Chapter 19 The Absence
THE ABSENCE
Early Monday morning, I woke to a hot guy nuzzling my neck.
I turned in his arms, murmuring a drowsy, “Baby.”
He tipped up my chin and didn’t bother with preliminaries.
He took my mouth in a deep kiss.
I melted into him, but even so, Battle slid a hand between my legs, cupping me there. Using his hold, he yanked me forcefully so I was plastered to his body and had no choice but to hook a leg over his hip.
I was rewarded for this first by the rush of wet it caused between my legs, and second, with deeper kisses and his fingers wreaking delicious torture on my clit and in my pussy.
Once he had me whimpering into his mouth and pumping against his fingers, they glided away, only for something bigger, thicker, harder and much, much better to take their place when he slipped his cock inside me.
He also stopped kissing me.
But with his hand fisted in my hair at my nape, his eyes held mine all the while our lips brushed, our labored breaths mingled, my hands clutched his back, my nails digging in, and he thrust inside me.
The look in his eyes was carnal, sinful, downright diabolic, possessive, assertive and demanding.
Yeah.
All that.
It was fucking amazing.
And the hold he had on my hair pretty much meant I couldn’t move anything but my hands, which felt illicit and crazy exciting.
So yeah, that was fucking amazing too.
Therefore, when he slid his free hand between us and toyed playfully with my clit, I came apart.
“Battle, baby,” I breathed, rocking my hips to try to get more of him.
“As I said,” he growled, “greedy.”
He pinched my clit.
I exploded.
His mouth took mine so he could consume my orgasm that way as well.
Talk about greedy.
When it was done, he rolled us so I was on my back. He came up on his knees but rested back on his ankles, dragging my ass up his rough thighs to keep our connection. He wrapped my legs around his hips and grasped mine, slamming me into him as he slammed into me.
I was still panting, my breasts bouncing, as he watched me with that lethally hot look on his face, then he dropped his gaze to my body, our connection, and he watched himself take me.
Seriously.
If I thought the look on his face was carnal before, I was wrong.
That look was carnal.
It was so hot, the pressure built up inside me again, and I almost lost it, but then he shifted his hips, adjusted his angle and banged against the spot. So with a deep moan and long whimper, my second orgasm surged through me.
I heard his grunting, felt his pounding come stronger, faster, and I pushed myself out of swimming through the depths of pleasure so I could watch when his handsome head snapped back, the muscles and veins in his neck straining, as he drove into me repeatedly through his climax.
He gentled his thrusts, his fingers moving tenderly over my thighs, his gaze never leaving me.
I lay before him, on display, feeling beautiful, feeling powerful, feeling loved, under the open warmth and affection that he had written all over his handsome face.
I wasn’t sure which expression I liked better.
Thankfully, I got both.
What I did know in that moment was, unless something wild and unforeseen happened, I was going to be the next Duchess of Burleigh.
I wasn’t the candidate.
As ludicrous as it seemed, from the moment I walked into this house, it claimed me.
And from the moment I laid eyes on this man, he did.
Naturally, this made me deliriously happy.
He fell forward onto his hands at my sides, did the downward part of the pushup and brushed his lips against mine.
“Best lasagna I’ve ever tasted, darling,” he said there.
Oh yeah.
I’d made it for him.
And oh yeah.
He’d liked it.
Also yeah.
So did all the girls.
And the last yeah, and maybe the best part, after we ate it, Battle came downstairs and helped me clean the kitchen.
Straight up, as crazy as it sounded, of the many things that made him insanely attractive, watching him dry a plate was one of them.
“I have to shower and go,” he murmured.
I frowned and wrapped my arms around him.
“Keep me with you today,” he said.
I didn’t get that.
“Pardon?”
He tensed his hips between mine, forcing my lips to part, because that felt so good.
“Don’t wash me away.”
One could say this was a turnabout from our condom discussion.
“Can you go back to sleep with me slipping out?” he asked.
Right.
Was I weird?
Why was this convo turning me on again?
“Yes,” I answered.
“Good,” he whispered, touched his mouth to mine and bid, “Go back to sleep. I’ll kiss you again before I leave.”
“Do you want me to hustle down and make you some breakfast?” I offered.
“I don’t want you to move.”
I smiled at him and smoothed a hand over his hair.
He kissed me, no brush on the lips this time, before he slid away, arranging the covers over me.
I watched him walk to the bathroom.
I wouldn’t have thought it possible, hearing the water of the shower going and knowing he was in there, wet and soapy and naked, that I could fall into a drowse.
But that was what I did.
I woke up when I felt the covers pulled up to my shoulder and then tucked in.
I turned my eyes to the sides to catch him dipping in.
He kissed my temple.
“Back to sleep,” he said when he pulled away. “We’ll connect during the week. And I’ll see if Janelle can rearrange my schedule so I can be back Thursday night.”
Janelle, I’d learned yesterday, was his PA.
“Absence makes the heart grow fonder, right?” I said unconvincingly.
“If it were up to me, I’d pack all those crates in the Audi and take you with me. But you’ve made the studio your space. I’m not creative, but I know a creative needs their space. Am I wrong?”
“No, but—”
He sat beside me on the bed. “And I work all day, darling, late. No point you being stuck at Burleigh House alone only for me to come home, us to eat then fuck and me to leave you alone again in the morning.”
I could argue this, but I wasn’t going to.
Because I had work to do at The Downs, and not only book work.
“In order that we can continue to get to know one another,” he went on, “and I can do my part in alleviating Tempie feeling the need to be here to look after Chassie, I’m going to ask Janelle to arrange my schedule so I can work from here half a week.
After this week, I’ll try to sort it so I’m home Wednesday evening. ”
I smiled brightly.
He kissed it from my lips.
When he lifted his head, he ordered, “Now, go back to sleep.”
“You be careful on that motorway,” I ordered in return.
“Always,” he murmured.
Another lip brush, a sweet, sexy smile.
Then he was walking away.
* * *
Late that afternoon, I was in the studio, marking photos I wanted to ask Battle if I could use to reproduce in the book, when my phone, lying on the desk, vibrated.
Since Snowball was napping on it, she let out a displeased mew, rolled and glared at it.
I left the photos arranged across the chaise, went to the desk, saw the call was Battle, so I took it right away.
“Hey, honey,” I said, rounding the desk and sitting in the chair.
“How’s your day been?” he asked.
“Do you want the good news, or the bad news?”
“Shit,” he muttered.
“Okay, let me rephrase. None of it is really bad news, as such.”
“Let’s start with that, then.”
“This morning, I called the local paper and asked if they were publishing in 1946. They were. I then asked if they would be all right with me perusing their stacks. When I told them who I was and what I was working on, they said they’d pull all the digital files for the dates I was looking for.
So I went into town after lunch and had a good gander at everything two weeks before the date Marie recorded in her journal, and two months after. ”
“Let me guess. Nothing,” he deduced.
“There was a national preoccupation with some viscount from Northumberland going missing. But considering Northumberland isn’t super close to Devon, and he was last seen in his club in Newcastle the day before Marie’s entry, no. Nada.”
“I’m sorry, darling.”
“You want the good news?”
“Absolutely.”
“I asked Prue to come with to help look, and she did. I also asked Chassie, and without that first hesitation, she agreed to go too.”
I could hear the happy in his voice when he said, “Excellent.”
“Not even a little hesitation, honey,” I reiterated.
“I think you’re having a positive effect on her.”
I was stunned.
“Me?”
“You have been key in urging her out of her shell.”
“I appreciate you wanting to hand me so much credit, but I just gave her the opportunities, as have Prue and Tempie, because another stroke of good news is that we’re all going to meet Ravenna on Wednesday. Even Tempie.”
“And even more excellent.”
“But none of us should forget it’s Chassie who’s doing the heavy lifting. None of us are forcing her into cars or trains. She’s taking those steps herself. These are her victories.”
For a second, he said nothing.
And then he said, “You know how very fond of you I am.”
Fond wouldn’t be the word I’d use.
But the way he used it, I was totally down with it.
“I know.”
“I hope so, because I am very fond of you, Vivienne.”
My heart skipped a beat.
“And I’m very fond of you too, honey,” I replied just as something at the windows caught my attention.
Christian was walking through the garden again.
“I’ve spoken with Janelle,” Battle said in my ear while Christian passed. “Alas, she’s not very fond of me right now, but I’ll be home Thursday evening this week and working there from Wednesday on, for the most part, for at least the next six weeks.”
“That’s awesome, baby,” I said distractedly as I slowly got out of my chair and surreptitiously moved to the windows to see if I could get an angle toward the house and gardens to see if Chastity was on Christian’s trajectory.
It wasn’t a good angle. I was very much secluded by plants and shrubs and trees. I could see a hint of the caps of the north and south wings, but not much more.
And no Chastity.
“Did I lose you?” Battle said in my ear.