"You still aren't writing," he stated from just over her right shoulder. Her hand on the mouse instinctively moved to close the game of Hearts that overlaid a one-sentence Word document, but she thought better of it-- he'd already seen, and he wouldn't be angry, just concerned. If mad, incessant writing meant the violently self-annihilating end of the spectrum of unhealthy emotional states, not writing at all meant the opposite. It meant a stagnation without rest, a withdrawal without meditation.

He knew all this. He also knew that gently rubbing her hunched-over shoulders and bringing her a glass of iced tea was not going to cut it. So because of this (not because he loved her startled yelps or the way she squirmed beneath his hands, of course,) he yanked her hair back, making her neck arch over the top of the backrest and drawing one of those adorable little gasps of surprise. "You're getting out of that funk of yours and writing, darling," he purred as he tangled the elegant fingers of one hand deeper in her hair and traced the other over the line of her outstretched neck. "Or I'm withholding... um... inspiration, at least for tonight." And with a nip just beneath her ear, he left her to reawaken her own demons.