Page 15 of Wrong Number, Right Grumpy Guy Next Door

“Hasn’t been anyone in a long, long time.”

I bat my eyelashes. “Then what are you waiting for?”

He kicks off his jeans, then, his fingers working my clit, he pushes in slowly, watching my face for every inch of it, one hand under my knee to open me up. He's big enough that it takes work for him to fit inside. He gives me a little and stops, gives me more and rests, and by the time he's all the way in I'm more full than I’ve ever been in my whole life.

“That's my good girl. Show me how well you take it.”

Then he starts to move. He fucks me deep and unhurried at first, hips rolling, one forearm braced beside my head, the headboard starts hitting the wall on every stroke. I get my heels into the back of his thighs and hold on. He tells me how tight I am and how long he's wanted this. Then what he thought about in the shower the first week I was here, and every filthy word of it in that low rough voice pushes me closer to the edge.

Then he sits back on his heels and flips me over.

He pulls my hips up and slides in from behind in one long push, and this time there's nothing gentle in it. One hand spreads across my lower back, holding me down. The other reaches around and finds my clit and works it in tight circles while he takes me hard enough that I have to brace my forearms against the headboard, and the sounds coming out are low moans.

My orgasm goes through me in deep, strong waves and I'm still shuddering when he turns me over again.

“Megan. Look at me.”

I open my eyes. He's braced over me with his jaw tight and his eyes locked on mine; he comes hard without looking away.

Afterward he pulls me onto his chest and puts his hand in my hair, stroking gently, and keeps it there.

“That photograph,” I say, when I can talk again. “The one in here. Why that one?”

A woman's hands in a bowl of shelled peas, out of focus at the edges, taken from below by somebody sitting on the floor.

“My mother,” Harris says. “It’s the first one I ever took that came out good.”

I press my mouth against his shoulder and lie there, our hearts beating together in the quiet of the night.

Chapter Six

HARRIS

The camera comes out of the drawer a couple of days later and I don't let myself think about it too much.

Megan's on her porch with her feet up on the rail and the sketchbook propped against her knees. The soft light coming down through the pines is highlighting the freckles across her face. Beautiful. I get four frames before she catches me.

“Are you photographing me?”

“No.”

“Harris!”

“Hold still.”

She laughs, pulling a face, and tells me her hair is a disaster, but I keep shooting anyway. Later that night, I’m looking at the photos come up on the screen with my hand over my mouth. The last person I pointed a lens at was my mother, and she’s been dead eleven years.

The following day, Megan comes across to my cabin barefoot with a bottle of wine in one hand and the other holding her sketchbook in front of her like it’s a precious offering.

“Look at him. Check out his shoulders…”

It's the little fox from her story, coming out from under a fallen trunk. Behind him she's put an owl on a stump, watching him curiously.

“You’ve got it. He’s real now.”

She sits down on the step beside me. “I didelevenpages of the book yesterday. I did two in July, Harris, and both were of the same tree.”

Megan's still going, excited hands gesturing everywhere, and I put my arm around her and let her talk. Suddenly she stops, turning to face me.