“Christ,” Blake muttered, gritting his teeth and grabbing the pull-up bar again. Out of deference to his height, he bent his legs and lifted them back, forcing himself not to wince at the strain in his right quad. He ripped his way through another set of twenty, continuing on to whatever number would stop his farfetched fantasies of the girl upstairs. The girl who was almost definitely leaving.
There was nothing he could do to stop her. Even if he set aside the fact that his job was to collect rent money—at Manhattan prices—which essentially made him the fucking enemy, they existed in different dimensions. Autumn left her third floor apartment at a normal hour, catching the elevator and zipping past his first floor place while juggling toast, headphones and a purse far too large for a girl her size. And although she’d apparently been smuggling pigeons upstairs, she returned home at a customary hour, too. Usually without her cockhead boyfriend…who’d been cheating on her.
His grip on the pull-up bar tightened, his teeth baring themselves to the dark bedroom that lay before him. Who cheated on a girl who nursed pigeons back to health? Sure, he found the whole business of winged rodents in a bathtub pretty goddamn unsavory, but it was likely Autumn put that same compassion into everything she did. That level of caring wasn’t something a person could turn off and on like a light switch, was it?
You wouldn’t know, would you?
No. He didn’t know the first thing about how and why people chose to operate as they did. Even when he’d spent his time in a big circle of friends in his early twenties—and been engaged to be married—he’d always been the odd one out. Quiet where they were outspoken. Content to be alone where his friends couldn’t seem to take a shit by themselves.
‘You’re so intense, bro,’ friends would laugh, slapping him on the back. ‘Lighten up.’
Trying to ‘lighten up’ had only been awkward, though, because here was the thing about being on the quiet side. He listened better than everyone else. So when it came time to contribute, his observations were too honest. Too serious.
Being alone was easier. He woke up in the morning, tended to his restoration projects and returned client emails. Inevitably a tenant needed something repaired, so he did it himself or hired the required expert. His meals were consumed beneath the single light bulb in his eat-in kitchen, no sounds to assault his ears, unless you count the omnipresent rush of traffic outside his window. If he left the building, there was a damn good reason. Dropping off a finished project safely with a client, the occasional run if his leg was up for the challenge, or grocery shopping while the rest of the city slept. He didn’t want to speak to anyone. Speaking meant relating and he couldn’t do that without digging into the past.
Blake let go of the bar and swiped an arm across his now-sweating forehead. Pacing didn’t help him cool off, though. Being a recluse didn’t mean he lacked a temper. Oh no. God help Autumn’s boyfriend if he walked down the hallway right now. Blake would lay him out cold. Because for all his and Autumn’s differences—sunny versus dark, chatty versus voluntarily mute—they had something in common now. He’d been in the tiny Australian’s shoes before. A larger size, of course. He knew all too well the instinct to lock oneself away before any more damage could occur. That instinct was why he’d moved into this building seven years ago and finally allowed himself to quit lightening up. There was no light involved. There was eating, sleeping, working and exercise. And another activity that had increased of late.
Blake sent a scowl up toward the third floor and unbuttoned his jeans. He headed for the shower where he knew he’d lose the battle against fucking his hand. Autumn walking past, humming along to whatever played in her headphones, made it hard enough to resist the disrespectful practice, but he’d been in her apartment this time. Smelled her girly coconut shampoo and saw her lipstick prints on a coffee mug. There was no way around it.
He was in the process of peeling the jeans down his hips when a piece of paper fluttered out of his back pocket. One hand massaged the twinge in his thigh as he stooped down, retrieving the notepaper with Autumn’s account number on it and setting it on the sink.
“What the hell?”
Blake snatched the paper back up.
On the opposite side, there was a drawing. A pretty decent one. Decent enough that he could decipher a naked Autumn. A low groan left him and his cock shifted, pushing through the opening he’d made in his jeans. Jesus, this was what she looked like, wasn’t it? Bratty tits and a rounded little ass made for slapping. Some kind of sex-starved librarian with wide, innocent eyes. A girl who’d just realized what she’d gotten herself into, and now her pulse was racing beneath her sun-kissed skin. Picture-Autumn’s blonde hair was covering one eye and a bit of her swollen mouth, her knees were pressed to the floor and her obedient, but slightly worried gaze was looking up at…
Him. Blake would assume there’d been a mistake, only there weren’t too many people to whom he shared a resemblance. He was towering above a kneeling Autumn in the picture, his hand wrapped around the back of her neck. Tight. There were indentation marks on her soft nape, as Picture-Blake guided her closer to the roughly sketched outline of his cock which seemed hell bent on escaping his pants. A lot like his current situation.
Autumn drew this?
Had to be. Her shithead boyfriend wouldn’t very well draw Blake about to do debauched things to his girlfriend. No. Ex-girlfriend. Funny how one sketch of Autumn preparing to give him a blow job seemed to have communicated to his brain that she was completely free of her ex…and his for the taking. Because that wasn’t the case. Definitely not. Their differences notwithstanding, she almost jumped out of her skin when he walked into her apartment tonight. But then, if she was scared of him, why draw them together this way?
Blake’s body didn’t care about the particulars. Not right now. He set the paper down on the edge of the sink and wrapped his fist around his ready cock. Halfway through that first stroke, he noticed Autumn’s hands were tied behind her back.
“Fuck.” A breath shuddered out of him and he braced his free hand on the wall, alongside the mirror. Images flooded his mind. Moving ones that started with this picture. When he’d fantasized about Autumn, she’d ridden him on a beach. Or snuck into his apartment for a nasty fuck against the door. The need to be dominant had always tried to bleed into the fantasies, turn him mean, make him hold her down. It had made him feel like a monster, though, so he fought to keep the mental scenes tame. But she’d drawn herself in bonds. Bonds he’d presumably tied.
“You don’t want a lazy lay on the beach, do you, Fun-Size?” Blake spit on his palm and brought it back to his cock, choking it top to bottom. “You want a no-mercy fuck with no way to fight me off? I’ll make that happen.”
Yes, she whispered in his ear. Please, Blake?
Sweat slid down his spine. “Your idiot boyfriend let you escape, did he?” In Blake’s imagination, he let go of Autumn’s neck in favor of wrapping that long blonde hair around his knuckles, pressing her open mouth to his fly. “Don’t you dare expect the same from me. You’ll go nowhere. Unzip my pants and greet your new keeper.”
There was a knock at the door.
“No,” Blake gritted. He turned to shout over his shoulder, “Come back later.”
“Um. Mr. Munroe?” Autumn’s voice made him pause mid-stroke. “I’d really like to speak with you. It’s urgent.”
Blake’s head fell forward on a pained laugh. No way could he answer the door to a tenant right now, let alone the very one he couldn’t stop jacking off to. Forget the fact that he was mid-jerk job, he couldn’t pretend he’d never seen the drawing. It just wasn’t in his DNA to play games or soften the truth. Another one of those traits that made people uncomfortable. If he answered the door, there would be a conversation about the drawing. And it would be sexual in nature, no getting around that, considering what she’d drawn.
He opened his mouth to tell her one final time to leave, but something stopped him. I-I feel like I don’t know an
ything anymore, about myself or anyone else. She’d said those words to him against a backdrop of garbage, stray pigeons and molested whipped cream cans. Literally the most depressing sight known to man. Now he was going to turn her away? Didn’t that make him as big a bastard as her slimy ex-boyfriend? Blake didn’t want to be in the same category as an asshole who’d brought Autumn to a strange country and ditched her for something meaningless.
The other far more pressing issue that had Blake zipping himself back up and stomping for the door with a worse limp than usual, was this. He might not have many more chances to be around Autumn. Sure, she’d drawn herself in a compromising position with Blake as some kind of pissed off enforcer, but that only meant…well, he wasn’t sure what the hell it meant. He only knew whatever it was wouldn’t keep her in New York. Nothing involving him could have that kind of impact on a woman, especially an adorable, rambling Aussie girl who looked like the sun followed her everywhere she went. Even when she was wallowing in a break up.
“Hold on,” he called through gritted teeth, willing his hard-on to subside.
“Sure. Yeah, sure,” came her high-pitched response. She sounded kind of nervous. It made Blake wonder if the boyfriend had come back and things had gotten ugly. Well there was one way to eliminate an erection.
Decent as could be managed, Blake finally made it to the door, threw the locks and yanked it open. And the sight of her—worse for the wear, but still so achingly pretty—made him angry at her scumbag boyfriend all over again. “Yeah?”
“I—oh. Shirtless. You’re that way.” Autumn gave a rapid shake of her head, blonde hair catching in the crease of her lips. “Did you…Have you gone anywhere near your pants yet?”
“How…” Cursing himself for forgetting to put on a shirt, Blake held up a hand. “Just tell me what you need.”
Was it his imagination or did her attention keep dropping to his crotch? Discreetly, Blake glanced down to make sure his admiration of Autumn hadn’t re-manifested and found everything as it should be.
“What do I need?” she murmured, starting to play with the hem of her shirt. “That’s a pretty long list. More whipped cream? Friends? I don’t know. Right now, I’d do unspeakable things for a time machine.”
When her gaze fell this time, Blake realized it was landing on his pocket. “Is this about your inappropriate drawing of me?”
“Oh fuck!” She covered her face with both hands. “I was hoping I could convince you to reach for something on a high shelf and then I would sort of…sneak it out of your pocket.”
Blake experienced an odd sensation in his throat. Almost like he wanted to laugh. “Did you expect that to work?”
“Maybe as a back-up plan, in case the time machine wasn’t available. I’d settle for a TARDIS. I’m not picky.”
He stepped back with a sigh. Casual, when he felt anything but. “Do you want to come in, Ms. Reynolds?”
No one had been in his apartment in a long time. He’d had some furniture delivered years ago and occasionally Mrs. Zhu from the fourth floor would barge in, ranting in Chinese about her neighbors playing loud music, but she was half-blind and therefore couldn’t judge. It wasn’t so much that Blake was self-conscious about his living space…all right, maybe he was. But only because he didn’t want to go through the annoying process of explaining things.
Just like when he’d walked into Autumn’s apartment, she was clearly hesitant about being alone with him behind closed doors, tucking her hair behind her ear and shifting around in her child-sized sneakers. Her trepidation was likely triple now, knowing he’d found the sketch, but he wasn’t making it any easier for her. He stood waiting, trying to look bored. “I don’t have all afternoon, Ms. Reynolds.”
“I’m sorry. Sorry.” She scooted over the threshold, hitting him with the smell of coconut and toast. “Could you…could we leave the door cracked? Not because I think you’re a serial killer with a bunch of severed limbs in your freezer or anything, but if I go into a stranger’s apartment alone, I’ll hear my mum wondering aloud where she went wrong with me. It’s not you, it’s her.”
Ignoring the ridiculous disappointment that settled into his gut, Blake inclined his head and went to kick the door stopper in place.
“On second thought, maybe you should close it? Given the delicate nature of what we’re discussing and all. Are we discussing it? Or am I just taking my homemade porn and doing the least satisfying walk of shame ever back to my apartment?”
“What would you like to do?”
“I…are you asking me what I’d like to do?” She snapped her open mouth shut and waved a hand. “Never mind, that’s literally exactly what you asked me. I’m just not used to being given options.” Saying that aloud seemed to jar Autumn and she looked away again.
“You okay?” Blake asked against his better judgement.
She nodded vigorously. “It’s fine, you’re embarrassing me with riches, but all I can think about is where you’ve put my drawing and what face you made when you saw it. Was it shock? Disgust? A classic whodunit jaw scratch?”
“Please stop talking.”
Her cheeks flooded with color. “Oh.”
Jesus, this was part of the reason he avoided people. His lack of a filter offended, even when it wasn’t purposeful. Better not to try at all, right? He would already be showing anyone else the door, wordlessly delivering them to the hallway. The idea of Autumn leaving had him feeling flat, though. Her never-ending babble didn’t bother him, it amused him. He wanted her to keep going—and he sure as hell didn’t like the humiliation he’d painted on her face with his bluntness. “I only meant you need to give me a chance to answer a question before you answer it yourself, Ms. Reynolds. Just come up for air once in a while.”
“I can’t remember what I asked you.”
“I’m still stuck on whether or not to close the door.”
“Wow.” She pressed her lips together. “I really left you in the dust, huh?”
“Open or closed?”
“Closed,” she whispered. “What was the next part?”
“You asked…” He snicked the door shut and turned back to face her, noting her fascinated expression. As if she couldn’t believe he’d been listening. “You asked if we were going to discuss the drawing.”
“I didn’t mean right away,” she said, scurrying toward his living room. “We could start with some small talk. Like—”
Blake knew the reason she’d gone quiet even before he joined her in the living room. Stopping beside Autumn, he watched her take in the floor-to-ceiling mountains of books. Most of them were in boxes and plastic sleeves, but a good deal of his personal ones were wedged into shelves.
She turned to him, her eyes the size of hubcaps. “I’m having a Beauty and The Beast moment.”
“I suppose that makes me the beast.”
“No.” Autumn laid a hand on Blake’s arm and he held his breath.
“No, of course not,” she said. “You’re actually…that is to say…I don’t just go drawing myself tied up for any old landlord, you know?” The last part was barely out of her mouth before her lips puckered. “I don’t know what that was. Sorry. I’m being weird. Look, can you just say something? Anything?”
Of all the things she could ask for, it had to be small talk. “My work station is this way. Don’t touch anything.” He willed his limp to be less noticeable as he led her around a stack of books, indicating his desk. Before visiting her apartment, he’d been in the process of repairing the binding on an original Dickens, so his microspatula, shears and glue brushes were still out, alongside his magnifying headset. “There.”
She tilted an astounded look up at him. “You repair books?”
He hoisted an eyebrow. “You repair pigeons.”
“Is it a hobby?” Autumn said, neatly ignoring his rudeness. “Do you keep the books you restore?”
“Some. Others are for clients.”
While inspecting titles stacked on one side of the living
room, she started to run a fingertip across a spine, but stopped and took it back. “Clients.”
Blake wished he hadn’t told her not to touch anything. What he wouldn’t give to watch that delicate finger trace along the dark red leather. “Yes, clients.”
Her tight body seemed to twist a little at his tone. “Is this your life’s passion?”
“I don’t know what that means. I just fell into it.” Watching her move among his things, possessions no one touched but him, Blake had the urge to pick things up and rub them on her skin. His work cloth, the soft bristles of a dry glue brush. Or maybe it would be more to her taste to slap a hardcover against her ass while she whimpered across the top of his desk. As it was with all his darker fantasies about Autumn, he started to feel like a monster. What kind of man would impress his will on someone so fragile?
Blake turned on a heel and left the living room, waiting for her by the door with hands on his hips. He considered retrieving a shirt from his bedroom, but before he could move, she joined him in the foyer, looking anxious.
“Okay. We can discuss the sex-drawing now. We’ll do it quick. It’ll be like ripping off a Band-Aid.” Her shoulders lifted with a big breath. “I’m sorry I stole your likeness and used it without your permission. I shouldn’t have done that and it won’t happen again. Could I please have it back now?”
“Used it how?”
Her throat moved with a swallow. “Excuse me?”
Blake took one step in her direction, stopping when something flared in her eyes. Not quite alarm, but not quite encouragement, either. “How did you use my likeness?”
“Am I required to answer?”
“No, but I’d like you to.”
She wet her plush-looking lips. “Okay, fine. But I wouldn’t be telling you this if I wasn’t on an emotional roller coaster and under the influence of—”
“Nangs?” Blake suggested.
“Hey! You remembered what they’re called!” Her little face fell. “I mean…not that I would ever…what are nangs again? Some kind of rope?”
“Ms. Reynolds, you were telling me why you chose to draw me into your sex-picture?”
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