Page 16 of Loving Words
I turned on Gran’s electric kettle to heat some water before heading to the liquor cabinet in the living room to grab my whiskey of choice. Finding an unopened bottle of Tennessee Honey, one of my favorites, I grinned, knowing Gran had stocked it for me.
“No, dammit. That doesn’t work.”
Unable to make out the rest of the sentence, I turned around. Jack was settled into one of the chairs by the fire, with the coffee table pulled up next to him. Paper, pens, and sticky notes littered the table while his fingers flew across the laptop balanced on his knees. It looked like I wasn’t the only one who could benefit from a hot toddy.
Transfixed by the way his fingers were moving across the keyboard, I easily imagined them running across my skin. Dancing their way along my body... teasing my nipples to peaks before continuing their way down to explore the sensitive skin between the apex of my thighs. A small moan escaped my lips at the images flashing through my mind.
I stepped back when Jack’s head lifted and turned toward me. Quickly, I hurried back to the kitchen before he could say anything. I put together the drinks, added an extra shot to both, and took them to the living room. Walking in carefully, I cleared my throat. I didn’t want to startle him, and I didn’t want to be too loud, as Gran had already gone to bed.
Jack looked up and blinked a few times before his lips tipped upward.
“I thought you might like a nightcap or, maybe for you, a midnight boost.” I handed him a mug. “I also wanted to apologize for my reaction, the way I teased you, and for using that word in reference to the romance genre,” I said quickly, wanting to get all the words out and fully expecting him to cut me off and ask me to leave.
Jack took a sip and looked into his mug. “Make these daily, and I may just forgive you. This is the best toddy I’ve had in ages.” His eyes sparkled as he gazed back up at me. “I accept your apology, and I admit I reacted harsher than I probably should have.” He raised his mug. “Truce?”
With a nod, I clinked my mug to his. “Truce.” Peering down at the pages still spread on the table, I asked, “Whatcha working on now? Another in the chess series?” It looked like he had a rough map drawn, a sketch of some kind of animal, and one of the front of a mountain cabin.
“No, this is something new that just popped into my head. I needed to get out what my mind created before I lost it.”
“Then I will leave you to it, and feel free to get another drink if you need it. Have a good night, Jack.”
“You too, Kennedy.”
With the warmth of the hot toddy and my growing sexual attraction to the man, I was tempted to offer him my room so he could work. After all, I did have a comfortable chair and an even more comfortable bed. Maybe I could help inspire a few of his sexier scenes, or even those that got marked for return reads—the BOB markers, as an old college roommate used to refer to them.
I glanced back and saw his head bent over his laptop once more. Tonight was not the night. Maybe tomorrow, if we didn’t piss each other off again. I put on pajamas before settling into the comfy chair in my room. I unlocked my iPad, opened up the Kindle app, and scrolled my library until I found the first in the Checkmate series. It was time to see what the fuss was about.
?Chapter 6
?Jack
Sighing, I sat backand grabbed the drink Kennedy had made me. My head spiraled with images of a car chase from my Checkmate series and a remote cabin featuring an infuriatingly sexy woman.
My notes were spread across the table, as well as a few crumpled sheets of paper lined with shit ideas. They were merely fragmented thoughts, until I could line things into some sort of semblance of a plot. If only readers understood the agonizing process of molding ideas into something that was readable.
I lifted the drink to my lips and savored the warm and spicy liquid. As if she’d known I needed it, she’d made it strong. Closing my eyes, I rotated through a variety of scenarios where my character, Jackie, would meet the grumpy survivalist I wanted her to fall in love with. Every time I imagined my heroine, my stubborn brain superimposed Kennedy’s features over it.
