“Your house is magnificent,” I say as we top the staircase. We can choose to go left or right down more marble halls decorated with paintings that look like splatter art more than anything else.
Ian shrugs.
“Who’s Rosalind?” I ask.
“My stand-in mother,” Ian replies, and this time I know he is joking.
“I’m sorry,” I say because it just feels like the right thing to say.
Ian glances over at me, his brow furrowed.
“Trust me when I say this,” he says, bringing my knuckles to his mouth and laying a gentle kiss on top of them. “You are the only thing I like about being home. Thank you for coming with me.”
“Ian...” I begin, but he silences me with a fierce kiss, and then we are practically running down the hall, or rather I am running after him and I don’t really know why.
“Have you ever played strip Mario Kart before?” he says. “Because I’m about to rock your world, Harlow Weathersby.”
I giggle because he has no idea William and I played Mario Kart all the time growing up, and I’m about to own his entire universe.
32
Harlow
A hand shakes my shoulder, rudely interrupting my slumber. I grumble, feebly slapping at the hand, and scoot away. Far away from my dreams, someone chuckles.
I snuggle into the covers. My feet find a cool spot and I roll the comforter around me, tucking it under my chin.
I am weightless, lulled until I am once again settled.
I am unburdened, floating in calm waters.
I am floating down.
I am almost…
The covers are ripped away from me, and the cold of the house nips at my skin. My matching pajamas—a black-and-gold tank top and shorts—do little to keep out the chill.
I grumble, searching blindly for my blanket and coming up empty.
“These are pretty,” a low voice murmurs in my ear. Fingers play with the hem of my shorts and dawdle across my skin where my belly is exposed below my top. Heat stirs inside my belly and rises like a dust devil whirling to life. Ian. My eyes blink open, greeted by darkness. “But I think they would look better on the floor.”
I turn to find Ian staring at me, the black of his hair tinged blue by the moonlight filtering in through the row of windows on the opposite side of the room. His eyes aren’t gray in the darkness of night. They are pitch black chasms, filled with lascivious designs and naughty promises.
His warm hand lingers on my belly, just below my navel, as we stare at each other. The dust devil inside me is gaining speed and turning into a tornado, a gale force wind, a freakin’ hurricane.
The bow of his lips is full and perfect, the line of his jaw distinct and dusted with the prickles of a soon-to-be stubble, the curve of his cheekbones sculpted by Michelangelo himself. He’s so beautiful it hurts to look at him.
It’s like staring at the sun and trying not to blink.
It’s like stepping closer to the bonfire and stopping just before the flames lick your skin.
It’s like closing your eyes and trying to feel the spray of the sea as you teeter on the edge of a cliff.
I can’t stop myself.
I stare. I step closer. I teeter on the edge.
And I do it time and time again.
My heart gallops, the ringing in my ears so loud I am sure he can hear it too. My lungs take off for the finish line, my breasts rising and falling with each breath. His gaze flicks to my exposed belly button and his hand resting there and then to my heaving breasts.
“The things I could do to you,” he says, the words sounding like a confession. He lifts his hand off me and places it carefully on the comforter. He meets my gaze again. “But I can’t. Not now. I need you to get up, Stormy. There’s something I want to show you.”
He stands and walks to my closet, riffling through my things until he tosses a pair of jeans, a cable-knit sweater, and a pair of fluffy socks at me. He stoops to rifle through my shoes, gives up, and says, “I’ll grab you a pair of my hiking boots and a jacket. I’ll be right back.”
He disappears so quickly, I wonder if this place holds secret corridors inside its vast walls.
I sit up slowly, my joints still heavy from sleep, and my heart ricocheting as it slows to a more normal beat. I shove the sweater over my head. I should probably find a bra, but my pajama shirt is sort of the same thing, and if Ian walks back in here mid-bra change, I’m pretty sure one of two things will happen—1. I’ll combust into flames or 2. He’ll combust into flames—and neither of those is preferable.
I take off my shorts and slide into my jeans. I glance at the clock on my nightstand. It’s a little after midnight. No wonder I feel like crawling back into bed and staying there.
I’m not a morning person.
I’m not a night person.
I’m an 8-hours-of-sweet-dreams-please person.
Ian returns. It’s hard to see him in the shadows, but I watch from the bed as he kneels and shoves boots over my toes that weigh down my ankles. He cinches the laces tight. I stand, and he helps me into a jacket that swallows me whole and zips it up nearly to my chin. Then he pulls the hood over my head before pulling on his own downy jacket.
“Where are we going?” I ask as he leads me by the hand toward the door.
“My favorite place on earth.”
Our footfalls are loud in the cavernous halls on the waxed marble floors, but I don’t see the housekeeper or Ian’s parents, much to my relief, running toward us, demanding to know why we are trampling about at this hour. I wonder if this is normal for him, having little adventures in the dead of night, and knowing Ian, I think it probably is.
I follow
