The few weeks leading up to their wedding day, Gregorie courted Colette like a true gentlemen. His teasing turned into sincere compliments and he started to take interest in her love for painting, even asking if she could paint him something as a wedding gift. Colette found it easy to hold his hand as they walked through town. It no longer felt uncomfortable being so close to him. His height grew on her and she came to admire how tall he was. He looked like a towering coquelicot with his wild, red hair. He often visited her at the cottage and sat to have dinner with her and her father three times a week. Her father chatted away merrily in his chair which Gregorie found to be fascinating. Neither her or her father mentioned Sébastien or talked about their stay at the castle to Gregorie. It started to feel like a dream, but some nights Colette would wake from a nightmare with Sebastian's name stuck in her throat.
It was the same nightmare. She was naked, kneeling in the center of a clearing in a forest somewhere. She was hurt, but she didn't know where. She felt so cold. Like death hung on her shoulders and she felt watched. Like someone or something was watching her from the tree line. She would see glowing orange eyes between the bramble of fallen branches and tangled vines. After a minute of being watched her assessor would finally stalk out of the tree line. It was a huge, black wolf. She studied its large, lethal body as it circled her. She did not react to its presence but found its lingering gaze to be familiar. It wasn't until he made a full circle did she lie down on her side. She felt weak. Limp. A warm substance would flow down her thigh and after a few seconds the scent of lavender would fill her nose. She dreamt it's soft petals tickled her skin and she thought of her mother and the lavender stems they tossed in her casket. That's what it felt like she was in. A casket. The lavender snaked over her body and its fragrance seeped into her skin and she gave into its tight embrace. That dark presence outside of the lavender attempted to seek her out through the thick stems and she felt its frantic attempts to reach her, but she was already sinking. Sinking deep into the earth. Dissolving. Her body was returning to dust. As the last remnants of her soul disappeared, light trickled in through the stems and she heard her name being called out. Not voiced out, but in her mind. It spoke to her soul. Colette. Colette. Her soul reached out towards the voice but there was nothing left of her. Her voice was no longer as she called out it's name.
Sébastien.
"Are you well?"
Colette looked up from her painting towards Gregorie who sat in the tufted chair beside the hearth. His long body dwarfed the old chair and his hair was unbound, spilling around his face and shoulders. She had been thinking about the nightmare she woke up from this morning. It would seem the remnants of it lingered on her face.
"Yes. I just... I had a nightmare last night."
"Oh? What of?"
Colette dipped her brush into a dollop of orange- red she had mixed earlier and brought the brush to the canvas. She painted the ringlets of Gregories curly hair framing his face.
She sighed heavily. "I was in a forest." She glanced up at him then back down at the painting, readjusting the color. "Naked."
Gregorie raised an eyebrow. He had his hands clasped in his lap and she watched as he flexed his longer fingers before shifting slightly. She had him sitting in the chair as she painted a portrait of him. Her wedding gift to him. He wasn't very good at keeping still though and she scolded him twice now not to move too much.
"I was being watched."
"By who?" His voice dropped an octave as he stared at her with serious eyes. He's become more protective over her since accepting his marriage proposal.
"What." She corrected him. "A wolf. A... black wolf." With blazing orange eyes.
"Hmm. Why was it watching you?"
Colette started adding yellowish- orange highlights to his hair. "I don't know. Maybe I smelled good." She teased, but the humor was lost in her voice.
Gregorie smiled softly. "You do smell good. You smell like fields of lavender. It's quite... intoxicating."
She willed herself to continue painting. He always found a way to make her feel... bothered. "Anyways. It was a large, black wolf and it came out of the forest and circled around me as if I was some sort of prey."
"I would hunt you." He mused and smiled wide when she gave him a scolding look. "Alright. Alright. I'll stop. I'm just saying. You're naked in the middle of some forest and this... wolf, he's watching you. Well for one, who wouldn't want to see a beautiful woman naked."
Colette chunked her brush at him and he dodged it and let it fall against his shirt. Red streaks stained the white, linen front and he looked at her with amused shock.
"I'm serious Gregorie. I felt like death was watching me. I had died. In my dream. I died. And this wolf... it- it tried to save me but it couldn't reach me in time. My soul had already gone."
She felt tears swell up in her eyes and she wiped at them with the back of her hand. Gregorie stood abruptly and walked over to her and took her into his arms. He stroked the back of her head. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Colette. Death is not something to tease about. I... I don't know what I would do if I ever lost you. You're my entire world. I exist around you." He kissed her forehead, then her face and before she knew it he was kissing her mouth.
Colette fell into the embrace and kissed him back with the same fever. Gregorie groaned softly and knelt down between her legs. Her skirt prevented him from being flushed against the insides of them but it didn't matter. He wasn't kissing her to lead to something else. He was kneeling before her because he would go to the ends of the world to keep her safe. He was her knight and she his queen.
Something rippled inside of Colette and she felt that familiar desire pool down into her lower abdomen. She quickened their kissing as she pushed her fingers through his hair, tugging on the soft strands.
"Colette," Gregorie breathed, his eyes ablaze with sudden emotion. She wanted to erase the stain of that nightmare. It scared her to think what it ment. What could have been if Sébastien had taken her that night he came to say goodbye. She wouldn't be alive. She wouldn't be marrying Gregorie. She wouldn't have seen her father prosper through his crippledness. She wouldn't have felt as happy as she did right now. Giving into this desire.
"Gregorie." She pleaded, pulling him closer to her. He was hunched over her lap, his hands gripping her waist and she felt the sensuous pleasure from the pressure of them so close to that need. If only they traveled further down.
"Mmm... Colette." He moaned into her mouth. She felt his need pressing into the side of her knee and she reached down between them to feel it with her hand.
"Colette." He gasped, his eyes going wide as she wrapped her fingers around the width of him through his trousers. At least as much as she could through the thick fabric. His member was long and girthy. She had never touched him before.
"Let me." She whispered breathlessly, palming the length of him. Gregorie kneeled over, his head coming down against her chest. She felt his hot breath against her exposed skin and felt too clothed. Too covered. Too. Damn. Hot.
"Kiss me." She practically begged and he did. Hard and aggressive. Just like he had done in the stable that day she left to go retrieve her father.
Gregories stifled moans filled the cottage as Colette stroked him over and over again through his trousers. She wanted to feel him under the fabric. Feel the skin enveloping his desire. She fumbled to squeeze her hand through the waistband of his trousers and Gregorie grabbed her wrist suddenly, pulling her hand away. She almost whined in protest, but his eyes were hard. His lips set in a grim line.
"What? What is it?" She panted, wanting to reach for him again.
He shook his head and placed her hand down in her lap. "No." He breathed.
No? Colette was confused by his sudden resistance.
Gregorie took a shaky breath and stood up. He pulled down Colette's skirt where she had been unknowingly hiking it up with her other hand.
"Did I do something wrong. Is this... I mean... do you not want me?"
Hurt flashed across his face. "Gods Colette. Of course I want you. You... you felt how much I wanted you." A blush crept along his freckled cheekbones.
"And now you... don't?" She pondered, confused.
Gregorie brought his hand to his face. "No- I mean I do. I want you. Mother of god I want you so bad but I don't want to take you before we have even said our vows."
Colette sat in quite shock. Gregorie was the perfect gentleman and he loved her that much to respect her body in that way. She wasn't entirely sure what to say. She felt hot and bothered all over and was still reeling from her desire. She needed release, wanted it, but Gregorie didn't seem like he would allow it.
"I see." Colette said slowly and smoothed out her skirt. "Well then what do I do about the yearning I feel down there?"
Gregorie, blushed. She was so taken back by the look he gave her. She had never seen him so... helpless? Without words. She didn't mean to voice what she thought in her head but it came out so fast perhaps she hoped it would change his mind.
His breathing became heavy and Colette watched him struggle to find his voice.
"What do you need me to do?"
His voice was low. So low she thought she didn't hear him correctly the first time. "W- what?" She asked.
He knelt in front of her again and placed his hands on her knees. "What do you need me to do?" He repeated, his voice husky and full of intent.
She nearly melted on the spot. She gulped, scrapping air in through her mouth to fill the tightness in her throat. "I... I'm not sure." And she wasn't. She didn't know how to approach the need that nagged at her. It was unfamiliar territory. Surely, Gregorie knew what to do... right? If he was to be her husband he had to know how to please her. Meet her needs. Understand what her body wanted.
She felt his hands slide up her thighs and the feeling sent shivers down there. Her breath hitched as his thumb stroked idle circles on the inside of her thigh. The fabric of her skirt muted the touch but watching how close his finger was to that need made her quake.
"What do you need me to do?" He whispered.
She shook her head, absolutely at lost for words. "I... I..."
The door to the cottage swung open and Gregorie shot straight up, his face glowing bright red as he reached into his trousers and adjusted himself quickly. It hardly did anything to hide his desire and Colette ushered him behind her where she sat on a stool in front of her easel.
Luckily it took her father a couple seconds longer to enter through the door in his chair and Colette picked up another paintbrush as the front of his chair passed through the threshold.
"Father," she breathed. "H- how was Miss DuPont?"
Gregorie cleared his throat behind her and placed a casual hand on her shoulder, acting as if he was studying the painting.
Her father wheeled himself into the small space of their home and sat his bag onto the table with a clunk. His hands were covered from the nail up to the knuckles in oily grime. "The old widow had me working on something entirely different. I hadn't had my gloves and it was a messy fix." He raised up his dirty hands.
Colette offered a chuckle. "I think there is some soap left near the water basin. Not much. I'll need to make more but it should be enough. I was just finishing up painting with Gregorie."
Her father offered Gregorie a bow of his head before turning in his chair and making his way towards the basin.
Colette let out a shaky breath and squeezed Gregories hand. He gripped hers back tightly before planting a kiss on the crown of her head. "I shall see you tomorrow my beautiful Colette."
She gave him a wain smile and watched him gather his jacket and leave. Her father offered him a wave goodbye before turning his gaze toward her.
"You seem healthy looking today dearest."
"What do you mean?" She mumbled , putting away her paints.
"Your face seems more flushed than usual. Perhaps you took a stroll earlier?" A stroll down Gregories trousers.
Colette focused on binding up her brushes as she felt the heaviness of her fathers gaze on the side of her face. Did he know what had happened between them? "It's a little warm in here is all."
Her father huffed as he started on cleaning his hands. She glanced at him and a smile was plastered across his face while he scrubbed at his nails.