“Oh yes,” she says as if she had forgotten her purpose. She pulls out a cream envelope and holds it up between her middle and index fingers. “I apparently have ‘errand girl’ stamped on my forehead today.”
“Who is it from?” I ask, my stomach already tying itself into a series of small knots.
“Three guesses,” she says and does not look very happy about it.
“Look, Liv, I don’t want that. I don’t want to know what is in it,” I say, holding my hand up.
“You should read it. It is quite informative,” she says casually, but I see the flash in her eyes.
“You read it?” I ask, only somewhat surprised that she would be so rude.
“Of course,” she scoffs at me. “You don’t really think I would come all of this way with a letter from my Fraser to you without having knowledge of its contents, do you?”
I guess not.
“Why on Earth would you bring me that?” I ask her.
“Quid pro quo. And he wanted you to read it,” she says quietly. “In fact, he thought you would come to see him after he offered you what you wanted. I guess, at least, I can go home and tell him that you were in a coma for three months and that it had nothing to do with you not wanting to see him.”
“I don’t want to see him,” I insist. “I never want to see him again. And I don’t want that letter.”
“Ah, the lady doth protest too much, methinks,” she quotes Shakespeare to me and I cringe. She throws the letter onto my desk and it lands with a soft thump in front of me. I wring my hands to keep them from reaching for it and then place them firmly in my lap and regard her.
“I don’t understand why you would bring it,” I say haughtily. “I mean, don’t you care that he is making offers and writing letters to me?”
“What he wants with you is his own business,” she says brusquely. “I don’t interfere in his obsessions. Well, not anymore,” she adds with a sad look.
“Liv,” I say to her, wanting to say more but I have no words. She adjusts her face to its usual lack of emotion and shrugs.
“Read it, don’t read it. I don’t really care,” she says. “I delivered it, so my part in this is over.” She stands abruptly and puts her hands on her leather-clad hips. “Marigolds,” she says.
“I beg your pardon?” I ask. Is that supposed to mean something to me?
“Use blood-soaked marigolds on your wounds. It will draw out the poison and heal you,” she advises.
“Marigolds? That seems far too simple. How come no one thought of that already?” I ask her even though she won’t have any idea.
“Not just marigolds, blood-soaked marigolds. Use your sire’s, it will be most effective,” and with that said she disappears from my view.
Never in a million years will I understand that woman. I sigh and pick up the letter she delivered. I want to rip it up and burn it, but some stupid, idiotic part of me carefully opens the envelope and pulls out the heavy, gold-embossed, cream paper and I start to read.
?Sweet Liv,
I have thought of nothing and nobody, except you, since I came to see you. You are the sweetest perfection, everything that I want to take and cherish and yet ravage with this raging lust that is burning inside me, for you. Only you. You consume my thoughts to the point where no one else matters. I want to feel your silky skin as I caress you, and I want to feel your soft lips against mine as I kiss you. I want to see, in your enchanting green eyes, how much pleasure I give you as I make love to you gently, before I turn you around and take out my depravities on you.
You are a constant source of confusion for me, a mix of paradoxes that makes my senses react in a way with which I have grown unfamiliar. You make my heart beat again after being still for so many years. You make my head ache with thoughts of you naked by candlelight, beads of hardened wax clinging to your body like drops of blood. Oh, I want to taste you, I want to drink from you, before you do the same to me.
The need to see and feel and know all of this about you is driving me wild. We had but a few moments, but in those moments, I knew you. I want to s
ee you again. I need to see you again, Liv. Come to me. Come to me and I will be everything you want me to be and more. Come to me and you will love me, as I love you. Love. A word I have not used and meant in decades. Love. Something so foreign to me and yet you bring it out with your hesitation of me. I know you wanted to touch me; I saw it in your eyes. I wanted you to touch me, to kiss me, to lose your indecision and reluctance because I am not your true love. But I can be. I will be. Come to me my sweet, sweet Other. I will be everything you need and you, in return, will be the sire I have always wanted and needed.
So, come to me and I will leave this place for yours. I will leave this world to be with you in yours.
Fraser
I carefully fold the piece of paper and insert it back into the envelope. I push it under the ink blotter, out of sight, and stand to go and find my husbands.
Chapter 9