We were back at Bibury, laying on the bed, covered in paint. Luke kissed me, and we rapidly built up our way to ardent touching.

"I think we should have a shower." I suggested, captured in a buzz his scent and his taste gave me.

He was like poison to me. Just knowing, awaiting what he was going to do to me under the running water set me off.

"Sounds good." he said.

He took me in his arms and made his way to the bathroom, without ceasing to kiss me. We hugged under the hot water and I felt how much he wanted me. I turned around in the hope that not looking into his dark eyes would help me cool off a bit and shampoo my hair. I took a brush to comb my hair out as he caressed my hips. I started to move them in circles against his yearning body.

"Tess... You're so sensual..."

He took the brush from my hand and started to comb my hair himself. He took some gel in his other hand and rubbed it between my legs. Every single pore of my skin was awake. Awake and blazing. I leaned my head backwards and he kissed my lips. Water made his skin glisten, and his wet hair gave him an even manlier, sexier appearance. He started to caress my back with my brush, as he pressed himself closer to me. The proof of his desire for me was even clearer than the previous night. He bit my shoulder and the grasp of his teeth made my whole body tremble. It made me his once more. He passed his hands forward so that he could cup my breasts, and then he moved them along my belly, making me dance with every caress.

He followed the trail of his strokes with the slippery, round handle of the brush, as he kissed me fervidly. He reached my hottest spot with the gel-smeared tip of the handle, and I moaned. He kept making me convulse with it as he moved against my back.

"How can you turn it so tremendously hard?" he said, as he pressed himself even more against my bum.

Breathing rapidly, I managed to say:

"And how can you make my insides... even more slippery... than this handle?"

"Oh, Tess..."

The heat of the water, and my body, and his longing made him lose control, and he separated my thighs with the brush from behind, and pushed his way into me. I moaned. He moved slowly, meanwhile biting my neck and holding onto my hips with his left hand. He bit me harder and my insides soaked some more. Those lips and teeth were bound to make me completely insane.

"Luke... I want your mouth all over my body."

He groaned. I opened my legs wider to allow him to fill me some more. I wanted more. I wanted to break out.

He kissed my mouth savagely. My muscles started to contract and I exploded in an untamable orgasm. He groaned, turned me around and took me in his arms. Water kept falling over us and making the shower screen and the mirror tarnished. He embedded me against the wall. I let him move in and out of me and, when he was about to come, I made him stop. I savagely enjoyed the way his eyes pleaded me to let him break out.

I freed myself from his arms and slowly started to go down on him, responding to his rapturous plead. I kissed his chest, and his abdomen. I teased him, licking every patch of skin around the place where he wanted me the most. He cried out my name and pulled me up again. He pushed into me one last time and his dense, steamy discharge filled me and slid down my body.

I woke up in my hotel room, with Africa by my side.

"What are you doing here?"

"I..."

"No, wait." I said, and I sat up.

My head was pounding. That sensation was starting to be too much of a routine.

"Let's start by the basics. What am I doing here? Where is Luke? What happened? And, yes, what are you doing here?"

She looked perplexed and amused at the same time. Seeing her was very reconforting.

"At least you're drinking black coffee. Thank God for normality..." I said, and she laughed out loud.

"... says the Queen of Uncommonness."

"Hey!" I complained, and I threw my pillow at her. I was starting to realize pillows were usually my deadliest weapon.

That thought made me laugh, and I realized I had definitely earned my royal Queen of Uncommonness title. Funny thoughts started to fade away when silence conquered the room and let me think clearly again, and my face turned gray when my distorted mind assimilated that Luke wasn't with me.

Africa read my mind and started to answer the most important of my questions.

"I don't know where he is, Tess. I am here because he called me and said I must come to you urgently. When I started to ask him questions, he hung up."

"If you're here, in New York, a long time must have passed since the conference..."

"Yes, nine hours. It's almost dinner time. But, actually, I think Luke called me before the conference."

My mind went blurry again.

"What? Wait... Do you know what happened?"

She sighed, got up from the chaise longue, and started to walk in circles around the room, with her cup of coffee and Kate's leaflet in her hand.

"Do you know why it happened?"

"I've had almost an hour since I arrived here to think it through." she said, and shrugged. "I have some theories."

"Do you blame him?"

She sighed again, but this time she didn't move.

"Africa, tell me everything you know, and everything you think. I need information, because my brain is not producing any right now. The last thing I know is that I collapsed in front of Kate's Louboutins."

"Let's start by the things I know for sure. The first one is that Fleming&Florey stole your idea. The facts in Kate Rosewood's leaflets are those in the final report that you made."

I got up and turned on my laptop. I had to find my report. My fingers didn't obey my commands and they shivered as I tried to type my password.

"Damn." I said, and I kicked the ground. "I forgot my password."

"Are you kidding?"

"No, I am not kidding, Africa, I don't have a clue about what my fucking password might be."

"You have to calm down, Tessa."

"Africa! Are you listening to yourself? Do you see how big this is? How the hell am I going to calm down? A pharmaceutical brand stole my life-changing idea, I don't know how they got it, and I don't have any solution in mind. And my boyfriend's missing. I am not calming down! "

I threw myself back on the bed, and I broke down. Tears fell out of my eyes with rage. I could tell the sunset was that of a beautiful day; that the world was warm and blissful, and that the light that entered my room was orangey, but it seemed pale and static.

"I should have known. I should have known this couldn't lead anywhere good. It was all too perfect, Africa, it was all too damn perfect. And everlasting perfection doesn't exist."

I suddenly stopped crying and got up again, like a bipolar psycho. I had to find a way to get around everything. I had to find a way to gain control again. I surely needed a plan to survive through the biggest nightmare of all.

"Luke can't have betrayed me. That's my premise. He loves me, Africa."

"I know that. But who else had access to your report? Besides, we shouldn't forget that Luke works at Fleming&Florey. I know you don't want to believe it, but... it's what makes most sense, Tess. Why did he run away just now?"

"Because he's afraid! Just like I am. He's horrified because our utopia, my dream, was shattered this morning. He's going to come back, Africa, he's coming back..." I fell on my knees and hid my head between my hands.

Tears fell of my eyes like an angry cascade again.

"I know he's coming back..."

My mind flashed back to the moment he had run out of the salon. The intensity of his smell filled that memory, and every single one he was involved in. I hadn't realized I was losing him at that moment. I rewound to the moment when I had seen him from the stage. I had seen him scared for the first time in my life. I should've realized that was very unusual for him. I should've known that was the worst omen.

Then I remembered my dream about Bibury. I closed my eyes forcefully and tried to feel the peace of the countryside. That single thought sent chills down my spine, and it made me certain I was moaning in Luke's arms right at that moment, somewhere in another dimension, somewhere in another time sequence.

I knew my hippocampus was trying to get rid of the moment he had deliberately abandoned me.

"No, it can't have been deliberate. There must be another explanation. I have to find him."

I jumped and walked out of the room before Africa could stop me. She looked perplexed but didn't follow me. That relieved me and stunned me at the same time. The halls were empty and the air was heavy. That heaviness assured me I wasn't dreaming. I felt stifled, hobbled. I didn't know how I had arrived at the reception when the woman behind the desk turned to face me.

"Good morning; I mean, afternoon. I am Tessa Blake, room 298. I am looking for Luke Clayton. I understand he's staying here since Tuesday."

She looked confused. I realized I probably looked crazy, with puffed, tearful eyes that had mascara smeared all around.

"I am sorry, miss. Mister Clayton checked out early this morning."

"I see." I swallowed. My throat was dry. "What about Mister Abbey?"

"He must still be here. I'll try his room." she said, and picked up the phone.

I walked in circles, waiting for an answer. My eyes fixed on the door of the conference room. I pushed the door and looked for clues. Nothing. Not even a single spare leaflet on the floor. It was as if nothing had ever happened. The room looked smaller. It seemed easier to walk across.

"Miss Blake? Miss?"

The receptionist appeared behind me looking perplexed and worried. I realized she was waiting for me to face her. My vestibulo-occular reflexes didn't function anymore. My body didn't respond to stimuli of any kind. I wondered what the difference between being numb and being dead was.

"Mister Abbey proposed meeting you in the cafeteria in five minutes. Should I tell him you will be there?"

"Yes." I said as I turned around.

The difference was that, being numb, I still had time to sort everything out. A lot of time, in fact. I rushed back to my room. Africa wasn't there anymore. I found a note on my night table that said she had gone out to see what the papers where saying.

I looked for anything that could prove that the research was all mine. I didn't manage to unlock my computer, but fortunately technology and I had never been very close friends - excepting microscopes, obviously - and I still found classic, printed copies of everything I did quite more reliable.

But apparently I hadn't been careful enough to bring a printed copy of the final version to New York. Anyway, I took the folder with all steps I had given to the solution, and I dashed downstairs.

What did you think of this chapter? Do you think Luke will be back? Let me know in the comments! I am entering the Wattys2016, so, if you enjoyed it, please don't forget to vote :)

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