Chapter 21

TWENTY-ONE

I was getting a serious education about romance authors and how fucking hard they worked.

The cottage had become writing central between the two of us. Rita sprawled out everywhere around the living room. She went from writing in her cozy corner of the sectional, to the floor, to the kitchen table, to the patio outside.

Hell, I even found her on her yoga mat in the downward dog position with her laptop in front of her.

I wasn't sure what had clicked in place for her, but ever since we'd had the Asher meeting, she'd been in full-on writing mode. I understood the fugue state and facilitated it as much as I could.

I was actually a little jealous, since my characters had been suspiciously silent. Thankfully, I was too busy with Larsen and Asher figuring out how to make a newspaper office work with four-color offset printing.

Finding parts and people who wanted to run the machines was the first hurdle. Asher's old printer had retired years ago. The young guy who had taken over knew the bare minimum for how to do the weekly community paper, not how to do the very intricate color work that came with my graphic novels, as well as Ryan's book.

And if this was going to work with future comics, we needed to hash out the details now.

I was pretty sure Asher was fueled by problems. He was a freaking beast about details, as well as full of ideation for future volumes and special editions. I was exhausted every damn night.

But it was the good kind of tired.

The kind where I saw things coming together for Larsen and our people. That maybe there was a win coming for us.

And with what little energy I had left, gave it to Rita.

Instead of sapping her energy, when Rita was in a good writing groove, she had a light inside of her that followed us into the bedroom at night.

She was inventive, and goddamn if that yoga didn't make her as bendy as hell. She was even wearing me down about doing it with her in the mornings.

As forty was coming at me like a bullet train, I was coming around to the idea of it. Especially with the amount of time I was crouched over my art boards.

Well, normally, I was crouched over them.

I'd ordered in a desk, and it was sitting in the corner of the room, unused. I had panels taped up and all my inks lined up.

And yet, there was just a void in my mind for my stories.

Everything was looking up for the future of Duality Press, except for the founding artist.

But that was a problem for another day.

Today, we'd had a meeting with the library about the workshop. Colette and Darby Morse, the librarian, needed us to let them know what we needed for the classes.

Cripes, classes.

I was no teacher. Hell, I'd been a shit student, to be honest. I hadn't cared about classes. Instead, I'd been holed up in the art studio as I figured out just what kind of medium worked for me. I'd gone through all of them, and eventually, I'd landed on ink to my mother's long-held consternation.

That was when I started wearing black all the time. At least that didn't usually show the stains that were often all over me.

"Duchess, c'mon!" I pounded on the bathroom door in our— her —bedroom. It was feeling far too much like ours these days. And as a guy who'd never wanted to share my space before, that was scary as fuck. "Get out of the shower, you're probably pruny at this point."

She turned off the water and came out, leaving a plume of steamy air floating behind her. "I almost fell asleep in there."

I frowned. "You slept for like ten hours last night." I cupped her face. "You're steamed like a lobster, so I can't tell if you're hot."

She batted my hand away. "I'm not sick. I guess I overdid it this week with the photo shoot, writing, and helping Colette with her plans for the expansion."

"We've both been burning both ends of the proverbial candle."

She padded over to the closet and began the long process of picking out her clothes for the day.

Another win for the all-black column—everything I had matched.

"I'll go make us some coffee. Want eggs or something? Maybe a bagel?"

She wrinkled her nose. "I'll just grab some fruit. Coffee would be amazing, though."

"Got it." I was on my way out the door when I backtracked, peeking my head in. "I'm partial to that fluffy sweater that looks like sorbet if you care about my opinion."

"I do not."

I laughed and went downstairs. Our usual visitor was laying at the back door, so I let Bruce in and started a brew in the chemistry set.

The Newfie was always down for some breakfast, so we shared an egg sandwich while we waited for Rita to get ready.

To expedite our escape, I made two to-go mugs for our coffee. When Rita came down, she was wearing the pink sweater with a pair of charcoal slacks and heeled boots.

I crossed to her and curled my arm around her. "You took my advice?"

"Maybe." She went on her toes and kissed me, smelling of mint and the cucumber soap she preferred. "It was a good call. It's chilly enough this morning to need the sweater. It's finally starting to feel like October."

"Only took until nearly the end. I'm not mad about it. The winters in the Cove are brutal, and my back appreciates when there isn't any snow."

"In October?" She went to the fridge and pulled out some mangos and Greek yogurt.

"Lake effect is no joke in Central New York. You'll see."

She dumped a few of the cubes of fruit over a small cup of yogurt before returning the rest to the fridge. She leaned her hip on the kitchen island.

Bruce padded over to her, and he got a bit of mango for his trouble.

"I'm excited to see it. The city is generally just dirty snow."

"And angry cab drivers," I added.

"That too." She licked the back of her spoon. "Do you need to go back soon?"

I sipped from my coffee. "With all that's going on with Asher, it's just easier to stay here." I set down my mug and moved in front of her, then I took her spoon and set it in the sink. "If that's okay with you."

She licked her raspberry-stained lips. "It doesn't suck to have you here."

"Gee, thanks." I took her empty cup and held it out for the dog who gently took it out of my hands.

She grinned. "I do like things the way they are."

"Good. Me too." I kissed her lightly. "Now let's go find out how many crazy people want to listen to us talk."

Her fingers curled into the waffle material of my thermal shirt. "I still can't believe I offered it up. I'm an idiot."

I laughed. "No, we were just in rival mode. And damn, were you hot when you got up there and showed exactly why I call you Duchess."

She rolled her eyes. "Stop."

"It's true. All that regal bearing and this long, perfect throat that makes my mouth water all the damn time." I lowered to kiss my way to the fuzzy collar of her sweater, then I nipped her lightly.

The quick giggle was exactly what I'd been looking for.

"Now let's go see how many crazy people Colette signed up for us."

We left Bruce snoozing off his snack on the couch. We'd be back this afternoon, and Judy and Kelly were used to him spending most of the day at our place.

We'd pretty much adopted him.

The library was at the end of Main Street past Nelson's Grocery. I was tempted to stop in at Brewed Awakening for another hit of coffee, maybe this time with a shot of espresso, but I kept on driving.

We'd taken Rita's SUV since we'd have to hit one of the big box stores for supplies once we knew how many people were coming to the workshop.

I figured around fifty, but Colette had been close-mouthed about how many she'd actually signed up with our raffle system.

Town Hall was showing out with fall flowers. Red, gold, and fiery orange were bursting out of half barrels on either side of the front door. The Crescent Cove Library was next door.

It was a boxy brick building with a long ramp that zigzagged its way up to the front doors. Construction paper pumpkins covered every square inch of the window in front of the kids' reading area. Scribbled names of the children and what grade they were in were in crayon, which activated a memory long dead.

"Pretty sure I used to do those pumpkins during reading hour. My mom needed all the peace she could get and loved Thursdays. It was my favorite day too. I would come out every week with a stack of books."

"Me too. Well, I'd hide in a corner with a stack."

I glanced at her. "Books saved us in many ways."

"That they did."

"I don't really know the current librarian. Mrs. Humphries retired a few years ago. My mom said she's nice. Guess she's kept the reading time thing alive."

We got out and I noticed Colette's sporty white car in the parking lot. We hit the stairs on the side and crossed to the doors. More pumpkins and what I was pretty sure were gourds were taped up on the vestibule windows.

There was a small conference room just off the vestibule. Might be good for a reception area. I filed that away for future use.

The help desk was to the side of the front door, but it wasn't manned at the moment. We went to the circulation desk where a pair of older women were loading up an old school library cart. Shelvis Presley was scrawled along the side with a caricature of the famous singer reading a book.

"Hi, we're looking for Colette and Darby."

"Oh, look at you, Penn Masterson. I haven't seen you in six-thousand years."

I laughed. "Nice to see you, Mrs. Gunderson. I didn't realize you were working at the library."

"I volunteer twice a week. Keeps me out of trouble." She patted her curly hair.

As Mrs. Gunderson was the town gossip, that was impossible.

"They're straight past fiction and in the back where the long tables are. You should remember them. I believe you etched your name into one."

I cleared my throat when Rita drilled her finger into my side. "Um, thanks." I hooked an arm around Rita and steered her through the stacks.

"Defacing property, Mr. Masterson?"

"I'd intended to carve my name along with my junior-year crush. The librarian caught me just as I finished my name. Ahh, Becky, what could have been."

"Becky?"

"Becky French was out of my league in every way. She was the head of the debate team. Smart women make me crazy." I hugged her into me and buried my face in her neck.

"You're just a charmer." But she didn't push me away. In fact, I ducked into the Sci Fi section, and she came with me willingly.

I glanced over my shoulder to make sure the busybody didn't come chasing after us before pushing her up against the shelves.

"We have an appointment," she said breathlessly.

"I always wanted to make out with someone in the library. How can I resist with my favorite girl?" I snaked my fingers under her sweater, and she hissed. I found her tight nipple pressing against her lacy bra. "Ahh, I wish it was my mouth. A kiss will have to do."

I tugged down the top of her bra to get to skin and tugged just the way she liked. She squirmed against me and her hand went down to cup my butt, dragging me closer.

"Maybe you like the idea just as much as I do."

"Maybe," she said against my mouth. "If we were alone, what would you do?"

"I'd crouch in front of you just like that first day in the storeroom. Hook your leg over my shoulder and lick that sweet pussy until you couldn't stay standing. Then I'd keep going until you did that little shiver which tells me you're about to go over."

Her breath caught. "Then what?"

"Then I'd stand and turn you around."

She gasped as I did just that and put her hands on the middle shelf.

"This will have to do." I flicked open the button of her pants and dipped down into the soft wool and lace, then I eased into the even softer silky warmth of her. "Wet for me, Duchess?"

"Penn," she whispered, her breath hitching.

"Can you come for me? Really quick and quiet?"

I sucked at the skin right behind her ear and she shivered. She was fucking wet for me. Soaked, actually and I used it to my advantage.

The wheels of a cart squeaked as it rolled our way, upping the ante.

I tucked two fingers inside of her, leaving my palm as the friction. I pushed her over the edge so fast that I had to cover her mouth and swallow down her quick moan. Her thighs quivered as she pushed back on me, grinding her ass against my aching dick.

She bit my lip as a surprise second orgasm hit.

"Fuck, Duchess. Someone's coming."

"Yeah, me," she said shakily. "Holy crap."

I huffed out a strangled laugh. "I want inside of you so bad, but I do not want Mrs. Gunderson catching us." I slipped my fingers out of her then I licked off the salty perfection of her.

She sagged against the shelves, pressing her forehead against the metal in front of The Wheel of Time .

Who knew a core memory would be added to my life right then?

Such a great one too.

Quickly, she buttoned her pants, and I urged her along to the end of the section just as Mrs. Gunderson's Elvis cart went by.

We both dissolved into muffled laughter as we inched our way past Sci Fi and into the Romance section.

"Oh, I wanted to read this." She slipped out a book and tucked it against her.

"Think," I looked at the title, "Nora Roberts will cover up the fact that you came your brains out in front of Robert Jordan?"

"What?" She swung a shocked face my way.

I laughed. "You were standing in front of his book."

She elbowed me. "Jerk."

"There you two are." Colette spotted us and waved us over. "Where have you…" Her eyebrow spiked. "Never mind."

I looked down at myself. Was it that obvious?

Then I noticed Rita's disheveled hair and eased her back against me to tame her flyaways.

"I blame you," she said under her breath as she tucked her hair around her ears.

"Oh, all the blame is mine, Duchess."

"Rita and Penn, meet Darby Morse. She's the head librarian here now."

The woman was surprisingly young with a lion's mane of red corkscrew curls. She was nearly as tall as I was, with intelligent hazel eyes and an easy smile. "Pleased to meet you, finally." She reached out and shook both of our hands. "Colette's been talking you up for weeks now."

"Thanks for letting us use the library for this. Sorry we dropped it on you without some warning." Rita hugged her book to her. "Libraries have always been my favorite places."

"We're thrilled to have you guys." She waved us over to the long tables. "We're going to bring in some more tables from the basement and push a few of the shelves over for the day." She motioned toward the shorter shelves full of magazines and craft books.

The long wooden tables looked as if they could easily hold fifty people. I held up a hand. "Wait, this should be more than enough for what we planned." I glanced around. "More than enough. You could probably fit seventy-five people or more."

Colette twisted her fingers. "About that."

"Col…" Rita began.

"I know, I know." Colette came forward with a folder. "I tried to keep it at fifty but then I kept getting people emailing me that they'd love to pay for the workshop."

"We don't want to get paid for this." Rita set her book down. "The taxes and insurance would be insane."

"I know. That's why we're going to donate it all." Colette smiled widely. "We're going to give half to Saving Hearts like the calendar and the other half to the library since you both are such a proponent for literacy."

"Just how many people are coming, Colette?" Rita asked.

"It's not so bad. I mean, fifty would be great, but there were really so many that wanted to come. I finally capped it at two hundred."

"Two hundred!" Rita pulled out a chair and sat down—hard.

I hurried to her side and laid a hand on her shoulder. "That's not exactly what we prepared for."

"I know. But I have a semi-formed itinerary here for you." She handed me the folder. "I've been talking to Rita about what she wanted to do, and of course, we included the notes you had, Penn. I think three separate workshops would be great. See," she pointed to the middle of the sheet inside, "this would be your combined one about storyboarding, then in the morning, Rita could do hers about genre fiction, and then the afternoon would be yours about art and storytelling."

The structure was a more organized version of what Rita and I had come up with in the last few weeks.

Darby picked up the thread from what Colette was talking about. "If it goes well, we'll look into more workshops?—"

"One and done for me," Rita interrupted.

Darby laughed. "It's okay. I've been talking with Colette about what she wants to do with the expansion of her shop. We want to work together as well to get more authors to do small library workshops as well as signings. We think this ended up being a crazy, but amazing plan."

Relief rolled through me. I didn't mind doing this, but I had no future plans to be a teacher in any way.

"This is going to be great!" Colette went over to sit next to Rita. "You don't have to get too in-depth. Just make it fun."

"Oh, sure. I give fun vibes off to you?"

She laughed. "You were very badass at the signing. So, yeah."

Rita stacked her arms over the book and put her head down. "I am not fun. I am a mess of a romance writer who is just trying to start over."

I rubbed her back. "You're not a mess, and you've been writing like a lunatic."

She sighed and sat back, then she glanced up at me. "You really think so?"

I crouched down next to her. "I know so. We got this."

She wrapped her arms around me, and I held on.

I wasn't quite sure about that, but I'd lived by the fake it ‘til you make it way of life since I'd started this crazy career.

And I wasn't going to let her down.