Total pages in book: 172
Estimated words: 155984 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 780(@200wpm)___ 624(@250wpm)___ 520(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 155984 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 780(@200wpm)___ 624(@250wpm)___ 520(@300wpm)
Once out of the trees and into the clearing, Sevastyan lengthened his stride and paced himself beside her. “Are you ashamed for anyone to see my rope marks on you?” That would hurt. He knew it shouldn’t. Most women wouldn’t want others to see that they enjoyed being tied, but somehow he equated her being ashamed of the rope patterns with a rejection of him.
He caught just a brief glimpse of her eyes glittering green and gold, and then she was looking straight ahead again as she ran. “They belong to me and no one else. You gave them to me, like a gift. It felt intimate between us.”
He heard the truth in the husky vibration of her voice. She sounded close to tears and that was the last thing he wanted. Her answer was unexpected and pleasing.
He took his time before responding. “That’s why no one has ever been in our room. After it was renovated, I did all the other work myself so that when I found you, no one else had ever touched the equipment or seen it. It was just for you. For us. That’s the way I want our garden ultimately to be. Visitors can look from the outside, but I don’t want them in it. That will be ours and our leopards’.”
They got back to the house and he retrieved water and towels for them. She splashed water on her face and then drank thirstily, her gaze on the rope marks on her wrists and forearms. “I suppose I have to be careful when I’m going to meet with clients.”
Was there regret in her voice? He nodded solemnly. “I’ll pay attention to your work schedule and be mindful of how I tie you. I don’t have to leave marks that will stay. Most will fade in a few hours. These won’t last.”
Both carrying waters, they walked around the large house, down to the area where Dover had originally built the massive garages where he kept and worked on his cars. Ania’s family had been obsessed with cars and they could take them apart and put them back together, making them ten times better when they did so. The garages were used for making their cars fast enough to outrun anything on the road.
The garages were easily two stories high. The second stories consisted of long wooden lofts made up of very thick beams. The pulley systems the Dovers used to haul engines out of the cars hung from the beams. Crude staircases gave access to the lofts that ran the long length of the buildings. The two garages had been empty since Ania had moved out and sold the property to Sevastyan.
At first, she hadn’t wanted to sell. The property had been in her family for a long time and it was difficult for her to think of letting it go, but her life was committed to Mitya and she eventually decided she wanted Sevastyan to have the Dover estate. He had been there so many times and had unconsciously been making plans for it. Once living there, he’d discovered, the house and grounds had plenty of secrets, such as the tunnel leading between the properties. There was a second tunnel that led out to the highway. The Dovers believed in being careful. They weren’t quite as paranoid as he was, but he appreciated their efforts and was taking advantage of some of them.
Sevastyan led Flambé into the first garage, through the cavernous interior over to the far wall that separated the two garages. That wall was shared by the second garage. He stared up at the high ceilings and then the loft made up of the thick beams.
“I’ve spent a lot of time in here thinking about our leopards. Right here”—he put his hand on the wall—“this will come down when we open it up. If we planted a really big tree here, one with a thick trunk and large branches that grow out in both directions, as well as up toward the loft, we could create a really amazing space for our leopards.”
“Our leopards?” Flambé echoed, spinning around to look up at him, shock on her face. She had been wandering around, not really paying him much attention, but now she was wholly focused on him.
He nodded, ignoring her look of total surprise. “When we tear the wall down, and utilize both garages, the space will be large enough for the leopards to really roam around, especially if we keep the loft. They’d have a climbing area, a place to rest, and several ways to escape from either side of the garden. If we got in trouble, they would be safe and so would we.”
Flambé stared up at the planks of wood overhead that still made up the loft where the pulley system that had dragged engines out of cars had been. She walked away from him and then out farther, where she continued to study the loft from different angles.