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I haven’t even told him.
I’ve said his name a hundred times and damned near screamed the roof off with it when he’s balls deep inside me. But I haven’t actually said it. I haven’t even told him I love him yet.
“What’s this?” Ethan asks suddenly, feeling the pocket of the robe I’m wearing, his robe, and lifting out the notes he wrote me that I haven’t stopped carrying since.
“The notes you wrote me,” I tell him, almost embarrassed. But Ethan gasps a little, genuinely touched that I kept them, let alone want to walk around with them.
“And what do they say?” he asks with authority, sounding like a schoolmaster or professor grilling his student.
“Read it,” he says firmly, opening the first one up.
I read it through, and he stops me before I finish.
“And what does it say at the end?” he asks, lowering his tone, sounding all sweet and tender again.
Not playing around when it comes to those three little words.
“It says I love you,” I tell him, looking him square in the eye and feeling his hands squeeze me he echoes the same back to me.
“Because I do love you, Krissy. I loved you the second I laid eyes on you… Just never been very good at saying it, I guess.”
“Me neither,” I confess. “But only because I never had anyone….”
We sit silently for a minute until Ethan breaks us out of our nostalgic reverie.
“C’mon, lemme show you around…You’ve got a ton to vacuum and dust,” he jokes, reaching for my hand and pulling me along.
“I’m kidding, Krissy. You don’t have to do anything. Ask or tell someone, and it’ll be done as quickly as you like.”
“You have, like a maid or something?” I ask, hearing my voice starting to echo as we move through the larger rooms of the place.
The estate.
I don’t think I’ll ever get used to calling it that.
“Twenty staff altogether, but you won’t see them here, not in our place. Not unless we buzz for ‘em.
“And here’s the vault. Well, the steps down to it anyway,” he announces once we’re in a more modern part of the house. A shimmering foyer with high glass walls looking out over the immaculate gardens that give way to a million-dollar view of the valley below.
“Vault’s down here, Krissy,” Ethan calls out to me, not minding when I gravitate towards the view.
In a moment, he’s hugging me from behind. Pressing his lips to the top of my head as we take in the view.
“I hope you’ll be as happy here as I am now,” he murmurs. Breathing in the scent of my hair and stroking it back.
Telling me how good I feel too. His hands slid down my hips.
“The vault?” I ask, shivering and easing my hands over his.
Trying to stay focused on the house, the estate.
The view.
The vault.
Focus Krissy, Ethan has something to show you down there.
“C’mon,” Ethan says, taking my hand again. And in moments, it feels like we’re transported a hundred years back in time.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Ethan
“This was the original cellar, back when Silverthorne was just another big old house, nothing like what it became. What it will be again,” I tell Krissy, leading her down the modern marble steps until we’re on old blue cobblestones.
This is the oldest part of the house and home to the vault, which is really just a room-sized safe with digital locks.
It’s also where many old portraits and family heirlooms are stacked neatly.
“It’s… different,” Krissy says, crimping her lips and looking up at me.
Shivering from the cold down here more than anything else already.
“Come. I thought we came to put your money down here, ” I tease her, busying myself with the vault locks, scanning my fingertips and then my face and eyes into a sensor.
“Not taking me down there to chain me up or anything,” Krissy jokes, her teeth almost chattering with cold before I pull her close. Warming her up with my body.
“We could do that anyplace,” I assure her. “You want me to tie you up?” I ask, relieved when she shakes her head, and we both laugh.
“Hey?” she suddenly asks, “You didn’t even bring the money with you….”
Oops.
“We can get it later,” I assure her, really wanting to show her a few other things.
Things that are way more interesting than just money.
“The family jewels,” I exclaim with mock drama, opening up some cabinets. Krissy gasps with forced interest and shivers again as she glances around at the old black and white portraits. I wonder if I’m not boring her.
But there is a reason I brought her down here.
There’s a ton of silver and antique stuff that’s worth a lot, apparently.
But it’s the jewelry I want to show Krissy. One piece especially.
“They didn’t think to put heating in the cellar a hundred years ago?” Krissy says, losing interest fast, and I feel kinda stupid all of a sudden.
