“This Royce and Beatrice business, you and me, what am I to you now? What does that mean to us?”
“We have seven months to figure it out.”
Her body stilled and her eyes, emerald before, started shifting back to hazel. This, he was beginning to interpret, when not just her norm, was when she was confused, mildly upset or melancholy.
“So nothing has changed?” she asked.
He shook his head and she bit her lip, her eyes sliding to the side, away from his, trying to mask her disappointed reaction. It took every ounce of his willpower not to grin.
“I will warn you,” his tone was mock-severe, “it might take eight months for us to figure it out.” Then he tugged gently on her hair to pull her head back and he ducked his own and kissed her throat, his other hand moving to the small of her back to form its lazy figure eights.
Her body jerked.
“Eight?” she breathed.
He noted, again, she said it in (weak) protest but she didn’t bloody well mean it.
He had her, he knew in that moment, she was definitely his.
“Yes, maybe nine or even ten,” he replied.
“Do I still have to do what you tell me to do?”
“Yes.”
He felt her slump and he grinned against the skin at her throat then he slid his lips up her neck to taste the area just under her ear.
Sibyl trembled.
“Obviously you can’t see anyone else but me,” he warned, moving his mouth to hers and he brushed his lips there, feather-soft.
“What if I don’t agree? The original bargain was two months; you keep changing the goal posts. Now you know what I did with the money, and you obviously don’t mind, you can get a tax break, that ought to buy back some time.”
He ignored her thoughtful suggestion (although he mentally filed it away). “You never know, it could take a year.”
She gasped.
“I’m not doing this for a year!” she cried.
“No?” he asked, his hand slid back under her t-shirt and his finger swirled around her nipple.
She gasped again, this one much different than the last.
At her reaction, he gave her a smug smile as he felt his body tighten and he kissed her freckled nose.
And she gasped again, this one soft and, finally, full of understanding.
“Colin,” she whispered, “You called me ‘sweetheart’.”
Colin didn’t reply.
Her eyes liquefied instantly to sherry.
“Colin?”
He stared her straight in the eye. “Yes?”
“Do I have to be where you want me, when you want me?”
“Not if you don’t want to.”
He felt her relief as she moved into him, wrapping her arms about his waist and pressing her soft, sweet body against his as a reward.
“So, can we start over?” she asked, her voice gentle and honeyed, and, if he heard it correctly, happy. The glorious sound of it nearly made him groan.
Nevertheless, he answered her honestly, “No.”
She looked startled.
“Why?”
“Because I like what’s happened before.”
“Well I –”
“Stop thinking about it Sibyl. That part of it was over almost before it started.”
She hesitated and he watched as she struggled briefly with it and finally, with a valiant effort of will, let it go.
And then he listened as she pressed her advantage. “So I don’t have to do what you tell me to do.”
“Of course you do.” He rolled her onto her back, sliding his thigh between hers.
“What if I don’t want to?”
“You suffer the consequences.”
At this, she smiled, one of her heart-stopping, devastating, bedazzling smiles.
This time he rewarded her for the smile and he kissed her.
Without hesitation, she melted beneath him.
Several long, heady minutes later, when she was again wet and ready for him, he dragged his mouth from hers and warned, “We’ll talk about Royce later.”
Her desire-drugged eyes rounded with anger and alarm.
And he finally, with immense satisfaction, slid slowly inside her and her anger and alarm fled and she was, blissfully, completely, all his.
It was then, outside, even though neither Colin nor Sibyl noticed it, the sun started shining.
Chapter Twenty
The Calm before the Second Storm
Colin pulled the BMW out of the garage on his way to pick up Sibyl and her family to take them to the Community Centre’s Talent Show.
Last weekend, when Colin arrived in the BMW to transport the five of them on a day trip to the Cotswolds, Sibyl walked out of the cottage and had been shocked at first sight of the car.
“Colin, I didn’t even think. You had to rent a car!”
He just stared at her and she quickly, and accurately, interpreted the stare.
“How many cars do you own?” she asked with narrowed eyes.
“More than one,” he’d answered carefully.
She’d sighed dramatically as if she was in fear for his mortal soul.
Then she suggested, “Let’s just not tell Mags, agreed?”
Spending time with Sibyl’s mother, Colin had swiftly learned that he could have told Mags he had twelve cars, with half of them being Land Rovers, as well as a number of sweat shops in the deepest regions of Vietnam, and Mags wouldn’t have cared as long as Colin continued to service Sibyl sexually.
Nevertheless, for Sibyl’s peace of mind, and to reward her for being the only woman of his acquaintance who thought owning more than one vehicle a fault in his personality, he’d agreed.
Sibyl’s surrender had been complete. Colin instantly recognised just how much she had been holding back when she opened her heart to him fully. He found the offer of it into his care a gesture so precious, he wasn’t certain how to handle it but he was certain that he would not, under any circumstances, let it go.
Regardless, the last two weeks of Sibyl had been a form of torture. True, most of it was a splendid kind of torture, but it was torture nonetheless. He couldn’t imagine a lifetime of it, just as he was looking forward to it. He was pleasantly contemplating their children (lots of them) and then old age. Sibyl could use some wrinkles, a few extra pounds (perhaps a stone or two) and a dozen children to slow her down.
If she didn’t slow down, she’d likely kill him. And if she didn’t (or he didn’t) control her rampant benevolence, she’d kill them both.
The sweet torture had started immediately after their morning at Lacybourne.
Before he had learned about her, he had planned to catch up on work while her parents were in England. He wanted to give her some private time with her parents, therefore, he’d set up meetings in Manchester and Leeds the first week and the second, he was to be in London for an entire week of nearly back-to-back meetings he’d postponed since Sibyl.