Total pages in book: 172
Estimated words: 157460 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 787(@200wpm)___ 630(@250wpm)___ 525(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 157460 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 787(@200wpm)___ 630(@250wpm)___ 525(@300wpm)
It did occur to him that she might not be the kind of woman who would ever enjoy the kind of parties Torpedo Ink had, where the men and women often had open sex. They tended to feel much freer when their brethren were around to protect them, when they had eyes watching to ensure no one could harm the ones they loved. They all felt a little vulnerable when they had sex without someone watching their back. Zyah most likely would have a difficult time understanding that. He was already going to be asking her to forgive too many sins and understand too many of his issues to add that one to the list right at this time. He’d put it on the back burner.
“Where’d you go, honey?” Zyah asked as they stepped out of the shower.
“Water off,” he ordered. At once the water went off. He handed her a warm towel to wrap her hair in and another one to dry her body off with. She smiled at him when she put her feet on the warm tiles. For just that smile alone, he was glad he’d spent the extra money to put in the heating.
“I’m sorry I got you into this, Zyah, and very grateful to you that you’ve stuck it out with me. I know you didn’t have to. It’s important that you know how much I appreciate you sticking with me, trying to sort out the bomb business as well as going to Czar.”
She looked up at him, and then unexpectedly touched his mouth with the pads of her fingers, an intimate gesture, tracing his lips. “We’re in this together, Player, all the way until the end. I’m not deserting you. And tonight is our night. Everyone else can go away for tonight. Agreed?”
Damn straight he agreed. A slow smile spread across his face until it almost hurt. “Agreed. Come on, I’ll show you the living room. There are two. They sort of flow into each other. The large one, I suppose, was originally designed for entertaining, and the smaller one would be more intimate, for friends and family. Since I have rowdy friends and a lot of them, the larger of the two rooms, which would be more formal, is the one I use when they’re over. I prefer the smaller of the two rooms, which is strange because I like wide open spaces.”
“I have to dry my hair, crazy man.”
“We’ll dry it in the other room. Both have fireplaces. I’ll bring the blow-dryer as well and the brush and comb.”
“Are we just going to walk around naked?”
“Why not? If you put on clothes, I’m just going to keep taking them off of you, not that I mind, but you may as well be comfortable. There’s a hot tub and an indoor heated saltwater lap pool at the other end of the house. I think the man who built the house used them for his therapy. Do you like to swim?”
“I do, but I don’t like to rinse out my hair all the time. The doctor said water therapy would be good eventually for Mama Anat’s leg.”
Player nodded. “She mentioned that to me. I told her about the pool and said she could use it anytime she wanted to. I can give you a key.”
“That’s generous of you, Player.”
He laughed. “The others will tell you, I’m such a generous man.”
He pulled her through the kitchen to the living room, the one he particularly liked. Snatching up the remote, he flipped on the fireplace so the light would play through the room, illuminating it enough that she could see what he’d done with it. As with the dining room, he’d kept it simple. He didn’t like clutter. The hardwood floor gleamed with the firelight spilling across it. He noticed Zyah pressing her bare feet instantly into the wood. She liked to do that the same way he did.
The hearth was made of gray stone, and he had utilized that color throughout the room. The chairs faced the stone fireplace built into the wall. The stones were great blocks of various sizes and textures of dark and light shades of gray. The only rug was on the floor in front of the fireplace, a thick gray- and- black mat of hand- knotted silk and wool. The chairs were wide and comfortable, both in black, which matched the carpet and the darkest of the stones. Over the fireplace was a picture framed in gold, a burst of color: a very large painting of a forest in vivid detail, done by an artist he particularly admired.
He sank down into his favorite chair, the one closest to the fireplace, where his acoustic guitar was near to his hand on a stand. He kept it there to play at night when he couldn’t sleep, and he composed. He watched his woman walk around the room with that flowing grace she had, like a dancer, his private dancer. He wished she wore her anklet of bells. He had loved the sound of them as she’d moved around the room their first night together. Just that memory stirred his cock.