Written in Ink (Montgomery Ink #4)(13)

Why had he told his mother that having Autumn over was an acceptable thing? Oh, yeah, he hadn’t. He’d slightly given in but not fully. It wasn’t like he could truly say no to his mom. Add in his three sisters, and he was screwed. He didn’t like people in his space while he was working. Well, he didn’t like people in his space on days he wasn’t working either.

He had family over when he had to, and even let his cousins stay over since he had the most space for them. But that didn’t mean he had to like it. Of course, none of this actually had to do with why he felt like he was in hell currently.

No, that privilege went to the woman currently humming in his living room.

Humming. Like she was actually happy about cleaning up after him. Damn it. He was an animal. A pig. A teenager who refused to clean his room because he was a f*cking lazy screwup.

Of course, he hadn’t truly thought that until he had a woman he didn’t know but thought was f*cking sexy as hell standing in his home and looking on in disgust. He wasn’t filthy. There wasn’t trash sitting around with bugs and shit, but still, he was cluttered. He knew that. He cleaned up when he could, and honestly, right now was the worst it had ever been.

And it was all because of this book.

This damn book that he couldn’t write.

And, of course, he wasn’t writing it like he should be right then because of her.

Fall.

Autumn.

Her.

He couldn’t concentrate when she was so close. He could still scent the lotion on her skin; still feel the heat of her even though he hadn’t touched her. He wanted to know if her skin was as soft as it looked, wanted to know if her lips would plump as he sucked on them, maybe even nibbled. He wanted to know the color of her nipples, if she had dimples on her lower back where her ass started to curve into that luscious shape.

He couldn’t do that. He shouldn’t do that. Thinking of her that way was disrespectful. She now worked for him. Autumn was off-limits, and yet his dick hadn’t gotten the message. Instead, it strained against his fly, and he knew he’d end up with scars on the damn thing if he didn’t shift around and do something about it at some point.

Of course he wasn’t about to masturbate in his office—a man had limits. But he also couldn’t go take care of it in the shower with Autumn here. Thankfully, he’d showered the night before so he at least didn’t look too much like a dirty hoarder.

When Autumn had kicked him into his office, he’d pulled on a shirt from his clean stack of laundry and had gotten a lovely side-eye. He had a feeling his organization of dirty stacks versus clean stacks would be out the window with her around. He knew he should appreciate her help, but it still felt like a kick in the pants.

She’d pushed him out of the way three hours ago, and he’d written a page.

A page.

He wanted to weep with joy because that page was the biggest pile of shit he’d ever written. But he’d written.

One page in three hours. Only four hundred to go, and maybe he wouldn’t have to slam his head into the wall. A light knock on his office door pulled him away from his empty second page, and he cleared his throat.

“Come in.” He quickly looked around his office and winced. At least he didn’t have dirty clothes in here. That had to count for something.

Autumn came in with a tray of food and a smile on her face. He quickly got up and took the heavy tray from her. He might be a mess, but he wasn’t an *—most days. His mother had trained him well.

“I ordered in for lunch since you had that lovely delivery list attached to your fridge. I’ll go shopping tomorrow once I figure out exactly what you need cleaning and food-wise. You had a whole cabinet of cleaning supplies, FYI.” She raised a brow. “The layer of dust on said supplies was ironic to say the least.”

He shrugged after he put the tray on the side table, trying not to meet her eyes. Yeah, he was embarrassed, but damn it, he needed to work. And sometimes things like showers, cleaning, and eating went out the window when deadlines called.

His stomach growled and he looked down at the food she’d brought. Burritos and a taco salad. Awesome.

“Thanks. What do I owe you for this?” He frowned. “How am I paying you exactly? Mom didn’t mention it.” He stacked a few books on the floor next to his desk so she’d have a place to eat if she, indeed, wanted to eat with him.

Autumn waved her hand. “Your mom took care of it. She gave me cash for food today actually, but I would have just paid for it and invoiced you. As for how I’ll get paid, your sisters wrote up a contract that you should probably look at.” She snorted. “They emailed it to you, but I figured you didn’t check your email if you’re that behind so I can print out what you need. As for payments, we can talk about that after we eat.”

This time she wouldn’t meet his gaze, and he tilted his head. Intriguing. It seemed Autumn had secrets. Secrets he wanted to uncover. Secrets he probably shouldn’t uncover because he didn’t want her to be intriguing.

Autumn took her taco salad and went to sit in his large leather chair, and he made sort of a strangled sound.

She froze, her very delectable ass hovering over the chair. “What the heck was that?”

He cleared his throat. “Not there. It’s my thinking chair.” And now he sounded like a f*cking idiot. Maybe even like the crazy reclusive writer his family joked he was slowly becoming.