Page 10 of Reading Between the Lines
“You’d have been lost without me.”
“Yes.” The raw honesty of that statement bled into my tone.
Tallus’s features softened, and he ran a hand over my head, drawing me down to his level so our foreheads touched. “You’re just a big ol’ cuddle bear, aren’t you?”
I growled teasingly under my breath, narrowing my eyes in mock aggravation.
Tallus chuckled and kissed me again. I melted at the contact and the feel of his body against mine. I never wanted it to end. The kiss. The relationship. None of it. I loved everything about Tallus’s free spirit. His mouth was bliss. His lips were the perfect amount of wet. His tongue was the perfect amount of playful.
Tentatively, still getting used to the idea of freely touching someone, I wrapped my arms around his middle and heaved him off the ground. Tallus was featherlight compared to the PRs I pulled at the gym.
He chuckled into the kiss and wrapped his legs around me, his fingers roving over my scalp.
Most of all, I loved the weight of him in my arms—in my life. Itchy sweater and booby-traps be damned. Having Tallus against me was a little taste of heaven in a life that had been nothing but hell.
He broke free from my mouth too soon, and the world spun in dizzying circles. Every muscle in my body ached with want and need. “Careful, D. Don’t want to start something we can’t finish.”
I growled for real that time.
“Plus, don’t we have somewhere to be?”
“Yeah.”
“Should we get going?”
“No.” I kissed him again. Eventually, the heady rush of blood drowning my senses leveled out, and I regretfully set him on his feet instead of heading upstairs.
***
With minimal traffic on a Sunday evening, we arrived in Port Hope shortly before nine. The bed and breakfast Delaney Mandel booked was flowery, frilly, and all things unbefitting of my personality. With a name like Ivory Lace, I should have known. I would have preferred a shithole motel than a get-personal-with-your-host B&B, but when the woman offering the job was loaded and insisted on choosing the accommodations, I didn’t argue. Like I’d told Tallus, we needed the money. Desperately.
Ivory Lace B&B was situated in an early nineteenth-century four-story brick home in the center of Port Hope. With its gingerbread trim, white-painted wraparound porch, and the abundance of tacky ornaments sitting proudly in the frosted windows, I should have known the place was run by an elderly couple.
The tended lawn sported dull grass and a few fall leaves that had been missed during a raking. Someone had worked hard at bedding down the gardens for winter, and the porch swing and outdoor chairs cradled decorative pillows and crocheted blankets similar to the ones I’d seen at Nana’s house. It reeked of crafty old woman.
The lobby and its flourishing adornments were enough to make me vomit. Not only was the space overly full and claustrophobic, with knickknacks and ornaments on every available surface, but floral potpourri choked the air and turned my stomach. Its rich, cloying odor was inescapable and eye-watering.
The wallpaper was flowery. The hanging prints were flowery. Even the print on a china tea set decorating a nearby table was flowery. Flowers filled vases and lined doorways. But it wasn’t the foliage that caught me off guard. It was the profusion of clocks. Gold, silver, and wooden framed clocks sat in uncountable numbers throughout the room. On high shelves, in cubby holes, on tables, and counters. Some stood proud in the corners, taller than me. The steady ticking was enough to make me clench my jaw. It was something out of a Stephen King novel. The noise penetrated my brain, attacking my sanity in an instant.
Before I could comment on the flowers, the smell, or the clocks, an overly friendly woman scurried from another room and greeted us with a flourish, introducing herself as Ivory Lace herself. Her voice was just this side of a squeal.
A crooked old man followed several steps behind, shuffling into the lobby with a face like plasticine. Ivory introduced him as Husband Herbert. More like Hospice Herbert. The guy seemed to be in perimortem rigor, which I didn’t think was a thing until now. His brittle stance made me fear he was about to topple over dead at any second.
Tallus, seemingly oblivious to the assault on the senses, cranked up the charm, turning into his jovial, lovable self while I stood back and tried not to take up too much space—which was hard to do when you were six and a half feet tall and over two hundred and sixty pounds of pure muscle.
Tallus secured our room key and signed the registry for both of us as he made small talk with spunky, curly-haired Ivory, who made him promise to be down for breakfast at eight o’clock sharp. She wagged a finger to punctuate her demand.
“You can’t miss the wake-up call, and everyone comes for breakfast. No exceptions. There will be bacon, sausage, eggs, toast, waffles, pancakes, hash browns… umm… homemade jam, scones, pastries, fruit, coffee, tea, juice… everything you can imagine.” She wore a beaming smile. “We serve it family style. We have ten guests under our roof tonight and twelve spots at the table. It’s perfect.”
“Lovely,” Tallus exclaimed. “We’ll be there.”
We won’t, I wanted to interject but held my tongue.
The woman’s husband, hunched and spindly Herbert, gestured with a stiff arm from one wooden door to the next, announcing, “Billiard tables. Library. Dining room. Stairs. Laundry…” His uninflected tone and limited movement made me think he’d tired of giving tours back in the sixties and wouldhave much rather been anywhere else. Like in a coffin six feet under.
“Feel free to wander about,” Ivory said with a yellow-toothed grin. “The rooms upstairs are private and for guests, but the downstairs is free to be used by anyone staying here. Make yourself at home. There’s a piano, a pool table, a craft room, a—”
“Thank you. We’ll browse the house once we settle in our room,” Tallus said.
