Blair's clock projected the time dimly on the ceiling. 3:42 am. She closed her eyes briefly and steeled herself for the fact that she didn't have much time before she had to make sure the kids were up and have breakfast going. At the same time, she couldn't bring herself to complain when Todd woke her up in the wee hours of the morning to have a leisurely love-making session. They'd been apart for so long... she didn't want to turn him away, she wouldn't dream of it.
He was currently reacquainting himself with her hip. He ran his hand over it,letting each finger slide over the curves individually, then touched his lips to it. He nuzzled her, his cheek and chin and nose brushing against her skin.
Todd had now accumulated two days worth of facial hair and Blair knew she'd have marks left behind from his stubble.
It was a small price to pay.
He planted a kiss between her breasts as he came back up. "You're tired," he whispered.
"Aren't you?"
Todd nodded in the dark before kissing her lips. He settled next to her and closed his eyes. "I am," he yawned, "but I've been without you for so long..."
She reached for his hand and laced her fingers through his. "No need to hurry... I'm not going anywhere."
"Me either." He rolled against her again, inhaling deeply. "I love the way you smell after sex."
A slight moan came out of her as her hand slid down his side. He shifted against her, trying to find the best position to fall asleep while still maintaining as much physical contact as possible. Last night, Blair had been so exhausted that none of this was an issue but this time she wasn't suffering from mental and emotional fatigue.
Maybe a little physical weariness due to their lovemaking but that wasn't anything they couldn't beat.
This was what he had held onto while he had been incarcerated; being near her, next to her, their skin touching and melting together, her soft sighs in the dark as she fell asleep and the scent of her surrounding him as he did the same.
Blair groaned and fumbled with the tie of her robe. As much as she loved the autumn months that darkened into winter, the dark mornings didn't exactly make things easy. Todd wasn't helping, either.
"Come back to bed," he whispered.
The offer was so enticing... his sleep roughened voice so alluring, particularly with his tousled hair and the stubble on his face. His eyes were bleary and his naked skin, delightfully warm, all beckoned to her like a siren's call. "I have to get the kids up for school."
"They can't get up on their own?"
"You were a teenaged boy once," Blair reminded him. "How quickly did you jump out of bed?"
Todd shrugged. "Depends."
"This is morning with kids," Blair pointed out. "No more nannies, they're too old for it and Starr doesn't want one for Hope. It's all on us now."
"Isn't one of the perks of being rich having nannies?"
"Not when you have a sixteen year old boy and an eight year old," Blair shrugged. "You should get up, too. Come down and have breakfast with us."
Todd watched Blair's ass as she swayed out of the room. More than ever he was determined to give them their long weekend up at the cabin where they didn't have to get up early and they could spend all day in bed if they wanted to. He heaved the covers off of him and headed for the shower.
Would the kids let them sleep in on the weekends?
Todd really hoped so.
Jack gnawed on a piece of toast and narrowed his eyes as Todd kissed Blair's cheek. She'd just handed him a cup of coffee and their fingers lingered as they touched. He glanced over at Starr, who had that smug Starr smirk. His sister was going to be intolerable.
Todd was clearly going to be a fact of their lives now and Jack remained uncertain as to how, exactly, he felt about it. He had questions about a lot of things, questions he had never gotten any solid answers about when Victor was his father... because he didn't feel the need to press the issue. Before, when those questions came up, everything was good. Now, everything was different.
"So, today is one of your days to work with me after school," Todd told Jack, sitting down at the breakfast nook.
Jack grunted slightly in response.
"I figure, you can drive your car to school, with me," Todd continued casually. "I'll take the car to the office. Then when I pick you up, you can drive us back to the office and home."
Jack narrowed his eyes at Todd. He was being bribed, that much was obvious, but he had to give credit to the man; he was being bribed with a very tempting offer.
"Hey, I want you to be as comfortable driving as possible when you get behind the wheel by yourself," Todd pointed out. "I know too many stories... so if you can get as much supervised time behind the wheel as possible and I can help with that, then I'm going to."
Another grunt was the response to that but it was a grunt that indicated acquiescence. Todd took that as a positive sign. He was fairly well-versed in Jack's non-committal, non-verbal way of communication, he'd used that particular language for years. He shot a glance towards Blair who seemed vastly amused. There was a saying that you got the children you deserved. He looked at Jack and considered how different things were compared to his relationship with Starr.
Starr had always been Daddy's Girl.
When Todd was young, a 'Mama's Boy' had been an insult; a way to emasculate someone or needle them about not being macho or tough enough. For him, there had always been a hint of jealousy there... his mother had left and hadn't been able to take him with her and hers was the only positive relationship he'd ever had.
Blair's boy was as muleish as his mother but also, he suspected, as ferocious as that same wildcat who bore him. He was not going to make it easy, that was for sure.
He had an inkling that Blair was loving it.
The drive to school was a quiet one. Todd didn't want to distract Jack too much and really kept conversation strictly to the road and what he was doing with the car. Jack seemed determined to not embarrass himself behind the wheel and Todd encouraged his son to relax.
To no avail. Everytime Todd suggested he breathe, Jack growled in response.
They did get to school in one piece, however, and Todd gave Jack an awkward pat on the shoulder as a farewell. Jack, at least, gave him a half wave as he jogged off towards a group of boys Todd recognized from the birthday party. He received a few curious looks but they were soon shoving each other and laughing and forgetting he existed.
Which was as it should be, Todd supposed.
He got back in the car but instead of taking a right on Brookside, he took a left to go back to Dorian's tacky mansion. Blair was there and no kids were and, when it came down to it, he'd rather go into the office very late than sit there and think of her instead.
The house was quiet and Todd made his way upstairs to surprise his love. When he pushed her door open, he was greeted by the rather creepy view of her standing in the middle of the room, facing the door, her face steely yet pale. Half of her hair was pinned up, the other half still hanging down, her hands were behind her back and she seemed like she was waiting for... well, something.
Her body relaxed visibly when she saw him. "Todd..." her voice had an almost imperceptible quiver to it. "I've asked you not to sneak in here."
She moved over to her vanity and Todd saw her discreetly sheath a black handled stiletto knife and slip it into one of the drawers. She sat down and continued to pin up her hair but her eyes met his in the mirror.
Todd didn't exactly know what to say or do. "How many weapons do you have in here?"
She didn't answer. She just continued pinning her hair up while her eyes flicked to him in the mirror.
"I didn't mean to scare you. Again."
"You used to bellow my name whenever you got home," Blair reminded him.
"I wanted to surprise you."
"Your being here when you're supposed to be at work is a surprise. It's all the surprise I want. Announce yourself instead of creeping through the house like some home invasion. To be honest, I always kind of liked the way you yell my name."
She was tensing up again and he moved behind her to put his hands on her shoulders. He kneaded her muscles, which were rigid as hell at that moment, and then leaned down to kiss her neck.
"When you first came back and you were telling Hope that story, I was behind you... and you whipped around so fast I thought you were going to hurt yourself. Remember?"
He nodded against her neck. He didn't like being snuck up on, it's one reason he had gotten so good at stealth himself.
"I'm just really anxious," Blair continued. "I'm so tired of this house and I want to get into the new one. All of the bad memories keep coming at me here. I'll feel more secure in my place."
He kept rubbing her shoulders as he listened. If he thought about it, it shouldn't surprise him. When Blair was in a place she called 'hers' she did feel secure and she probably hadn't felt that way since their first marriage. Hell, there wasn't much in Blair's life that she could ever call hers when it came down to it.
"Why aren't you at work?"
"I wanted to be with you."
She smiled. "You love your paper."
"I love you," he squeezed her shoulders. "And... I just wanted to be with you more." He touched the pins in her hair. "What's all this for?"
"I'm going to take that bath," Blair stood up and went to the bathroom door. "Care to join me?"
Todd cared a great deal.
"You're getting one of these in the new place, right?"
The jacuzzi tub was spacious and the water was still warm even after a prolonged lovemaking session. Todd lounged happily in the water with Blair's wet, naked body leaning against him. Her head was resting against his shoulder. His hand slid over her stomach under the water and she sighed.
"One for inside, one for outside."
"You think of everything," Todd let his head rest against the side.
"I've been planning it for awhile," Blair replied. "At least a couple of years now. Making sure I had the money to do it and all, planning things out just right..."
"Do you have the money?"
"Don't worry about me, Todd," she craned her neck to look up at him. "I'm fine."
"I'd like to help," he offered. "It can be ours..."
Blair sat up and shifted her position so that she was sitting across the tub from him. She looked at him seriously and steadily. "I need it to be mine, first. I've never had a home that was mine. I need this."
Todd sighed. It was a hard thing to acknowledge because rejection from Blair, however miniscule, always stung. He clenched his jaw and considered it. He had thrown Blair out of the penthouse because the penthouse belonged to him. He had thrown her out of the very house they were in because he purchased it for Starr's trust and then wrestled the executor position away from Blair so he could exercise his power over her.
"You know, when we were first married we stayed under your roof," he reminded her.
"That was Dorian's penthouse," Blair replied quickly. "Don't you remember how fast she tossed us out of there?" A shadow crossed her face and Todd nodded.
"All I'm saying is, if you want to be the one to keep me in your castle, I can prove what a modern guy I am and go with it."
Blair's expression was playful skepticism. "Yeah, you're all kinds of modern, aren't you?"
"I'm willing to try," he teased her. "I mean, when I thought I didn't have a dime and you were definitely getting the short end of the stick, I was living at your place and you were the one buying all the beers."
"Except that I knew you were rich," Blair pointed out. "Or going to be."
"But I didn't know that," Todd insisted. "And before you knew I was going to be rich you bought an awful lot of beer for me."
Blair snorted a laugh.
"You bought me food and you gave me jewelry," Todd paused for a moment. "I was, like, your young man trophy!"
"What?" Blair threw her head back and laughed.
"Yeah," Todd warmed up to the comparison. "You know how guys lavish money and jewelry and their little bimbo mistresses... that was me! You were plying me with beer and food and jewelry!"
"Hey, I made that jewelry," Blair reminded him, still laughing. "I didn't go to Tiffany's and bring you something in a little blue bag. But, you know, you were young and had long, beautiful hair... you were my mistress!"
"You were seeing Cord at the time," Todd cackled a bit. "Maybe being the kept man isn't so alien to me after all."
Blair splashed water at him playfully. "If I wanted a young, stupid bimbo... I missed the mark with you. You were young, sure, but you'd been around the block. You weren't stupid, either."
"I must not have been, I did manage to land you," Todd grinned.
"Charmer," Blair returned the smile. "I'm beginning to prune," she held her hands up as proof and then turned the drain in the tub.
Todd watched in admiration as she got out of the water and briskly toweled herself off. When she held a robe out for him, he got out as well, and she wrapped it around him, pressing herself against him as she did so.
"You know, I kind of like this morning thing," she said as she kissed his neck. "Think we can make it a regular sort of deal?"
"I think it's worth looking into," he replied as she took his hand and led him to the bed. His robe dropped well before they got there but he didn't need it anyway. Blair pushed him onto the bed and climbed atop him. Her breathless laugh as she felt him harden against her turned him on even more. "Oh yeah," he sighed as she guided him inside her. "I think... this should definitely... be a regular thing..."