While You Were Writing: Watkin's Pond, Book 2 (7 page)

She didn’t look impressed by the changes he’d been sure would make her happy. Instead, she looked like he’d kicked her proverbial puppy, her injured expression and lost-eyed gaze driving the stabbing guilt from his bad behavior deeper. She’d escaped upstairs…and he’d camped out at the bottom of the steps, waiting for her to awaken.

He heard the front door open and Candice calling his name but ignored it. Apparently his assistant didn’t guess that he sat on the steps because she didn’t find him. He made a mental note to use the spot again in the future since it’d worked so accidentally well this once.

After an endless vigil, marked only by the tick of the regulator clock at the head of the stairs, Sheri emerged and trudged down the stairs. He stood, brushing off his pants, and folded his hands behind his back. Clearing his throat, he hoped to alert her to his presence.

Instead, he startled her yet again, making her jump and clench her hand at her throat. “You surprised me.”

He didn’t point out that she stated the obvious. Manners, he reminded himself. “Sorry.”

Her brows furrowed and her lips turned down. “What do you want?”

A loaded question if there ever had been one.
You.
Again clearing his throat, he bit his upper lip to keep the word in. “I…”

He didn’t know where to go from there.
I shaved for you.

Lame. Hardly impressive to point out that he’d taken basic care of his appearance since it would only highlight his sloth previously.

She came the remainder of the way down the stairs, stopping one step above him so they stood at almost eye level. “You…?”

The sweet scent of her, like some flowering thing that would bloom only with the touch of night, seemed to fill the air between them. The memory of her hand on his cock, of his lips against the soft skin of her neck shimmered to life in his mind. He clenched his fist on the rail of the stairs, willing himself to find the right words to kill the awkwardness between them. “Since I have an assistant now, I thought we should discuss the times we’d use to work on your project.”
On me.
He really wanted her to work on him, in a way that not a single one of his heroes would have dared imagine since it would have made them no doubt unredeemable if a woman read how filthy some of his fantasies were. She was so tiny, he could practically lift her by her thighs and bury his face in her—

She took another step, moving within what she no doubt considered his “bubble”. It shouldn’t have surprised him that she’d invade his personal space—not when she hadn’t stepped back when he’d been drunk and angry—but it sent a shiver of pleasure up his spine anyway. “She’s lovely…your assistant.”

He snorted, an automatic response considering the most tempting woman he’d ever met was within arm’s reach and his assistant was hardly a candle to the bonfire of attraction he battled being this close to Sheri. “I thought we could go for another walk, perhaps after dinner?” A polite question, worded appropriately as a request rather than an order.

“So you’re willing to allow me to use my methods…” She drew the word out, raising one hand to hover over his chest but not touching. “…to help you now?”

He swallowed, his mouth dry. He’d told her not to touch him. She only obeyed his own command. “Yes.” He bit the syllable out between clenched teeth. “I’m going to try to be far more considerate in my handling of the situation. You should be pleased—it’s no doubt a mark of your skill that I’ve progressed as much as I have.”

Progress…he faked it and she must know—

Her lips curled. Not a smile, since no happiness reflected in the expression. Rather it seemed a derisive smirk, a look far more in place on his features than her delicate ones. “We’ll see about that.”

The hand finally made contact with his chest and pushed. He backed away, allowing her the control, and she slid past him to head to the kitchen. “I smell food,” she tossed over her shoulder. “Candice cooks too?”

He didn’t answer.

Glancing back at him, she raised one elegant brow. “You coming?”

He reminded himself of his manners and didn’t snap that he wasn’t a puppy to be called when he lagged and instead held firm to his mask of civility. “Of course.”

And then Candice swept in, taking his arm and leading him to the table. She crooned over him and talked excitedly about further things she planned to better streamline his workday. Sheri sat across from him at the small table and didn’t say a word.

He’d be amazed if he could resist snapping in temper before Candice served the meal.

Chapter Eleven

Impeccable manners, nothing thrown, well-groomed.

The man Radcliffe had become in the single day she’d been gone seemed more distant and more of a stranger than the grumbling old man she’d found the first day in the grocery store. She kept waiting for him to snap out of it, to chew out Candice for her peppered questions and unending cheer. Instead, he smiled at her, passed the gravy—because the bitch made gravy—and hardly spared Sheri a glance through the entire uncomfortable meal.

Her nails dug half-moons into her palms and not a bite of the perfectly prepared meal crossed her lips as she sat through it, waiting for the real Radcliffe to make an appearance.

Which was the mask? The frowning hairy creature who asked for—demanded—honesty even if it were brutal or the smiling handsome man offering to help with the dishes and talking—knowledgeably, no less—about reality television?

Candice, because she was perfect and athletic and polite and could cook, shoved Radcliffe away—he didn’t complain about her hands on him—and told him to go back to writing, she had the clean-up covered.

To which, Radcliffe smiled, turned and waggled his brows frantically at Sheri.

Her own brows dropped and her head tilted. Was he really waggling at her and expecting her to follow him?

She crossed her legs and arms and relaxed back against her seat.

“Sheri, our walk? As Candice pointed out, it’s important not to break routine simply because she’s here.”

Since when was an after-dinner walk part of his routine? She smirked at his obvious lie and stood, bowing her head to hide her smile. “Of course. After you.”

Following his hulking frame out the back door, they walked in silence, him leading and her trudging after him, wondering what in the hell he was up to.

Once they’d crossed the creek that ran near the house, he spun on her. “Look, I’m trying to be polite, the least you could do is not make it harder.”

“Pardon me?” She tried to keep her own temper from rising to meet his. Instead, she bit the inside of her cheek hard to keep from smiling.
Ah, here’s my Radcliffe.

“You’re the one who has the project, who wants to fix me. You came back, so obviously you’re still sure you can help me. If you’re dedicated to your self-claimed calling, one would think I wouldn’t have to practically beg you to go for a walk so we could be alone.” He pointed at her.

That jabbing finger frayed what was left of her control. “Really, Radcliffe? You’re going to throw what I do back in my face? What’s the reality: Mister Calm, Cool and Shaved or the asshole I’ve come to know? With Candice you’re all sugary sweetness, and you ask me to walk with you so you can, what? Lecture me?”

“No, dammit.” He shoved a hand through his hair. “But I can hardly see how you’ve supposedly helped others if this is how you go about your renovations.”

He sneered the last word at her and she stomped her foot. “Lie down on the ground.”

“Excuse me?”

“I said, lie down. On your back on the ground.”

He stared at her, a silhouette against a backdrop of night. She couldn’t read his expression and didn’t need to. In their time together, she could guess at the incredulity marking his face.

What shocked her was that he obeyed, lying down on the ground without further complaint. She copied him, placing her head just touching his on the bed of grass and let the blanket of silence and darkness fall around them. She could hear him breathing behind her, but she neither moved nor said a word.

“Is there a reason we’re lying in a hay field staring at the sky?”

Her lips quirked. She knew he wouldn’t be able to lie there in peace for long. “Firstly, I’m giving you a minute to get your temper under rein since you’ve obviously lost it.”

“Hmm…” He grumbled the sound and shifted, his head moving against the crown of hers. “Is this part of your usual method?”

She didn’t answer, instead breathing in for a count of three. When she exhaled she closed her eyes. “You didn’t ask me why I left or where I went.”

The crickets sang and the rustle of creatures in the night were her only answer for so long she almost sat up to see if he’d fallen asleep. Finally, he shifted again before speaking. “I assumed I knew why you left. I got drunk and basically attacked you.”

She snorted. “Hardly. Honey, if that was an attack, you’re all growl and no bite.”

He made a noise similar to a growl and moved again. He couldn’t seem to lie still, which amused her to no end.

She waited.

After a few minutes of more silence, he spoke again. The intimacy of his voice in the darkness, his warmth against the top of her head made her shiver. “So where did you go?”

“I went searching for answers.” Night song erupted around them again, hardly disturbed by her soft answer.

“About me? You were researching me?”

Again, the low rumble of his voice seemed a physical thing that reached out of the inky blackness to stroke across her nerves and she shivered. This time when he moved, he sat up to loom over her. She blinked up at him. “Of course. I told you, I help people. You weren’t giving me answers. I went looking for them.” She couldn’t keep from shivering again.

“You’re cold.”

She wasn’t. She also wasn’t about to admit the sound of his voice affected her, so she shrugged, inhaling deeply the scent of grass and cool air. “I’m fine.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. This exercise is obviously better practiced in warmer climes or perhaps not by cover of night. Come here.”

Rolling to her side, she peered at him over her shoulder. “Thought I wasn’t supposed to touch you?”
Not that you gave Candice any such rule…

“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’re not letting me up.”

“Fuck no.”

And then he kissed her.