Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 129951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 650(@200wpm)___ 520(@250wpm)___ 433(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 650(@200wpm)___ 520(@250wpm)___ 433(@300wpm)
“It was good tonight,” I told him.
He grunted behind his hands.
I lightly slapped his abs. “It was good.”
He took his hands from his face and looked at me.
“I thought Tempie and Hamish were going to whisk the china and cutlery from the table so they could fuck on it, and Chassie and Christian got to the point, it was like no one else was in the room.”
One could say, Tempie and Hamish’s heated glances and more heated whispering in each other’s ears did not take body language experts to interpret.
And once Chassie and Christian got started on compost, plant anatomy, seedlings, algae (yes, algae!) and bioethics, I thought Prue, who was sitting close to them at the table, was going to nod off to sleep.
“We aren’t the only ones who get to have fun,” I remarked.
His eyes dipped to the gape in his shirt I was wearing, they heated, then what was probably happening, or already happened (like with Battle and me) and was inevitably going to happen again in Tempie’s room came to him, I knew, because he rubbed his hands on his face again.
I stretched out against his side.
And I did my own whispering in a hot guy’s ear.
“Everyone in this house, right now, is happy.”
He dropped his hands and turned his head to me again.
Then his whole body.
When I was in his arms, I asked, “Why’d you put on pajamas?”
“Because you’re obsessed with my chest, so I thought I’d help you out with some framing. If I give you too much, you get distracted.”
I rolled my eyes (even if he spoke truth, the distracting part was his pretty cock, also his muscled thighs).
He chuckled (he knew he spoke truth).
“Move to my rooms?” he asked.
My eyes rolled right back to his face.
“What?”
“I like the idea of knowing you’re sleeping in my bed when I’m away.”
I liked that he liked that.
However.
“Battle—”
He gave me a squeeze. “If it’s too much too soon, don’t do it. I’m telling you what I want. If you’re not ready…” He shrugged.
“But, the girls,” I said.
“And what’s the difference between you being here right now, and them knowing you are, and you being here when I’m not here?”
“You know there’s a difference.”
“I do? Really?”
Man, he was so into me.
And he didn’t give a shit who knew it.
Including me.
Another reason I was falling for him.
“I’ll think about it,” I gave in.
He brushed my lips with his. “Thank you, love.”
“Am I going to get another orgasm? Or are we going to sleep?”
“Do you want another orgasm?”
“You might as well ask if I want another scoop of ice cream in a hot fudge sundae.”
He grinned.
We rolled again.
And Battle Talyn, Duke of Burleigh, as was his way, set about giving his all so a woman he cared about would have everything she wanted.
And he did it splendidly.
CHAPTER 25
THE WEDDING
I came out of the bathroom and into Battle’s and my bedroom at Primrose Lodge, the country seat of Rally’s viscounty up in Somerset.
I did it touching my hat and saying, “Okay, I rock this thing.”
Then I stopped dead.
Holy shit.
Battle was wearing gray trousers, a cream waistcoat, a white shirt, and a black morning coat with a peach tie.
Fucking hell.
“I knew this was a mistake,” he groused.
My attention shifted from the vision of him being a full-on, super-hot duke in that getup to his face to see him scowling at my outfit.
Since I was finding my online shopping trawls tedious due to me being in the middle of writing my book, Tempie had taken me in hand.
So, to Rally and Courtney’s wedding ceremony, I was wearing a lilac suit with a complicated lapel that showed off a lot of my chest, the straight skirt molded to my ass and hips, and a matching hat that sat at an angle and went up high on one side to showcase some intricate net swirls.
Bummed at his reaction, I looked down at myself. “Is this not okay?”
“I knew I should have let you go to the ceremony with the girls,” he stated.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because, seeing you looking like a sex-kitten duchess, I no longer want to go at all.”
If I could glow, I would have burned a hole in the side of the lodge.
“Well, you’re not so bad yourself, my Lord Duke.”
He reached a hand to me. “Let’s get going,” he said tersely, then he told me something I already knew, “They’re taking some of the groomsmen pictures before the wedding.”
I was very aware going with him to watch him and a bunch of other dudes have their pictures taken would probably bore me silly.
But last night, in a little Talyn Family huddle at a small (if you called fifty people small) pre-wedding dinner party, Tempie had dropped the bomb that Courtney had dropped on her.
This being that she’d made the unhinged decision not to revoke Chelsea’s invitation after her behavior at The Downs.