I was laying in the bath with my face in my palm, wondering what I'd done to deserve a uterus this murderous. Luca, the vicious tonk, had endeavored to fix me a bath all by himself, which was scandalous apparently. He was reading to me as Maude, the chef put together a compress that would help with my cramps. Leith, one of the lovely butlers who'd come over to ensure our safety given the intensity of our...activities, had been sent off to buy all the pads and tampons in Whitlam. I couldn't picture for the life of me why everyone was being so utterly kind, except for this wanker hunched over the bath reading me Toni Morrison's Sula.

"I don't want quality literature Luca! I want trash! I want trash tv and Meghan Markle's best/worst hallmark movies and to stuff my face with chocolate and things that taste like they have processed cheese in them but actually don't have cheese in them at all!" I growl at him, actual tears rolling down my cheeks

I was suffering mate! Sobbing into the bathtub as he put the book down and hopped in with me, pulling me into his arms.

"I'm sorry baby." He coos, rubbing the tears off with his thumb gently

He presses his lips against my forehead, which goes some way in calming me down a tad.

"I'll go set up the media room and we can watch all the trash tv you want ok?" He vows pressing kisses all over my face

There was a media-room in the castle? Why didn't he say so? Every time my period and all its accompanying discomforts came around I was filled with a rage and envy for people who didn't have to experience this, had never experienced it in their life.

"I don't know whether I'm to cry or punch your smug 'was an extra on magic mike but my one line got cut from the movie' face or kiss you, you dickwart!" I growl at him when my cramps fold me over from the pain.

Luca chuckles and winces, reaching to rub my lower back in the warmth of the bath water.

"What was my one line?" He wonders, trying to distract me from the immense discomfort

"Did someone order a pizza? or something like that." I decide, breathing through the pain of my own body stabbing me

"Wait...am I one of the strippers or am I delivering pizza to a strip club?" he pries curiously as if that was the point

"Your stripper name is dough boy and your shtick is delivering pizza's obviously...because I'm pretty sure you can't dance" I state

Could he slow dance? Yes, I knew this from his various attempts to slow dance with me to Love Drought and XO... but could he dance dance? I doubt it.

"Dough boy? No way...it has to be something like...ummm...thick crust... deep pan... mega pizza...Extra Pepperoni?" He suggests thinking through this as I consider punching him in his pretty face

"Extra Pepperoni?" I wonder back curtly.

Deep pan had to be the worst of his suggestions and none of them were better than dough boy! The man is a tourist! He has no idea what he's talking about!

"Wasn't one of the guys called Big Dick Richie? Why can't I be Extra Pepperoni?" He taunts, having clearly lost his mind.

He spends the next fifteen minutes, as Leithe brings me the tampons and I get off the bath, showing me what his dance moves as Extra Pepperoni would be. I regret ever bringing up magic mike or dancing, stripping. I regret having eyes that work. I regret Ginuwine creating Pony, I regret absolutely everything. I attempt to pretend to be napping so I don't have to deal with the choreography of Extra pepperoni, only to be swaddled like a newborn and carried off to the bed.

**************

"are you hungry?" Luca whispers softly against my cheek

"Sometimes I just can't sleep during my period."I mumble tiredly, leaning into his lips on my cheek

"You're sure you don't want some...Extra Pepperoni?" He chuckles softly, the beautiful hum of his deep voice made all the worse by his words

I open my eyes and touch his disturbingly gorgeous castle having helicopter piloting extreme love-making face. The vast windows of the room were naked and the full moon lit bits and bobs, creating a beautiful concerto between the seen and the unseen. I could see that he was smiling down at me, I could feel that he was restless.

"If you hate this place so much we can just go home. We don't have to stay." I offer softly up at him

Maybe it was the hormones or the fact that I didn't hate this man, that I cared for him deeply outside of our bed antics, but I was willing to hate Whitlam simply because he did. I didn't need him to relive whatever trauma it had brought him for my benefit. He kisses my palm, mumbling something about adorable baobhan siths before he lets me know there's one place he didn't hate... and he wants me to see it.

That is how we ended up arguing by the lake shore. He wanted to go skinny dipping in the moonlight. I was in no way holding him back, except apparently by my refusal to join him. The beautiful terrorist thought he'd strip and that would convince me to join in, all it convinced me of is that I need a prescription for anti-horniness pills or injections or something!

"Luca!" I growl angrily

You're nice to a white boy ONE TIME!

"What?" Luca innocently asks, looking up into my eyes as if he wasn't, at this very moment, attempting one of those dirty dancing lifts on me

"I am not a ragdoll yeah? You better put me down right this fucking minute!" I state as firmly as I can

"Right this minute?" He teases lightly

"Now!" I hiss, cutting my eyes at him

"Are...you sure?" He playfully pries

"If you don't put me down this instant I will be proper vexed and this time your lung will be the thing my knee meets!" I warn him, wary of the mischief in his eyes

"I wouldn't want you to be vexed mo gràdh." He teases, loosening his grip under my butt and sending me feet first into the lake below us.

I'm almost a foot shorter than he is, and where he was quite comfortably above the water, I was down to my waist in it. MY WAIST! I screech, shivering and glare up at him, he does the worst thing he possibly could have; he splashes a lot of cold lake water at the bit of my chest that wasn't yet wet. My mouth flies open, my eyes widening in disbelief as I look at my soaked clothing and then at him.

"There, now your clothes are wet and you're going to have to take them off." He offers as if solving something of an issue here

"You're a proper fool, I swear." I vow, staring at my wet clothes.

This man didn't care for his life... and were...

"Are there sharks in this lake?!" I hiss at him, recalling that I was in fact on my period and sharks had a thing for blood

"Sharks?!" he has the audacity, THE GALL to act like I'm being an idiot for asking

"are there SHARKS in this LAKE MOCHRIDHE?!" I hiss at him, slowly and loudly so he can hear each word

"is e thusa a th 'annamsa, mo gràdh and no...there are no sharks in this lake." Lucas vows, perhaps more seriously and huskily than he ought to (it is you that possesses me, my love)

"tha thu tha tha tha whooosh mochridhe you absolute fucker!" I bite back angrily, causing Lucas to laugh heartily at my attempt at speaking scottish-gaelic

"Of all the fucking things to put a black girl through, of course the overly entitled white male who has a fucking castle would kidnap you fuck you in a forest and dump you in a fucking cold water lake. He's absolutely bonkers on top of that; standard. Fucking werewolf arse, chung faced tosser thinks it's jokes! You think it's jokes? Is this the clown club?!" I grumble shivering and shouting at Lucas as I remove my wet skirt, hitting him across the chest with it angrily as he laughs.

Sometimes I wish I hated his laugh, his face, his entire being; but it was a practice in futility and that just made me angrier at him.

"Did you fucking ask me if I wanted to skinny dip? Is it? This is some white nonsense and I swear if a fish comes anywhere near my cunt I will kill you dead Lucas! I swear it!" I hiss at him throwing my shorts in his face

He catches the shorts with his teeth and makes insane growling sounds, shaking his head as he does.

"White nonsense." I growl under my breath, turning around so he can help me unzip my shirt

"I don't know how you stand me at all." Luca chuckles softly down at me as he unzips the off shoulder top

"I can't stand you at all really." I sigh back, feeling his lips against my shoulder and then my neck

I hate that the tension leaves my body, just buggers the fuck off at the feel of his lips

"Guess what?" Luca probes between pecks on my neck, inhaling the scent of my warm skin deeply, his hands moving to secure my body to his and shield me from the cold

"What?" I grunt softly

"You're naked upon the bight of Whitlam, the earl is holding you in his strong arms, cuddling you close to his sexy naked body, the moon is bathing your bodies in its iridescent light, the stars twinkling down at you in deep approval, the forest surrounds you protecting your nudity from possibly prying gazes, the nightingale offers you a song..." He rasps tenderly, swaying me gently in his arms as he does

I don't know this song... or movie...

"I could be warm and in clothes and in very different company right now." I counter.

He kisses my cheek tenderly

"True... but you don't seem to realize something mo gràdh..." He offers huskily

"What?" I sigh softly

"You're in a romance novel now. This is the cover page; us, here, naked in the bight of Whitlam, the forest and the castle behind us, the moon before us..." He huskily coos into my ear

I scoff at the idea, turning around to face him "You're proper nutterz, you know this yeah?" I wonder up at him

"Tha mi craicte mu do dheidhinn" He whispers, leaning down and pressing his lips against mine (I'm crazy about you.)

The kiss is tender, soft, pleading in some way, as if he'd asked me something. I kiss him back, giving in, for a second, to the feelings I probably had for this man.

"I want to show you around my kingdom." He whispers against my lips, pulling slightly away

It wasn't an enthusiastic offer. He was saying he hoped he could steel himself long enough to show me the place.

"Only a complete tosser could say something like that with a straight face." I decide, knowing fully well I wasn't going to take him up on his offer.

He chuckles softly at that, and I press my lips into the beautiful hum of his chuckle.

"I'd rather go home, Luca..." I sigh, making sure to look into his eyes

"Than have you relive whatever trauma this place brought you just so you can say you showed me around... unless you want to show me who hurt you so I can beat them up." I offer

I might not look it but I could take a few people down! Or maybe I was over confident since my kindap training refresher.

"Tha mi cho fortanach gu bheil mi ann an gaol leat" He croaks, emotionally pressing his lips against mine (I am so lucky to be in love with you)

I guess I won't be kicking anyone's ass tonight. Look at this rinsed tonk, so relieved I wasn't taking him up on his offer! Who was the adorable boabab seed now?!

"Yeah, yeah Tha mi... ann an gaol leat." I shrug back, savouring his tight embrace

He freezes, shocked, moving so he can look into my eyes as if to be sure the sounds had come from my throat. Well they didn't come from my pussy or the lake, I can tell you that!

"What...what did you just say?" he chokes, a most curious delight on his face

Had I actually made sense? I basically tried to mimick his words back! Had I gotten it right?

"Tha mi ann an gaol leat?" I slowly say, trying to recall if that was the sounds he'd said. (I'm in love with you)

He seems to be having a breakdown of some sort. Was that... a tear? I'm going to have to ask Hervé what it meant. Did I abuse his mother?