Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 127368 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 637(@200wpm)___ 509(@250wpm)___ 425(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127368 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 637(@200wpm)___ 509(@250wpm)___ 425(@300wpm)
I tossed them on the floor in front of the wardrobe and wandered back to the bathroom to prepare for bed.
I was coming down the coiling stairs wearing a magnificent bridal gown and carrying a large bouquet of pink carnations ensconced in creamy netting and tied with a pink bow.
The statue on the newel post was bathed in an unearthly white light, so bright it blinded me, but my feet still descended the stairs, steady and true.
A man at the bottom waited for me, tall and besuited, but he was obscured by the bright rays beaming off the statue.
It was only when both my feet were on the marble floor did he come into focus.
Ian Alcott reached to me immediately, not my hand, but my face, cupping my jaw with great tenderness, his head descending.
I tipped mine back to receive his kiss.
And I was on my back in bed in the Carnation Room. There were frilly, pink petals covering the sheets and pillows.
Ian’s hand was still at my jaw, his body warm and weighty atop mine, his mouth plundering my own.
The kiss was a juxtaposition of tender and carnal. My legs moved, restless with desire, trying to generate friction at the zenith, which was suffused with wet.
But the kiss needed to end.
I couldn’t breathe.
Part of me wanted it never to end. It was beautiful. Exciting. Freeing.
But it was killing me.
I tried to turn my head, but I couldn’t.
The hand was no longer on my jaw. Ian’s weight was no longer on my body.
But my head had been immobilized. I couldn’t lift it. I couldn’t turn it.
There was a pillow pressed hard over my face, held down at the sides of my head.
I tried to struggle, but there was nothing to struggle against. No hands attached to wrists or arms I could push away, no body I could buck off.
I kicked. I writhed. I sucked in a desperate breath and pulled in nothing but soft, expensive cotton.
Frantic, terrified, I screamed.
The sound was blood curdling, but it wasn’t my scream.
I heard a sick thud, my eyes sprang open, and I lay panting in the absolute dark, every inch of my skin tingling.
I felt the wet between my legs, the dream having an unconscious and undeniable physical manifestation.
But I was scared out of my brain.
I could still hear that awful screaming.
I heard that terrible thump.
And it felt like someone was in the room.
I sat upright and reached to the lamp, lighting it.
The first of three turns on the knob made the lamp illuminate very dimly, but it was enough to chase away the dark and for my vision to adjust quickly.
There were shadows, but nothing in them.
I was alone.
A bad dream.
Nothing but a bad dream.
Reasonable. It had been a weird day and I was worried about both Portia and Lou.
But damn, the dream had seemed so real. I’d never had a dream that real.
Used to the light, I turned the lamp one click brighter.
Better.
It was then I felt how cold the room was.
Freezing.
My nose was cold and so were my shoulders, which hadn’t been under the covers. But now, with the bedclothes pooled in my lap, the rest of my body was catching up.
This was reasonable too. If I had to pay to heat this monstrosity of a house, I’d turn the boiler down at night as well.
But it couldn’t be more than fifty degrees.
I got out of bed, went to the wardrobe, and pulled a carefully folded cardigan off an interior shelf and shrugged it on, yanking it closed tight at the front and keeping my arms crossed there.
Wide awake and knowing I’d need more than a few minutes to get myself together, find some calm and try to get some sleep, I moved to the windows in order to check on the mist. There was no reason why I did this, it was just something to do that seemed benign after that crazy dream.
I pulled a curtain back a few inches and looked into the night.
I then stood stock-still as I watched Daniel Alcott, wearing a heavy pea coat, walking away from the house, being swallowed by the fog, vanishing.
I didn’t know how long I stood there, but it was my feet getting uncomfortably cold that made me drop the curtain and scurry back to the bed. I shoved my legs under the covers, pulled them up to my lap, and reached to the nightstand drawer.
Modernization had clearly been something that Richard took seriously, because inside the top drawer was fitted with a strip of sockets and USB ports. Both my vibrator and my phone were plugged in, charging.
I engaged my phone.
It was three oh three in the morning.
I felt bile rise in my throat.
Three oh three.
We’d arrived at three oh three that afternoon.
I swallowed down the bile, and that was chased by an involuntary shiver.