Total pages in book: 156
Estimated words: 144696 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 723(@200wpm)___ 579(@250wpm)___ 482(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 144696 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 723(@200wpm)___ 579(@250wpm)___ 482(@300wpm)
“Oh yes, oh please,” I whimpered, clutching at his back. “Please, please, make me come.”
My throat was raw and hoarse. I could still taste him on my mouth. I needed to come like I needed oxygen, and when I did, I couldn’t hold in my wail of release. My thighs clenched around his hand and my fingernails bit into his shoulder as the familiar electric shock feeling seized me. When it was over, I was boneless, weightless, completely unwound, but for the delicious throb my orgasm left behind. And suddenly, my reluctance and guilt over sex seemed pretty silly.
Neil kissed my forehead and slipped from the bed to go into the bathroom. Maybe I should have felt embarrassed that he’d touched me when I was biblically unclean, but I had really needed that. The stress busting power of orgasm was second only to a long, hot soak in my beloved bathtub.
I felt a pang of homesickness for that, now.
Neil came back and climbed beneath the covers next to me. I didn’t open my eyes, preferring to drift in the afterglow of my much-needed release. “Do you want me to move, so you can have the inside?”
“No, stay where you are,” he said, and I heard the smile in his voice. “Well, move over a bit.”
I scooted to give him room, and he settled in beside me, his warm skin brushing mine. There was nothing around us but the thrum of the jet’s engines and the hiss of recirculating oxygen.
“Thank you,” Neil said, absentmindedly stroking my arm. “That was so nice, I almost forgot we were on this death trap.”
I giggled. If I’d had any strength in my muscles, I would have hit him with my pillow.
CHAPTER SIX
The voice of the driver over the car’s intercom woke us. Neil shook me gently, and I lifted my head from his shoulder, pushing the hair from my eyes.
“We’re here,” Neil said, giving my arm a squeeze.
I sat up. Neil’s plan to sleep on the plane and be perfectly adjusted to the time change had drastically reduced my jet lag, but even by private jet, traveling took a toll. My mouth felt like it was full of fuzz and my throat was dry from recirculated oxygen, and falling asleep on the car ride from Bristol had left me with a crick in my neck.
Neil pushed the intercom button. “Could you lower the partition, David?”
I had the oddest feeling of infidelity, riding in a car with another driver. It was like I was cheating on Tony. And on the other Maybach, at that, because this one was far more posh than the model Neil kept in New York.
The divider rolled down, and I blinked at the change in light in the back of the car. My eyes felt like they were full of sand. How could I be tired when I’d gotten eight hours of sleep? My body’s clock really was off.
All of that ceased to matter in the face of the fact that we were driving up a wide white gravel lane flanked by sculptured trees, toward what appeared to be a fucking castle.
“Holy fff—” I pressed my fingertips to my forehead. “Neil, you need to be a little more specific with me when you use words like ‘house.’”
“What?” He sounded a bit offended. “This is my house. I told you it was big.”
Big was not the word to describe it. Sprawling. That was closer. Gargantuan. Possibly able to reach the moon if it were stood on its end, that was another good description.
The house was an odd mixture of what seemed to be gothic elements and French chateau style, with tall peaked roofs and a row of dormer windows on the third floor. Everything was symmetrical, from the two tall, square towers at the ends of each wing, to the round ones flanking the center of the building. With its slightly yellowed tan stone and gray roofs, the place looked like some fantastical combination of Hogwarts and Frank N. Furter’s mansion.
I thought up at least fifteen Downton Abbey jokes on the spot.
Stepping from the car, I slipped my ballet flats back on. The front doors seriously looked like something that could withstand a medieval battering ram.
“If Riff-Raff doesn’t open that door, I’m going to be real disappointed,” I said with a low whistle.
“No hunchbacked butlers, I’m afraid, but if you need to do the Time Warp, I promise I will look the other way.” He stretched and groaned. “I have had enough travel for today.”
There was a butler, though he was nothing like Riff-Raff or Carson. He was probably close in age to Neil, though his gray hair was thinning on top and his face was kind of jowly. He wasn’t dressed in livery, either, but wore a high-collared, crisp white shirt and dark blue tie beneath a double-breasted navy suit. He smiled politely and said, “Welcome home, Mr. Elwood,” as Neil headed toward the door.