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Sunlight streamed in through the windows, gilding the dust motes dancing in the air. He flipped on his tablet, trying to remember that he was a fucking professional. “Any pieces you’re more interested in seeing done first?”
Calder shook his head. “Dane just wants to know which ones you can restore, and we’ll go from there. Some of this stuff is really old. The last occupants were into antiques.”
“Well, some of the pieces you’ll want to stay that way, but others you’ll want recovered or possibly even refinished. I’ll go around and start making notes now.”
Lucien had leaned on the wall, his big arms crossed over his chest. Everything about his posture screamed stay away, and that was like catnip to Gio. All he wanted to do was walk over to the man and kiss him until he was moaning and thrusting that big, beautiful cock against him.
But he couldn’t.
This was a job, not a bar.
He could be a professional even if it fucking killed him.
Of course, now that he’d thought of kissing Lucien, all he wanted to do was turn and stick his tongue down Calder’s throat until the man was begging for his dick.
Yeah, not helping.
Barely resisting the urge to adjust himself, Gio turned away from the silent men to start the dusty work of inspecting each piece, taking pictures, and making notes.
First, he had to identify each piece to see if it should be restored or just given a good clean. He looked for identifying craftsman marks by pulling out the pieces or having the guys help him turn things on their sides to see the bottoms.
Some items were worth more if not restored, so he made notes on which pieces needed what kind of work. Some of it was merely replacing brasses, some of it was full-on restoration. There were a few love seats that could use new fabric, that sort of thing.
Gio loved nothing more than digging through a dusty attic, and he took his time. While he worked, he kept up a running chat with Lucien and Calder. Small stuff about his business.
“How long have you been restoring furniture?” Lucien asked as he helped Gio move a heavy chest of drawers.
“My whole life. It’s a family business that my grandfather started before I was born. My father and I run it now, though I opened up my branch here in Savannah. The rest of my family is based in Charleston. I grew up learning the ins and outs of furniture and even got a business degree to help take care of that side of things. My mother also works in the original shop along with my brother, Marcello.”
Gio took a picture of a love seat and made notes in his tablet. He moved to the next piece of furniture, an antique humidor. “Now this piece is gorgeous as is. All it needs is a good cleaning. Look at the carvings on this beauty.” He opened and closed the door, then carefully turned it over to see the bottom. “It’s actually French rather than French revival like most of this furniture over here.”
“How can you tell?” Calder inquired.
“It’s all in the scrollwork and the tooling of the wood.” He turned and pointed to a collection of pieces near the western wall. “Those are all traditional Federal style from the early nineteenth century. You can tell by the symmetry and clean lines. Very little ostentation or embellishment.” He turned and waved to another group of furniture. “But here, you can see that the collector lost interest in the Federal style and moved to the grander Empire style that was part of the Neoclassism wave that was sweeping the country during the second half of the century. It was a revival of the classical styles that Napoleon preferred during his era. But then, there were a shit-ton of revivals during that era—Egyptian revivalism, French Rococo revival, American Neo-Gothic revival.”
Turning toward the antique humidor, he carefully ran his hand down it, caressing the warm wood. “But this is French, as in made and shipped from France, at the close of the eighteenth century or very beginning of the nineteenth. She’s elegant and likely belongs to someone in the old nobility. Yes, just a cleaning for this one.”
“That’s amazing. I’ve never heard anyone speak about furniture with such passion,” Calder murmured.
Gio could feel his cheeks burning and hurriedly turned away. “I grew up with it. My bedtime stories were about furniture wars between Duncan Phyfe and Joseph Meeks—the two big furniture makers in the US at that time.”
He continued working through the attic, splitting his attention between the amazing furniture, and yeah, maybe he bent over a few times to give Lucien and Calder a good view of his ass. It really was one of his best assets.
But Lucien and Calder were remaining polite and if they ogled him a little, that was only a good thing. Before he reached the end of the attic, there was no question in his mind that he would invite them back to his place for an encore. The first time was too perfect, and meeting again was almost like fate stepping in. He had to take advantage of it or regret it for the rest of his life.
