The corners of his lips turned up. He was quite sure he'd never met a woman like this before. He couldn't possibly forget a woman like this.
"Maaaaybe," she said in a singsong voice. "I mean, I don't want you to call the character Lou Anne Rowan, but she can have my ass."
"Rowan," he sighed. "Your last name is Rowan."
"You didn't know?" She giggled.
"I don't know anything," he said. He squinted his eyes and took a chance. "Can I also give her your nipples?"
Lou Anne looked at him through hair that was falling across her face. She took a deep breath and his eyes flicked to the points pushing through her shirt. He jerked his eyes back up to find a smile on her lips.
"Yes," she said.
She had exhibited no signs of angst or displeasure at his intimate question, but he felt like he had pushed the envelope. So he turned to the computer and, without looking at her, engaged her in coming up with a plot for a romance novel.
They decided upon a gentleman pirate, named Sir Roger Quigley. His knighthood had been revoked, based upon the shenanigans of his enemies, and he had been forced to flee his lands. His grandfather and father had made their fortunes in the shipping business, so he'd posed as a common seaman and disappeared into the merchant fleet.
It was there that he saw the oppression of the crown and the deceit and corruption of the officials who oversaw shipping and the ports. Bribery was rife and theft, poorly disguised as impoundment, was common. The big ship owners paid officials to prey on the little man, so that he could never get ahead or compete.
For that reason, he befriended a scalawag captain and, together, they set about righting the wrongs that they both perceived. He was sort of a Robin Hood on the sea, taking from the rich and distributing the spoils to those less fortunate. There was a price on his head, but he had more friends than enemies, because there were vastly more common people than nobles and officials.
Where the romance came in ... or the sex at least ... was that in capturing a vessel, he sometimes captured female passengers as well. They might be matrons traveling with their husbands. They might have daughters ... young, nubile daughters.
It wasn't necessarily historically correct, but then it was fiction.
And, of course, he was duty bound to ensure the women's safety. While he might put the men to sea in a dory, with food, water and oars to get them to land, he could not, of course, inflict such danger on the women. As such, the women were his captives until they happened to reach land, which sometimes took months.
He was a dashing figure, and handsome. He worked at sword practice un-shirted, on the deck, where the women might be taking their ease. He checked on each woman at night ... only to ensure that she was well and comfortable ... as comfortable as could be expected. He checked on them to make sure no one was molesting them.
No one but him, anyway.
"Mmmmm, I love it already," sighed Lou Anne, when the final paragraph of the outline was completed. "It makes me want to rub and you haven't even written it yet."
He looked at her. His prick was stiff in his pants. The images she had suggested, and the scenes in his mind, appealed to him in a way that seemed strange and erotic. He thought he
should
feel ashamed at the visions of sixteen and seventeen year old virgins, straining up against Sir Quigley as he taught them the joys of sex.
But he didn't. He just got horny.
He looked at Lou Anne. She was apparently horny too. Her face was flushed and her lips were even more full. Her nipples stuck out even more than before and he felt the strong urge to reach out and touch one. He knew he couldn't.
"I'll give Duchess Clayworth your ass," he said, impulsively.
"The twenty-one year old?" asked Lou Anne. "The one married to the fat old merchant with the smelly breath?"
"The very one," he said. "She'll have your ass, and your nipples, and your cheekbones, and your skin. I'll even make her twenty-four, instead of twenty-one. She will be you." His eyebrows rose and fell. "Except for the hair ... and the tattoos. She can't have tattoos." He looked hopeful. "But she'll be the rest of you."
"Mmm goody," said Lou Anne, her voice breathy. "Are you going to ravish me most thoroughly?"
"Me?" He looked surprised. "Ravish you?"
"Of course you. You're Quigley. That's obvious. And if I'm Duchess Clayworth, then you'll be ravishing me."
"In the book." He seemed dazed.
"Of course in the book, silly. That's what we're doing here!"
"Yes!" he said, putting his hand over the lump in his lap. "That's what I meant."
"Oooo I just know I'm going to love this book," sighed Lou Anne. "Now. Start writing. I have to go get ready for work."
"Right!" he said.
She started away and he couldn't help but watch her ass again. He was doing that when she stopped and turned. She didn't seem at all surprised that he was looking at her.
"Did women shave down there back then?" she asked.
He blinked. "I have no idea," he said.
"Well we need to find out, because if Duchess Clayworth is going to be me, she has to be shaved down there."
She smiled brilliantly, as if she'd only said something routine, like, "See you in a few," and left the room.
Kris sat, staring at where she'd disappeared. He was rock hard. He felt the urge to just stand up, unzip, and beat off like a crazed monkey.
Instead, he turned back to the computer and used that passion inside him to start writing.
Lou Anne stood under the shower head and rubbed her body clean. She was a little amazed that she'd been so playful. She instinctively liked this man. That she felt completely comfortable with him sitting out there, while she was naked in the shower, was something she just accepted in herself. She trusted her instincts. She'd ignored them before and had learned the hard way.
She had no idea where this ... if there even
was
a "this" ... was going to go, but she wasn't all that worried about it. If he turned out to be a friend, that was fine. If he turned out to be something more ... well ... it had been a long time since there had been that kind of man in her life.
Chapter Twelve
Kris didn't know what he'd done in the past, as far as gainful employment, but he wasn't especially happy with the jobs available in a small semi-resort town during the off season. There was a need for a bag boy at the local grocery store. The single fast food burger joint in town had a help wanted sign in the window that was held there with yellowed, crispy tape that, five or six years ago, hadn't been either yellow or crispy at all. He knew, somehow, that making thousands per week stuffing envelopes in your own home was a crock. The daily newspaper that serviced Pembroke was a regional paper, really, and a lot of the ads were for jobs in other towns. He began to eye his pantry skeptically, thinking of ways to cut down on meals and stretch what had seemed like so much, only days ago.
Over the next two days he got visits from two more men that, as far as he knew, he'd never seen before. Both had been in the diner the night Lulu took him home, but he didn't know that.
One was a man named Tim Clark, who shyly extended a winter hat, quilted in a faded blue plaid on the outside, with fake fur on the inside that had once been white. It had ear flaps that would have tied up on top of the head or under the chin, if the strings were still there.
"Preacher said you was needing warm things," said the man. "It ain't much, but I'm getting a new one for Christmas from my kids. They don't know I know, so don't tell 'em, okay?"
The other was Gerald Witherspoon who handed over a tall pair of elk skin mukluks with a fur lining. They were beautiful and Kris was astonished.
"I seen you a couple of times," said the man. "You were wearing sneakers both times. Man can lose toes in this weather. I know. Lost two myself one time to frostbite. You take these and wear them. My Emma makes them." He stood there, looking uneasy.
"Thanks!" said Kris. "I'll pay you for them, when I find a job."
"No need," said Witherspoon, almost gruffly. "Lulu's kind of special to us here," he said.
Kris blinked at the sudden change of subject, but tried to keep up.
"She's a special person," he agreed.
"I mean we care about her," said Gerald.
"I'll tell her you said that."
"No!" yelped the man. "Fer pity's sake, don't tell her that. Just you remember we think a lot of her."
Kris suddenly realized what the man was dancing all around. People in town must know he was spending a lot of time with Lou Anne. They were worried about her, because he was an unknown ... a stranger.
"She saved my life," said Kris. "I think a lot of her too. I understand why she's important to this town. She's a good woman."
Witherspoon blinked a few times and then nodded. "Better be going."
"Thanks again for the boots," said Kris.
"Mukluks," said Gerald.
"Pardon?"
"They're called mukluks," said Gerald. "Came from Indians." He turned abruptly and stomped down the snow-covered walk to his car, where a woman was watching them from the passenger's seat.
Kris raised the mukluks in a salute to the woman, who he hoped was Mrs. Witherspoon, and smiled. She looked away.
Other than the relative outpouring of concern by the members of Reverend Hoskins' church, the only thing that seemed to be going well for Kris was the writing. He was pretty sure that was because he did almost all of it at Lulu's house, where her mere presence provided the hormonal atmosphere that seemed to feed the pap in his romance novel. That it was pap he had no doubt.
The scenes and the dialogue were all too predictable. It took very little imagination to come up with the flow of words that supported the ridiculous plot. The handsome, manly pirate had no trouble at all seducing the women he came into contact with. The women were drawn to him like bees to honey. What was laughable, as far as Kris was concerned, was that his crew of good natured ne'er-do-wells didn't seem to mind at all that only Sir Quigley got to bed the women, while they gathered outside the door to his cabin, to drink rum and wink and nudge each other as the cries of feminine delight came through the sturdy oak.
There had been a problem, at first. All the women seemed to resemble Lou Anne, when he first started. He solved that problem by picking women he saw on the street and using their descriptions as the story developed. Another problem was that the story was getting more and more graphic, sexually speaking. He was beginning to have questions about the publishability of it, but the scenes that popped into his mind couldn't be denied. More than once he thought it was beginning to sound like porn.
On his fourth day after leaving the hospital another man knocked on his door.
"Hello," said the man, smiling. "I'm Greg Schaffer. I'm the general manager of WKDD radio, here in Pembroke. I heard you might be looking for a job."
Kris blinked. This was like some fairy tale he was caught in. He had a sudden thought.
"You don't, by chance, attend Reverend Hoskins church, do you?"
The man looked a little pained, but nodded. "He suggested that you seemed to be a bright young man, who could solve a little problem I've had for some time. We run taped programming at night, but someone has to go in and change the tapes, and there's no one there to keep an eye on things. I can't pay you a lot, but it should help out, a bit."
"I don't think I have any experience in that area," said Kris.
"I can teach you everything you need to know," said Shaffer. "My wife would be most appreciative if I didn't have to get up twice a night and run down to the station. I understand you're an author. We have the most up to date computers at the station, and I would understand completely if you were to pursue that vocation while you weren't busy with station business."
It seemed too good to be true, but Kris didn't feel like he could look this particular gift horse in the mouth. If things didn't work out, he could always quit.
"I'll give it a shot," he said.
"Excellent," said Shaffer, beaming. "Be at the station tonight at eleven. That's when we do our last live newscast, or at least when we've
been
doing our last newscast. I may have you give news updates during the night, or at least weather updates, between tapes. If we can get somebody to sponsor them, I can pay you more."
He decided not to tell Lou Anne about it, in case it didn't work out. He usually left her house around eleven anyway, and that night he simply drove to the station instead of going home.