Picture Paints a Thousand Words
JULES
THE OLD STAIRCASE CREAKED UNDER my feet as I climbed it.
At the landing, Rory and I had the option of going right or left. “This way,” she declared and veered to the right.
I followed without question. I was anxious for a look. Curious, was probably a better word.
“My bedroom and my grandmother’s are to the left, but they are not blue, and not nearly as fun to look at,” she laughed. “Mine is pink, and Mimi’s is gold.”
I laughed along with her. “I guess someone had to change it up.”
Rosewood’s southern elegance was straight out of Gone with the Wind. Polished dark wooden stairs and brocade gold draperies, walls painted white, but not looking sterile in the least and regal carpets that belonged in a palace.
“Miss Rory,” Roger called, from the bottom of the stairs.
We both turned to see him holding up a phone. “Yes, Roger?” she asked.
“Mr. Remy is on the phone, and he needs to speak with you. He says it’s urgent.”
With a shake of her head, she said, “I just hung up with him.”
She must have left her cell on the table in the dining room.
She started to grin. “He must miss me,” she said and then looked in my direction. “Jules, do you mind having a look at the bedrooms without me? I’ll meet you in the room next to the dining room in five minutes.”
“That’s fine,” I answered. I figured I might not get to see anything like this again, and I was curious.
Rory pranced down the stairs and took the phone. “Remy, baby, what is it?”
The hallway at the top of the second flight of stairs was relatively long, and I started down it. The doors were opened, and each bedroom was decorated more beautifully than the next. And yes, each was a different shade of blue.
Just how many shades of blue actually existed?
At the end of the hall was another flight of stairs. That article I had read online about Rosewood so many years ago had spoken of a secret room. I wondered if what they had written was true. Since this wing appeared entirely unoccupied, I decided to find out and hoped that cliché about curiosity killing the cat wasn’t true.
The stairs were narrow and the lighting dim. I jumped a few times when the boards beneath my feet creaked, but once I got to the landing, I breathed a sigh of relief. There was only a short hallway with two doors. No ghosts or goblins or trap doors. Both of the standard-looking doors were slightly ajar, but not entirely opened.
I should have taken that as a sign that privacy was required.
I didn’t.
In my quest to see if these rooms were also blue, my fingertips nudged the door open just enough to see the wall, and yes, it too was blue, but not the same as the others.
Then again, it was the bathroom, not the bedroom, and the sound of water running should have sent me running.
It didn’t because I could see the reflection of who was under the spray in the mirror.
Perfectly.
I gasped and jumped to the side. In my direct line of sight was a huge glass wall and he was just beyond it.
My pulse was beating so hard I could feel it pounding at all my pulse points. I needed to leave. Yet, I couldn’t move. Or maybe it was more like I didn’t want to.
Steam hovered in the air, but there was not nearly enough of it to obscure anything. He was naked. His eyes were closed. And his head bent as the water sluiced over him. With one hand on the wall, the other was sliding slowly down his belly, and it landed between his thighs.
Oh, God.
Now I really couldn’t move. I was frozen in place. His hand was on his cock. I swallowed the noise my throat tried to make, but I was sure I didn’t do a good job of it. Thank you, Jesus. He didn’t seem to notice. No, he definitely didn’t notice because oh, my God, he was stroking himself. Slowly. Deliciously. Up, then down, and a twist of his palm around the head of his cock.
I shouldn’t have been watching, and yet I couldn’t look away. This was private. For him only. Not for me. And definitely not for my viewing pleasure.
When he moved his wrist faster, I had to stifle my sudden harsh breath with my hand. My eyes were glued to his body, and although I should leave, I didn’t.
Jake, doing this to himself, was the most erotic thing I’d ever seen. The only thing that prevented me from reaching between my own legs to get myself off was my perverted fascination with wanting to watch him come. Oh, and of course the terror of getting caught.
Like the cake incident wasn’t unfortunate enough.
His mouth opened, water filling it and overflowing when he tipped his face into the spray.
I watched him.
Soon he was fucking into his fist with a deliberation that made me weak at the knees, and still I watched. I watched the way his muscles corded in his arms, the way his cock moved within the confines of his fist, the way his face contorted into pure pleasure.
I watched.
Looking at Jake about to come made him seem like the sexiest man I had ever seen.
His cock disappeared inside his curled fingers, and this stroke seemed somehow more determined. Up, down, a twist around his crown, and then another twist. This time his hand dipped down, and then lower still.
I pressed my thighs together to ward off the ache of arousal that was flooding me. I couldn’t hear him, but I wished I could. I knew what he was feeling, though, because I could see his mouth open and his face twist with satisfaction. He was close. I could tell. And then soon enough, his taut belly strained, the muscles in his legs bunched, and then it happened—his desire jetted out.
Oh, God.
I watched.
Never in my life had I wanted to make myself come like I did at that moment. Still, it was all kinds of wrong. I shouldn’t have been watching him. I knew this, of course. Chiding myself, I licked salt from my upper lip and slowly, cautiously took a step back.
Guilt washed over me.
This was so wrong of me.
When had I turned so bad?
“Miss Easton, is everything okay?”
That voice. I knew that voice. It was Roger.
Oh, God!
No. No. No.
Before I even dared shift my gaze, I took a step and then another, and another still away from the door. My heart was beating like a drum. And although my sight was a little blurry from looking through the steam of the bathroom, I forced myself not to appear petrified as my head snapped in the direction of where Roger was standing.
He had no idea Jake was in there.
Right?
No idea what I was doing.
Right?
I couldn’t look guilty.
Couldn’t.
On trembling legs, I made myself walk toward him. “Oh, Roger, I got lost, I was looking for another way down.”
The look he gave me was sympathetic and not at all suspicious. “Madam, this way. Follow me.”
My escape was slow and unsteady.
Oh, my God.
The image of Jake was still in my head, and my body wouldn’t stop trembling. However, way too soon I was standing at the bottom of the staircase in the grand foyer, and I had to pull myself together.
But what I had seen changed everything.
And I knew I’d do whatever I had to in order to make things right between us.