Page 14 of Wrong Number, Right Grumpy Guy Next Door

I suck in a breath.

“I said it was mine and he told me to prove it.” Harris shrugs “I had the original file, but it dragged on the best part of a year. He knew people, and by the end, two magazines had stopped responding to me. So I quit sending things out.” He nods at the wall. “Kept taking them. Just stopped showing anybody.”

“People should be standing in front of these. In a gallery.”

“It's just animals and birds.”

“No, it’s not. These are special.”

We spend an hour as he talks more than he has since I met him. Explaining why one owl photo works and the one beside it doesn't. The anatomy of animals, how they move; at some point I start taking notes, so I can refer back to them for my illustrations.

I put the pencil down when I realize he’s stopped talking and is gazing at me.

“What?”

“It’s time for bed.”

He carries me across the yard, up the steps, then through his kitchen, with my legs locked around his waist and my mouth on his neck.

His bedroom is plain. A huge bed and one photograph on the wall. He sets me on my feet and pulls his shirt off, and I get my first proper look at him up close. Heavy shoulders, dark hair across his chest and down his stomach, a long silver scar under his ribs, the solid thickness of a man who works outside.

“Your turn,” he says.

I hesitate. I’m so short and soft and freckled in front of all of that tan, muscular glory.

Harris takes the hem of my shirt in his big fist.

“I've been watching you since the day you got here… let me see you, gorgeous.”

I lift my arms.

He takes his time getting me out of my clothes. When my bra comes off he makes a sound low in his chest and cups my breasts in both hands, thumbs working over my nipples until they're tight and aching, and then he bends and takes one into his mouth. He sucks hard. His teeth catch, gently, and my knees go.

“Bed,” he orders.

I lie down on my back. He hooks my panties off and stands there at the end of the bed looking at me with his jaw set, then takes hold of my ankles and pulls me down the mattress to meet him.

“Open your legs.”

I do it.

“Wider.”

The groaning sound he makes when he sees me spread out for him goes straight through to my core.

He gets down between my thighs with his hands pushing them flat and his forearms braced across my hips, and he doesn't tease and he doesn't rush. He licks a long slow stripe through my pussy, then closes his mouth over my clit and works me with his tongue until I'm rocking against his face. Two thick fingers push into me and I gasp.

“Oh! Harris?…”

He does what he texted me about on the phone in the dark, when I was alone in that cabin with my hand between my legs and no idea who I was talking to. That's what does it; the memory laid over the reality of his mouth moving on me. I come with both hands clutched in his hair, my heels dug into his back, shouting his name.

He comes up the bed while I'm still shaking, mouth wet, and kisses me so I can taste myself.

“My turn,” I say. I get a hand into his jeans; his cock is big and thick, and when I wrap my fingers around it he swears against my shoulder. He lets me stroke him for a while. Then he catches my wrist.

“I’m going to come, gorgeous.”

“I'm on the pill. Clean test after my last relationship.”