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

by Virginia Nelson

  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.

  “You’ve really got to stop whacking me.” Using one hand to hold her, he covered his eyes with the other. The tiredness in his face, marked by the dark circles under his eyes, showed he’d been missing sleep lately too, which gave her unreasonable pleasure.

  “Or what?” She repeated his earlier childish question, but this time he was close enough to respond.

  Which he did by rolling them over so he loomed above her, pinning her with his size and the sheer sexual heat of himself. “Or I’ll retaliate.”

  Her snort sounded loud in a room only filled with both their racing breaths. “You won’t hit me.”

  The feral grin that twisted his features sent shivers racing across her skin. She became aware the T-shirt had ridden up and that it rested around her waist, baring her lacy panties to his view, and that her unfettered breasts heaved as she panted. His eyes tracked over her, the expression on his face only growing more dangerous by the second. By the time his gaze met hers, heat flooded her body and she longed to arch into him or grab his face for another of those soul-shattering kisses.

  “Oh, Sheri, darling…I can think of far more interesting ways to torture you than hitting you.”

  She should have stopped him then, knowing he would kiss her. The slow movement of him bending toward her, push-up style, could be avoided simply by spider crawling from beneath him.

  Instead, she surprised herself and slid her fingertips into his hair to draw him closer. “Bring it.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  He’d read somewhere that some author or another stood on their head to remove writer’s block and as the night wore on, he gave it a shot. Other than getting dizzy from the blood rush to his brain, no story ideas appeared. He’d tried a shower, before the handstand, and it had been equally ineffective. Altogether, his mind seemed obsessed with rehashing the moments against the tree with Sheri in his arms.

  Then she’d plowed in—dammit, the woman really needed to start wearing more than an itty bitty T-shirt when she roamed the house in the wee hours—and demanded he return her painting.

  He’d taken a second to get to his feet before he even answered her, considering the possibility that he had simply passed out from standing on his head too long and found himself in a particularly tempting fantasy.

  When he turned, she still stood there, all sexy woman in too few clothes, and when she’d raced across the room, her breasts swung and his mouth watered. Perhaps he could pretend to be the hero, not take advantage of her late night visit and let her get more comfortable before he again tried to taste her.

  Then again, once she’d raced around the room, his very primal need to chase took over and he couldn’t be held responsible for capturing her.

  But outside, she’d backed out.

  He should move slowly. She’d mentioned why she kept her unusual calling—the dead fiancé she felt like she cheated on with a simple kiss—and he knew enough about human relationships and psychology to realize the event shaped who she’d become sexually as an adult.

  When her fingers delved into his hair, yanking him closer, and her mouth met his, all thought of psychology vanished under a hunger for more flesh, more her, more now.

  It only took one stroke of his hand to move the shirt up, to finally free her breasts to his view and from there he became ravenous. He didn’t want the shirt in his way at all, so he removed it while her hands streaked across his skin, further igniting a bonfire of sensations.

  Again lost in her kiss, her breasts so soft against his chest, he tried to string thoughts together, to center himself so he didn’t scare her…

  And made one of the hardest decisions of his life.

  He couldn
’t take what he needed. Or rather, if he took what he needed, driving into her like a madman with no desire beyond conquest, he’d scare her further away than she’d been on the first day he’d met her.

  Punching the floor near her head, he knew what he had to do. Tonight would have to be about her.

  Even if his dick would ache from the choice.

  “Radcliffe?” Her whisper followed by her biting down on his shoulder left him gritting his teeth.

  A tough choice, but it didn’t leave him without extensive pleasure to be had. Looking at her flushed cheeks, he brushed her hair back and peppered her brow with kisses. “Trust me, okay?”

  Before she could answer, he kissed her, long and slow and changing the pace of their encounter dramatically. When his fingers stroked her breasts, she rose on a sigh to meet him. His hands might have shook as he ripped off the delicate lace hiding the last bit of her from his eyes, but he drowned her in kisses to hide the weakness.

  The smell of her taunted him and he rolled to his back to fulfill that first fantasy he’d had of her. He could, as he’d guessed, grab her by her thighs to lift her above his head. Her shocked gasp made him smile but then he sank into his task, trying to fill his starving hunger for her with his busy mouth and tongue. At first, she seemed tense, as if unsure of the position, of him. In moments, he felt her muscles go boneless and he helped support her thighs so he could make her soar.

  She tasted sweet, hot, and he could spend all night lost in the sound of her soft moans as her hips pressed closer to his head.

  “Wow,” she managed to whisper. Her hips had begun to buck slightly, moving to the pace he’d set with his tongue and fingertips, and the image of her trying to ride his face implanted itself on his mind for all time. “Wow,” she repeated.

  He smiled into the soft folds of her body. Touching her made him ache, but he found satisfaction in pausing so he could flick his thumb against her clit to make her twitch. “Thought we went over this, but don’t state the obvious. It’s boring.”

  She started to laugh, if a bit huskily, but he didn’t let her finish the sound, sinking a fingertip to the knuckle in her clenching warmth. Her mirth broke off on a sound that he would have called a blend of a sob and a gasp if he were writing. Her fingers tugged at him helplessly, but he’d chosen this position to keep her from tempting him more.

  Then again, looking up her body, he watched her tits move as she rode his face. Her hair trailed across his belly and tickled his flesh even as she got more vocal, crying out she was close and begging for more. Even without being able to touch him, watching her unravel provided temptation aplenty.

  He hoped Candice was a heavy sleeper.

  Seeking a better angle, he flipped her to her back and lifted her ass in his hands. “Radcliffe, I—”

  The angle allowed him to swipe his tongue in one long sweep through her folds and her words shuddered to a halt as her thighs quivered. Deciding to torture her a bit, since his cock turned to granite at the first sip of her sweetness, he rested his chin on her mound to ask, “Yes? Did you have a question, Sheri?”

  “Shouldn’t I be doing something? I mean, I—oh, please, yes.”

  She was babbling. Since she wasn’t adding anything of worth to the conversation, he decided to satisfy them both by focusing on his work. Now that she could move more freely, her hips rose up and tried to ride his face, demanding the pleasure he offered. He sank a second digit inside her body, stroking the sweet spot he could touch by curving his fingertips. Managing to capture her clit between his teeth gently, he accompanied the motion of his fingers with the fast flick of his tongue on her exposed nub.

  Digging her claws into his hair, his chest, his little Sheri screamed out her release, her legs clamping around his face as her whole body curled into him with her orgasm. He took one final taste of her before lifting her again to wrap her into his arms.

  Her eyes hadn’t opened, her breath still wheezing out of her in harsh pants, when he pulled her into a kiss and she melted against him, all boneless surrender.

  Even though his cock positively throbbed in unsatisfied need, he smiled. She’d liked that.

  She’d liked it a lot.

  “Dear Lord, McQueen.” Her shaking touch on his face and her eyes, blinking at him in stunned pleasure, only increased his happiness.

  “Remember, darling, don’t state the obvious. It’s boring.”

  She snickered and smacked him. He caught her wrist and raised a brow. “Tsk, tsk, tsk, I said no more hitting.”

  “Sir, yes, sir.”

  The fact that she hadn’t run out of the room or asked him to stop pleased him nearly as much as his restless fingertips tracing the line of her spine.

  “I’m still taking the painting.”

  He swatted the white globe of her ass, making her squeak and squirm against him. “You’re leaving it. Go to bed.”

  “Um, you…” Her gaze turned shy and she nuzzled into his neck, hiding her face from him. “I mean, you didn’t…”

  “Finally? You don’t have words? Note to self, eat at Sheri’s more often. It shuts you up.” He meant the words playfully, to ease her awkwardness, and it worked because she glared at him.

  “What I meant was…” Again she trailed off, nibbling her lip.

  Apparently she wasn’t aware of the self-control he exhibited so he sighed. “Take the painting, if you must. But you should go to bed now. Get some rest.”

  He smoothed the hair from her face and fought not to smile when her lip puckered out in a pout. She reached for the T-shirt and his amusement vanished as she covered up the lovely breasts. She stood and he didn’t move. He couldn’t, his dick hurt just lying there. If he stood up, he’d be in agony.

  “Um, thank you?”

  He covered his face. “Good night, Sheri.”

  The door clicked behind her and he heard her race up the steps. Once he was sure she’d closed her door, based on the slam from upstairs, he unzipped his pants and let his cock free, sighing at the release of pressure.

  “I’m being a gentleman,” he reminded himself out loud. “I did something one of my heroes would do.”

  He wondered why none of his heroes ever suffered from blue balls.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Two days. Two endless days.

  He’d been nothing but polite to her, smiling at her almost wistfully at random moments. Something about the intensity of his gaze when it landed on her turned her to a klutz. She’d broken glasses, plates, dropped her cell phone and otherwise knocked over piles of things in the hoarder house so much in the past few days she was sure she could change her name comfortably to Wrecking Ball.

  And yet, even with the strange sensation he was aware of her and her newfound awareness of him—he only had to glance her way and her eyes seemed drawn like magnets to him—he hadn’t made another move toward her since he’d brought her to shattering orgasm in his office.

  Candice—bubbly, cheerful, graceful and efficient—seemed to be crushing on her boss, taking every opportunity to rub her generous bust against his arm or lean into him and laugh up in his direction. He never rebuffed her, never chastised her, never threw anything or otherwise showed the temper Sheri came to expect from him. Instead, he kept his well-mannered façade up, a parfit gentil knight.

  It made Sheri want to scream.

  She might know, in a logical sense, that she wasn’t good at relationships. The one meaningful one she’d had ended with her cheating on a man who deserved to have her devotion. Leopards didn’t change their stripes, not really, and although she could renovate people, she only returned them to their core personalities. Before they’d been damaged, the people inside whose lights shined so bright she knew she could help them find their way out of the darkness.

  She’d learned what her core personality was under pressure and there wasn’t light in it. It was ugly, i
t was gritty, it was hers, and she’d owned it for years without a single regret. Well, until she’d met a reclusive author prone to pitching sour cream and whiskey bottles, with no manners, too much hair, only one eyebrow and kleptomaniac tendencies.

  It seemed, unfortunately for her, that was the impetus for her to want to renovate herself. Which meant forgiving her moment of youthful weakness and scraping at the wound she’d thought she healed.

  She also needed to step back from her attachment to Radcliffe and consider his issues and how he dealt with them. He’d confessed more than she’d expected about his marriage and his mother…admitted in his own words that he lived in a shrine to his past mistakes, which no doubt caused the darkness he’d worn as a shroud when she met him.

  The new Radcliffe wasn’t an improvement and she was pretty sure she didn’t just think so because the new Radcliffe had Candice eating out of his long-fingered hand. As much a mask as the klepto-crankfest version, the New Improved Radcliffe hid the man underneath. The temperamental artistic nature? That seemed real to her. The man who bent in laughter at the ridiculous situation in his office at three in the morning? Real.

  The man who’d lifted her as if she weighed no more than a pillow, planting her on his face to make her feel things she’d only dreamed of? Dear God, she hoped real.

  If she accepted that perhaps she’d been young, that she’d been under tremendous pressure and that her mistake with the carnie hadn’t been a great personality flaw, rather a reaction and not altogether that horrible of one considering, it meant she accepted she might not flub any relationship she stumbled into.

  Then again, she could be rationalizing because she cared for her newest project in a way that had little to do with helping him and a lot more to do with attraction.

  As if summoned because she’d thought about him, Radcliffe lumbered to a stop in the doorway to her studio and cleared his throat. He’d started doing that, a vast improvement from his quiet lurking and scaring the hell out of her from their first encounters. “Hey,” he mumbled.