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)
He looked down at me and his voice had gentled when he urged, “I need sleep. You definitely need sleep. And honest to fuck, I need you in here with me. Swear to Christ, the way you looked when you rushed in here, I thought the devil was on your heels.”
“God, I’m so sorry,” I whispered.
He pulled me into his arms, close, giving me a comforting hug and a soft urge of, “Come to bed.”
His arms felt good, and I didn’t have the energy to fight it any longer.
“All righty,” I mumbled to the skin across his bulging pecs.
He let me go but took my hand and guided me to bed.
I climbed in and scooched over. He folded in after me.
He turned out the light, pulled the covers high over us both, then found me and tucked me to his warm body.
It could be, all the muscles he was no longer hiding under his clothes were just hard normally.
But I sensed he was tense.
“Did I freak you out?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Stupid question,” I muttered.
“No, it wasn’t. I’m fine,” he assured.
“So am I. I’m okay. It’s all okay. It was just a very bad joke and me winding myself up about things.”
“I’m not freaked out anymore, Daphne.”
“You’re tense.”
“Yes. Because I’m out of my brain angry at your sister.”
He could say that again.
“I just—”
His hand came to rest tenderly on my cheek, good aim, because it was dark as pitch in his room.
“Daphne, what might hasten this process is if you’d be quiet.”
I shut up.
He slid his hand back into my hair and then commenced running his fingers through it.
That felt nice.
I started to unwind.
I felt his body begin to relax.
He switched to stroking my back.
I unwound more.
He stopped stroking and pulled me close.
I cuddled my cheek to his chest.
And fell asleep.
In the dark, on the face of the tablet by Ian’s bed, the clock ticked the minute change.
It was three oh three.
Fifteen
THE SITTING ROOM
I woke without opening my eyes and instinctively gliding my hand across the sheet to find what I was looking for.
My hand came up empty.
I opened my eyes.
When I did, I saw one of those tablets that a lot of hotels had these days sitting on a stand on the night table.
It was one of those smart room tablets, that in my personal experience, never really worked. Apps that turned on and off lights, dimmed them, opened and closed curtains, and adjusted temperature.
This one appeared to have a current events window.
And it also told me it was ten fifty-seven in the morning.
I’d slept in, by a lot.
I sat up in bed and looked through the double doors to see Ian on the couch, twisted to look over the back at me.
Last night (or more aptly, early this morning) came crashing into my brain and I didn’t know whether to be embarrassed about how I’d lost it or terrified out of my head at how much I was beginning to feel for Ian Alcott.
While my just-awake brain was sifting through these things, Ian got up and walked toward me.
I watched as he came right up to the bed then reached beyond the nightstand to pull a wide velvet ribbon that, considering the room was so masculine, was the odd color of white with a faint stripe of pink down the middle. The silk tassel at the bottom was a bright, leafy green.
It hit me.
The colors of a hawthorn blossom.
“I overslept,” I announced.
“Correction,” Ian replied, standing beside the bed looking down at me and also looking pretty scrumptious in some gray joggers and a navy, long-sleeved shirt. His feet, I’d noted, were encased in some OluKai, gray shadow slippers. “You caught up on sleep,” he finished.
I nodded.
“They know if I ring the bell, you’re awake. They’ll be bringing up some coffee and food for you in a minute.”
“Okay. I’ll head back to my room.”
To that, he went to the end of the bed and picked up my camel-colored, merino wool duster cardie, which was so long, it hit my ankles.
Someone had been to the Rose Room.
“You’d only have to come back here,” he said. “They brought your bathroom things too. They did this because I asked. I want you with me for a while, if you don’t mind. I want to make sure you’re okay.”
So sweet.
That said…
“I’m okay, Ian.”
“I’m asking you to humor me.”
I’d been really freaked out, and I’d brought that right to Ian’s door, as it were, and freaked him out too.
Now, understandably, he was worried.
There was no reason to fight it, so I didn’t.
I nodded again.
He held out the cardigan like it was a coat.
I slid out of bed and turned my back to him, shoving my hands in the arms.
He settled it on my shoulders then used those shoulders to guide me down the dais toward a door. He ended putting his hand on the small of my back and giving me a gentle shove before flipping a switch, which artfully lit a bathroom that was a study of rich browns with stark-white porcelain bathroom accessories and gold fixtures.