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)
So great.
I did my business including brushing my teeth.
And I did this in a very modern, all-black bathroom (it even had a black soaking tub). The only break in the black was some gold fixtures and pendant lights and a few green plants here and there (even the towels and mats were black).
Being nosy, instead of going back to the bedroom, I poked my head into the next room over and saw more black. This had white and gray accents, but it was a closet, about three times the size of mine, and the built-in dressing table at one of the two windows in the space was even better. Though, it was empty.
Put there, waiting for the duchess to move in.
Hmm.
His closet had an island in the middle, where I could see open-sided drawers filled with rolled ties and displayed cufflinks and the like. The island was flanked with benches with tufted ivory velvet tops that you could sit on to put on your shoes.
It wasn’t full, but there was a duke in this house who liked his clothes, that was certain.
I headed back to the bedroom, and although I wanted to study the shirtless man lounging in bed with a cup of coffee, I finally took in his room.
Juxtaposition was his thing, because this room was mostly white.
There was a thin black stripe around where his duvet would fall over the edge of the bed when it was made. But the big seating area on the other side of the room (yes, by a fireplace) had two white couches facing each other, flanked with two white chairs, also facing each other. All of this was on a white rug edged in two thin black stripes.
There were no old paintings or portraits on the walls.
But there was a clear crystal Lalique sculpture of the nude dancer, and a black one of a hunting panther.
However, the minimalism was extreme here except…
I stopped dead as I spied the portrait over the fireplace.
It was of a man’s torso. He was wearing a light-blue button-down covering his wide chest. He had his hand in the pocket of his jeans.
However, instead of a head, over the open neck of his shirt and the strong column of his throat was a stunning, drifting trail of flowers, cut rubies and prancing cats that filled the black background of the top half of the painting.
Tears instantly hit my eyes.
“Come here, Vivi,” he called.
I looked to him.
He was watery.
“Is that you?” I asked.
“Yes. Prue painted it.”
Oh my God.
“Darling, come here.”
I wandered there.
He pulled me into bed beside him.
“It is you,” I snuffled, nuzzling into him. “It’s so very you.”
“I was moved by it, yes.”
I looked at his face (or tried, I was still crying). “It’s so beautiful.”
He tucked my face in his neck and wrapped his arms around me.
“I need to see her work,” I mumbled into his skin.
“Prepare to be deeply impressed.”
“You make me wish I had a brother.’
“Well, I put a fair amount of effort into our activities last night, so I’m uncertain about that being your response this morning.”
I laughed and slapped his chest lightly, pulling back and gazing at him. “You know what I mean. Not you as my brother, specifically. Though, a brother just like you.”
“I hope that’s what you mean.”
I touched his face before I glided my fingers over his hair and got my shit together.
Then I dashed my fingers over my cheeks and asked, “Do you think they heard us?”
“Doubtful. What I think is, it’s nearly ten, and someone went looking for you. When they found your bedroom and the studio empty, they came to the obvious conclusion.”
That tracked.
“Did you see anyone in the hall?”
“No.”
I reached for my coffee cup. “Where are the animals?”
“They went out through my dressing room. They need breakfast too.”
They did.
“Will someone see to that if the staff isn’t around?”
“Even Tempie makes it her mission to provide sustenance to our pets on the rare occasions she’s the first one up and they need feeding.”
I found this entirely easy to believe.
“It’s nearly ten?” After asking this, I took a sip of coffee and came instantly alert in a way I would be until tomorrow at that hour with the power-packed punch of caffeine I just swallowed.
“You were insatiable last night. You kept me up very late,” he explained instead of answering my question.
“I was insatiable?”
“You have a very greedy mouth,” he paused, “and pussy.”
“Ugh,” I grunted.
He angled in to kiss my neck.
“I’m not complaining,” he said when he pulled away.
“Well, I am. The condoms have to go, Your Grace.”
He raised his brows.
“I have an IUD. And I’m clean.”
It was my turn to raise my brows, and I did it over my mega strong cup of coffee.
“I don’t go in unprotected, sweetheart.”
I could see why.
He had a lot to take for someone who was up for taking it that way, and I would suspect there were many women who were.