the email I have about a job interview.
“Where are you going?”
“I have things to do.”
I walk away, even though my body has already prepared itself in anticipation of having him in my bed, but that’s not going to happen until I say so.
But as I retire to my room for the evening, I’m at a loss for what to do next. My mind is jittery and I can’t settle down. I can’t watch TV or read a book, or surf aimlessly online. I should reply to the people who want me to come in for an interview but that would make it all so real. The idea that I could get a job elsewhere, means that I would have to give notice here. With things seemingly back on the track with me and Ward, I’m no longer eager to leave. We aren’t done. I don’t want to leave, and he’s already told me he doesn’t want me to go.
If I feel this jittery, I can’t imagine how Ward feels. I don’t even have a deadline weighing on my shoulders. I don’t have an editor breathing down my neck, or a competitor’s success making me doubt myself.
If this is difficult for me, how much harder must it be for Ward?
I can’t do this any longer.
I want to give in.
I want to surprise him.
I want to seduce him.
And tease him in the process.
Arousal surges through me like a freight train, hard and fast and heavy. The more I think of him the more I want him.
But first, I need something. I slip into his bedroom.
WARD
Insanity. That’s what this is. How can I be creative when my cock has other ideas?
This environment isn’t conducive to writing and editing a book. That’s what having a housekeeper such as Mari is like. I need Freya again. Life was so much less complicated at home.
Mari’s gone to bed, and I was prepared for us to sit and talk for longer. I want her, I crave her, but I can hold back, and if that was all she wanted, to talk and do nothing else, I would have happily agreed. But leaving me like that, as if she can’t bear to be around me, that’s another level of headfuck I can do without.
Eager to overcome the mounting frustration, I settle down at my desk, and go through the printed out chapters of my manuscript. My heart isn’t in it, but the clock is ticking. I told Rob that he would have these last week. And last week I told him he would have them the week before that.
Even he can see that I’ve stalled again. Exhaling slowly, as if I’m about to prepare for a marathon, I pick up my pen and start to read.
And I hate every single word I read.
It’s always like this. I hate what I’ve written. So I get to work, scribbling notes in the margins, crossing out lines and dialog and prose that is stilted. Words I don’t like and putting question marks over things that don’t make sense.
How can my manuscript still be so messy when I’ve rewritten each chapter so meticulously? I read another page and leave more ugly red lines.
“Why so much red? It can’t be that bad.”
I look up to find Mari staring down at me. She’s wearing my satin robe, the one I used to wear a long time ago.
I didn’t even hear her come in, and seeing her dressed like that, suddenly gets me hot, as if a wildfire has spread all over my body. My cock stands up elated.
“You … had … things … to do,” I say, offering up a lame ass reply. I stare at my robe, and my initial instinct is to tear it off her. I don’t need to wonder why she’s here, because that look in her eyes, coupled with her new choice of attire already tells me.
“I’ve done them all.” Her mood is playful, her voice is flirty.
I throw down my pen. “I’m not making progress,” I say, wearily, and there will be no further attempt at any progress, not if she’s going to stand there dressed in that. “It’s hard.”
She struts over to my side, pushes my chair back and stands in between my legs, before lifting her knee and resting it on the small area of the chair between my legs. Her hand goes straight to my cock. “It is hard.”
My brain fogs over. My mouth stops working. I stiffen further.
“I love what you’re wearing,” I manage