could so easily control her racing heart. A look at the phone showed the time to be three oh seven.

  Dammit.

  Punching the mattress, she rolled off the bed. Since Radcliffe lived a good hour from the nearest town of any decent size—or decent coffee, truth be known—Candice had slept over so that she could meet with the people she’d arranged to start working on cleaning of his ancient farm in the morning. Knowing both Candice and Radcliffe were somewhere in the house, she lifted her jeans and considered tugging them and a bra on before throwing the offending denim across the room with true Radcliffe-variety temper. Fuck that. If someone was awake at three in the morning, then they damn well better stay out of her studio if they didn’t want to see her in just her comfy sleep T-shirt.

  The door opened soundlessly and she padded, bare feet cold against the polished wood of the hall, toward the stairs. Outside the door of the other spare bedroom—the one holding Candice the Perky, Perfect Assistant from Hell—she paused and listened to the sound of waves crashing and the occasional seagull’s cry. Of course, she would have one of those stupid sleep sound apps.

  Sniffing and raising her nose in dismissal—she still refused to consider the fact she might actually be jealous of the bouncy-boobed goddess—Sheri crept to the stairs, avoiding the third one from the bottom that always creaked in protest. Once in view of his office, she stared at the golden light streaming through the bottom of the door and the oversized keyhole. She should continue on to her studio, respect his middle-of-the-night privacy, and not peek.

  Who was she trying to kid? She was bound up in knots, so turned on she should probably go upstairs and see if her battery-oper
ated buddy could supply some white noise of its own and be done with it. Entirely his fault she felt that way, since he’d managed to fry her very mind with his touch.

  Besides, he was no doubt asleep, feet propped on his desk and oblivious to the world.

  Kneeling outside the door, she closed one eye and waited for the other to focus enough to see into the room. He wasn’t in his chair. Changing her angle, she tried to see more of the room and managed to find him standing on his head in the corner.

  Upside down, shirtless and barefoot, his frame took up a good chunk of the wall as his arms bunched with tension to keep him in position. Why in the hell was he standing on his head in the middle of the night? His red face said he’d been like that for a while and she furrowed her brow, trying to figure him out. Not that she was ogling him…aw, shit, she ogled. The man looked good out of a shirt, even with his face the color of a tomato.

  Until she noticed that the devil-horned picture she’d painted hung on the wall near him.

  Shooting to her feet, she yanked on the doorknob before she’d really thought it through—otherwise she might have considered it could be locked—and it turned. She pushed so hard the wood slammed into the wall with a crunch that said he did not have a doorstop. “Why in the hell did you steal that painting?”

  The words were out and she stood in his space. As she sucked in an angry breath of air, her brain caught up with her—shit, shit, shit, I broke his wall—but she refused to back down. He had no right to take her work from her workspace, not without asking, and certainly not a piece of dog shit like that painting she’d made in a fury.

  His feet hit the floor with a soft thud and in less than a moment he faced her.

  “It’s still in the same house. I don’t think it’s stealing unless you remove it from the premises, which I did not.” His red face glowered at her. “Also, you’re in my office. You were advised not to come in my office.”

  “Well.” She refused to sputter. He was in the wrong here, not her. “You can’t have it.” Before she could second guess herself, she stomped to the wall to grab the canvas.