“Iced tea?”
Livvy’s mouth watered at the thought and she nodded, then followed the woman inside. John’s house was larger and more open-layout than hers, with one great room holding dining, kitchen and living space. The furniture was new but
comfortable looking and there were no signs of moving boxes anywhere.
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“Wow, you must have worked your butt off in here. When I moved in, I lived out of cardboard for weeks.”
Gina laughed and poured two tall glasses of iced tea, moving a sketchpad aside. “Nah, Johnny doesn’t really have much. Bachelor life, you know?
He ended up buying a bunch of stuff yesterday and I just told him where to put it.”
“So where is he?”
Gina cocked her head and looked at her for a long beat. Uncomfortable being a bug under a microscope, Livvy took several swallows of the sweet tea.
“Did Johnny tell you he’s had writer’s block lately?”
“Yeah, he said something about that.” Livvy toyed with a droplet of condensation slipping down her glass, tracing wet lines on the counter.
Gina seemed very mother-hen-ish as she crooked her finger and led her down a short hall. Gingerly, she opened a door and Livvy peeked in.
John sat at a huge desk, fingers flying over a keyboard. He didn’t look away from the monitor nor did he acknowledge their intrusion. Stony concentration deepened the lines around his mouth and between his brows. The glow from the computer screen reflected off thick gold-rimmed glasses.
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“I didn’t know he wore glasses,” Livvy
murmured. Somehow, the eyewear made him
seem more approachable, less intense and ultra sexy. She watched for several minutes while he typed at breakneck speed. Those fingers were spinning out magic. She could have watched all night if Gina hadn’t closed the door in her face.
“Johnny’s blind as a bat without his contacts but staring at the computer dries them out. I always know he’s in for a marathon typing session when he puts his glasses on.”
Blind as a bat.
The phrase hung in Livvy’s ears and the image of Thorn leaped to her mind. The puzzle that was John Murphy had more pieces than she thought. Luckily, she loved puzzles. But she couldn’t figure out why Gina felt it necessary to bring her into this.
“So he’s writing again. That’s good, right?”
They returned to the kitchen. She angled onto her barstool and picked up her glass.
Gina leaned against the counter. “It’s great. It’s just, well, it’s like he’s on an alcoholic bender. He calls it his word rush. I’ve seen him like this for days. He’ll write until he can’t see straight, crash for a few hours and then start up again. Forget little things like eating, showering or changing clothes. Only the story matters. He can churn out a hundred pages during these things.”
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“No offense, but what does this have to do with me?”
“I have to leave in the morning. If I know my brother, he’ll write most of the night before falling into bed sometime tomorrow, unless he just falls asleep at his desk again. Then he’ll start right back at it when his eyes fly open. I’d like you to keep an eye on him. Make sure he eats and maybe washes behind his ears once in a while. At least until he gets out of this word-rush thing.”
The younger woman crossed the room and
stared directly into her eyes. Livvy got the sense she was trying to extract a promise and wouldn’t take no for an answer.
She hedged. “Murphy’s a grown man, Gina.”
“The question is, is he your man?”
The bold, direct query sucked the air from Livvy’s lungs. Was John hers? No, he wasn’t.
They had something between them, something more than sex. She didn’t know exactly how much more it was. They hadn’t gotten that far yet, but oh, how she wanted to. She wanted it enough to nod. “Okay, I’ll do it.”
The relief on his sister’s face was plain.
“Thank you. I know it’s silly. Johnny’s too old for a babysitter but it’d just make me feel better knowing someone who cared was around.”
“No problem.” Livvy shrugged to hide her
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hiked her thumb back toward the hall. “It’s a little crowded in there. His desk is so huge, I’d feel closed in jammed in that corner. Why’d he put all his weight equipment in the study and not the basement?”
It seemed like an innocent question. There should have been no reason for Gina’s face to freeze into a blank expression but it did. The brunette licked her lips and found the new placemat edge extremely interesting. “Uh, he wants to redo the basement into a larger office later on and add a weight room but for now, Johnny uses it to brainstorm or when he needs to exorcise some demons.”
“Demons? You mean monsters?”
“Those, too.” A wrinkle appeared between her black brows. “Look, I know he’s not an easy man on anything but the eyes, but he’s worth it. You mean something to him and I don’t even think he knows it yet. Just remember that when he gets…”
Gina wobbled her head, searching for the right word, “…difficult.”
“Eat.” Livvy smacked the plate on the desk.
John’s fingers danced over the keyboard. She’d cut short her workday to rush home to check on him as she promised and found him exactly as she’d seen him last night—same position, same clothes, same frenzied typing.
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“Murphy, take a break and eat. Isn’t your ass tired from sitting?”
“Hmm?” he muttered but didn’t slow his pace.
She tried harder. “Murphy, come on. A five-minute break. It’ll do you good, restore the circulation to your legs.”
“Mmm-hmm.” He never took his eyes from the rapidly appearing letters that scrolled across the white screen. Tempted to go find a breaker and flip it, she resisted because if he hadn’t saved recently, he’d be furious at losing the work.
Well, if I can’t tempt him with food, I’ll try sex.
No man ignores a half-naked woman.
“Murphy,” she singsonged, walking in front of his desk, unbuttoning her blouse. The air conditioning puckered her nipples as she slid the shirt from her arms and draped it over his shoulder. He shrugged it off like a fly, barely missing a stroke.
He hadn’t even looked up. She snatched her shirt from his feet and stormed out the door. The clickety-click of the keyboard followed her out.
The sound taunted her all the way to the kitchen where she slapped together a sandwich for herself.
She’d never been outright rejected in an
attempt at seduction, no matter how half-assed, and it stung that he preferred hairy monsters and bats over a willing woman. Willing was the key word. The sandwich stuck in her throat and 74
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scratched with her swallow. She was horny. That incredible-but-too-fast orgasm in her office had skyrocketed her hunger and no ham on rye could ease the appetite.
His phone rang. There was no echo from deep in the house so apparently this was the only wired extension. He’d never hear it down the hall, as wrapped up in his writing as he was, so Livvy lifted the receiver.
“Hello?”
“Oh. I was looking for John. Are you…his
wife?”
Livvy narrowed her eyes at the cautious
feminine voice. “No, may I ask who’s calling?”
“This is Karen Edwards. Is John there?”
Karen who?
“He’s busy at the minute. Can I take a message?”
“That’s okay, just have him call my cell when he’s free.”
“Sure, just let me grab a pen to wr—”
The light laughter chilled down Livvy’s spine.
“Oh, he has the number. Just tell him I owe him a big, fat kiss and to call me.”
Livvy stared at the receiver as she hung up. His sister was Gina. He’d said his agent was named Christina. Who the hell was Karen and why did she owe him a kiss? The urge to stomp into his office and ask ripped through her but she fought it.
She’d only known him a few days. He had a life Inez Kelley
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prior to finding her bra, knocking on her door and kissing her senseless in her office.
Jealousy was stupid right now. She’d jumped that gun already. Memories welled of strange women calling, asking for her father, and their occasional astonishment that, yes, Bryan Andrews did in fact have a wife and children. She scrubbed a hand across her eyes. She had to trust John. The phone call didn’t mean squat. Karen could be anybody. Livvy had guy friends. Maybe John had a woman friend. As in a nonsexual, not-sneaking-behind-her-back friend.
But then that friend would know he wasn’t married, wouldn’t she?
Frustration fueled her through the quick dinner cleanup. The constant rhythm of the keyboard grated her stretched nerves. Using too much force to wipe the barely smudged countertop, she knocked a sketchpad to the floor. It landed belly up and the penciled drawing displayed made her stop.
It was her. Well, sort of her. It was her face in caricature, in a fanciful half Dr. Seuss, half Tim Burton style that brought a stunned grin to her face. John had made her a pixie, with tattered wings and a so-what smirk. The pixie’s dress was vaguely similar to her tank and cut-offs, had she thrown them through a wood chipper. He drew her in a fresh, sexy-yet-innocent anime way.
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Flipping the page, she found hundreds of other drawings—some cute, some macabre, others too strange to figure out.
John’s art had a dark take on life yet each doodle hinted at a lighthearted undercurrent. Like the skull with the bleeding, bloodshot eyes holding a daisy between its exposed teeth.
Apparently John had been unimpressed by his Chinese meal one night because his Peking duck ended up being a king peeing on an irate feathered bird.
Page after page held glimpses into his mind.
Every single piece of paper was utilized. She thumbed through each one, wondering what he was thinking at the minute he’d drawn them.
Some he’d scratched out, as if they were
unworthy to grace the paper. A few astounded her.
In such simple short strokes, he captured the soul of whatever he sketched. A car looked like it could fly off the page, leaving skid marks. A vine seemed to writhe like a serpent and the geometric design was nearly 3-D. Turning the sketchbook upside down, she tried to figure out what one drawing was. Her lips pursed as she recognized the folds between a woman’s thighs. John was not only a wonderful artist, he was all male.
A male who’d just turned down one very real-life horny female.
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She slapped the pad on the counter, grabbed her overnight bag, marched into the den and announced her intention of taking a
bath…naked…in the master bathroom…alone.
Damn him, he never even looked up. She left both his bedroom and bath doors open. John never darkened either one.
The pulsating jets of the Jacuzzi soon lulled her into a calmer state. Frothy liquid rolled over her skin, leaching tensions and annoyances away. She soaked until her fingers and toes wrinkled and her butt got sore from sitting. A vague, low cramp twinged deep in her hips and she groaned, popping out of the tub.
Well, she now had a better explanation of her pissy attitude than just horniness. Cursing fate, she dug in her travel bag for a tampon. Maybe it was a good thing John was so wrapped up with his monsters. It left her alone to battle Kotex.
John’s new couch cradled her far too well and she nodded off twice watching reruns. She flicked off the TV and locked the back door. It was near midnight and her eyes drooped. A floppy
nightshirt skimmed her thighs and her bare feet made no sound against the carpet. Fighting a yawn, she peeked into the depths of monster central. His typing was slower now. At some point, he’d eaten half the ham sandwich. The stale bread 78
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of the other half slid as she picked up the plate and set a glass of orange juice in its place.
He looks tired.
His raven hair stood scattered about his head as if he’d run his hands through it several times. The dark shadow of a beard tinged his jawline, made even darker by the shine of his glasses in the computer glow. Livvy’s heart softened and she reached to stroke his shoulder.
With a soft cry, his arms flew over his ducked head and his back hunched away from her. The stance twisted her gut. Rather than jump as if startled or even lash out as if scared, John cowered like a kicked dog. Icy pricks of dread burst into her bloodstream.
His breath whooshed out and he whipped
around to face her. Fear seeped from his eyes, shame entering before being replaced by a hard, cold spark. The brazen smile was meant to charm but seemed forced and stiff.
“Damn, Liv, you scared the shit out of me. I didn’t know you were here.” His look bounced from her toes to her face. “Why are you here? In your pajamas?”
“Gina asked me to keep an eye on you, make sure you didn’t grow roots in here. I figured it was easier to do if I was just down the hall. Besides, it’s Andrea and Tow’s anniversary and I wanted to give them some privacy. I didn’t think you’d mind.”
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“Of course I don’t mind but Gina shouldn’t have asked. I’m not a little kid.”
“Karen Edwards called.” She watched for the freezing of muscle, the shift of guilty eyes, the bracing for a fight.
John just yawned. “Oh yeah? What’d she say?”
He stood and stretched powerful arms above his head, bones cracking like dry wood. His arms lowered and circled her waist, pulling her hard to him. Her hands flew to his shoulders. She’d known him only days and already her body
responded to his, comfortable in his power.
“She said to call her and she owed you a kiss, a big fat kiss actually.”
A wide smile spread across his face. “Really?”
“Yeah. Who’s Karen?”
“My editor. A big fat kiss means she likes the last rewrites. If she hated them, she’d say she owed me a swift kick in the ass.” He glanced at the timestamp on the computer. “Damn, too late to call her back tonight.”
“It is late. I was just heading to bed.”