While You Were Writing: Watkin's Pond, Book 2 (8 page)

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-operated 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.

His hand slammed down in the center of the piece, holding it in place and dwarfing her with his looming size. “You wouldn’t even know I had it if you weren’t peeking at my door in the middle of the night.”

She smacked his chest and he backed up a step as if startled. “You’re not going to logic your way around it, McQueen. You stole it, I’m taking it back.” Yanking it free, she turned to storm out of the room. He beat her to the door—
damned long-legged man
—slamming it closed and trapping her in his space. “Move it, seriously. I mean it.”

“Or you’ll what?” He lifted his hands, upturned, and leaned on the door, refusing to budge.

“I said, move it.” She stomped her foot, clutching the painting like a shield.

A part of her, a tiny sliver of rational thought, seemed to separate from her body and consider the tableau in a critical sense. Her, paint-spattered oversized T-shirt and bare feet, hair probably a crazy mass of blonde as she clung to the painting like the demon-faced thing mattered. Him, shirtless, red-faced, leaning on the door, blocking her from taking the stupid thing. When he raised a brow at her, she erupted in laughter.

“Woman, you’re driving me mad. It’s no wonder I can’t string two words together on paper. I’ve lost my mind.” His gusty sigh and declaration only sent her into further hilarity and she bent at the waist, entirely losing it. “Mind sharing what’s cracking you up?”

“You, me—we.” She couldn’t complete the sentence, finally giving up and dropping the painting so she could lean on it with one arm, the other clutching her stomach. “You’re right. We’re both mad.”

As if he couldn’t resist joining her, Radcliffe snickered. After a moment, he joined her, the full sound of his amusement rolling over her. Breathless, she wiped tears from her eyes. “God, what a mess we are,” she added.

He rubbed a hand across his eyes before shoving it through his hair. “I think I was still mostly sane, at least until you came along.”

She snorted, picking the art back up. “Hardly. You were a grumpy old shoplifting creep. Now, open the door. I’ll talk to you more about it tomorrow.” She stepped toward him, sure the tension-breaking laughter would have changed the situation.

His smile grew and he didn’t move.

“You can’t just keep me here. Open the door. It’s not funny anymore.” Actually, the glint in his eye had changed from humorous to downright hungry. Goose bumps broke out on her arms and she forced her chin higher to hide her reaction.

“Put. The. Painting. Back.”

The long pauses between the words left her gnawing her lip. Perhaps this was a case of retreat being the better part of valor, but she didn’t want to retreat, not when she was sure she stood in the right.

Besides, he hadn’t moved. He simply blocked the door. She wasn’t getting any sleep anyway, so a standoff wasn’t exactly using up quality time she’d better spend doing anything else—nothing she’d paint in her current state of mind would be worth a damn. Also, the shirtless view of him, leaning like a model in just jeans posed in a book, flat out did it for her.

Her nipples hardened and she held the art a bit closer, hiding her chest. “No.”

He sighed. “Your choice.”

She squeaked when he blasted into motion, practically launching himself off the door toward her. A giggle choked in her throat as she dodged toward his desk and found herself trapped. She feinted left and he tracked the motion, blocking her. She moved left and he again positioned himself so she couldn’t pass. With a deep breath, she decided to bum rush him, hoping he’d avoid her crashing into him and move at the last second.

He didn’t and her size wasn’t enough to blast past him. She apparently was enough to move him though, or caught him by surprise because it knocked him off balance—she dropped the painting as the breath rushed out of her—and he tumbled them both to the floor, spinning at the last second so she landed splayed across his chest.

Too similar to their encounter outside and with less clothes, she scrambled to escape and snag the painting and only managed to get further tangled in his limbs. When his chuckle rumbled up out of his chest, shaking her in her precarious position on top of him, she smacked him again.