When Dreams Come True (The Star Series Book 1) (11 page)

After a while, they took turns showering and getting ready for the day. Then she showed him to the most important room in the house: her office.

“Here, this is the room which sold the house for me.” She waved her hand around. The rectangle-shaped room had three sides of glass with a balcony along the far side. Her desk was to one side and she had a couch and small round table on the other. The room was all about the view. There wasn’t much furniture or clutter. With it being suspended from below out over the wash, she had an unobstructed view of the valley below.

“Wow,” he exclaimed and walked over to the window.

“I know. Just wait. You came at the right time of year: monsoon season.” She walked up next to him and pointed. “You see those little clouds building in the distance? I can guarantee there are some right behind us, too. You can sit here on a day like today and see the storms roll in. Watch the shadows play across the city. Watch as the rain falls here and there. It’s beautiful.”

He looked down at her. “No, darling,
you’re
beautiful.” He pulled her into his side and she enjoyed being in his arms again.

“Is there anything you wanted to do while you’re here?” she asked.

“No, I’m doing exactly what I want to do.”

She smiled at him. “Wonderful. This really is the best room to watch the storms roll in. We haven’t had one in a few days, and the weather shows it should be an active day.” She led him to the couch and they sat down as she continued. “I really do love the storms, and I usually stay here until it really gets going. Then I go back to my bedroom and hide out.”

“Why do you hide?” He stopped playing with her fingers to look at her.

“Because lightning struck our house in the middle of the night when I was seven years old. I love everything leading up to the actual crashing and violence of the storm. And if one of these storms rolls through in the middle of the night, forget it. I’m hiding under my covers.”

“I love a good storm.” He paused to kiss one of her fingers. “The electricity in the air.” He moved onto the next finger. “The wind blowing.” He blew gently on the palm of her hand. “The rain coming down in waves.” His tongue darted out and he traced a pattern on the inside of her wrist. “The crack of the lightning illuminating the skies.” Soft kisses were peppered up her arm to the inside of her elbow. “The thunder’s deep rumble felt in your body, making it quake.” He moved up to her neck and whispered in her ear. “I can make you beg for a storm.”

“I dare you to try it.”

“Oh, darling, I’ll do more than try.”

“Excuse me,” Hannah called from the doorway. “I was going to make lunch. Are you two hungry? For food?” She wiggled her eyebrows suggestively.

Lissa cleared her throat. “Yeah, sure. That’d be great.”

“Cool.” She smirked and left the room.

“Good God, woman, what is all that?” Will pointed to the back wall.

“Oh, those are my story boards.” She got up and walked over to them. “Everything on this side—” She stood in front of the ones furthest from her desk. “—are the ones where I’ve had multiple ideas for a specific book. Any time something strikes for that book, I write it here. Or if I have a picture, or really anything which inspires that book, I tape it up here so I don’t forget. Hannah goes through and puts everything into a digital file for me so when I get to that point I can just open a document. See these.” She pointed to various-sized papers taped to the board, with her handwriting on it. “These are things that speak to me, and I write them down and stick them up here. Hannah comes behind me and puts it in the document, makes it all neat, and checks it off. Simple.”

“But there’s got to be a couple of dozen over here.”

“There’s actually more.” She slid out a large drawer. “I have three drawers filled. I have them separated by genre.” She pointed to the ones on the wall. “These are the ones I’ve had the most ideas for and I’ll be writing next.”

“You do this for all your ideas?”

“Yes, I have so many of them. I go through the drawers every once in a while, especially if I’m looking for more inspiration. One of my older story ideas might just start jumping up and down that it’s ready to be written.”

“Wow, and these over here?” He walked to the wall directly behind her desk.

“These are the ones I’m working on right now.” She had them on what looked like a poster rack and she started flipping through them. “See, the ones here are my next deadlines. Either finishing my first draft, cover design, rewrites, betas, more rewrites, first round of editing, and yes, more rewrites. Another round of editing, rewrites, and then finally out to my clean readers, then final rewrites. After that, it goes to formatting and then upload for publishing. We have everything color-coded by what has been done and what’s next, and Hannah can write on here when the next deadline is. When I finish one up and move to the next, she adjusts and moves the boards around.”

“Wow.” He flipped through them. “How many do you have here?”

“About fifteen.”

He turned and looked at her. “You have fifteen stories in one phase or another? How can you keep it all straight?”

“Well, normally I don’t have this many, but I’ve been writing more than usual lately. All I need to do is go back to my board and everything comes back to me, which is why I have them. The hardest part for me is flipping back and forth between first and third person. The book dictates which one I use to write, but sometimes it takes me a few thousand words to get back in the swing of the tense of the book. Plus, it also helps me remember everything when it’s time to do interviews about the books. We have a storage room downstairs which houses the old ones.”

“Do you have the storyboard from the book I was your muse for?” He came up behind her and started nibbling on her neck.

“No, I didn’t have the room to do the boards then.” She leaned her head back on his shoulder so he could get better access to her neck.

“That’s a shame. I’d love to see what you had put on my board.” His arm snaked around her waist and he pulled her tight to him.

“Well, I’m about to see more than I want,” Hannah said as she walked into the room with a tray of food and sat it down at the table. “Soup’s on.” She turned to look at them. “You might want to eat the food and stop nibbling on Lissa; the show is starting.” She nodded behind her where the clouds were rapidly building.

They sat down to eat and he was still full of questions. “Three computers. Why do you need three?”

“I have one I write on, another I do research on and the third is for social media only. That way, if I need it I can have all three up and not have to keep flipping back and forth between screens and pages on one laptop.”

“So, you do all three at once? Shouldn’t you concentrate on one at a time?”

“Sometimes I need to look up something quickly while I’m writing, or I need to focus on something else to clear my head, or I have online obligations. Everything I need is on that one. Hannah really keeps me organized and on track. I’m able to do what I do because of her.”

“I can understand that, because I don’t know what I’d do without Beau. And I must say the two of them are working really well together. They were able to pull this surprise off in record time.”

“Oh, shit, what day is it?” Lissa jumped up and went to her laptop, bringing up a calendar. “Well, that sneaky little dirty dog.”

“What?”

She walked back and sat down. “She must have had two calendars going for me. I was scheduled to have a video chat with my editor today, and I had other obligations for tomorrow, and they’re all gone. I’m going to have to keep a closer eye on her.”

He grabbed her hands. “No, you’re not. You are to sit back and do what you do. Write, and let her do the rest. You must admit, this was a nice surprise.”

“A very nice surprise. I may just start to like them.”

“Then allow them to plan more.”

“Well, maybe…” Lissa grinned at him.

“Excellent. Now, since your schedule is completely open…”

“I wouldn’t say it was completely open.”

“Oh, really? Care to explain?”

“I happen to have a very intelligent, sexy man with a velvety-smooth voice I’m planning on spending every minute with until he has to leave.”

“And who would this be? Do I need to defend your honor?”

“No, I’m hoping you’ll ruin my honor.”

“Oh, that can be arranged. Very easily.” He pulled her chair closer to him and with his other hand on the back of her head, he pulled her in close. “In fact, it would be
my
honor to ruin yours.” His lips captured hers and offered a promise of what was to come.

As the skies became darker, Lissa’s anxiety heightened. As casually as she could, she retreated to the back of the room and started flipping through her boards.

“Is it hard for you, not writing today?” He wrapped his arms around her.

“No.” She leaned into him. “Sometimes when I’ve other obligations it’s hard, especially if I have a deadline, but you are a welcome distraction. If something pops into my head, I can always write it down and save it for later.”

“Then why so tense? I can feel it in your body. Is it the storm?”

When a crash of thunder shook the house, she whimpered and squeezed her eyes shut. She felt so exposed with all of the windows behind her.

“You do know the odds of getting struck by lightning, right?”

She nodded. “About one in seven hundred thousand.”

“You would.” She could feel his lips turn into a smile against her neck.

“Then you take into account how many people live in the surrounding Tucson area, and that is over seven hundred thousand, which means one person in the area is going to be struck every single time there is a lightning storm here. And that doesn’t happen every time, so then your odds shrink because lightning hasn’t struck. Then do you know how many storms I’ve been around in my life and nothing has happened? My odds are shrinking.”

“I find your mind to be an amazing thing. Truly, the way it works is amazing. But you already had a lightning experience, when you were younger, so in my theory you’re good for the rest of your life.”

“Yes, but you’ve heard of the people who are struck multiple times in their lifetime. What about them? What if it’s just building, waiting for the right moment to strike?”

“Pun intended?”

“Totally.”

“Will you be okay for a few minutes?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“I’ll be right back.”

She nodded and felt the loss of his strength as soon as he left her. Keeping her eyes shut, she gripped the cabinet and started telling herself a story, but every time thunder shook the house she’d shake and falter, losing track of where she was.

“Come on.” Will came up behind her and led her back into the room.

Her shaking increased and she was afraid she was going to make a complete fool of herself. Keeping her eyes shut because the last thing she wanted to see was the lightning surrounding her, she let him pull her down on the floor. Frowning, she opened her eyes into a squint, looking at the floor. He’d set up a bed for them in front of her desk; blankets and pillows were spread out.

He laid back and opened his arms for her to lie down with him. Not needing any further urging, she wrapped her body around his and buried her head in his shoulder, blocking out the light show. When his arms came around her and started rubbing her back, she relaxed as much as she could.

“Darling, how about I tell you a story for a change?”

She nodded and held onto him tighter as his voice rose and fell with one of Shakespeare’s masterpieces. Relaxing a little more, she had a passing thought of how many women around the world would love a private reading by Will Martinsson.

Slowly, her body melted into his as the story unfolded and her shaking stopped. Part of her still knew the storm raged around them, but she was drawn into him.

“Melissa, look at me.”

She forced her heavy eyelids open and lifted up so she could see him.

“Now that wasn’t so bad, was it?”

“No, it wasn’t.”

“Well then, you’re going to love this.” He pulled her down to him while kissing her gently, his long fingers caressing her skin. “I’m going to worship you.” The raging storm around them was in direct contrast to his soft touch.

As the rain beat harder and harder against the windows he took his time, discovering her body and what she liked, taking her over the edge time and time again. She’d never had someone take so much time discovering her body and exactly what she liked. With every touch and caress, her body came more and more alive and she blocked out the storm, focusing only on him and what he did to her.

Every time she tried to explore his body, he’d gently push her back down and double his efforts to distract her from anything else but feeling.

Finally, with the lightning crashing around them he slowly slid into her, burying himself deep inside. It felt as if he’d come home to her, their bodies and souls connected, moving as one.

Framing her face with his hands, he made sure she was looking at him. “I love you.”

So lost in him, she didn’t flinch when the thunder cracked around them. “And I love you.” She forced her eyes to stay open as he moved slowly in and out, filling her up as the storm built to a fever pitch around them. Completely connected, they rode out their own storm until their voices mingled with the thunder and they collapsed, completely satisfied, and fell into sleep.