How could one person take on such a world of pain? It wasn’t even her pain. What was it like to live in that head of hers?
“Christ, Sibyl,” he muttered because he could think of absolutely nothing else to say.
“Old people die after breaking their hips, Colin,” she told him.
“Did she die?” he queried cautiously.
“No,” she answered and took another fractured breath. “But she’s been very hurt and she isn’t getting better very fast.”
“Did she blame you?”
“No, of course not!”
He ran the back of his fingers gently along her jaw, trying physically to soothe away her hurt. “Then, sweetheart, you have to stop blaming yourself.”
“Don’t you see?” She threw up her hands in exasperation at what she considered his extreme obtuseness. “I did that with the minibus driver, which hurt Meg, and then you came to my house and offered me money and you don’t trust women easily –”
“Sibyl –” He tried to interrupt her rampaging train of thought and its hysterical bent toward self-recrimination and failed.
“No!” she cried. “And I played right into your hands so I’m double trouble, breaking old people’s hips and making you think even worse of my sex. Once you found out…” She stopped and then blurted out, “Of course you’d leave me! Hell, I’d leave me!”
At this outrageous pronouncement, he couldn’t have helped it to save his life.
He chuckled.
She was whipping herself up into a drama, so caught in everyone else’s troubles she couldn’t see what was happening around her.
She couldn’t see that he, long since, had stopped using her and started courting her.
She couldn’t see that even though she pretended she wanted less of him, she never left, not last night, not this morning, not the first night they met, not any time before and not now.
She couldn’t see that she hid something splendid (if a little warped and certainly a habit he needed to break her of), an act of such selflessness it was breathtaking, when telling him would have ended their battles days ago.
At his chuckle, her eyes flared.
“What’s so damned funny?” she snapped, in a flash moving from despair to anger.
“Would you have taken the money from Paul and slept with him for it?” Colin asked, watching her closely, knowing her answer and trying to hide his mirth.
“Paul?” She blinked, momentarily confused.
“The drunk from the club.”
“No! How could you even think –?”
“Your medic?” Colin persisted.
“My… Steve?” Her eyes narrowed. “Of course not. And he’s not my medic.” This was said with extreme distaste as if the thought was beyond foul.
Her reaction satisfied Colin tremendously.
He shook it off and charged on, “Can you think of anyone, besides me, who you would have taken the money from, sold your body to for a minibus?”
This stopped her. She froze and glowered at him. Then her eyes narrowed again and he could swear (to his immense relief) he saw the dawning of understanding.
Then, to his surprise and extreme displeasure, she said, “Yes.”
“Who?” he clipped.
“Clark Gable!” she announced and tried to slip out from under him but he hauled her back, this time, he was no longer chuckling but laughing, his entire body shaking with it.
Then Colin informed her helpfully when he had his humour under control, “I think, darling, you’ll find he’s dead,”
“Well,” she muttered huffily, “I would have taken it from him when he was alive, of course, during his Gone with the Wind years.”
“I’m in good company then,” Colin muttered as he dropped to his side and pulled her against his body.
“It’s time for you to answer some questions now,” she demanded, recovering quickly from her drama and spearing him with her eyes.
He dipped his chin to look at her, giving her his full attention.
“What do you want to know?” he asked without hesitation.
“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.”