She couldn’t stop herself if she tried. Her release tipped over the edge from possible to certain, and she froze, hips straining for contact with his, her entire sheath rippling against his hard length as he stroked in with a rhythm that must have cost him dearly to sustain. Then the tight, clenching fist inside her flung open and she cried out, sharp, short, unmistakable sounds of release.
Conn wrapped his arm around her shoulders and gripped her hip with the other hand, then plunged deep one last time. Cady trembled again from the sheer pleasure of feeling him come buried deep inside her.
Conn lifted himself off her and went into the bathroom. Cady lay in the blanket cocoon heated by their bodies, phrases and bits of what felt like might be a refrain drifting through the haze in her mind. When Conn emerged, he didn’t get dressed or head straight for the shower. Instead, he came back and clambered over her to snuggle back into the warm bed. His arm locked around her waist, pulling her close.
“I could get used to this,” she murmured, already half asleep.
His arm tightened around her waist. “Yeah,” he said. “Me, too.”
When she woke up the next morning, she had it. Overnight her brain had done that mysterious, magical thing, and the jumbled pieces of lyrics and melody and meaning were now at least a couple of verses, well on the way to a song.
“That’s it,” she said.
“What’s it?” Conn asked.
She pushed at his shoulder. “I’ve got it,” she said, which probably wasn’t any more helpful. “Let me up. I need to write this down.”
He obligingly lay flat so she could scramble over him. “That’s a first for me,” he said, clearly amused.
“What is?” she asked, distracted by the rhythm and words in her head. She followed the trail of her clothes out of the bedroom and into the kitchen.
“Having a woman jump out of bed. Usually there’s morning cuddling.”
“I’ve got an idea for the song,” she said, then did a double take. He was standing in the doorway, one shoulder braced against the frame, magnificently naked. “Do you want to cuddle?” she asked, torn.
“I’m good,” he said, still smiling. “Go do your thing.”
Thank God. She bolted for the stairs, desperate to get to the studio where her notebook and guitar waited. Noncreative types didn’t understand the way a song, a melody, a lyric could well up inside you, suddenly fully formed where before there was only a muddled mess, or worse, nothing at all. She hauled open the door and thumped down on her chair, already reaching for her guitar. She had the strap over her head and the body balanced on her thigh, her hand patting for the notebook that held the lines she’d written down back in August, the ones she thought were going nowhere.
No notebook.
She came up short. When she’d heard Conn come back inside after chopping wood, she’d been so desperate to get out of the mental rut she’d left it on the little table, open to the last page full of scribbles and doodles.
Maybe not. Maybe she’d taken it with her, automatically tucking it into her pocket. She leaned her guitar back in the stand, trotted back up the stairs. Water was running in her bathroom, so Conn was taking a shower. Down the hall, into the garage to search her car. Not there. Then she went through her coat pockets. No notebook.
A creeping sensation prickled the skin on the back of her neck. Convinced she was being watched, she whirled around, but there was no one behind her. The light was bright enough that she could see the outlines of the trees sloping up the hill. A flash of movement caught her eye and she startled, her hand flying to her mouth.
Forget looking strong and unafraid. She bolted for the bathroom. Conn stood under the steam shower, both arms wrapped around his waist, turning his amazing shoulders back and forth under the pressure. He looked up when she hurtled into the bathroom.
“What?” he said, already reaching for the handle to shut off the water.
“My notebook is missing,” she said.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Conn hastily toweled himself dry enough that his clothes wouldn’t freeze to his body, then yanked on his underwear and jeans. “Stay here,” he said to Cady, unholstering his gun. Safety off, round in the chamber. “Lock the door behind me.”
Her eyes were huge. “Why?”
“If someone was here, we don’t know that he’s not still here,” Conn said. Cady’s eyes widened. Even he could hear the deadly menace in his voice.
“I probably just forgot it—”
“Do you really think that?”
“No,” she whispered. “I don’t.”
The one place he knew an intruder wasn’t was the bathroom, so he pushed Cady back into the steamy room, cursing the total lack of safety in this situation. Then he cleared the closets, under the bed, then pushed the button to lock the bedroom door and closed it behind him. Not much protection, but the best he could do.
He searched the rest of the house like he was searching a drug den, methodical, every sense on high alert. On the main floor he looked behind the big tree waiting to be decorated, and downstairs he shifted all of Cady’s boxes from home, peered into spaces you wouldn’t think a human being could cram into, even pulled down the attic ladder to check up there.