I’m not sure if I’d admit it to anyone else, but I preferred my ancestral home. It was warm and lived in, a mixture of comfortable and somewhat antique. My grandfather built the mansion and gave it to my parents as a wedding present. My childhood was spent there, my mother died there. She hadn’t been able to get pregnant again until I was almost fourteen, but she and the baby were lost due to complications. I’d always known I would inherit it as their only living child.
Until my father decided to make sure I had “family” if anything ever happened to him. Well, I wasn’t going to go down quietly. Jade could take her millions and get the fuck out of my life, but I would be keeping the house. Someday, when I decided to have kids, they would grow up there.
Finishing my drink, I put the glass in the sink, and called up a moving company. Then I packed a couple of bags and set off for my father’s...no, it was my estate now that he was gone. Well, mine and Jade’s for the time being, I thought darkly.
Once I arrived, I took my bags to the master suite and set them on the floor in the hallway. I stared at the closed door, memories of my childhood assaulting me. I hadn’t been ready to go through my father’s things yet, but I’d had everything stored neatly in the basement until the time was right.
Taking a deep breath, I opened the door and stepped inside. It looked the same, but without the small personal touches. He’d always joked about this room belonging only to the man of the house and his wife, not so subtly hinting that he was itching to pass it down to me. His way of telling me to get married and give him grandbabies.
I was ready to step into the role of the man of the house, even if I intended to occupy this room without a nagging wife. My saving grace was knowing my father hadn’t moved the arm candy he’d just married in yet. To the best of my knowledge, she had never slept in this room.
I retrieved my suitcases from the hall and began to put things away. My solitude was eventually interrupted by the sound of someone at the open bedroom door.
“Oh, excuse me.” Jade’s sweet voice washed over me and my dick immediately hardened. Rather than turning from the closet with my obvious erection on display, I barked, “What do you want?”
The silence stretched a little too long and I wondered if she’d taken off, but when I turned around, she was still there, glaring at me.
“I was looking for a room to settle into, jackass. But, this house is a maze and I ended up here. So, you need to get down off that high and mighty horse, for which I’m sure he would be extremely grateful. It can’t be easy carrying you and your ego around. And point me in the direction of the empty bedrooms, I’ll get out of your space.”
I pressed my lips together, making every effort not to either laugh or groan. She was fucking gorgeous when she was angry, those green eye full of fire, her spectacular tits bouncing with her rapid breaths, and her blonde hair hanging loose and wild around her. I stepped to the right where a small sitting area was set up and shielded my reaction to her behind a chair.
It was on the tip of my tongue to tell her to take the farthest bedroom in the opposite wing but when my mouth opened, that wasn’t what came out.
“Your room is next door.”
Jade gasped, “Surely there’s another—“
“It’s not up for discussion, Jade. The door to the right is your room,” I said with authority. What the fuck was wrong with me? When I’d thought about her so far away, my mind and body both went on strike and started picketing the decision. My mouth was obviously the union leader because it had ordered her to sleep one wall away from me. Worse still, the rooms had a connecting door.
Mentally kicking my own ass, I knew I needed to get out of her presence. “If you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.” I stared at her meaningfully until she spun on her heel and marched into the next room. Once again able to breathe deeply, I waited for my hard-on to go down, as far as it ever would around Jade. Then I took off for the office located on the first floor.
Since I had no idea I would be moving in this quickly, the house was very understaffed. When my stomach started growling, I looked at the clock and was shocked to see it was already after seven.
I stood and stretched before wandering toward the kitchen to see if there was anything to make a decent meal out of, then laughed at myself. I couldn’t cook worth shit, so I needed to find the menu drawer. Or start one.
As I neared the room, I heard music playing and someone moving around. At the door I stopped short, as though I’d run into a brick wall. Jade was dancing around the kitchen, her hips swinging, her body moving fluidly to the beat. I watched her in silence, the erotic picture in front of me making me lose all ability to think.