And because of that, when she kissed him, she pressed her body to his and pulled him to her by wrapping her arms around his sides and pressing hands between his shoulder blades. Then she went up on her toes and kissed him with all the strong, wonderful, scariness she felt. She opened her lips under his and slid her tongue in to taste his beautiful mouth and when she did, his arms swept around her, pulling her deeper into him and, at the touch of her tongue against his, he took over her good-bye kiss.
It wasn’t Royce’s beautiful kiss, but it was a good-bye-for-now kiss that she would never, ever forget.
As she stood, shaken and trembling from the kiss, watching him walk with his masculine grace back through her garden, she heard his mobile ring again.
Marian saw Colin walking toward his car and would have been alarmed at his much-earlier-than-usual exit had she not seen the look on his face.
Colin Morgan looked quite content with the world.
He got in his Mercedes and deftly manoeuvred down the lane.
Marian was about to follow when she saw something out of the corner of her eye.
Marian was hiding in the wood outside Sibyl’s house.
And so was someone else.
She stared, looking closely at the place where she saw the movement and she stood stock-still.
It would not do for them to see her.
Minutes passed but she saw nothing else.
An evil shiver slid through Marian’s body because she knew she was in the presence of the dark soul that, in this time, crossed the lovers’ stars.
She had been planning to follow Colin but she decided it was best to spend a little bit more time watching over Sibyl.
Just to be certain everything was all right.
Chapter Thirteen
Realisation
Colin Morgan had made up his mind about Sibyl Godwin.
And when Colin made up his mind, that was that.
For the last two weeks, she resolutely kept herself guarded and distant from him.
She was not wheedling her way into his life. She was not using her rather considerable feminine wiles to force some avowal of feeling from him. She made no demands, never dissolved in tears, didn’t ask to go back to Lacybourne and never mentioned Beatrice or Royce.
She had her own life, her own interests, her own business and a job somewhere for which she obviously felt a great deal of passion.
She was not, he decided, a scheming bitch like all the other women of his acquaintance.
She was just… Sibyl.
Colin had no idea why she needed fifty thousand pounds but he knew she had not spent it on herself.
She had not bought a new car (which she definitely needed, how she could lecture him on fuel economy and drive her petrol-guzzling wreck, he could not fathom, though she referred to her MG as “recycling”).
She was not surrounded by bags of new clothes. She didn’t wear expensive jewels. She always dressed well (albeit often endearingly bohemian) but she clearly did not have expensive tastes.
She didn’t drink too much and he’d spent enough time with her to know she didn’t take drugs. She was a resolute vegetarian and the first morning she’d presented him with a breakfast bowl filled with a hideous concoction of organic Wheatabix mixed with yogurt, honey and strawberries, he’d known she was likely not the type to start drinking or taking drugs.
Her home was well-presented, well-kept and sound and she needed nothing to fill it and did nothing to it. He’d seen an open credit card statement and utility bill and shamelessly looked at them, both were paid up fully and current.
It seemed her only extravagance was that she always kept expensive fresh flowers on her dining room table this, he thought (correctly) was an unconscious show of love to her father, but as lovely as they were, she was not spending fifty thousand pounds on them.
She was definitely fit and energetic, except in the mornings when she was quite hilariously moody, and he couldn’t see that she had any ailment which needed treatment.
He had no idea what she did with her days but he knew she worked somewhere, somewhere that meant a great deal to her. He’d discovered last night that she had her own small business and the fact that she was still working meant she hadn’t taken the money so she could quit and spend her days shopping or doing whatever it was that women who didn’t work did with their time.
It could be she’d taken the money to invest in the business, though it seemed a relatively small operation from what he could see, considering it was run out of a chalet in her back garden.
With a temper like hers, he could imagine she’d gotten herself into some kind of trouble with someone but he couldn’t imagine how or with whom.
Whatever she needed the money for, it was likely not for her.
This all made Colin believe there was a reason Sibyl Godwin had come into his life.
And, even if she was an excellent actress hiding a deceitful, larcenous heart, (although this option, day-to-day, was seeming less and less viable) she was still the vision of Beatrice Godwin, she was still extraordinary in bed, she was always surprising him (speaking French, looking, while eating chocolate mousse, (nearly) like she did when she reached orgasm) and he was still going to have her for as long as he wished no matter what it took.
Five months would not be enough; two weeks hadn’t done a thing in assuaging his lust for her. If anything, after two weeks, he wanted her more.
He didn’t question it and didn’t care to, all he knew was that if he wanted more, he’d get it.
And he wanted more.
He’d never met a woman like her, regardless of who she was and what she was. In reality, he knew there were few women who didn’t have deceitful, larcenous hearts so he might as well spend his time with one who was open about it.
Or at least open enough to ask for fifty thousand pounds.
Once.
Since then, she’d tried twice (after the second time he’d ordered her to stop doing it and, with her usual mutinous expression, she’d agreed) to pay the bill at a restaurant when he took her to dinner. She never hinted she wanted presents, nights out, to jet off on holiday or more money.
She also never asked about his work, his family, his life and did not share any information about herself.
She kept him at arm’s length with everything.
Except in bed.
There she was fiery and responsive and utterly magnificent.
He had lied to Sibyl only once, when he told her he didn’t remember anything about the episode in the chalet in her garden the night before. He did remember kissing her. Not the start but definitely the middle and obviously the end. It was like a kiss he’d never given a woman in his life, it was almost unbearably sexy, even going so far as being moving.
Whatever had made him kiss her like that, he could not imagine, but her reaction to it was strange.
Receiving a kiss like that would have been the perfect excuse for any woman to wheedle nearer to him but Sibyl seemed to want to hide it, hide her reaction to the kiss and hide the fact that it had happened at all. She set it aside as if it was unimportant, even though her behaviour said it was anything but.
She was more intent on taking care of him and apologising for answering his damn mobile than talking about the kiss, the episode or the rather upsetting fact that he’d apparently physically abused her (another advantage she did not seem willing to turn).
Colin was concerned he’d had a snatch of his life he didn’t remember but with his strange dreams and all that had happened between he and Sibyl, Colin was more interested in her reaction to the entire episode and especially that remarkable kiss.