Being Eloise (An Erotic Romance Collection, Books 1-3) Read Online Free
Author: Eloise Spanks
Tags: Romance
as I hadn’t recalled seeing them a moment ago. But of course, they’d been there all along. I just hadn’t looked at this side of the bed until now. It was 12:35 pm, a Wednesday, and my heart was somewhere around 120 bpm. My irrational, curious heart.
I tried to imagine what Olivia had meant by her note. Did Olivia expect me to watch the two of them during afternoon love-making? I didn’t know. Was it still all a put-on?
I left the closet and got to work: Eloise Spanks, first-rate snooper. It’s something I’m natural at. Qualms of invading privacy—regardless of what I’ve told my son—don’t really affect me. It comes from being a writer, I suppose; the need to scope the scene, uncover the motivations, glean as much information from appearances and bring the light to the darkness. Not that I was an expert. After all, I hadn’t caught my husband’s affair. There are things the heart holds back from the gray matter. Traitor.
I was disappointed to uncover so little in the Drake residence. The prescriptions in the master bath told me only what the Drakes suffered from intermittently. If they suffered from anything more, then those prescriptions travelled with them. If there was a stash of lingerie, sex toys, or porn, well, it was well hidden. And since I didn’t find any, my guess was on
well hidden.
They either read copiously, or had earlier in their lives, or perhaps they just amassed lots of books they planned to read one day. An entire shelf in the library was devoted to French erotica of a kind I hadn’t seen before: a series of neatly bound dark blue books with sewn-in red silk bookmarks. My distant high school French couldn’t really decipher it with any degree of accuracy other than to know that it was smut. Highfalutin French smut, but still smut. Honestly, though, it was the drawings that tickled me: simple line drawings of men and women coupling. But that was the extent of any titillation, both in the books and in the house. It was an otherwise normal house as far as I could see, of a class of people far above mine, monetarily and athletically speaking.
I was persistent, though, in my snooping, hoping to catch a new detail every time I came over to water and take in the mail. I think I even began to over-water—I began finding tiny clouds of flying insects bumbling through the air above the moist soil of the plants, the kind that live a day, if that. Upstairs, the dresser drawers were still empty, the shoes still horned, the wastepaper basket holding nothing of intrigue: just an empty water bottle. Under the bed—my snooping was now down to the ground-level—I discovered a large suitcase, but it was locked, ending my investigation of the bedroom of interest. With only a week left until Olivia and Drake returned, I had no more places for my imagination to roam within the house and uncover clues as to what went on here. Mostly I was disappointed that I couldn’t uncover what Olivia’s note alluded to without accepting her invitation. I was disappointed, in other words, that I couldn’t cheat, that I couldn’t remain timid. Because the extreme invasion of privacy I was engaged in was really just an expression of my timidity. Whatever Wednesdays were all about, they rested in Olivia’s and Drake’s minds and actions only. It drove me crazy.
What I’m about to confess is, I’ll admit, a little sad. But I do so just so you have a baseline of where I was coming from before Olivia began to affect my life.
On the Friday before they returned, as I was working at my laptop, the pool guy pulled into the drive. He was earlier than usual. He was not a young, ripped, shirtless all-American catalog sex object, but a short tidy man who looked like he should have amounted to more in his life by this age of his life (late 30s). He seemed, in other words, like a boss who’d had to let go of all his employees and do the work himself. He was pale for outdoor work, and pale for someone south of the
I tried to imagine what Olivia had meant by her note. Did Olivia expect me to watch the two of them during afternoon love-making? I didn’t know. Was it still all a put-on?
I left the closet and got to work: Eloise Spanks, first-rate snooper. It’s something I’m natural at. Qualms of invading privacy—regardless of what I’ve told my son—don’t really affect me. It comes from being a writer, I suppose; the need to scope the scene, uncover the motivations, glean as much information from appearances and bring the light to the darkness. Not that I was an expert. After all, I hadn’t caught my husband’s affair. There are things the heart holds back from the gray matter. Traitor.
I was disappointed to uncover so little in the Drake residence. The prescriptions in the master bath told me only what the Drakes suffered from intermittently. If they suffered from anything more, then those prescriptions travelled with them. If there was a stash of lingerie, sex toys, or porn, well, it was well hidden. And since I didn’t find any, my guess was on
well hidden.
They either read copiously, or had earlier in their lives, or perhaps they just amassed lots of books they planned to read one day. An entire shelf in the library was devoted to French erotica of a kind I hadn’t seen before: a series of neatly bound dark blue books with sewn-in red silk bookmarks. My distant high school French couldn’t really decipher it with any degree of accuracy other than to know that it was smut. Highfalutin French smut, but still smut. Honestly, though, it was the drawings that tickled me: simple line drawings of men and women coupling. But that was the extent of any titillation, both in the books and in the house. It was an otherwise normal house as far as I could see, of a class of people far above mine, monetarily and athletically speaking.
I was persistent, though, in my snooping, hoping to catch a new detail every time I came over to water and take in the mail. I think I even began to over-water—I began finding tiny clouds of flying insects bumbling through the air above the moist soil of the plants, the kind that live a day, if that. Upstairs, the dresser drawers were still empty, the shoes still horned, the wastepaper basket holding nothing of intrigue: just an empty water bottle. Under the bed—my snooping was now down to the ground-level—I discovered a large suitcase, but it was locked, ending my investigation of the bedroom of interest. With only a week left until Olivia and Drake returned, I had no more places for my imagination to roam within the house and uncover clues as to what went on here. Mostly I was disappointed that I couldn’t uncover what Olivia’s note alluded to without accepting her invitation. I was disappointed, in other words, that I couldn’t cheat, that I couldn’t remain timid. Because the extreme invasion of privacy I was engaged in was really just an expression of my timidity. Whatever Wednesdays were all about, they rested in Olivia’s and Drake’s minds and actions only. It drove me crazy.
What I’m about to confess is, I’ll admit, a little sad. But I do so just so you have a baseline of where I was coming from before Olivia began to affect my life.
On the Friday before they returned, as I was working at my laptop, the pool guy pulled into the drive. He was earlier than usual. He was not a young, ripped, shirtless all-American catalog sex object, but a short tidy man who looked like he should have amounted to more in his life by this age of his life (late 30s). He seemed, in other words, like a boss who’d had to let go of all his employees and do the work himself. He was pale for outdoor work, and pale for someone south of the
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