Lacybourne Manor (Ghosts and Reincarnation #3)(113)
Author: Kristen Ashley

As he had her exactly where wanted her, he pulled the lace back over her breast and slid his hand down and out from under the t-shirt. He removed his mouth from the sensitive area of her ear and kissed her neck chastely.

“I’ll let you get on with it.”

“Colin!” she cried and whirled, white goo flying everywhere.

He grinned at her.

“Don’t give me one of those devilish grins, get back here!” she demanded.

He walked away and heard her growl with frustration.

As he understood when he started it, he knew he’d pay for that episode later that night and he was very much looking forward to it.

Later, while he could smell one of Mags’s vegetarian feasts cooking in the kitchen, he snagged Mallory’s lead and commandeered the recalcitrant dog to take a walk. He and Mallory were passing the library when he heard feminine voices.

He glanced in while walking by and heard his mother exclaim, “Mine’s tingling.”

He stopped and stared at the three women sitting side by side on the couch, all of their faces covered in white goo, their legs stretched out before them, their heads resting on the back of the couch.

“Is it a good tingle or a bad tingle?” Sibyl asked with concern.

“Oh, a good tingle, dear.”

“Mine’s not tingling but it smells good enough to eat,” Mags put in.

“Don’t eat it, Mother,” Sibyl warned.

“I wasn’t going to eat it. I was just saying it smells good enough to eat.”

Colin decided to escape before the oncoming escalation and he walked the dog.

All the days that followed were more of the same.

Mandy was taking reporters’ phone calls by the dozens and they’d even found the number to Lacybourne and were ringing there wanting pictures and interviews of the reincarnated lovers.

The next two National Trust days were so crowded, the Trust had to arrange for timed viewings and had phoned Colin telling him that, if this persisted, they would have to do visits by booking only. They also asked if he and Sibyl wouldn’t mind being part of a new pamphlet and helping with a fundraiser. This he refused, of course, and didn’t even bother to mention to Sibyl for she would definitely not have refused and the last thing he needed was for her to be gunned down at a National Trust Ball.

Marian Byrne’s daughter had left after Marian had sufficiently recovered so, in order for Sibyl to watch over her, she became a regular guest at dinner. Colin had come home on Friday evening to catch Marian and Mags in the kitchen, leaning expectantly over a large pot that was emitting an foul odour that was (he hoped) not food while his mother sat at a stool by the counter calmly reading a woman’s magazine.

“Just experimenting with –” Mags began to explain upon his entry.

He lifted up his hand and didn’t break stride as he continued to walk through the kitchen. “I don’t want to know.”

He’d encountered Sibyl in the hall.

“Hi babe.” She brushed her lips softly against his in greeting and he vastly preferred her welcome to the dastardly trio in the kitchen. “Enchiladas tonight,” she informed him.

He was relatively certain enchiladas did not smell like what was in the kitchen and if it did, he wanted no part of it.

“Is Mags cooking?”

She knew exactly to what he was referring and her body started to shake with silent laugher.

“Yes, but I’ve made ones especially for you and they contain meat.”

His kiss of greeting was heavily weighted with relief.

They had a relatively peaceful weekend.

This was, of course, if one didn’t count Sibyl’s extraordinary tirade when he’d had the MG towed back to Brightrose and presented her with an Aston Martin. This she categorically refused to accept and a reluctant compromise was only reached when his mother suggested Colin take the Aston and Sibyl use the BMW. The Mercedes was offered on the Alter of Environmental Correctness and this last he agreed to but carefully made no promise as he had no intention of getting rid of his car mainly because he liked the Mercedes.

Tuesday night, Sibyl was tucked against his side while Colin was staring at the ceiling and contemplating the unacceptable lack of progress his investigation team was making in finding Tamara Adams.

She was a socialite, not a super sleuth. How she could be evading a ten-man team was beyond him and Colin wanted answers and results.

As the days went by, Sibyl seemed to be settling in quite contentedly at Lacybourne, almost as if she’d forgotten someone wanted to harm them. She went about her busy schedule, radiating happiness and warmth with unflagging energy.

Even though Colin was pleased that she obviously trusted him and was happily getting on with her life, especially as that life included him, he was becoming more and more impatient. He wanted this business complete so he and Sibyl could move on. He wanted to come home to her (and even her many and varied escapades) every night, his ring on her finger and her carrying his name and he wanted all of this without death threats hanging over their heads.

“Do you think we have too much sex?” Sibyl asked musingly, interrupting his unhappy reverie with her mystifying question.

“What?” he asked, thrown.

She came up on her elbow and leaned over him.

“We have a lot of sex. Of course, it’s normal to have a lot of sex when you start a relationship but we have a lot, a lot.”

He couldn’t answer her, his unhappy thoughts shifted to even unhappier thoughts, including the fact that she’d had lots of sex at the start of relationships with other men.

Furthermore, she was right. He had a very healthy sexual appetite but he’d never been as hungry for a woman, carrying a constant, overwhelming desire, as he was for her. He found himself wanting her more even when he was embedded inside her. She was an obsession, even an addiction.

Upon brief consideration, he found this didn’t bother him in the slightest.

“I think it’s the curse,” she continued, either ignoring or not noticing his lack of response. “Royce and Beatrice didn’t… um, get any and so we’re making up for it.”

“I don’t care why I want you, I just know I do, there’s no purpose in evaluating it,” Colin replied.

“Yes, but don’t you think it’s weird?” Sibyl pressed.

“I hardly think it’s ‘weird’ for any man to have an irrational craving for you, you’re quite simply the most desirable woman I’ve known.”

Her mouth dropped open then, to his surprise, she clamped it shut on a disbelieving, very unladylike, snort.