Was it possible to feel more connected to a person every time you made love? I’d felt love before, was close to getting engaged at one point. I’d certainly experienced lust. But this? This was on a different level. It felt like Drew was becoming part of me.

He’d left the piles of papers on the floor where I’d found him, turned off the lights and walked me back to the cottage. He talked about the future of Karensa, something he’d never let himself do before. His excitement was palpable, and I’d never been so turned on. There was a passion that had eluded him before, not a sexual passion, he had plenty of that, but a passion for the business, the island. For life. It was like I was getting a small glimpse into what Drew must have been like before Meghan’s humiliation when he was setting up the business in the memory of his mother, when everything was shiny and bright.

‘You hungry?’ I asked as I turned on the Christmas tree lights and put the envelope from my publisher down on the table next to my laptop.

‘Always,’ he said as he swatted me on the bum.

‘For food.’ I rolled my eyes and giggled.

‘I want to taste you.’ It was a demand. A plea. How could I deny him? I pushed him by his shoulders onto the cosy chair, my reading place. I found myself standing in between his legs as I hooked my thumbs into my yoga pants and inched them down to reveal the black lace of my underwear. ‘How do you do that?’ he asked.

‘What?’

‘Wrap your body in plain, comfy writing clothes, but hide fucking sin underneath?’

I pulled the coffee table closer, sitting down and spreading my legs, inching across the small triangle of lace hiding my pussy from him. He gasped. He swallowed and threw his head back, but quickly came back to me, fucking me with his eyes before licking his lips, watching me exposed and ready for him.

‘Such a sweet pussy.’ I pulled my sweater over my head and pinched my nipple through the cup of my lacy bra. ‘Are you still wet from me, my come?’ I nodded. ‘Wider. Let me see.’ I put my feet up on the table and spread my legs just for him. Only for him. ‘Fucking perfect,’ he said, unbuttoning his jeans and pulling them and his boxers down in one swoop. His cock was ready. Hard and glorious and as he took himself in his hand he started stroking. I was transfixed by the movement, the small amount of pressure he used, the noises he made. He was restraining himself, itching to come closer to me, but holding himself back. ‘Touch yourself. Like you did at the window.’

‘No,’ I teased.

‘No? Don’t tell me you didn’t like it, Cal. You liked being watched.’ His eyes closed in pleasure. ‘Get yourself off. Show me how turned on you are watching me hand fuck myself.’

‘Drew…’ I was so wet. Insanely wet. Dirty talk had always been something that turned me on but wasn’t always something I’d heard. I loved that Drew had read my books and somehow knew what would turn me on the most.

‘Look how ready you are. Do you want my cock?’

I started circling my clit and the Drew that wanted to remain in control, to tease me, to drive me to the edge disappeared. Another Drew resurfaced, the one who couldn’t resist me, the one who couldn’t keep away. He knelt down in front of me, lifted one of my legs on his shoulder and grinned as his eyes connected with my pussy. ‘Such a tease.’ I leant back on my elbows, slid my finger down one last time and raised my hand to his mouth. A deep inhale set my arousal alight and as he slipped my finger between his lips, still coated with my arousal, I couldn’t wait any longer. ‘Impatient,’ he said as I pulled him towards me. ‘We like the tease, remember? Remember the night. When I watched you undress, watched you finger fuck, wishing it was me?’

‘Drew,’ I said shuddering. My need taking over my body.

‘Watch me, baby.’ Drew kissed my inner thigh, gripped his hands on either side of my pussy and licked. I watched his jaw go slack, his tongue lap and suck, his eyes locked on mine. I threw my head back, moaning at the rush. ‘Watch me,’ he rasped. ‘Don’t stop watching me. I fucking adore the way you react.’

I threw my arms back and Drew held me in place, one hand pressed against my stomach, the other circling and pressing, a delicious blend allowing the chase to come quickly. He was holding me steady as he devoured me and as his hand left my clit I watched him pleasure himself, stroking to the beat of my heart—faster, increasing the pace, lost in me, bathed in the dim light, the star on the top of the tree casting shadows on the wall behind us.

‘Come against my mouth,’ he said, breathless and beautiful.

‘No. Come in me.’ The words were echoing, didn’t sound like my voice. I needed him and he knew, thrusting himself into me, no further questions asked, no words necessary.

‘I live for how your breath pauses just before I enter you.’

‘I’m already close,’ I gasped. ‘You’ve got me so close.’ He nodded, telling me he was in exactly the same place and we came together, riding it out until we were sticky and spent. Drew’s pace hard and relentless. Our bodies were falling, our worlds shifting closer again.

He lifted his head, shaking arms cradling me as we lay back on the table. ‘Did I hurt you?’

‘No. Not at all.’

‘I love that I get to be like this with you. Real and raw,’ he said, circling his fingers across the quote on my thigh. ‘You make me crazy. Make me fearless.’ I kissed him, loving how close I felt to him. ‘Do you know how big this is for me? To finally feel I can trust someone again.’

‘I know,’ I whispered.

I did.

I knew.

And I cherished it.

After my fourth orgasm, we shared a bath, talked and laughed. I think both of us had felt another shift in our relationship. Drew talked about feeling fearless and I understood that. I loved the word. Fearless. A feeling taken for granted, importance not always pinned to it until you don’t feel it anymore. My writing had taken on the same theme. I started writing what whirled around my heart without worrying how the words sounded, the flow of the sentence or if the grammar was correct. I just sat down and typed, the story feeling like an outflow of how my connection to Drew was changing.

I was finding it hard to imagine my life without him.

I decided to get a few more words locked down after Drew went to make us one of his famous wood-fired pizzas. I’d chosen to spend the night watching Love Actually, snuggled on the sofa under a blanket. Drew said watching a movie shouldn’t be allowed without a pizza. Hugh Grant’s dance moves could wait.

I made the mistake of checking my emails before opening my manuscript. Fatal. That could often set you back a good hour. I took a sip of hot chocolate, scolding myself for the rookie mistake, and read an email from Gerry. The subject line said, ‘Mountain man has hard wood!’ I rolled my eyes and put the cup down, peering closer to read his comments on the original story that I’d decided to stop writing.

The email consisted of a collection of high praise and lots of fucking awesomes. He loved the concept of a sexy mountain recluse and the journalist intrigued by his chopper. I started to get a feeling of dread, the kind that makes your stomach drop, as it was becoming clear that Gerry had utterly missed the high romance aspect of the story and tagged it as an alpha male sex fest with a series of sex scenes strewn together with little plot. Can we expand on this scene, add more details about chiselled abs? Sexy woodcutter is hot right now. The cover is perfect. My eyes immediately landed on the envelope Drew had given me earlier. I’d put it on the table at the side of the laptop, but had been otherwise engaged for most of the night. I stared at it. Touched it with the tip of my fingers. Picked it up. Pressed it against my mouth.

Opened it.

Inside was a series of colour images. Two teasers with a release date and cheesy taglines that made me feel queasy. Get good wood! Coming February. He’ll let you hold his chopper! Coming soon! Behind the teasers were more papers—a mockup cover of a male model posing shirtless with abs all the way and more, swinging an axe, one leg up on a tree stump, a sexy pout. Fabio eat your heart out. I laughed at first, fully believing that this was a joke, that Gerry had made them as a late Christmas present in the hope that it would cheer me up after the writer’s block fiasco. But part of the print cover mockup included a blurb, not written by me.

He’s a recluse. An ex-pilot with a secret. Shamed and humiliated by love. Jilted by his fiancé.

He won’t go there again. He can’t. That’s why he lives alone in the mountains, his big chopper always at the ready just in case.

She’s a stunner. A blonde journalist sent to push his buttons. Test his boundaries. She wants to know about his wood. He wants to teach her. On her knees and ready to be seduced.

Will the mountain man wood master succumb to more than just her ample charms? Or will he let himself fall in love again?

Humiliation burns, but will Kari’s love burn him harder?

I picked up my mobile and rang Gerry, exasperated and still in shock.

‘Cal! How’s it going? Did you get the mockups?’

‘How could you get this so wrong?’ I said, not waiting for chit-chat.

‘What are you talking about?’

‘This isn’t the theme of the book,’ I replied. ‘I sent you three chapters and you send me this. Is it a joke? I’m struggling to find it funny, Gerry. I really am.’

‘Romantic comedy is huge, Cal. Readers love alpha males. Abs on covers. Sexy woodcutter with a back story. You’re onto something here.’

‘No. This isn’t a rom-com, it’s a contemporary romance. A love story. Hugely romantic. This doesn’t come close to my vision for the book,’ I said, pulling my hair back, exasperated that my publisher could get this so wrong.

‘Send me more,’ he replied. ‘I’ve been waiting for the completed manuscript to land in my inbox for days. So far…I got nothing.’

‘I’ve started a new book,’ I said, drawing my knees up to my chest and biting my nail. I wasn’t sure what his reaction would be. I heard him clear his throat.

‘A new book.’

‘Yes.’

‘Cal. What are you saying to me?’

‘I wasn’t happy with the way things were going with the original and I decided to start again.’

Silence. Another throat clearing. ‘Is that why you’ve asked for more time?’

‘Sort of.’

‘What’s going on?’ he asked.

‘Nothing. Everything’s great. I’ve just had a stronger idea. High romance, some angst. It’s a beautiful love story.’ I looked at the cover again. Dropping it to the table. ‘This doesn’t fit the theme. It doesn’t represent the words, the journey.’

‘Cal, let’s take things a step at a time.’

‘Fine,’ I replied, annoyed that he wanted to discuss this further.

‘I still want the completed first manuscript.’

‘Gerry, I want to shelve it,’ I replied, closing my eyes and wincing at how wrong this felt.

‘Send it to me by the end of the week. Whatever else comes out of your time at Karensa we can deal with at a later date. I like the reclusive mountain man and I want to see the full story.’

I heard the front door open and close, and quickly went upstairs so that Drew couldn’t hear the end of the conversation. He would only ask questions and I wasn’t sure I had the answers.

‘I’ll send it, but I don’t want it released. It isn’t strong enough. My other books are emotional, angsty. I don’t write about mountain men woodcutters with hard wood.’

‘Cal…forgive me, but you just did.’

I held the phone to my chest as Gerry ended the call. This was a mistake. The whole idea a mistake. The Woodcutter’s Chopper couldn’t be my next, most anticipated release. It wasn’t that I turned my nose up at books with a higher sexual edge and an innuendo-filled title. I’d read and enjoyed plenty, but they weren’t my books. That wasn’t my voice. I needed to stay true to my style. Readers expected that. Now my priority had to change from sending Gerry the completed original manuscript, to finishing our love story and getting it to him by the end of the week.

I secured my hair in a bun and came downstairs to find Drew hovering over my laptop. When he turned, he was holding the mockup cover, a face full of confusion.

‘What is this?’ he asked.

‘That’s nothing,’ I said, trying to take it from him. He pulled it back. My face fell.

‘It doesn’t look like nothing,’ he replied, his face a mixture of shock and disbelief. ‘The Woodcutter’s Chopper by Cal Dixon. This isn’t nothing, it’s a book cover. Your book cover.’

‘It’s a very bad mockup,’ I replied, laughing to try to ease the tension and show him it didn’t matter.

‘“He’s a recluse. An ex-pilot with a secret. Shamed and humiliated by love. Jilted by his fiancé.” What the fuck, Cal?’

‘I didn’t write that,’ I replied biting my lip.

‘Humiliation burns, but will her love burn him harder?’

‘Those aren’t my words,’ I whispered, shaking my head, a nervousness to my voice.

‘Is this what you’ve been working on?’ he asked, his face full of shock. ‘The Woodcutter’s Chopper? Jesus Christ.’

‘That isn’t my title. I sent three chapters to Gerry and he’s come back with a cover mockup and blurb—none of which I’ve agreed to,’ I said, trying to take his hand. He stepped back and I was crushed.

‘But someone has made this based on three chapters. Your words. Is the whole fucking book about me?’ he asked, his face full of disappointment and disgust.

‘I’ve told them I don’t want to release it.’

‘That’s good of you, Cal, considering it’s my life you’ve written about!’ he shouted, his head falling. ‘How could you do this to me?’

‘It’s not what it looks like—’

‘Your female character is called Karensa! You’ve stolen my life!’ He threw the papers onto the table. ‘I’ve been humiliated before, but this?’

‘I’m not letting them print it,’ I replied, letting the tears fall as I realised this was creating the biggest hole in the foundation of a relationship we’d only just started to create. He shook his head, folded his arms and started twisting his lip between his fingers. ‘I didn’t agree to this. I don’t want you to think that I’ve been part of it.’

‘Is the story about an ex-pilot recluse?’ he asked.

I took a deep breath. ‘Yes.’

‘Jilted by his fiancé? Is that the humiliation part?’

I let a tear drop. ‘Yes.’

He nodded, twisting his lip again. ‘Where do you come into this? An author sent to write about his struggling wedding business?’

‘A journalist.’

‘Ah, a journalist. Great switch. A journalist doing what?’

‘Writing about…wood.’ I cringed inside. Embarrassed to be saying this out loud. Mortified that I’d let myself write something based on a life that wasn’t mine to write.

‘Wood,’ he repeated, his face lined in confusion.

‘I didn’t finish it. It isn’t a completed novel.’

‘I knew this was too good to be true,’ he whispered, looking towards the door, planning his escape route. My heart sank.

‘Let me explain,’ I pleaded.

‘You can’t,’ he replied, broken. Utterly broken. ‘How can you possibly explain this? People are going to be reading about me. The woodcutter recluse. Fuck. Cal, how could you do this?’

‘It isn’t you!’ I shouted. After trying to calm my voice, I continued, ‘I was attracted to you when we met. I was intrigued by everything I saw and heard. The shirtless woodcutting. The funny one-liners. The brooding. The caring side. That all helped build a picture for a character. A character that isn’t really you. Elements of you, but not you.’

‘I can’t believe I thought this would work,’ he replied, gathering his things, picking up his shoes. ‘I let my guard down. I gave you more than I ever thought I could and this is what you do to me?’ A rage bubbled underneath my upset. I watched him angrily put on his shoes, tie his laces, and shake his head. A few times he looked like he was going to say something, but then held back. Eye contact had vanished. His usual warmth was now cold and impenetrable. Yet still, I had this tiny voice whispering, reminding me of how much history had passed between us in such a short time. The early pushing away that turned into pulling me towards him. The fearlessness, the ability to choose happiness that had evaded him for so long. Had he forgotten about that?

‘Are you giving up on me? After everything?’

‘Cal—’

‘No. You don’t get to walk away. We need to talk.’

‘I can’t…I don’t know what to do. I’m so confused right now,’ he said, finally standing before pacing in front of the Christmas tree, his large shadow bleeding across the wall.

‘I don’t know what I can say to make this better.’

‘You can’t say anything,’ he replied, stepping back as I came closer. ‘I should never have started this with you. I should have trusted myself. Kept away.’

‘How can you say that?’ I asked, so disappointed that he was going there.

‘I protected myself for so long and finally I gave in.’ He folded his arms, narrowing his eyes at the floor. ‘I started to trust you.’

‘Drew…stop. Please. Talk to me,’ I pleaded.

‘This needs to end, Cal. Right now.’

‘No. I’m not walking away. I won’t,’ I said, following his pattern of pacing, just to get close.

‘Can’t you see the damage you’ve caused? You knew what I went through. The humiliation of being jilted, being left here with a business I couldn’t run. Do you think I want that splashed across the pages of a romance novel?’

‘It isn’t like that!’ I shouted as an idea emerged that could salvage something from this nightmare. ‘Read it. I’ll show it to you,’ I said, going over to the laptop. ‘It’s here. You can read it tonight and then we’ll talk.’

‘You think I want to read it? I lived it, Cal. I don’t need the abridged version.’

‘It’s not a word for word break down of what happened between you and Meghan.’

‘What is it then? A breakdown of what happened between us? Are you the journalist who changes the recluse?’

‘Our relationship influenced everything I’ve written while I’ve been here. Even the notes I’ve jotted down in this book.’ I picked it up and held it to my chest. ‘You want to know why? Because finally, the words I’d written were starting to become something I was experiencing for the first time in my life!’

‘Don’t, Cal.’

‘I’m going to say what I need say before you leave because that’s what’s going to happen. That’s what you always do,’ I yelled, wincing at my words, but just as equally needing him to hear them.

‘You’ve broken my trust. I took a fucking chance on us. A huge gamble. I never thought you’d do something like this.’

I brushed away my tears and admitted defeat, knowing I would be unable to shift the heaviness that now surrounded us.

‘I’m glad you took a chance,’ I said, holding my finger under my nose in an attempt to stop the sobs, closing my eyes to steady myself. ‘To me, it was worth it.’ He stayed silent, unable to look at me. ‘Maybe one day you’ll find whatever it is you’re looking for or perhaps you’ll realise you lost something even bigger and better than that.’ Still silence. My lip shook, upset and frustrated that he wouldn’t answer me, knowing that this must be killing him inside, or devastated at the prospect that it wasn’t. ‘Say something. Please,’ I whispered, pulling the arms of my sweater down over my hands and holding them to my mouth.

‘I need you to leave,’ he replied. ‘Please. By the end of the week. As soon as you can. I won’t be able to handle this if I know you’re still here.’

‘Don’t shut me out,’ I said, my voice breaking.

‘I have to,’ he replied.

‘If this is what you really want, I’ll leave on the first flight out of here tomorrow. I’m not going to beg you to listen. I won’t hang around and hope you’ll change your mind in a few days once you’ve thought it all through. I’ll be gone. That’s it. Finished.’ Choking back tears, I watched him walk back to his cottage, but the words I’d just spoken fell away, and the thought of him closing the door and never seeing him again made me shout after him. ‘Drew!’ He didn’t stop. He didn’t turn, but I decided to carry on, throw the words out there, and not leave, regretting the ones I’d never said. I took a deep breath. ‘I’d hoped that I’d finally found the love I write about. The love I hoped existed. I’m just so utterly sorry that it could only be mine for the length of a few chapters.’

He stopped, his head bent, casting a lonely figure, beaten down and morose. I watched him fighting with himself, a slight movement to turn before stopping again. A flicker of hope ran through me that he would turn around and at least give me the opportunity to explain myself further. The flicker blew out when he opened the door to his cottage and stepped inside.

‘I’ll make sure Karensa’s story has the happily ever after that I thought we could have,’ I whispered, falling to my knees, sobbing in the doorway, broken and exhausted, as he closed the door behind him.