While he did this, and she answered his quiet questions, Julianna put the groceries away in Sonia’s kitchen.
Listening to Julianna move around in her kitchen, Sonia noticed Regan settle herself with a book on one of the couches in the living room while Nikolas built a fire.
And something about all of this didn’t sit quite right with Sonia.
“Um…” she started and turned her eyes to Callum, “maybe I should help Julianna.”
Callum’s brows went up then his smile grew wide.
Then he said something that caused her temper to rise and her palms to itch.
“Baby doll, when no one’s around, your job is to take care of me.” She stared at him (as this was the point where her temper started rising and her palms started itching) and he continued, “But when someone’s around, their job is to take care of us.”
Seriously?
He might be king but…
Seriously?
He continued, “Saint called Julianna here to do that. It’s her duty. She’d be offended if you went in and helped.”
Sonia decided to keep on the subject she wanted to discuss.
“My job is to take care of you?”
He grinned. “I thought I explained that.”
He had.
He had just not done it thoroughly.
“How, precisely and in all the varied forms, am I required to do that?”
His grin turned positively wolfish.
“I’m guessing you understand the most important part.”
“Indeed,” she rejoined with irritation and he chuckled before continuing.
“The other parts include you cooking for me, caring for our home, our clothes, if there’s no one around to do it. Understanding my schedule and providing for it, Making certain I have what I need or want available to me so when –”
“So,” she broke in, “in other words, I’m to be your little wife?”
His best answer to that question was “no”.
Instead, being Callum, his eyes, for some reason beginning to change to golden, he replied, “Yes.”
“Did your people skip past the twentieth century?” Sonia enquired with sarcasm.
The gold obliterated the blue not, she sensed, due to anger but, she instinctively knew, with something else. Something that made that ever-present throb between her legs deepen and his face dipped close. “Baby doll, I’d really like to give you the opportunity to work out your anger right now but, regrettably, I’ve got things to do.”
She stared then glared then asked, “What does that mean?”
She asked it, but she really didn’t want to know.
However, he told her.
His face dipped even closer, veering to the left at the last minute, he said in her ear, “That means, you want rough play and I want to give it to you. But I’ll have to give it to you later.”
She wanted rough play? What on earth was he talking about?
She didn’t have the chance to ask, not that she wanted the answer to that question either.
Giving her a “we’re done talking about this” squeeze, Callum dismissed her, turned his attention to the copious papers and files on her dining room table and the laptop pointed in his direction.
Regardless of his inattention to her, he still kept Sonia pinned to his lap.
And he did this for a good long while.
He did this while they ate dinner. A dinner which Julianna cooked in Sonia’s kitchen and served in Sonia’s dining room on Sonia’s plates, using Sonia’s cutlery and glasses and cleaned up after, again in Sonia’s kitchen.
And he did this while the men talked, not only about the rebellion, the intelligence they were currently in the process of gathering and the strategy they were forming to quell it but about all things kingdom. What was happening in other regions. Saint’s takeover and eventual clean up of the Western Territories. Invitations to official ceremonies and which ones Callum would take (none of them) and who would go in his stead (mostly Regan but also, surprisingly, once the rebellion was crushed, Ryon).
It was, she hated to admit, fascinating, this whole secret world that was obviously thriving but completely unknown amongst her world.
What was more fascinating was Callum’s intense interest in all of it. Sonia had the sense that he didn’t rule with a heavy hand but he certainly liked to have his finger on the pulse of absolutely everything. He was interested in what his people were doing, making sure that they were living peaceful, prosperous lives and he took his role as their leader very seriously.
Callum interrupted the proceedings only once, to guide Sonia upstairs with his hand firm in hers in order to take her to the bathroom to administer her injection. And this he did with now practiced ease, quickly but, as usual, she emerged from the burn snug in the circle of his arms and, if Sonia still had her scales, this would definitely be on the good side.
Regan left with a hearty good-bye and warm smile to Sonia.
Julianna who had, when she was not serving them, to Sonia’s disgust, sat completely quiet in Saint’s lap, left with Saint on a quiet farewell and a shy smile at Sonia.
The night wore on, Sonia sitting in Callum’s lap, Callum seeming not to know she was there but doing things intermittently and unconsciously that made that damnable throb ache. Like fiddling with the charm on her claiming chain or occasionally drawing lazy circles with the tips of his long fingers at her hip.
Finally, when another man arrived (his name was Bodim), carrying large, scrolled up pieces of papers which, she saw when he spread them out on her table, were maps of the Western Territories with lots of markings on them, Callum’s attention turned back to her.
Mouth again at her ear and voice lowered, he ordered, “Go to bed, little one.”
His ordering her to go to bed, she thought, was bad.
Escape, she knew, was good.
She instantly made a move to slip off his lap but his hand tightened, stalling her progress.
His voice a barely audible murmur, he went on to command, “Don’t wear anything to bed. I want you na**d when I join you.”
She pressed her lips together, ignored the pulse that shot from the juncture of her legs straight to her ni**les and met the sexy serious look in his eyes (or seriously sexy look, she still didn’t know which).
Without a word, Sonia slid from his lap and called her goodnights then she went upstairs and did exactly what she wanted to do.
This was investigating her catalogues and trawling the internet to find Regan’s gift. She couldn’t buy Regan a gift with Regan actually there, but she needed to buy Regan a gift. It was, indeed, Christmas and Regan was her mother-in-law.