Sweetly Isolated (The Swallow Barn Cottage Series, Book 1)

Triskaidekaphobia

Author's Note:

This is part 2 of today's double update. Don't miss the previous chapter!

K. xx 

***

She'd worked till eleven, and then wandered out of her study, still in the writing haze. A delicious smell was coming from the kitchen, and she bounced in.

"I'll need another hour. Maybe you should have some snack," he said to her over his shoulder, and she giggled.

"How do you always know I'm behind you?" she asked. She came up to him, wrapped her arms around his waist, and pressed her cheek to his back. "You couldn't have seen me this time. The kettle isn't on the stove."

He chuckled, pushed one hand behind him, and patted her bottom.

"How's writing going?" he asked and went back to slicing an aubergine.

Tina wandered to the fridge, opened it, found nothing exciting there, and leaned against the counter near him.

"It's... odd," she said. "I've written almost a thousand words for Evelyn Cox. And then it was a good place to stop, and usually I'd go grab some cereal. Instead I switched to the pirate porn, and wrote two thousand words there. I thought I'd stop writing that rubbish." She shrugged. "But there's a narrative now. And they are in space."

He gave her an amused look.

"They are pirates in space? Like Firefly?" he asked, and she giggled.

"Sort of. And I love that you know Firefly." She rubbed her cheek to his upper arm. "Yeah, they're in space, and I think it's all going towards a reverse harem genre. I'm not sure yet. I reckon I'll just let it progress, since it doesn't get in the way of my main writing, and it's sort of– fun."

She shrugged again.

He chuckled. "Based on what I've read, I wouldn't use the word 'fun,' but it's definitely good."

"What? Bondage doesn't tickle your pickle?" she asked innocently, and he laughed.

"Hardly."

Tina gave him a cheeky glance. "And remember at the beginning, you were smugly asking me if I was writing some vanilla romance in my study and mused that that's why I didn't want you to go there?"

"Ah yes. But that was before I knew you were the Dashiell Hammett of our times." He leaned to ear and added in a whisper, "And that you're fond of spanking."

Ooph. So hot! And to think of it, she's getting to enjoy this for more than just the remaining two days now!

Tina put her hand on the back of his neck and gently pulled down.

"Don't start, love," he purred. "I can never stay away from you, but I need to finish the ratatouille."

She quickly pecked his lips and let him go.

"Alright, deal with your giant aubergine yourself then," she said, and he guffawed.

"That's a properly bad joke," he said.

"And yet you laughed," she said and gave his backside a gentle smack.

She sat down and started peeling a satsuma from a wooden bowl he'd put in the middle of the table.

"I love the smell," she said and sniffed the peel. "My Nana could only bake one kind of pudding. It was sort of a Christmas cake, but with satsuma slices on top. She made it for every Christmas after Grandma Evans passed away."