Page 55 of Triple Threat

“Are you certain?” he asked, skeptically.

I nodded. “Please. It’s honestly driving me more than a little crazy not having anything to do.” I smoothed my slightly sweaty palms along the satin over my outer thighs with the admission. “You spend all day every day in survival mode and suddenly you don’t have to… it’s sort of an abrupt change, you know? Don’t get me wrong! It’s not unpleasant by any means, it’s just a wild period of adjustment, I think. I’d just really like to help. Do something useful and keep my hands busy, if that’s alright.”

“Of course,” he said, inclining his head. “Just no sharp knives in the dishwasher and the same with the real silver. Just stack them beside the sink and I’ll contend with those tomorrow.

“Okay,” I said with a smile.

He unhooked his cane from the back of his chair and came toward me, stopping beside me with a gentle hand on my waist to lean down and kiss my forehead. I closed my eyes under that comforting touch and melted a little from it.

“I shall see you in the lounge,” he murmured.

“Is that Brit for living room?” I asked softly.

“It is, very good, Poppet.”

I glowed a little from the praise and watched his suited back leave out through the doorway into the rest of the mansion. With a settling sigh, I gathered some things and backed through the door into the kitchen, half expecting to find Kyle eavesdropping but there was no one. I wondered, idly, as I rinsed things and cleaned up if he would be coming back tonight.

I still wanted to talk to him, but the Kyle of then matched the Kyle of now in one regard – he was going to do whatever he wanted to do whenever he wanted to do it.

“The more things change, the more they stay the same,” I murmured to myself.

I finished up the nominal number of dishes, grateful that Roan was good about cleaning as he went, and washed my hands at the sink, drying them on one of the nearby kitchen towels. I smiled at how much of this house I considered Roan’s domain and felt that smile slip when I wondered just where Lach tended to lurk when he was home.

Sighing, I pushed Kyle Lachlan from my mind and went out into the living room, decidedlynotlooking at the window where Kyle and I had been and instead focusing on Roan who was closing one of the cabinet doors on the entertainment center before turning. I let my eyes rove over him curiously.

“What? What is it?” he asked looking down at himself.

“Nothing!” I cried, laughing. “I’ve just never seen you in anything other than a suit.”

Which was true. Now, he wore a crisp, white cotton tee-shirt over a pair of loose-fitting blue plaid pajama bottoms, his feet in a pair of sheepskin slippers.

“You look… cozy.”

He chuckled and waved me in the direction of the couch, limping around the coffee table to take one end. I stepped down into the living room and came around the couch, settling myself nearby him.

The giant, and I do meangianttelevision screen lit up as he manipulated buttons on the remote that he held.

I took the time that he was otherwise focused to study his profile… he was painfully handsome. Not even close to Kyle who had always been painfully beautiful to me. No, Roan was ruggedly handsome. Strong jaw shadowed with copper stubble, an equally strong nose but not out of place on his face. His shoulders were broad beneath the thin cover of his soft looking tee and they tapered down to a trim waist despite all the rich and decadent food we seemed to eat. I mean, I was filling out already, and I’d only been here a matter of a few weeks… a month or more? Really, time was beginning to blur together. One day bleeding into the next and onto the next…

“You alright, love?” I shook myself as though coming awake.

“What? Yeah!”

He stopped what he was doing and eyed me critically as I felt myself blush.

“I’m fine, I swear,” I said breathlessly. It was hard to be anything else when he looked at me like that. He was breathtaking when he turned the full force of his green eyes onto me.

Maybe it was a trick he learned from Kyle…and maybe it was. Kyle had the same effect when he turned his dark, almost black, gaze on me.

“He thinks we should share you,” he said abruptly, and I gave one long, slow blink as I tried to comprehend what had just come out of his mouth.

“I’m sorry, what?” I asked, completely taken aback.

“Bollocks,” he muttered and sighed, closing his eyes.

“No, go back, I need you to repeat what you said.” I needed to be sure I’d heard him correctly.

“No, forget I said anything,” he said, and I shook my head.

---