Laurel heard it all unfold with increasing horror, barely able to breathe. She struggled for calm, frantic to shut images of torture and blood and death from her mind.
Sebastian gave Sara another quick speculative glance, and turned to stalk across the room as the two departed. Laurel had her head in her hands, quiet sounds of distress bleeding between her fingers. He touched her shoulder, urging her to lean on him.
“Come, my lady. It cannot be that bad,” he said, his British accent all the thicker without years of dilution. He raised her chin with a gentle touch, and was momentarily shocked by the torment in her eyes.
“It is that bad. We can’t go back there again. I’ve messed it all up for you. I made the wrong decisions. I don’t want you to be tortured.” She stepped into him, wrapping her arms tight in a way that moved him. Painful shudders shook her when she breathed, and he could tell she hovered on the edge of an emotional break.
“I am not afraid, Laurel,” he said, one hand stroking her golden hair as he caught her up tight against his chest. It was not something he felt they should dwell on, so he decided a subject change was in order, something less disheartening to her. “Tell me … about us.”
Again and again, he slid his big hand down her hair, resting his chin against her head as he tried to turn her from dark tidings. He liked the way her cheek felt against the naked skin of his chest exposed by the opening of his shirt.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m just tired. Distressed.” Her voice sounded hollow to his ears at first, but then warmed a little when she added. “We met in a graveyard. Some man was haranguing me and I told him my husband was waiting for me, and you happened to be there. You went along with my little white lie, and then walked me home.”
“That was rather chivalrous of me,” he teased, trying to lighten her mood. It helped to focus on her pain to distract him from his extraordinary circumstances.
“You are ever chivalrous with me."
“Come, let us eat, and then rest. It has been a trying day, and things have a tendency to look better in the morning.” Stepping back, he took her by the hand and led her to one of the plush chairs in the sitting area, collecting the tray of food on the way.
She followed where he led, looking wan and exhausted. Tucking a leg under her, she curled into the chair. "Yes, I think you're right."
“Food is delicious in this time.” He plucked the lids from the dishes as he rested the tray on a table near her. When he’d assured that she could reach, he dropped into a sprawl on the floor near her feet. It was almost reminiscent of their time together in his apartments in the palace, and he thought he saw a vague flicker of heat in her eyes that suggested she thought the same.
“Do you think so? You should sample as much as you can,” she said, staring at the food and then at his mouth when he took a bite.
He had the feeling there was something deeper she wasn't saying. Almost like she was surprised or touched to see him eating.
Breaking the daze, she reached for a handful of grapes.
For several moments they sat eating in silence. Sebastian marveled at the freshness of the food, the flavor, one piece of meat garnering a deep groan of pleasure.
“The girl… who is she?” he asked at length, glancing up at her.
“She is a close friend of yours who lives here,” she said. "A very nice woman named Sara."
"Sara," he said, nodding. He wondered how she fit into his life. There was much more he wanted to press her for but he settled for enjoying the food and the company while they adjusted to the situation at their own pace. Sebastian sensed she had reached her limit for one day, and he was perilously close to his own.
“Why did you ask me about Elizabeth?” Laurel inquired, studying him.
Sebastian decided that if the lady knew about his marriage, that it was no further stretch to admit the truth about the girl. “Elizabeth is my daughter. Only Anne and I—and now you—know.”
Laurel's shock was palpable. She recovered enough to add, “I believe she eventually becomes Queen.”
Sebastian stared with a bite of food halfway to his mouth. Then he tilted his head back and laughed. Relief along with fatherly pride coursed through him. “Queen? My Elizabeth. How extraordinary.”
“Very extraordinary. I'm glad she made it through all this safely,” Laurel said with a faint but genuine smile.
Popping the grape into his mouth, he met Laurel's eyes. The news made his current situation a little easier to bear.
“Will you mind if I sleep here on a couch?” she asked next. “I’m too nervous to be too far away from you right now.”
Her honesty made him ache. “Do we not sleep together?”
“I … well yes. I mean, recently we do. Have been. I wasn’t sure that you would want me to after…after last night.” She arched her brows.
After he had disengaged from their affections. He knew what she meant without asking. Watching her for a moment as she tucked wayward strands of pale hair behind her ear, he found himself wanting to push her hand away and do it himself.
“It was not my intent to hurt you, my lady. Rather it was my intent not to do so. But that was then, and now…” he spread his hands. “If we are lovers, as you say, there can be little harm in sleeping together. If it is what you want.” He understood that he was not the same man she had gone to Tudor with. Not exactly.
She watched him for a moment before she spoke, and he didn’t break their eye contact as he waited.
“I know things are changed now, that it is different knowing we are lovers in this time,” she said, and he could tell she was speaking with care. “Part of me is still in the process of relearning you, and all the things we did back then, back there, the dancing, the maze…it almost felt like dating you. Just a different you. Does that make any sense?”
He thought about it before he nodded. There was nothing sexual about his next statement. He only wanted to bring her peace. "Yes, I think so. If you are not uncomfortable, I think it would make us both feel better to share the same bed."
"I'd like that. I’m desperate to curl up with you, to smell you and hold you while I go to sleep. I have become shamelessly spoiled by you," she said with a quiet laugh.
Sebastian studied her, pleased that he'd been good to her in his future.
"I only hope, my lady, that you do not hog the bed."
The pain in her laugh turned to delight, and although it was a brief respite, Sebastian was relieved.
They talked for a time, relaxing and sipping wine. Aware that he was going to die soon, Sebastian wanted these private moments with her. He wanted to know her.
She told him about New York at Christmas, and Christmas sparked a conversation about religion in the modern world; a subject Sebastian was more than curious about. Religion was something he held near to his heart. He discovered she was knowledgeable on the subject and didn't mind discussing the semantics of it with him. The more they talked, the calmer she became and her ease fed his own.
At length he stood up, knee popping as he did so, and held his hand down to her. “I believe with the sleeping arrangements settled, it is time for bed,” he said, unable to prevent the subtle lick of heat that entered his voice at the notion.
“First I want to shower,” she announced as she took his hand, letting him assist her in rising. She exhaled a deep breath and fixed him with a tired smile. “I think you’ll enjoy one when you take it."
Sebastian stepped around the low table on which the remains of their dinner sat, and stalked across to the dresser. Things were neatly arranged on the top…his things, he realized, and he inspected them curiously as she stood at the armoire to choose her sleeping attire.
“I much anticipate the experience,” he admitted about the shower.
Picking up a bottle of cologne, he lifted the top from it and scented the contents.
“Ralph Lauren, Polo, Black,” he read on the label, a little noise of approval in his throat for the smell. “Who is
Ralph Lauren?” He glanced at her and caught her amused look over his newest discovery.
“A designer. A man who makes clothes and cologne. A tailor of sorts,” she tried to explain. She clutched something soft and peach colored to her chest as she backed toward the bathroom. “I’ll be right back,” she promised, disappearing.
In her absence, Sebastian continued his explorations of the room. Atop one tall cabinet, he was drawn by an odd black box. It had a confusing array of buttons and knobs and, curious, he reached up and touched a red one.
Hard rock came blasting out of the speakers, volume at twenty, and he staggered back a step in surprise. He stared at the stereo like he had just unearthed some dark magic straight from the depths of hell. It actually took him a moment to understand that it was music he was hearing. The grinding guitar sounded like so much noise and the frantic pace of the drums set him on edge.
Reaching up again, he toyed with one of the dials on the side, turning through a round of static that issued from the speakers. He cringed but continued to turn, lured by the snippets of music he heard in between bouts of hissing. When the next song came into focus, he took his hand from the knob to listen. Indecent, sexual lyrics poured into the room, so carnal that it shocked him.
“Jesu! What bard is this?” His voice boomed over the music, sounding irate on behalf of humanity. He stared balefully at the radio, and then turned the dial again to banish the vulgarity of that particular song.
From the bathroom came the distinct sound of feminine laughter. “Nine Inch Nails!” she called.
A low drone of noise, unlike anything he'd ever heard, came from behind the door. He arched his brow. Was she repairing something?
“How does one dance to this music?”
The laughter continued in there for a long time. When she did come out, she was met perhaps with an odd scene. The Stones were on the radio singing Paint it Black, and there stood Sebastian: his shirt dangled off one broad shoulder, tailored pants around his ankles, glancing down with bemused speculation at the black boxer briefs he had on.
“These are strange breeches,” he commented. They cupped him quite nicely. Thumb hooked in the elastic, he held the material away from the hard plane of his stomach, hips cocked forward.
When he glanced over, he found her stopped dead in her tracks. Staring some sultry little stare.
Pop. The elastic on his boxers snapped back against his skin and he stared in return, a predatory heat kindling in his eyes. He could hardly wrap his mind around the garment she wore: sheer and peach with georgette pleats down the front, the hem just brushing the tops of her thighs. Something skimpy underneath that made his pulse start pounding a reckless rhythm.
"My god," she breathed, her gaze cast in a southerly direction.
“My lady.” He growled it.
“Your Grace,” she said. “Those are called boxers. Men’s underwear. You wear them well.” Lifting one hand, she tucked the edge of a nail between her teeth. An innocent posture, though the way she raked him with her eyes said otherwise.
It didn’t do much to dissuade his rising passion. There was little ‘grace’ in him at the moment. He was all man. Burning eyes and tense muscles that twitched in response to the urges she provoked.
“Is this…a dress?” he asked, gesturing to her lingerie. “Do I allow you to be seen in these…dresses?” He sounded jealous -- and he was. At the idea that any other man would have the opportunity to see her in something so…so.
“This is what I wear to bed. But I do wear clothes like what Sara had on earlier in public."
He shucked the shirt from his shoulder with a sinuous roll. Letting it drift to the floor, he stepped from the puddle of tailored material so he could stalk toward her. He didn’t stop until he was behind her, his hands possessively on her shoulders. It had only taken him a moment to superimpose the image of the bikini onto Laurel, to imagine her wearing that in front of…men.
"By God, woman, you will not. No man will be seeing so much of your flesh." His command slithered serpentine against the shell of her ear. He was all testosterone at the moment. A Duke. In charge.
"No man, your Grace?" She teased him with her insinuation, moving her backside against his groin in some approximation of 'dancing'.
Getting his hands on the filmy material, he slid it up her body, exposing the scrap of underwear with ties across the bones of her hips.
“God’s blood.” A shiver moved over his skin, and sensation pooled low and urgent in his gut. Her tease finally registered through the carnal haze she was creating with the rock-and-sway of her pelvis. “No man but your master,” he growled in her ear.
Tension rolled through him at the way she brushed against his arousal, arms twined in the air. He groaned and pressed his hips closer.
“I’ll wear it if I want to," she said, glancing back with a sassy expression.
His response was immediate and unapologetic. He reached around and cupped her breasts in his hot palms.
“Try it, my lady, and see what happens.” Lowering his head, he brought his mouth down against her bared shoulder, reveling in the gasp she made in response to his touches. Kneading her breasts in his hands, he was rewarded with the tightening of her nipples against his skin.
“What will happen, hm? What will you do?” she asked him, goading and challenging him until the air around them all but crackled with sexual energy.
The rhythm of her body had turned from dancing to something much more alluring, and she brought her hands back to sift them through his dark hair. He released a masculine purr of pleasure at the sensation, the sound vibrating against her shoulder where he nipped and kissed. Finding her nipples, he tugged outward with his fingers, rolling them into greater responsiveness and pinching to the point of gentle pain. She groaned, resting her head back against him, her hips churning all the more when he traced just beneath the elastic of her panties in the front, boldly exploring her heated, silky flesh.
His hips surged forward, letting her feel the hardness she aroused in him, and then…gone. Sebastian’s hands retracted and he stepped back, taking all the heat and the promising hardness of his body from her.
Snapping her head around, and she pinned him with a surprised look.
He graced her with an unrepentant, devilish grin. “I believe I shall consider your question... in the shower,” he said, pivoting around toward the bathroom.
“Enjoy it,” she said with a sulky pout, and remained where he left her.
Just inside the bathroom, Sebastian decided to up the ante. Standing in the open doorway, limned by the overhead lights, he brought his hands down and slowly started to push the boxers from his hips. One and then the other, pausing with the material pushed down just above the swell of his muscled cheeks. And then a little more, another inch of toned flesh on display.
When one whole cheek was exposed by the crooked slice of the material, he stretched his arms up and hooked his hands on the door frame, skin stretching taut over his broad back. One hand came down, rubbing low across his belly where she couldn’t see, and he turned a grinning glance over his shoulder to make sure she was watching.
He saw that she looked both aroused and surprised, as if the other--as if he--would never have done such a thing in the future.
Stepping away from the archway, hoping to lure her to him, he manipulated the shower and ran the water as hot as he could stand it. Shucking the boxers, he reveled in the steam that billowed through the room, humid and pleasant against his skin. He glanced back to see her stalking him through the gauzy veil on silent feet. Wrapping her arms around him, she took his cock in hand and stroked—bold, sure, experienced-- until he groaned. She almost brought him to his knees when she nipped the spot directly between his shoulder blades. Scooping his hips into her rhythm, he hooked his hands on the metal frame of the shower and let his head tilt back. Bliss.
Pumping, grinding, muscles flexing and straining, he climbed toward a climax, heat spiraling gloriously through his syst
em-- and suddenly she was gone.
As gone as he'd been when he walked away earlier.
Body reeling in shock, he yanked a look over his shoulder.
Walking backwards, the filmy material clinging wetly to her nipples and stomach, she tormented him with a coy smile and a come hither gleam in her eyes. Forgetting to turn off the water, he prowled after her, catching her up in his arms just as she left the bathroom. Bringing his mouth down, he kissed her and drove her back to the bed, tugging at the maddening material to get it out of his way. The sexual tension had been building between them for days, and nothing short of the end of the world would stop him from having her.
Matching the thorough strokes of her tongue, he felt her arch under him when he parted her knees with his thighs. The little gasps and panting breaths drove him wild. Supine on the mattress, looming over her with their mouths locked, he positioned himself and drove inside with no warning. Hot, tight and silky, she milked him with every pounding thrust, writhing her hips just so, spilling mewls of pleasure into their explicit kiss. He took her with unrepentant hunger, claiming her, leaving fingerprints on the delicate bones of her hips. Slapping skin, a gleam of sweat, and urgent whispers of worship preceded their sharp crescendo and resulting freefall.
For a breathtaking moment, everything went black.
He opened his eyes to see her staring up at him with something like adoration-- and love. Buried deep, he spent the rest of his passion in shudders and sighs, until, long minutes later, exhaustion pulled them under.
"Sebastian?" Groggy, Laurel reached for him. His side of the bed, however, was empty. She sat up, hair tousled, and looked around the room. She didn't hear him anywhere in the sanctuary. Disoriented, unsure what time it was, she crawled out of bed and pulled a red baby doll dress from the armoire. There were marks on her hips, stamps of Sebastian's possession, and she grazed her fingertips over them before the material fell to her thighs.
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