Total pages in book: 113
Estimated words: 105825 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 529(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 353(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105825 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 529(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 353(@300wpm)
“I don’t have time to rest.” She didn’t look up from her screen. “I’m trying to catch up. I was away for half the afternoon.”
“You were away because someone shot at you.” Before I knew what I was doing, I’d marched over to her. “Go rest. The company will still be here tomorrow.”
“Not if I don’t keep all the plates spinning,” she muttered, tapping at the keyboard.
Worry twisted in my chest. She was working way too hard, especially with everything else going on in her life. My voice turned firm and I put a hand on her shoulder. “You’re paying me to protect you. That includes protecting you from yourself. Go upstairs.”
She sighed. ‘Okay, fine. I want to check on Cody anyway. Thanks for picking him up.”
I thought about his wet backpack. “Does he get on well with the other kids?”
“Yeah. He has lots of friends. Why?”
So she had no idea about the bullying. I shrugged. “Nothing.” I figured there must be a reason Cody hadn’t told her and I didn’t want to go blundering in without knowing why.
We went back up to the penthouse and found a guy in his sixties with a soft white beard waiting for us at the door. “This is Marcus McTavish,” Lorna told me. “My dad’s tailor. I figured he could help you blend in a little better.”
I started to protest: I didn’t need a tailored suit and I sure as hell couldn’t afford one. But Lorna held her hand up. “My treat.” And she gave me that stubborn look, the one that reminded me so much of Jillian.
She’d given a little and let me march her upstairs. Maybe I needed to give a little, too. “...okay,” I sighed. “Thanks.”
Lorna gave me a pleased little smile and it worried me, how much that made my world light up. I led the tailor to my room and for close to an hour, he measured every part of me, showed me fabric swatches and talked me through different styles of suit. I didn’t know a damn thing about fashion so I just told him I trusted his judgment, and went to find Lorna.
She wasn’t in her bedroom again and when I checked with Cody, he said she’d just finished building Legos with him, and that I’d find her in the room at the end of the hall. I frowned, curious: it was one of the rooms she hadn’t shown me on the tour. I opened the door and—
One whole wall of the room was glass, giving a view of New York as the setting sun painted the skyscrapers in shining copper and ruby red. Only there were two New Yorks, because the opposite wall was one big mirror, like in a gym. And between the two…
The sunset was so bright, all I could see was a silhouetted figure. One knee was bent at a perfect right angle and the other leg was stretched out dead straight behind it. The arms were high overhead, hands together, like it was raising a sword to the heavens. The figure was so perfectly still, I almost thought I was looking at a statue, some piece of modern art. Then I saw the chest moving in slow, regular rhythm and I realized I was looking at Lorna. God, is she naked? I could see the soft globes of her breasts, the firm curves of her ass and hips. Then, as my eyes adjusted, I realized she had a gym top and leggings on, but it was thin enough and tight enough that I could see every damn inch of her. My cock swelled and hardened as my eyes roved over her. God, she was perfect.
She moved, except…she didn’t move like I would move, she flowed, pushing up into a pose where her legs made a triangle and her upper body hung parallel to the floor. How does she do that? I sure as hell couldn’t do that. And she made it look effortless.
Music was playing, peaceful stuff that reminded me of things I’d heard when I was out in the Middle East. I realized she hadn’t heard the door opening, and I was out of her sight-line. She doesn’t know I’m here. Minutes passed and the room gradually darkened as I watched, entranced.
Lorna lifted one foot and balanced, her supporting leg rock-steady. She stepped forward and bent at the waist until her forehead almost brushed the floor and her ass was thrust up towards me, a ripe peach. Jesus. My cock was like an iron bar against my thigh, now. Should I leave? Or—
She lifted up, turned towards me and jumped back, startled. In the dim light, I was just a big hulking shadow. “It’s me,” I said quickly, and stepped forward so she could see.
The sun had fully set, now, and the skyscrapers outside had transformed into slender black obelisks draped in millions of glittering lights, like debutantes on their way to a ball. The glow edged her in silver light as I found her hands and grabbed them. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.”