Page 43 of The Mountain Man's Virgin
My mind was racing. How was I going to get out of here? Would Jeeves call a cab for me after I broke things off with Lawrence? I definitely couldn’t walk back to the city. It would take at least an hour to get back to the main highway from here.
“Winfield, my man,” Lawrence smiled and clapped the butler on the back. The man was stiff, to begin with, but I caught him take a sharp breath as Lawrence attempted familiarity.
“Master Locklear. It’s a pleasure to see you, Sir. What time should I request dinner?”
Two other equally formally dressed men --footmen?-- grabbed our bags out of the trunk and whisked them into the house. My knowledge of hired help was limited to what I learned from binge-watching Downton Abbey last year when I had the flu.
“We will take dinner in the suite, Winfield. I thought this was all arranged.”
“Sir, I will check in with Chef Parson and ensure that your dinner is sent up promptly at… how does 8 p.m. sound?”
I glanced down at my watch. It was already 7:00 p.m. My stomach growled, but I wasn’t going to let myself get wrapped up in this creepy fairy tale world.
“Make it 9:00, Winfield,” Lawrence said and winked at the butler. He remained stoic and nodded his head.
“As you wish, sir.”
“Come on Lucy, let’s go,” Lawrence said and strode down the hallway.
“Thank you, Winfield,” I said to the butler. I hesitated. I wanted to ask him to call a cab for me, but Lawrence grabbed me by my hand and dragged me down the hallway. My feet plodded along the green-carpeted hallway and I gawked at the ornate oil paintings that should’ve been in a museum.
I tried to pay attention to our route as we wound our way through the hallways of the mansion. If I wanted to get back to Winfield and out of here, I needed to be able to find my way back to the front entryway.
To my surprise, there was another staff member waiting in front of a pair of ornately carved doors at the end of the hallway. This man didn’t say a word, just opened one of the doors. Lawrence pulled me into the room. I turned to try to catch the man’s name or just meet his eyes, but he disappeared behind the heavy door.
Goosebumps rose all over my body when I felt Lawrence’s breath on the back of my neck. Not the kind of shivers you get from the anticipation of a man’s touch; they were the skin-crawling kind. I needed to get out of there.
I looked up to see the second most romantic setting I had ever seen in my life. I briefly wondered if I would spend the rest of my waking days comparing every moment to the crackling fire and plaid quilts of Mick’s cabin. Here, rose petals were strewn from the doorway in a thick pathway that led to a huge four-poster king-sized bed with a perfectly flat crisp white duvet. Jazz music lilted through the room from speakers that were concealed somewhere in the oak-paneled walls. The floor-to-ceiling windows soared at least twenty feet, and I could hear the waves crashing against the cliffs below. Dusk was setting into the grayness of the drizzly evening, and the only thing visible through the window was a far-off lighthouse blinking its warning to any sailors passing by.
“Do you like it, Lucy?” Lawrence pulled back my hair and whispered into my ear.
I turned to look Lawrence in the eye. I had to tell him that it was over. I expected to feel sadness when my eyes met his, but I didn’t. His eyes didn’t look tender like Mick’s. They looked dark and cold, and how could I have never seen this before-- slightly reptilian.
“Lawrence, I… we need to--”
My breakup speech with interrupted by Lawrence’s lips pressing against mine.
I pushed back against his shoulders. “Lawrence. I can’t do this,” I said and took a step backward.
Lawrence reached out, grabbed my hand, and yanked me back - hard. I could feel his hard-on against my lower belly as it strained against his pants.
“Oh, come on, Lucy. I know that you wanted to wait until we were married, but I thought that tonight could be our special night.”
He thought that I was talking about sex. “That’s not what I mean.”
“Well, get over here, my fiancée.” He turned and tried to drag me toward the bed.
I dug my heels in and ripped my hand from his. “Will you listen to me?” I screamed.
I had never once raised my voice to Lawrence and this seemed to catch him off guard. He sat down on the edge of the bed and patted the duvet beside him. “Come, love. Sit.”
“I prefer to stand,” I said.
“What has gotten into you?” Lawrence asked. He stood up and grabbed me by both of my shoulders and pushed me down onto the edge of the bed, the way that you make a child sit if you want them to listen to you.
“I think that we need to take a break.”
There. I got it out. That wasn’t so hard after all.
