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)
What I thought was, it would be so popular, she’d get a movie or streaming deal.
I didn’t share that.
“I really think someone will want to publish it, and a lot of someones will want to read it.”
“Okay. I’ll show you my other stuff. Would you help me with submissions?”
“I’m all yours.”
She hugged me again.
Then she hurried to the door.
“No stalking,” Battle warned.
She threw an exasperated look over her shoulder and left.
The minute the door closed, Battle dragged me into his lap.
I rounded his shoulders with my arms. “I think that went well.”
He just stared at me, hard, with lots of lovely things working in his starburst brown eyes, all of them making words unnecessary.
I framed his face in my hands and put mine closer to his. “And Chassie is going to be okay. It’s time you all let Chassie be Chassie.”
He grunted.
I grinned.
Then I kissed him.
In the middle of that, I found myself on my back with a handsome duke on top of me.
“Do you get many visitors out here?” he asked.
“Occasionally.”
“Do you have a sock to put on the door?”
Another grin from me. “Alas, no.”
“Are we done out here?”
“Absolutely, yes.”
He got up, pulled me up, and he, I, the cats and dog walked to the main house.
We saw no Prue, Chassie or Christian on our way.
We went right to his room.
And I was glad.
It felt like coming home.
After round one, and before a hoped-for round two, I lay pressed to Battle’s side in his bed.
He was on his back.
While he traced random patterns on my hip (and, of course, my ass), I was tracing the same through his perfect chest hair on his equally perfect chest.
My eyes caught on the tennis bracelet I hadn’t taken off since he’d put it on.
This man noticed the tiny prongs of white gold on the earrings my mother gave me.
This man was becoming everything to me.
So I wanted everything from him.
“At the risk of ruining the atmosphere…” I trailed off.
He clasped my ass and gave it a squeeze. “I’m naked with you in bed after having you,” he announced unnecessarily. “Nothing could ruin the atmosphere.”
Oh yeah.
This was a man who would notice those tiny prongs.
This man was everything.
I pushed up at the same time I partially covered him so I could look into his eyes.
No surprise, his hand stayed on my ass while I did this.
“I’m taking us into the getting-to-know-you-better department,” I shared.
He smiled wolfishly. “I thought we’d already accomplished some of that.”
I smiled back, but replied, “Non-sexually, honey.”
His smile turned to just being his lips curved up before he invited, “Hit me.”
“Your mum and dad.”
That was all I said, and I expected he’d at the very least frown, but he just sighed.
However, since I started it…
“The girls told me he was very traditional,” I said. “And Tempie said he was an ass. She also said he had other women.”
His brows knit, and with them, the mood finally shifted to what I’d expected it to be.
“Do you worry it might be like father, like son?” he asked.
“Hell no.”
That response came automatically because one thing I knew, Battle Talyn would never cheat.
You could never predict life. Unless you had the talents of Ravenna, you also could never tell the future.
And shit could always go south.
But deep in my heart, even if, for some crazy reason, things went that way for us, it would never be about that.
For him or for me.
The mood shifted again at my answer, his arm slid up so he could wrap it around my waist to hold me close, and he purred, “I’m gratified by your swift response, darling.”
I smiled at him.
He studied my smile then lifted his gaze to mine.
“He had other women, yes, as the whole world sadly knows,” he confirmed. “Understandably, we never spoke of it, so my conclusion as to why he did it might be incorrect. However, I think he was trying to make her jealous. Mum, that is. Or, perhaps, make her feel something. Anything.”
Something.
Anything.
“Was she that distant?” I inquired gently.
“I was fourteen when she left. After she did, I would try to recall any kind of mother-son or family moment I’d shared with her, or I’d witnessed her share with my sisters. I couldn’t recall any.”
I could not process that.
I could only process how destroyed I was for him that he experienced it.
And one could safely say, I had trouble doing it.
“Oh, baby,” I whispered, those two words being all I could get out.
“And yes, Dad was very traditional. I didn’t understand it. Our grandparents weren’t. I don’t know if he was attempting to make us live some storybook life to remind her he was duke, she was duchess, she’d birthed a marquess and three ladies, and to snap into the program of what he’d offered her when he’d offered for her hand. I don’t know if he was just strange. He had a variety of old-fashioned ideas, hence Prue toughing it out with her bullies.”