Chapter 18 The Candidate
THE CANDIDATE
“Battle,” I moaned.
Then I came.
For his part, Battle kept fucking me against the wall of his shower.
Around the second time we did it after we returned to the house from going out for steak dinners at the posh pub where he took me on our first out-of-The-Downs, his-sisters-not-around date last night, he’d stopped reaching for the condoms.
I got it, they were a pain.
But I was honored, since it said he trusted me.
And of course, since then, I’d showed him that gratitude…
repeatedly (though, right after the first time he did it (or didn’t do it, as this case was), I’d touched his face and whispered, “Honey,” and from his expression, I knew he understood me, or rather, I understood the immensity of what he’d just given me).
So this time, when he climaxed, I felt the warmth of his cum jetting inside me.
Mm…
So much better.
Just him.
And me.
Nothing in between.
He rocked into me through the aftermath and then held me, because that was his way.
And I loved his way.
Finally, he pulled me off his dick and kept his hands on me until he knew I was steady on my feet (that was his way as well, and obviously, I loved it too).
And we finished our shower.
I tripped on a ragdoll cat when I was stepping out.
But fortunately, Battle was there to catch me.
* * *
“They live,” Tempie drawled as we walked hand in hand to the breakfast room.
I felt my face get hot.
One could say I never in my life expected to be on the greatest sex-a-thon of all time with the hottest guy in existence, only to end it wandering into a room filled with his sisters.
But there we were.
And as for Prue, for some reason, she was there wearing her octopus beanie.
“Not another word,” Battle warned, guiding me to a seat.
Tempie just smiled her cat’s smile.
“You two missed the delights of the chippie last night,” Prue told us.
“I don’t think they missed anything,” Tempie was still drawling.
“Stay,” Battle said into my ear after he seated me. “I’ll get your plate.”
Watching him go to the sideboard, and doing this with confusion because he’d told me himself it would be empty, I heard Chassie chime in, “I thought I saw you guys leave last night.”
“We had dinner at a pub,” I told her.
“The Nag’s Head?” Prue asked.
I nodded as I poured coffee.
“They do great steaks,” Prue said.
“I learned that last night.”
“Good Lord, Battle. Is that a love bite?” Tempie asked, her gaze narrowed on my neck.
I stopped pouring cream into my coffee to lift a hand to cover my love bite.
He scowled over his shoulder at his sister. “What did I say?”
She smiled again.
He turned his attention to the chafing dish. “What’s this?”
“I scrambled eggs!” Prue chirped.
This I had to see.
I got up and stood by Battle to peer at the messy, wet, underdone slop in the chafing dish that had cooked bits of eggs floating nauseatingly in it.
Mercifully, Battle put the lid on it and looked down at me. “Darling—”
“Speak not another word,” I cut him off and turned to the room. “No offense, Prue, but I’m not sure that’s healthy to eat.”
“I didn’t want them to be overdone,” she replied.
She achieved that.
“This is why we’re all sitting here, starving, waiting to see if you two would unearth yourselves from Battle’s room to ascertain if we should try to find somewhere open to serve us breakfast,” Tempie said.
“Or if we should send Battle to the grocery store for American muffins or something, seeing as someone ate all the croissants.” She narrowed her eyes again, this time on Battle.
“It wasn’t us,” Battle replied.
“I got peckish yesterday afternoon,” Chassie mumbled.
Good God, this lot wouldn’t last a day on Naked and Afraid.
“Right, consensus,” I announced. “You get one thing. Pancakes and bacon? Eggs and bacon? Or French toast and bacon?”
“American pancakes?” Prue asked.
“Obviously,” I answered.
“That’s my vote,” she trilled.
“That sounds amazing,” Chassie said.
My eyes homed in on her.
Something was…
Different.
“Is it much effort for you to toast me a muffin?” Tempie requested.
“No,” I said distractedly, attention still on Chassie. Then I informed them, “It’s going to take about thirty minutes.”
“I can wait,” Prue said.
“Can I help?” Chassie asked.
“You can flip bacon.”
I noted Battle took his seat, reached for the coffee pot and didn’t say a word.
Men.
I grabbed my cup and Chassie and I headed for the kitchens.
Once there, it took a second to get the lay of the land.
Then I set about making the batter so it could rest for a bit.
After that, I toasted an English muffin for Tempie and sent Chassie up with that and a tray of accoutrement for the pancakes.
While she was gone, I got the oven warming and the bacon frying.
When she got back, I gave her a set of tongs and instructions and set up the griddle to heat.
It was then I realized this was the first time I’d spent any with Chassie alone, and knowing what I now knew, I was at a loss for anything to say.
Though, glancing at her, she seemed content with silence.
I rarely was, so I asked, “Did you have fun in London?”
“That restaurant Battie took us to for dinner was really good,” she said. “And I haven’t seen Mrs. Pattinson for a while. It was nice to see her.”
She said this.
She didn’t whisper-say it.
That was what tweaked me about her earlier.
She still had a quiet voice, but her words no longer practically disappeared the minute they left her lips.
“Well, I had a blast,’ I replied. “Francois was hysterical.”
As she nudged bacon, she gave me a shy smile. “He was pretty funny.”
“I loved how he was with Prue,” I remarked.
“He’s got a crazy-big crush on her,” she replied with a teeny smile on her mouth.
He didn’t, since I highly suspected he was gay.
I wasn’t falling into a stereotyping. He wasn’t effeminate or anything like that.
It was just that he was so comfortable around women, especially four attractive, interesting women (says me), which would immediately make a straight man go on the prowl with at least one of us.
Though, one could say he did go on the prowl with Prudence.
Hmm.
I poured batter.
She watched.
“I used to cook a little when I was in Bath,” she offered.
I fought hard not to show a response to this throwaway comment that was far from throwaway.
Okay, was it good she was talking about her other life?
I didn’t know.
And it was so hush-hush, I didn’t think to ask.
Then again, I’d spent time with her, and she’d never mentioned it before.
“Just ready-meals and such. Take and bake. Things like that,” she went on. “So not real cooking, like this.”
“My grandmother used to say that every woman should have a month’s worth of meals in her inventory that she can cook without a recipe.” I leaned toward her and said sotto voce, “But she was from a different generation.”
“Do you have a month’s worth of meals in your inventory?” she asked.
“Yes. My lasagna, which I’m thinking of making you all tonight. And spaghetti with meat sauce. Tuna casserole. Tacos.”
“Oh, I love tacos,” she said.
“Do you want those tonight?” I asked.
She shook her head. “No, because one of Battie’s favorite things is lasagna.”
“Then lasagna it is,” I decided, seeing the bubbles forming on the pancakes so I flipped them. “You can turn the bacon over,” I told her.
She started turning.
“You like him loads, don’t you?” she asked the bacon with more than a small amount of hope in her voice.
“He’s infuriating.”
She looked to me.
“And maybe the most interesting, kind, thoughtful, generous man I’ve ever met,” I finished.
She smiled.
And this time, it wasn’t teeny.
God, I’d never seen that come from her like that. So easy.
And free.
Could her quiet reflection and Battle and Tempie’s not-so-gentle-anymore nudging be working?
We cooked in silence—or stared at the food cooking and did it in silence, because there was nothing more to do.
After I set the pancakes on a plate and put them in a warming oven, she waited for the inopportune time when I was pouring more batter to share, “Tempie has a boyfriend. Oh no!”
The “oh no!” part of that was me pouring a stream of batter across the hot griddle.
“What did you say?” I asked her.
She was staring at the griddle. “That streak is cooking, Vivi.”
I scraped it off, re-oiled, and poured four more pancakes.
Then I looked to her. “Tempie has a boyfriend?”
“She doesn’t want anyone to know. But I hear her talking to him on the phone. I’ve talked to Prue about it, and she’s heard it too.”
“Do you know who he is?”
She shook her head. “No. I think he’s from London. Or at least, the conversation I overheard yesterday, he seemed mad she was in London and he didn’t see her.”
Oh boy.
“She has a flat there,” she told me. “She isn’t there as much as Battie because…”
Because she was at The Downs with Prue and Chassie.
“Battle told me how much responsibility she has here,” I remarked.
Her head snapped to the side to look at me.
Shit.
She thought I was talking about her and Prue.
“You know, the sheep and the cottages and the lettings in town and all that,” I explained. “It sounds like things are pretty busy for her.”
“Oh yes. That.” Now she was nodding her head. “I think she’s busy. But she’s so organized, I also think, in a way, it runs itself.”
I bet Tempie ran it like a well-oiled machine.
“I’m hoping, now that Battie’s found you, she’ll come out of the closet, you know, proverbially,” she said.
I grinned at her. “I get you.”
“She’s funny about her men,” she muttered, then asked, “Is this done?”
“Yes, honey, grab a plate and put a paper towel on it. Then put the bacon on the towel.”
Her brows were knit. “Paper towel?”
“What do you call it?” I snapped my fingers repeatedly. “Shit. Oh! Kitchen roll!”
“Right,” she said and headed to the kitchen roll.
Once she was transferring the bacon and I’d flipped the pancakes, I asked, “She’s funny about men?”