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Chapter Seven
All that was left of Michael was the coffee cup in the sink, but Abby couldn’t shake him from her mind. It was as if he still stood in the kitchen, laughing with her about her favorite memory of her grandfather, or creasing his brow in concentration and gesturing with his hands as he went over the repairs he envisioned for the cabin.
Had there ever been a man more captivating? Abby still wasn’t sure that he hadn’t stepped out from one of her romance novels.
A man like Michael didn’t exist in the real world, after all, and certainly never the modern one.
Abby’s favorite type of romance was historical, and she’d been writing it just as long as she’d been reading it. There was something so mystical about corsets and petticoats, and something so regal about breeches and waistcoats. Lords and ladies. Affairs. Class differences.
But her publisher had been on her back about putting out new material. The historical market was dead, her representative had told her. If she wanted to keep her head above the water and be taken seriously in the modern market, she was going to have to do something new.
And along had come Santino and Claire, two individuals in a contemporary romance who… Well. Abby still hadn’t figured them out yet.
But when the door closed behind Michael and she found herself alone, something came over her she hadn’t felt in a long time. The burning desire in her chest that leeched into her lungs and infected every breath she took quickly spread down her spine and lit her whole body alight with the thing she’d been looking for for the last three months.
Inspiration.
With thoughts of Michael on her mind, Abby fled to her bedroom and sat at her desk to write.
The blank page in front of her wasn’t intimidating. Santino and Claire’s story was on hold—maybe indefinitely. There was a new story in her mind, taking shape with every passing second.
A story with a character with the most dazzling blue eyes and the strangest pale hair she’d ever seen. A man so gorgeous that he couldn’t be real.
Abby had read a few paranormal romance stories, but she’d never really invested herself in one. Now, with Michael too perfect for real life, she knew that it was what she had to do. It was time for her to let go and indulge in the unreal, because at that moment it felt like her life was very much a fantasy.
Her fingers flew across the keys as she wrote.
The way Michael had touched her wasn’t like any touch she’d felt before. Not even from Tyler. There was a gentleness to his strength, like he was taking care not to hurt her—like she was the most delicate thing in the world, and that he knew he could break her if he let himself go.
Michael was danger, and sex, and charm, and…
Abby closed her eyes for a second as she remembered the moment on the doorstep where he’d curled his finger under her chin and had lifted her head so they could look at each other eye to eye. In that moment, all she’d been able to do was focus on his lips, and how full they looked for a man’s. The piercing blue eyes she’d been dreaming about since the speed-dating event were softened and emotional.
Loving.
Like he really cared, and like he’d always cared, even before they’d met. As though it was destiny that they’d cross paths at a small-town bar like The Stripe.
Abby had never written about another living person before, whether she’d dated them or not. Most of the time, she felt there was something weird about it. Capturing a complex human being was complicated, and most of the time she found that doing so stifled her creativity.
With Michael, it was different. With Michael, the words flowed.
“Thank you, Michael Kage,” she whispered to herself. Words turned into sentences, sentences turned into paragraphs, and before the first hour at her computer was through, those paragraphs had turned into a chapter.
Abby had been lost since Tyler had betrayed her, but now she was back on track and better than ever.
And it was all because of Michael.
* * *
“I thought I was coming in this morning to do repairs. Is this really all for me?”
Abby stood in the kitchen doorway, grinning ear-to-ear as she watched Michael take in the kitchen table. It was loaded with food. Scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon, biscuits, gravy, corn beef hash, and even oatmeal—just in case Michael was a vegetarian.
Somehow she got the feeling that a man like Michael didn’t follow a restrictive diet, but it would have been a shame to make a breakfast he couldn’t eat at all.
“Well, I’m repaying you for your services with a date, right?” Abby asked. The thought that a man like Michael genuinely felt attraction for a woman as unconventionally beautiful as she was still registered as surreal, but she’d come to embrace it and even be excited by it. “I figured maybe we could start this morning, before you got to work. A breakfast date.”
It was rare that she cooked anything—without anyone else to make food for, it didn’t seem worth the effort. Not when she could pop a frozen meal in the microwave or order in. But cooking for Michael, the muse who’d inspired her to write not one, but three chapters, yesterday was appealing.
