Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Happiness: I just got into college!!! Am very bad author for not updating for…ugh, let's not even say how long, but am very happy girl because I can now relax on the college front.

This chapter had to be split in two, or else you all wouldn't have heard from me before next Christmas.

Oh! Also, if anyone is interested in the book The Thief Lord, I have a small piece over there that could use some lovin and I just posted a smutty piece on voyeurism in the same venue last night. Warning: the second piece is COMPLETE smut…whether you think that is a good thing or not is entirely up to you :)

Please enjoy and review.

PS: "Bon matin" is French for "good morning"

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Lartan Gelfarious sat at the table in his suit of rooms in the top floor of the Summerset School dialing a phone number from memory. As ambiguous hold music filled his ear he leaned back in his chair and craned his neck to see into his bedroom.

Marguerite lay on the bed. She was snuggled up in the twist of sheets and comforter that their previous night's lovemaking had left, her pretty curls spread out on the pillow like a fan. The more he looked at her the more he smiled.

For eleven years he had been teaching at Summerset and since the moment Marguerite had walked into his office to welcome him on that crisp fall day more than a decade before she had fascinated him.

At the time they were both young and wildly beautiful. They were free spirits who had danced around each other for five years, becoming close friends through each other's fleeting romances with outsiders until the day, six years ago, when they had turned to around and realized that all they really wanted could be found in each other.

He was the shy, passionate lover she had always craved and she was the one of the few people he had ever really confided in since his family had first migrated to America from Russia thirty years earlier. Marguerite had been the one to soothe and comfort Lartan after his parent's had passed away and there was no family left for him in America, his older twin sisters Oxsasa and Natalia having returned to Russia some time before. The girls had wanted their brother to go with them but he had been so young when the family had left Moscow, only a child of four, that he was more of an American that a Russian by that time. The move back had been easier for his sisters, who were considerably older than Lartan (forty-five to his thirty-four) and they remembered their motherland and its customs better than their brother.

A recorded voice intruded in his ear. "Thank you for your patience. Your call is very important to us and you needs will be attended to momentarily."

This recaptured Lartan's attention and his smile widened further as he remembered the talk he and Marguerite had had the night before while laying in bed. He had confessed his plans to her, hoping that she would be supportive of his decision, fearing that it would turn her away.

But when he had told her all that he had planned she had kissed him gently on the lips, holding his face between her hands, and told him that she loved him and wanted him to be happy and would support him in whatever he chose to do.

Lartan was truly blessed; Marguerite was so-

"Hello?" a woman's warm voice came on the line.

He said, "Hello, Mrs. Waverly?"

"Yes, how can I help you?"

"Mrs. Waverly, this is Lartan Gelfarious."

"Oh! Hello Lartan. How are you and the kids?"

"I'm fine, kids are fine. How about you?"

"Wonderful; my niece just got accepted to Yale. Now, what can I do for you today?"

"I need to talk to you about Kori and Garfield."

"I mailed the papers to you on Tuesday. Did you get them yet?"

"Mmmhmm. They arrived yesterday." Lartan shuffled through the forms and documents spread across his desk, all emblazoned with the monogram of Waverly, Hill and Stein Family Law. Marguerite stirred in the bed behind him. "I called to clarify a few things before I talked to the kids."

"Sure, what do you need to know?"

Lartan jumped slightly when Marguerite slipped herself onto the chair behind him, wrapping her arms and legs around his torso. She kissed him just below the ear.

"Bon matin, chéri," she whispered huskily, her breath tickling his ear.

He smiled. It was going to be a good day.

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A few hours later, Garfield was rummaging around in his desk for a pen when his cell phone rang.

He was so engrossed in beginning the translation of Raven's letter, which had been sitting unexamined on his desk for two days due to a massive avalanche of homework, that at first he didn't register the sound of the rings.

But then, somewhere around the eighth ring, Garfield snapped out of his translation-induced reverie and he answered his phone.

"Hello?" he said distantly.

"Hey Gar, it's Gelf. Are you busy right now?"

"Ah…no, not particularly. Why?"

"I need to talk to you and Kori."

"Sure. Right now?"

"If you could; it's rather important."

"Okay. I'll grab Kori and we'll be upstairs in a few minutes."

"Thanks."

"Bye."

"Bye."

Garfield closed his phone and reluctantly stashed Raven's letter away in his desk. He was only a few words into the translation and had been planning on devoting most of that quiet Saturday morning to decoding the missive, but if Gelfarious said that it was important then he, Garfield, had better find Kori and get up to the conductor's apartment.

He flipped open his phone again and dialed his best friend's number.

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Thought Garfield didn't know it, Kori was much closer than he thought. Across the boy's study and behind Richard's closed bedroom door Kori was sitting quite happily on the floor in front of Richard's open balcony doors.

She and her host sat opposite each other, warmed in by the autumn sun that was twinkling in through the open doors. The day was unseasonably warm for the end of October and the pair had decided to celebrate what might well be the last nice day of fall by running their lines in the sunshine.

They sat with two glasses of water and a bottle of pepperoncinis pocketed from the kitchen that morning after breakfast on the floor between them. The scripts they should have been reading lay discarded off to the side.

Richard popped a pepper into his mouth and winced as the sweet but bitter heat of the pepper filled his mouth, which set Kori laughing at the expression on his face.

Richard studied her laughing form. It was remarkable how much one person's laughter could please him.

The urge to reach across the space between them and touch her was overwhelming. He knew how soft her cheek would feel against his fingers. He longed to feel her lips on his. It was coming to the point when a few secret nighttime kisses could no longer occupy his lust. Where it not for the fact that he had never been so perplexed by a women before he might have very well worked his way into her bed already.

That though brought to mind the conversation he had had with his guardian the night before, after Kori had gone to bed.

After a week of stewing privately in his guilt over his parting with Bruce, Richard had finally called home and mended things with the older man. There hadn't really been too much too apologize for from either party; both were just so glad to be on speaking terms again that the argument was put aside quickly.

Richard and Bruce had talked for over an hour about many things, though mainly about how Richard was settling into his new home. Richard had presented a positive report. He explained about his classes, shared a laugh with Bruce over the idea of Richard performing in a musical and sucked up all the news that Bruce sent from home, all the while skillfully avoiding motioning Kori.

But Bruce wasn't just a pretty face; he was terribly intuitive and could always tell when something was bothering Richard.

"Okay, what aren't you telling me?" Bruce had gently pried.

"Well…there's this girl."

"Of course there is." Bruce didn't seem surprised.

"No. This girl is different. She's…god, I don't know."

"Try to explain it."

"It's like…" he said pensively, staring at the ceiling, "…like being in a foreign country: where you don't know the customs and you know you probably shouldn't be there but you can't for the life of you get out and you don't know the land and you don't know what to do and you have no idea how things are going to end because it's like no other country you've ever been in before…but god, it is so beautiful"

"She sounds interesting."

"She is! She's really incredible."

"Just do what feels right Rich. I've never gone wring that way."

The younger man mulled over his mentor's words as his gaze swept over the smooth planes of Kori's face.

Richard couldn't take it any more. He leaned forward and captured her mouth with his own eagerly hot one. Her eyes widened in surprise before slipping closed.

Ever so gently Richard pushed against her closed lips with his tongue and without hesitating Kori parted her lips. His tongue slipped into the warm abyss of her mouth and she moaned low in her throat, a sound matched by Richard's own happy growl.

His hands slid up her shoulders and pushed against her until Kori was flat on her back. She laughed softly, gazing up at him with a iniquitous twinkle in her eyes. The sight was enough to make Richard's manhood throb with need.

He kissed her again, no longer trying to conceal his desire.

Richard leaned over her, supporting himself on his forearms. One hand cradled her cheek while the other roamed over the curve of her back, waist and hips. She responded beautifully.

Kori's chest rose and fell in time with his as their breathing quickened. Her hands wove themselves in his dark hair and she pulled him in more firmly against her mouth. He gave a muffled groan in response to her boldness, which he found highly arousing.

She tasted so sweet, like raspberries and sugar, and her hair smelled of coconuts.

Never before had Kori been kissed like this and though she was a little bit nervous about the practiced ease with which Richard handled himself, she made no sound of protest. Her mind was quickly being clouded by desire.

Richard pulled his mouth away from hers and began laying slow kisses along her throat that blazed wonderfully wherever his lips touched her skin.

"Ah…oooooh," She moaned, head tipped back and eyes shut, a trembling smile on her lips.

He grinned against her neck.

Suddenly Kori's phone rang and, as though it were lightning in the sky, Kori gasped and stiffened. Metallic music emanated from the phone, which lay only a few inches from her head.

I saw her today at a reception
A glass of wine in her hand
I knew she would meet her connection
At her feet was her footloose man

"That…that's Garfield!" She manages to gasp out between shaking breaths as Richard played havoc with her earlobe between his lips.

He laughed softly into her skin. "So answer it."

"What!?" She laughed, scandalized.

He grinned at her wickedly and moved the cell phone into her hand. "Answer it. And try not to moan too loudly."

His tongue and teeth returned to their attacked on her earlobe. The tiny nibbles and his warm breath against her neck sent shivers down her spine.

Emboldened by her desire, Kori flipped the phone open and said, "Hello?" She prayed that her best friend didn't notice how soft her voice was, or how breathy it had become in the face of Richard's deft fingers, which were now tracing small circles around her belly button.

"Hey Kor. Are you busy right now?"

"Um…uhh, why?" She had to pull the phone away from her mouth momentarily to keep Garfield hearing her gasp as Richard began laving his tongue across the same trail his fingers had just charted. "Stop that!" she whispered urgently.

He just grinned up at her again. "No."

Garfield spoke in her ear again. "Because Gelf just called and asked us both up to his apartment. He said he had something to talk to us about. Are you free?"

"Yes!" Kori said, a little too emphatically, as that was the moment Richard chose to return to the most sensitive part of her neck and suck gently at the pulse that pounded just beneath her skin.

"Kori? Are you okay?" Garfield asked.

"Yes." She said, once she had gotten her voice back under control. "Yeah. Um…I'll meet you there, right?"

"Okay, bye."

"Bye."

Mercifully the line went dead. Kori looked down at the man who was laying half across her and currently tracing shapes on her collarbone.

"You have to go?" He said, somewhat mournfully.

"Yes."

Richard looked into her eyes and smiled. "Take a minute before you leave: you're all flushed."

"Well, if someone would learn to keep their hands to themselves…" But she was smiling and laughing as she re-adjusted her clothes and rose from the floor. She walked to the door, but turned back to him at the last moment. Kori's bright green gaze appraised him thoughtfully.

She shook her head and smiled. "You could make a lot of trouble for me, Richard. Grayson."

He met her smile with one of his own. "I generally do."