Lacybourne Manor (Ghosts and Reincarnation #3)(143)
She stopped because finally, after all the events of the day, that he found hilarious and he threw back his head and let out a sharp bark of laughter.
“What’s funny?” she asked over his hilarity, her brow furrowed and her eyes beginning to move from hazel to green.
“You want to date?” His voice was dripping with amused incredulity.
She pulled in both of her lip. Then said quietly, “Don’t you?”
He thought about pushing himself up to be eye-to-eye with her but decided against it and his hand snaked out and grasped her wrist, giving it a gentle yank and pulling her down. He rolled on his back and positioned her on top of him.
“I think we’re beyond dating,” he noted.
“What’s ‘beyond dating’?” She looked confused and very wary.
He gathered her hair away from her face and held it in a tumbled bunch behind her head in one hand while his other went to rest on her lovely, rounded bottom.
“You’re moving into Lacybourne, permanently.” He, too, had it all planned out. However his plan was the only plan.
Her head shifted slightly to the side and she watched him out of the corners of her eyes as her lips puckered. Then she whispered, “I don’t think so.”
“I don’t think you have a choice,” Colin returned.
Her body started and her eyes definitely switched, blazing an emerald green. “You can’t just order me to move in with you!”
“I just did.”
She put her hands on either side of his chest on the bed and pressed herself upwards but he came up with her and flipped her on her back, resting his weight on her.
“You’re… I don’t even know what you are!” Sibyl snapped, her temper hitting altitude.
“Sibyl, can you please tell me why everything has to be a struggle with you?” Colin asked, what he thought was patiently.
Her eyes rounded. “I have a home, a business, a life. I… you… you and I –”
“Yes?”
She clamped her mouth shut, unable to find any feasible reason why she shouldn’t move in with him.
“I didn’t think so,” he drawled knowingly and he couldn’t help but grin when she made a grumpy, frustrated noise in the back of her throat.
His knee pressed between her legs and they parted (even her legs moved mutinously, but they still moved) and he slid his hands slowly down the backs of her thighs to pull them up at the knees.
“Give me one good reason to move in with you,” she demanded and, if his chest wasn’t pressed against hers, he had no doubt she would have crossed her arms.
“I like you in my house.”
“That’s –” she began to interrupt him.
“I like you in my bed,” he continued and she closed her mouth and glared at him. “I like the way your laboratory makes the house smell like fruit and flowers. I like walking your damned dog. I like seeing your clothes in the wardrobe. I like you wearing my t-shirts to bed. I like coming home to you.”
As he spoke, her face shifted and relaxed, the emerald melted and the sherry took its place.
She regarded him a moment with her face soft, her eyes warm then she whispered, “Okay, Colin.”
“Okay, what?”
“I get it,” she answered softly but somehow uncertainly. “I’ll move into Lacybourne.”
“I wasn’t asking.” He felt it necessary to inform her.
Finally, she let go of whatever was troubling her and her lips twitched. “I know. You’re very bossy. I’ve decided that it’s better if I move in with you. If I live at Lacybourne, I’ll have more time to break you of that bad habit.”
He smiled at her before he warned, his head descending, “I wouldn’t count on it.”
* * * * *
He had another good reason for her moving into Lacybourne.
He could not shake his unease that Mrs. Byrne was right.
And he didn’t want Sibyl going anywhere until he was certain she was safe.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The Good Kind. And the Bad.
Sibyl woke in a bed that felt strange beneath her. It was feather-soft, had no firmness and the sheets were slightly scratchy.
Her eyes flew open and she realised she wasn’t in Colin’s bed, she wasn’t in any bed she’d ever seen before.
And Colin wasn’t there.
She jumped out of the bed thinking to see Bran or Mallory but neither was in sight. There was also no elegant furniture in the room, indeed, although the room was grand, it looked slightly rough and definitely strange.
She was someplace she’d never been.
Even though she knew, somehow, she was in Lacybourne.
Her hands went to her hair which she found was plaited in a thick braid down her back.
She flipped the braid around to the front and stared at it.
Colin’s hair, nearly dark as black.
She stared down at her nightgown and it was old-fashioned and prim.
She was in a different time.
She was in Royce’s time.
“Oh my goddess,” she murmured.
Her eyes frantically searched the room and she found a soft, blue wrapper thrown across the back of a chair. She grabbed it and shoved her arms into the sleeves as she ran from the room and down the hall toward Colin’s room which she prayed silently to the goddess had also been Royce’s room.