Page 18 of The Spare
“I’m going to grab a couple of things.” She fiddled with a lock of hair while the rest flowed mid back, sweeping along the long-sleeved merlot-colored dress she wore. It was form-fitting until her waist, then it flared and ended just above her knees, giving me a peek of her bare legs.
Those legs.They went on for days and consumed too many of my thoughts, especially after that night out.
"We're going to be late," I said mildly.
"We’re already late." She turned quickly. Her dress lifted slightly again. A pair of knee-high boots were responsible for the clacking sound as she walked along the hardwood floors. “Come in. It should only be a few minutes.”
I had been inside her townhouse dozens of times. It looked the same, but somehow it felt different this time. Was it that I couldn’t peel my eyes off her body?
Maybe.
The thought of her bare legs wrapped around my waist while I fucked her on the large kitchen island was new.
“Aren’t you going to be cold?” I said, still staring, in a judgmental tone.
“I have a change of clothes.” She stopped at the marble island in her kitchen, placing a few items in a tote bag, ignoring my tone.
I leaned against the counter, waiting for her, when a copy of the Odyssey caught my eye. Sloan’s love of reading was something we had in common. Absent-mindedly turning through the pages as I waited for her, I realized the book was written in Greek.
Henry spoke four languages, and, not to be outdone, Sloan spoke five. But I didn’t think Greek was one. “You can read Greek?”
She looked over her shoulder, and a smile stretched across her face. She lit up. “No, I’ve been having a colleague at the firm help me translate it page by page.” She put the bag she was packing on the counter and walked over to me, close enough to inhale the intoxicating scent of her perfume.
“It's the first publicly available translation from ancient to modern Greek by a female scholar.” The excitement was evident in her voice. Her fingertips grazed against my skin to take the book, leaving sparks in their wake. She opened it to display the translations she’d done so far. Taking a step closer, she continued. “Turns out, some of the translations were a little off. It changes how you see Odysseus and so many of the adventures he found himself in.”
Watching her talk about something she loved was captivating; I couldn’t take my eyes off her.
“I thought of you when it came in,” she said. “There’s an English version available of her translation, but this is like solving a puzzle.”
“Yeah?” My love of reading came from my mother. She had a particular interest in French literature. I had read all the greats by the time I was in middle school.
She laughed and nodded.
“Henry and Xander never cared much for stories that weren’t presented in HD.” Closing the book, she looked up at me. Her luminous brown eyes drew me in. I didn’t say anything. My mind had a nasty habit of going blank when she was too close. I merely took in the light her gaze cast.
“We should go,” She said softly, shook her head, and her eyes darted down to the floor. She looked over to the bag she’d packed. When she began to pull it from the counter, I stepped closer and held it for her.
I motioned toward the door silently, ignoring the buzz the short encounter sent ricocheting through my chest. She grabbed her coat, and we walked out of the townhouse.
On my way out, I noticed a few familiar book spines along the bookshelf in her living room and smiled.
We made our way to my car, where she stopped abruptly.
“Should I leave you two alone?” I asked as she drank in the beauty of the Artura. She had an interest in fast cars.
“I love this car.” Her brown eyes remained transfixed as she walked to the passenger's seat. I dropped the items she’d packed in the front trunk. “But this car, on the Spa-Francorchamps, that's the dream.”
Sloan didn’t want the things most heiresses wanted. She wanted to be a lawyer and, apparently, race on an F1 track.
“I meant what I said earlier.” I opened the passenger side door so she could take a seat. “I’m driving.”
“I didn’t ask.” She settled into her seat and looked up at me innocently. She stretched her hands along the dashboard. “You better treat her right.”
* * *
The drive up was quiet. After leaving the city limits, there weren’t many cars on the country roads. It was nice until I realized that the quiet meant my mind would drift to places that it shouldn’t.
I tried to focus on the road. “Those locations you and Xander will randomly call out to shut the other one up,” I began, and immediately regretted it.
