“Well, I’m already a step ahead of you. There’s a highway overpass in Edenton where seventeen meets thirty-two. I’ve gotten permission to paint something underneath. They’re leaning toward an Edenton Tea Party scene, but I’m waiting on approval.”
“Tea Party? As in the splinter Republican group?”
Nora giggled. “No, it was a local event leading up to the Revolutionary War staged by some of the more prominent women in town. I just need to figure out how to put a Nora Fredrickson twist on a historical event.”
“Got a date lined up?”
“Not firm. It’ll probably be next month.”
“Well, that lines up perfectly with the end of the scheduled viewings at Chantilly’s.”
“Yeah. How’s that going, by the way? I haven’t talked to her since the appointments began.”
“Awesome. You have no idea how many people are waiting for it to go into general viewing so they can photograph it. Spencer Abraham is pissed you didn’t offer it to him.”
“Well, I didn’t plan to offer it to anyone. I actually thought about burning it.”
“You hold your whore tongue, whore.”
Chapter Thirteen
“Hey, baby.” Matt let himself into the sunroom via the back door and wrapped his arms around Nora behind her stool to draw her into a hug. “Oma said you were back.”
“Hey, yourself.”
“Missed you.”
“Really?” Nora had never been told that by anyone except her parents. Well, and Bennie. She put down her palette and brush and craned her neck back to look up at him.
“Yeah.” He found her lips and grazed them with his own. “I don’t see enough of you.”
“And you seem to tolerate that.”
“Well, that’s our normal, right?”
“Yeah, I guess it is.” Nora kissed one of the hands draped over her shoulders. He was right. She hadn’t led him to believe otherwise and he hadn’t demanded more. Maybe there was some potential there.
“You haven’t made much progress with this painting, huh?”
Nora looked over it. It was the same basic painting it had been a month before, and Nora had never been so stymied over a single piece. “I think I might scrap it and start over. The scene didn’t interpret to paint the way I thought. I may need to go back to my photos to figure out why I snapped the image in the first place.”
“Well, good luck.”
“Where you going?” Matt had removed his arms from around Nora’s neck and was heading back toward the door.
“I was going to leave you to it. I have a book I was going to start reading this evening.”
A man capable of quietly entertaining himself: Nora was amazed.
“Well, don’t be in a hurry. I missed you, too.” There. She said it, and immediately felt better for it.
“Okay, the book sounds a little more boring now,” Matt said, returning to his former stance behind her with a smile on his face.
“I stole a couple of my older paintings out of the storage locker in Baltimore. For some reason they weren’t explicitly granted to me in the divorce, but I got the property manager who’s taking care of the house for Elvin get them out for me. I had to promise to paint a portrait of his daughter. You want to see them? They’re in my bedroom.” In her bedroom, padded inside the luggage she hadn’t yet unpacked.
“Yeah, of course I do.”
Nora led him upstairs by the hand at a pace that suggested her intentions were far from casual.
“What the hurry, baby? I’m enjoying the view from here.”
“I wasn’t kidding when I said I find foreplay tedious.”
It took Matt a moment to catch her drift.
“I’m guessing I won’t have to tie you up?”
“No, ma’am, I’ll behave.”
Nora wasn’t so sure she believed him, especially not after he took the lead the moment they stepped into her bedroom. He’d gone straight for her breasts, pulling a pert nipple into his mouth before even getting her shirt unbuttoned. Matt took more of her breast into his mouth and gently pressed down into the tender flesh with his teeth, just barely marking her.
“You like it kind of rough, huh?” she whispered, raking his wavy hair back from his ear so she could take his earlobe between her teeth.
“Oh, I can burn low and slow too, baby,” Matt purred as he reached up the back of Nora’s shirt and unfastened her bra. “You just do something to me. I can barely control myself. I feel like a caveman.”
“I like it.” Her fingers trailed down his chest to his belt buckle which she deftly unfastened and then shoved the button of his jeans through its hole. “Turns me on. I’m not used to it.” She felt embarrassed to admit it. The sex with Elvin had been firmly in the category of “meh” but she didn’t know any better. Sometimes she got off. Sometimes she didn’t. It wasn’t anything special. Most of the time she didn’t feel much. She wanted to feel something intense: a bite, a spank, a pull of her hair — something to amplify the pleasure — but had felt like she was perverse to ask.
“You know I wouldn’t hurt you, right?”
She nodded. “I do.”
“Good.” Matt helped Nora shed her remaining clothing and laid her down on her back atop the cushioned bench that spanned the foot of the bed. He spread her legs wide and her feet barely touched the floor and dragged her body to the end so her bottom was at the side edge. He started off at one knee, kissing, and worked up to the meaty flesh of her inner thigh. He kissed, licked, then clamped the skin between his teeth. Nora let a hiss escape her mouth and looked down to the end of the bench to see Matt’s green eyes studying her with wariness. “Okay?”
“Yes.”
So he continued. When he reached the apex of her thighs on one side, he started back at the other knee, avoiding the most delicate area. Somewhere in the middle of the second thigh, Nora moved her hand downward and pressed her fingers against her swollen nub. Matt noticed and paused in his decorating of her inner thighs to help, slipping one finger into her wetness to probe the front of her abdomen. Nora let out a hiss of pleasure and dug her toes into Matt’s sides.
“Don’t come without me,” Matt demanded, retrieving his finger and resuming his work on her thighs.
“I might not have a choice,” she said, moving her free hand up to one breast and squeezing it.
“You want me to stop, then?”
“No!” She took her hand off her clit and sat up to watch Matt shedding his pants and boxer shorts. The tip of his cock was already slick with pre-ejaculate, but he wasn’t ready to plunge it into Nora just yet. He took off his shirt and then squatted in front of her once again.
“We’ll come together,” he reasserted and then pressed his tongue against the button she’d abandoned. She lay back once more and wrapped her thighs around Matt’s neck.
“Okay.”
He licked, sucked, and when Nora began to grind her teeth and gripped the sides of the bench until her knuckles went white, Matt bit. First the mound just above and then, more gently, he took the nub in his mouth and drew it out with his teeth.
Nora thought she would explode from the build-up and could find no outlet except to dig her nails into Matt’s naked back. At that he pulled her down from the bench to straddle his lap and used his fingers to spread her lips before she could catch up. He guided her down onto his cock and Nora watched as his face contorted from his need. He set the pace, gripping her ass and using his considerable strength to hold her up as he pumped up into her. If it weren’t for the yoga, there would have been no way a fisherman would have such a limber set of hips.
“God, Nora.” Matt nuzzled his face against her neck and moaned as he bit into the sinewy stretch of skin between Nora’s jaw and shoulder.
She couldn’t take it. It was too
much — being so full of him and having her breasts mashed into his hard chest, the sensation of him holding her cheeks apart. Then he grabbed her hair, pulling her head back to expose her neck even more.
“Matt!”
“I know, baby.”
He laid her down onto her back on the carpeted floor and propped her ankles up on his shoulders. Five more good thrusts and Nora broke the skin on his back with her nails, clawing downward to his tight rear and writhing as he shot into her.
Even after he’d pulled out and laid next to her on the floor Nora continued to quake.
“Oh, God, Matt.”
He chuckled beside her, but lay absolutely still, relaxed. “You do wonders for a guy’s self-esteem, baby.”
Nora didn’t know what to say. “I love you” seemed sort of trite. Besides, that was the guy’s line, right? Isn’t that what they always did in movies after good sex? She figured it was best not to go there, even if she did mean it.
Matt draped his arm over her belly and turned his face to her to offer a lazy smile. “You want to get on the bed? Or maybe take a bath with me?”
“Mm, bath sounds nice.”
“All right.”
Neither made any motion to get up and run it. They just laid there for a while, fingers entwined as they held hands. After a few quiet moments of listening to each other breathe, Matt spoke up again. “I think I hear someone downstairs.” He propped himself more upright and spoke in a whisper.
“I bet it’s someone with the last name Vogel,” Nora said, sitting up herself and cringing upon noticing the blood on her carpet from Matt’s back.
“No, I don’t think so. Stay here.” Matt got up, pulled the bed sheet off Nora’s unmade bed, tied it around his waist, and crept into the hallway with more stealth than a man his size should have been capable of. Nora eased her weary body off the floor, shoved her arms into her bathrobe and quickly tied it at the waist. She grabbed her phone before creeping into the hallway after Matt. He was already on the stairs and saw her on his trail, so he held up a hand to still her and put one finger up to his lips. Nora nodded that she understood, muted her phone’s sounds and dialed 9-1-1, figuring it couldn’t hurt. If the source of the noise turned out to be a raccoon moving chairs around on the patio or something they would just chalk it up to be overcautious.
• • •
At the stair landing, Matt paused to check the front porch from the window, and seeing nothing he continued around the stair rail, through the foyer and living room, and into the kitchen. He kept his body close to the wall and away from the sunroom’s entrance so that if anyone were in the back, they wouldn’t be able to easily detect him in the dark room. Matt paused at the stove and picked up the cast iron pan Gerta had left on the cold burner after cleaning up. He tested its weight in his hand, rotating the handle around his palm and finding the balance.
Matt crouched low and moved slowly toward the sunroom entrance, pausing a few feet from the stairs to keep his shroud of darkness. Someone was squatting in front of the door handle, trying alternately to pick the simple lock and pry the door from the frame with a long, slender tool. Other than the small flashlight the person held clamped between his or her teeth, there was no light to aid the attempt as Nora hadn’t had a pole light installed. Matt waited patiently for his moment, and took it when the would-be thief dropped the penlight on the patio cement and stooped to pick it up. Matt leaped down the stairs in the bed sheet, still wielding the frying pan, and yanked the door open to give the intruder a quick bonk on the head. He didn’t have time to investigate the thief’s condition before a noise from the bushes at the northwest corner of the house told him he was dealing with a duo.
The trespasser took off on foot and Matt dropped the frying pan to follow after the shadowy form running toward the road. Matt was able to quickly overtake the fleeing individual because he knew Nora’s yard almost as well as he knew his own even in the pitch dark. He anticipated the spots where the ground was uneven and easily leapt over them, even having to hold up his sheet, while the fleeing person stumbled and lost time.
Matt tackled the black-clad person just as a sheriff’s deputy pulled into the driveway with his lights flashing and siren blaring.
• • •
“So, let me get this straight. You don’t live here,” the sheriff asked, looking over the top of his glasses at Matt, who sat at Nora’s kitchen table in only his jeans, tapping his pencil eraser against his report pad.
“No. I live on the adjacent parcel on Cannon’s Ferry.”
“So, Ms. Fredrickson is your neighbor. You sure got over here fast. What were you doing in that sheet?”
Matt rolled his eyes. “Isn’t that obvious?”
“I reckon it’s not or I wouldn’t ask.”
“Matt is my boyfriend. He was spending the night,” Nora said succinctly. She was leaning against the counter by the coffee machine, waiting for that first damned cup to perk. It was too early to be dealing with the sheriff’s nonsense.
“Oh.” The sheriff made a note. “So, I guess your back wasn’t injured during the scuffle?”
“No,” Matt answered.
“Nice. Okay, to sum up. You and Miss — ” he turned to face Nora. “Is it miz or miss or missus or what?”
“Ms.”
“Okay.” He turned back to Matt. “You and Ms. Fredrickson were in bed. You heard a noise out back and went to investigate. Ms. Fredrickson wisely called 9-1-1 while you were doing said investigation. You found someone trying to break in through that south-facing door.” He pointed in the general direction of the sunroom. “You beaned him with the frying pan. You didn’t stop to offer assistance but ran to get his accomplice, whom you tackled and my deputy found you spewing some mighty hateful words at. That ’bout sum it up?”
“Yep,” Matt said, covering his mouth as he yawned. Nora slid a cup of coffee in front of Matt and remained behind him to give his naked shoulders a rub.
“Now why do you think Mr. and Ms. Dillard were trying to break into your home, Ms. Fredrickson?”
“I don’t know. They probably thought I wasn’t at home, and therefore Matt would be at his own. I’d been traveling for the past few weeks so I doubt they were looking for a confrontation.”
“I think I know what they wanted,” Matt said, sipping the sweet, milky coffee first before elaborating. “Maggie’s been writing a lot of rumors about Nora not being the one who does her paintings and I think they were trying to find proof of that. It would be a big deal for her career. She’s been trying to get a job at a larger paper for a long time now. Would explain why she had her camera. She would have taken the information to the paper and probably told her editor the pictures had come from an anonymous source. Of course Chad would help. We’ve got a bit of a feud going on right now.”
The sheriff raised an eyebrow. “Want to talk about it?”
Both Nora and Matt shook their heads. “Nope.”
“Well, if that’s true you don’t have to worry about her publishing nothing for a little while at least. It’ll be hard for her to explain her way out of this one. And just between you and me, this ain’t the first time she’s been arrested in this county for snooping. I expect you’re going to press charges?”
“Yes, she is,” Matt said, reaching up to his shoulder to squeeze one of Nora’s hands.
“You agree with that, Ms. Fredrickson?”
Nora nodded.
“All right then. You think you’re feudin’ now, just wait. Rivalry crap like this happens more than you know and I done some seen stuff you wouldn’t believe.”
• • •
The police in D.C. managed to release Nora’s paintings on time, so her Hattie restaurant piece went up on February sixteenth as scheduled to rave reviews. Hattie and her boss had actually driven up to the gallery to see it in person. Ed
Evans, the character Hattie affectionately referred to as “Bossman,” had nearly gotten into it with Spence over the painting’s price tag. Spence, to his credit, calmly took the berating and explained the pricing in simple terms. “There’s a demand for Nora’s art, Mr. Evans. The fact that people want it makes it valuable. You want it because it’s personal to you. Imagine how much more important the win will be if you get it, knowing how many others wanted it, too.” Ed backed down, but only after wrangling a promise from Spence that he wouldn’t sell the painting until Ed had a chance to beat the high offer.
Hattie had a pretty good time, too, having her picture taken with the painting and being interviewed by reporters who recognized her.
Meanwhile, back in Chowan, Nora finally figured out what was missing from painting number five, and she’d shut everyone out of her house while she worked on it. She’d even put black paper up over every glass panel in the sunroom so that when people like Karen and Matt snuck around in her backyard, they couldn’t see into her studio. Matt still came to the front door every day, letting himself in with his pilfered key, and Nora would quickly send him on his way usually after a kiss at the very least. Twice, Gerta trudged over through the woody divide and dragged Nora out of her house and forced her over to eat dinner. She ended up spending the night, but Gerta said nothing about the impropriety of the situation. As soon as the Fed-Ex man whisked the oversized painting box away and drove off from Nora’s driveway, Matt picked his way through the woods to find her turning back-handsprings across her dead lawn.
“I take it Karen can have her sofa back now?” he asked, grabbing her by the waist before she could work a few cartwheels into her floor routine.
“Yep. Done, done, done! Now all I have to worry about are the designs I owe Payday for Jay-jay and that big-ass overpass painting I should never have committed to. Wheeeee!” She knew she looked a bit crazed so she couldn’t blame Matt for laughing.
“You always get this way when you finish a big project, baby?”
“Nope. Used to be no one cared when I came out of my hidey-hole.”
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