Total pages in book: 192
Estimated words: 192810 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 964(@200wpm)___ 771(@250wpm)___ 643(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 192810 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 964(@200wpm)___ 771(@250wpm)___ 643(@300wpm)
His thick black hair was brushing his collar and curving around his ear in a way my finger itched to trace that delectable lock.
No. It wasn’t an itch.
It was a longing.
His head turned my way, and my breath caught.
It was the first time I’d truly seen his famous eyes, no shadow obscuring their direct hit, which was what it felt like.
Like I’d been struck by a laser stream.
They were what identified him as the first True Heir of the realm in two centuries.
I remembered when the change had happened for him (he’d been thirteen, so I’d been nine). I also remembered the exhilarated announcement from the Palace. And I remembered the week of celebrations it had brought on for the entire realm.
Right now, they were a cloudy sky-blue.
The exact color of the sky outside.
They would change to whatever the color of the sky was, that being the magic that denoted a True Heir.
The current color seemed stark in his tanned face, and by Beelzebub, it was astonishing.
That was laser hit one.
Laser hit two was his sheer size.
I knew he was tall and built, you couldn’t miss it in his public appearances, how he often dwarfed anyone around him.
But last night, I’d been so muddled by all that was happening, it hadn’t struck me just how much of him there was.
And how delicious was every inch.
It was then, the smell permeated the tumbles of my brain.
My gaze jolted down to his hands.
In one, his fingers were wrapped around the handle of a drink carrier that held two beverages.
In the other was a bag printed in well-known blue and yellow stripes.
He lifted the bag, turning it my way, exposing the illustration on the broad side of the peg-legged, wild-haired, patch-eyed, maniacally grinning Captain Jacques of Captain Jacques’s Fish and Chips.
As my stupefied gaze took in Captain Jacques, Prince Aleksei’s silk wove around me. “I thought we’d share lunch.”
I forced my eyes to his. “You…you bought me Captain Jacques’s?”
“You piqued my curiosity.”
Right.
Well.
Dang.
That was…
Holy Lilith.
It was sweet, and…and…
Actually cute.
Uh…
Wow.
Prince Aleksei could be cute.
He glanced around my space, and more embers sparked, these tense and anxious.
My loft was large, seeing as it took up the whole floor.
And it was every inch me.
What it was not, was elegant or palatial.
Along the left side of the loft was my bathroom, which had doors to the main space and to my closet, something that separated it from my bedroom.
In front of that wall was my dining room table, an oval of glass over curved lines of wood slashing in various ways to support it. It hosted eight comfortable, upholstered chairs, those also a study of curves, in cream. Over this, three crystal-covered lamp drones hovered, currently unlit.
To the back was a long bar with four mismatched stools on the outside, a variety of cookware hanging from a rack above it. Opposite, there was a long counter and the uninterrupted slant of windows (which I now saw, with a sinking stomach, needed to be cleaned, inside and out). All of this made up my kitchen.
The middle of the space was taken up with my wide, deep couch and four armchairs arranged around a circular table.
At the corner back right, facing the kitchen (and the windows) was a big, old-fashioned drafting desk for use when I wanted to sit at one and work, but not go down to my studio. The wings to its sides and the trays stationed under it were cluttered with a disorganized rainbow of colored pencils and pens.
At the corner right front windows, there was a chaise longue that had an elaborate gold hook lamp drone drifting above it, a colorful silk, tasseled shawl thrown over it, and an antique, tri-legged table at its side.
There were various rugs of differing sizes and styles under these furniture arrangements or simply scattered about willy-nilly, these covering the wood-planked floors.
And the right-side wall had its entire lower half covered in built-in shelves, where I stored my small (but growing, and very precious) collection of real books (the ones made of paper), along with bits and pieces I’d found that intrigued me or I thought were pretty.
Sitting on top of these, between the windows, were two large shadowboxes, one displaying the famous, slinky dress the character Reeva wore in Rain and Pavements, a garment of my own design that had become iconic to that show. The other held the vintage-inspired undergarments the character Porcelain wore in the famous sex scene in Sheets (something I’d also designed).
Across from this, adorning the wall by the dining room table, also in a shadow box, was the massive gown I’d created for The Sunny Glade. The intricate embroidery, tiny lace ruffles, satin bows, delicate piping, slender velvet belt with its oval diamanté fastener and extraordinary seam work, draping and ruching were what earned my first award nomination.