“Oh my...I’m embarrassed now. That goes to the warehouse.” She asked him what warehouse. “Mine. Well, yours I guess. It was part of the house when I sold it to you. A building and some...well, this will look like nothing in comparison.”
“A warehouse. I own...do you think someone might have told me this?” Luther grinned at her and said he had. “When? I think I would have remembered someone telling me I own a warehouse full of stuff.”
“I think it was discussed the day you came to the house with your mother. You and she were arguing about your father and aunt, I believe. She asked me where the key was to the warehouse, and I told her that I’d have to find it.” He shrugged. “I think I might have met the sun a few days later. It was a very hard time for me, you see. And once the house was sold, I simply joined my lovely missus.”
As he moved away and then faded out, Vinnie made her way to her office. There was some mention of the warehouse there, she thought, and she wanted to see just what it said. She knew wording in contracts could be either damning or helpful.
As soon as she pulled out the deed to the house, she read the part where she not only owned the house and the said warehouse, but she also owned the contents. To do with, it said, as she pleased, as they were part and parcel of the house. She looked up when the door opened. Mitch was standing there looking like a man on a mission.
“We own a warehouse. Did you know that?” He told her that he didn’t but was glad for them. “Why? Oh, to store this stuff in, I guess you’re thinking. Well, that might not work out so well either. Apparently it’s full. From top to bottom, and somewhere along the line someone has even gone so far as to purchase the buildings next to it on either side. We have three such places.”
“And the plans to open the antique shop, you think that might be a possibility now?” Vinnie told him she thought it might be. “And the things down there, do you have plans for all of it? There are things in there that some museums would love to have if we don’t find a need for them.”
“If you’d like. The house and everything else I owned before you is now yours as well. If we decide to donate some of the things or sell them, we make that decision together.” He nodded and still stood near the door. “Are you coming in or leaving again?”
“I’d very much like to come in you.” Her body heated immediately. “However, there is something that I’d like to talk to you about first. I found something in the vault in the sublevels and I asked Luther about it. He told me a very wonderful story. Would you like to hear it?”
“Yes.” Her voice sounded hoarse and a little dark. Clearing her throat, she moved her chair back to regard him. “What is it you found?”
“When he and his lovely wife were first together—about four hundred years or so ago, he thought—they were in the south of France visiting a friend of theirs, and he showed them his collection. One part of his collection was a jewelry box filled with things he’d picked up at an estate auction. I guess back then, they had them for families that didn’t have the funds to pay for some funeral expenses or a trip.” Nodding, she said she’d done the same thing, picked things up. “The man’s name wasn’t important, I guess, because Luther couldn’t recall it. But he did tell me about one piece in particular.”
As he made his way to her, she felt her body heat up more. Whatever he had, she knew it was going to be epic. Her mind was running a mile a minute and kept getting sidetracked watching him move. When he was standing next to her, she reached out and ran her fingers down his erection outlined in his jeans.
“You said you wanted to come inside of me.” He nodded and dropped to his knees. As he spread her legs wide and moved between them, Vinnie moaned. “This is good. I can almost feel your tongue now.”
He took her left hand into his and kissed her palm before sucking each finger into his mouth and then moving to the next one. The longer he suckled at her hand and fingers, the wetter she got. Curling his hand at the back of her head, he pulled her to him and kissed her like he never had before.
It was consuming and giving. Heartbreakingly soft and warm. His breath moved along her cheeks as he lifted his head, and then he sucked her lower lip into his mouth and bit her. Vinnie felt her inner beast move along her skin, her need was so high. But instead of taking her, which she thought he was going to do, he took her hand into his again and slipped a ring on her finger.
“Victoria Alexandra Millicent Graham, would you marry me? Would you keep me safe and love me? Every day will you wake up beside me, lay down by me, and love me? Have children with me, grow older with me? Will you, Vinnie Graham, be my wife for the rest of our days together?”