Free Against the Wall (Stoddard Art School Series Book 3) by Lisa A. Olech Page B

he’d be done. He’d split a knuckle that refused to stop bleeding and continued to sting like a bugger every time he bent his finger, but thank goodness he had some manual labor to keep him moving.
    Returning to the inn, he’d chopped half a cord of firewood before the furniture delivery arrived. It beat the hell out of some of the other things he’d considered while trying to make sense out of what happened on the point—banging his head on a rock, punching a wall.
    He’d kissed her. All the fantasizing and days of wanting and wondering paled to the mind-blowing reality of that one kiss.
    Her tiny gasp of surprise when he slipped his tongue between her lips had almost stopped him, but then she softened beneath his hands. She kissed him back. Held on to his hair, leaned her body along his, and kissed him senseless. The sweet taste of her mouth only made him want more. Another few seconds and he would have picked her up and carried her into the house.
    He could have held her forever, but the kiss ended as abruptly as it had begun. He’d been stunned when she bolted. Part of him wanted to chase after her. The other part wanted to throw himself off the point.
    Dammit!
    Since when did a simple kiss throw him? No, Kay was anything but simple. This had nothing to do with monsoons or drought—there was more heat to her than rain. It was true, it’d been a long time since he’d wanted to kiss someone, and he sure as hell had wanted to kiss Kay. He had the singed lips to prove it.
    He couldn’t stop thinking about her. She was everywhere and nowhere. Her essence surrounded him at the inn, at home on the point. He tripped over Shadow the other morning on their run all because he was trying to catch a glimpse of her as they passed her cottage.
    And now he’d kissed her. He knew how she tasted. How she felt in his arms. In those few maddening seconds, he’d only intensified the desire to know her better. He wanted her even more. All he had to do is get her to speak to him again.
    When he returned to the inn later that evening, he was relieved to see her funny little car parked out front. Either she was working—or she was here to quit, quit .
    Shadow was happy with his new rawhide bone bribe when Bear left him outside in the back kennel. The dog wasn’t a fan of his new digs, so dig he did. Bear had already filled in three holes, but if Shadow got his favorite toy or a new bone, he tolerated the short time he was left alone. “Let’s see if we’re both relegated to the dog house.” Shadow whined once in sympathy, and then carried his prize off for some serious gnawing.
    As soon as Bear saw Kay’s drop cloths spread along the sidewall, he released the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. She was working. Thank you!
    He leaned against the doorframe leading into the lobby, staying quiet as he watched. The earbuds in her ears meant she hadn’t heard him come in. What song was she humming?
    She was adding a line of pine trees into the background. Tipping her brush, she tapped the paint to the wall. She double loaded the square-tipped brush with two separate colors, which magically mixed beneath her touch. It was as if the trees simply appeared off the end of her brush. One after another, after another.
    Kay caught sight of him and gasped. She pulled the buds from her ears. “Jeez, Bear, you scared the hell out of me!”
    “Sorry.” He pushed away from the doorframe and held up his hands in surrender.
    She turned her back on him. Her shoulders set as she added more paint to her palette. Loading her brush, she stood poised to continue, but didn’t.
    A full ten seconds crawled by. The tension in the room was neon green. He had to say something to make everything right with her, but what?
    “Kay, about what happened earlier, I—”
    “You scared the hell out of me,” she repeated, speaking to the wall.
    Bear moved toward her and stopped. “That was the last thing I wanted to do. I’m a big clumsy idiot.