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El-Mudad shook his head. “I wouldn’t mind. But we don’t have to make up for any time. We have more of it now. You can rest if you need to.”
“Honestly? I could use a nap.” The time change really screwed with me. “Otherwise, I’m going to pass out in my plate at dinner.”
“That won’t do in such a palace,” El-Mudad teased. He knew how I felt about the place.
“Oh, fine, mock my beautiful home.” Neil sighed loudly. “Yes, fine. Perhaps we should go to our ‘rooms’?”
“Our ‘separate’ rooms?” I imitated his air quotes.
“Oh, yes, those,” El-Mudad said with a knowing tilt of his head. “The ones with the doors left wide open between them?”
“They never!” Neil gasped, looking over his shoulder as we left together.
El-Mudad nodded slowly and laughed. “They did. I’m sorry that your ruse didn’t fool anyone. I hope they’ve signed agreements.”
“They have,” Neil assured him. “But apparently I should require that they dial back the cheek.”
The Blue Apartment—or as we called it, Neil’s bedroom—was at the end of a wide hallway with an intricate herringbone wood floor. A blood-red rug led the way to the tall double doors at the end. I’d made my position on the decor known enough that I didn’t do it now, even as we passed portraits of long-dead strangers. The house had been in the family for a long time, so even Neil had no idea who half the people immortalized on the walls were.
“The first time I was here, you told me that your bedroom took up the entire floor,” I reminded him. “How is there an adjoining room?”
“I believe I said ‘most,’” he corrected me.
“My room is tiny,” El-Mudad said. He held Neil’s hand in his as we walked. “I would have been offended if you’d put me up there without intending to invite me over to yours.”
“It was meant to serve as something of a banished husband room, I suspect,” Neil told us.
“Or a mistress’s apartment,” I suggested, and El-Mudad feigned outrage.
“How dare you! I’m not your mistress. I’m your boyfriend.”
We reached the doors, and I pulled one handle. “Oh, right. I’m the kept woman.”
Since it was a private room that didn’t feature on any tours, Neil’s bedroom was outfitted with a modern en-suite bathroom—the rest of the house had pre-war plumbing, still—and a television over the enormous fireplace. The room was done up with blue-gray satin wall panels framed in molding and gold velvet draped over everything that could possibly require drapes, from the windows to the cushioned nap nook to the bed crown high above the huge bed. Mounds of ornate pillows and bolsters covered the top quarter of the creme duvet, which subtly matched the sinfully soft area rug.
“This,” El-Mudad said, holding his arms wide at the end of the bed, “is exactly the size we need in New York.”
“No!” I gasped. We already had plenty of space in our California King. This bed was easily twice the size. “I like to cuddle you. I won’t even be able to find you in here.”
He put his arm around my waist and drew me up tight against his chest. His warm brown eyes gazed down into mine. “I’ll find you. I promise.”
I tilted my head up for a quick kiss, then said, “I’m sorry. I know we travel in style, but flight grime is real. I need to take a shower.”
“Go on.” He gave my butt a pat.
“I may join you,” Neil said, but he was already sitting on the bed, so there was very little chance he would get up again. If he weren’t completely knocked out before dinner, I would be shocked. No matter how much of an international traveler he was, jet lag always fucked with him.
I went into the bathroom and stripped down, then let the water run to get it warm. Though the fixtures were all updated, the shower itself was little more than a slightly-larger-than-usual standing stall with tan marble tile and a glass door. I found a hair tie in one of the vanity drawers—I had a stock of them at almost all of our houses now—and put my hair up in a scruffy but functional bun, so I didn’t have to get it wet. I gave myself a quick rinse, toweled off, and headed back out to the bedroom.
I stopped dead in my tracks. “I’ve been in there for like fifteen minutes, and you’re already fucking?”
Neil and El-Mudad looked up at me sheepishly from the bed, where both of them were completely naked. El-Mudad lay beneath Neil, flushed and panting.
“Not fucking in the technical sense,” Neil argued. “There’s no penetration. Just some light frottage.”
“Oh, just say dry humping, stop trying to sound fancy.” I climbed onto the bed and laid next to them, stretching my arms over my head to elongate my nude body. There was something so sexy about just getting out of the shower, not being dripping wet but not totally dry, either.
