Bad Boys In Kilts (23 page)

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Authors: Donna Kauffman

BOOK: Bad Boys In Kilts
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“I—you—thank you,” she stuttered, clearly embarrassed by her near-breakdown. There was a small sniff, then she pulled her chin from his touch and gathered her wits about her once more. “Maybe that’s not such a bad idea. I’m ... not myself. I’m sorry.”
“Dinnae fash yerself, lass,” he assured her. And the side of him that saw lambs into the world and cared for his flock, Jinty included, but rarely beyond, found itself extending to include her as well. She was most definitely a lost sheep. And for the span of this night, she was his to care for. “I think I’ve tamed the worst of it,” he said, offering her back the comb. “You should be able to reach the rest okay.”
She took the comb, her expression so grateful it made his heart ache a little. “Thank you. For—for more than you know.”
“Come now,” he teased, trying to give her space to recoup, “we Scots are famed for our friendly hospitality.” He smiled. “I canno’ say the same for our food, though.”
“I’ve had no complaints,” she said, relaxing a little again. “I’m from the Midwest. Meat and potatoes are staples of life there. As far as I’m concerned, the simpler the meal, the better.”
“The Midwest. Farming, perhaps?”
“Not my family, but yes. Missouri,” she offered, when he didn’t speak right away. “Small town. So I know how nice it is to have your peace and solitude.”
“It’s been some time since you’ve had that then, I take it?”
She didn’t freeze up again, but the wary look made an immediate reappearance. “Yes. A very long time, it seems.”
“So you crossed the big pond looking for it here?”
“Something like that.”
“Not entirely successful, I take it. Given the flight today in your car.”
“No,” she agreed. “Not much luck at all. I’m not sure it’s available for me.”
“Well, you have it here,” he told her. “Other than my annoying, probing questions, anyway.”
“
You
have it here,” she corrected him. “I’m just borrowing it for the night. But I’m more thankful for that one night than you can possibly know.”
He held her gaze for the space of several long seconds, and then the offer was made before he could think on it a moment longer. “I’ve room,” he told her. “And I dinnae think my peace and solitude will be shattered too much by the addition of another soul.”
She turned, stared at him. “What do you mean?”
He hadn’t planned this, had planned in fact to have her gone within twenty-four hours. But that was a lifetime ago, too. Before he was intrigued. Before he was entranced. Before his muse had made a very unexpected reappearance. “I mean, you can stay here. For however long you’d like.”
“But I can’t just—”
He cut her off. Because he’d seen that instant spark of hope in her eyes. And because he’d felt the same spark inside of him as well. He didn’t claim to understand it, but he wanted the chance to try.
“Yes, you
can
just.” He stood and extended her a hand. “Sometimes it really can be just that simple.”
She looked at him, so wary, yet so obviously wanting to believe. When she put her hand in his and stood, he knew at once he’d been right. It really could be that simple. Just as he knew, and surprisingly accepted, that it was quite likely nothing was going to be simple, ever again.
Chapter 7
“
S
imple,” Bree echoed. She wanted to laugh at the mere suggestion that anything in her life could ever be such again. But he was holding her hand, and looking into her eyes ... and standing so close. It had been all she could do not to squirm the entire time he’d had his hands in her hair. If he had any idea the kind of thoughts she was harboring about him, especially when he’d been nothing but a gentleman ... she wondered if the invitation to stay would still be open. “You don’t know what you’re offering. It isn’t that simple.”
“You’re right. I don’t know the whole story. I only know you have one. And that it seems as if you could use a break.”
“You should know,” she started, but he lifted his free hand, halting her.
“If you want tae tell me, fine. But don’t feel ye have to. You’re safe here, I can tell you that much.”
“No one is after me, or anything like that.” Well, the entire free world was hounding at her heels, but that wasn’t quite what he’d been intimating.
He pushed the hair back from her face, and it made her breath catch in her throat. “You’re runnin’ from something, Bree Sullivan. I’m just offering you a place to stop for a bit and collect yourself. That’s all.” Then, as if realizing he was touching her with far more familiarity than he should be, he dropped his hand.
She almost sighed in disappointment and had to catch herself. He was right about one thing, she did need a break. She did need a place to stop and gather her thoughts, decide how she wanted to go forward. But while she’d expected or hoped to find some little out-of-the-way bed and breakfast or something, she hadn’t quite counted on this. Much less him.
She was intensely attracted to him—there was no point denying that any longer. But now was not the time to be adding any complications to a life already far too complicated for one person to manage. Simple, he’d said. And yet she knew there was nothing simple about her life ... or about this man. Staying under his roof might help her to solve some of her problems in the short term ... but it would be sorely tempting her to create a few new ones at the same time.
“I’m an author,” she said, quite abruptly. If she was going to stay here—and she realized even as the thought formed in her head that she’d already decided she wanted to—he had to know exactly what he was getting into. At least as it pertained to the life she’d led up until the moment she’d spun out into that gully. “I had a book out, about a year and a half ago, that sold very well.”
She looked at him, waited to see if he put the name and the book together, but he simply continued to look at her. Could it truly be that she’d not only stumbled across a decent, generous man, but one who truly had no idea who she was, or anything about the phenomenon that
Summer Lake
had become?
“It did so well, in fact, that I became something of a celebrity. I haven’t had much in the way of a private life ever since. And ... and now the world is waiting for me to follow things up, and everyone is getting very impatient with me. Only ...” She let the sentence drift, as the heavy weight of what awaited her out there lowered itself once again onto her narrow shoulders ... and pressed heavily against her heart.
He tipped her chin up, and she belatedly realized they were still standing deep inside one another’s personal space. And that she rather liked it. A lot. The part of her brain that was rational knew it was just a human reaction to something—or someone, in this case—providing much-needed shelter and comfort. But the rest of her, the parts that were trembling and quivering, knew she wanted to be far deeper in this particular man’s personal space than she already was. And for reasons that had absolutely nothing to do with seeking safe harbor. There was nothing remotely safe about the way his mere proximity was tripping every sensory alert she had, and a few she’d had no idea she possessed.
“The expectations we put on ourselves are usually what doom us the fastest,” he told her, his voice hardly more than a murmur. And then there was the way his gaze dropped to her mouth, before moving back to her eyes. Could it be he was having those same thoughts?
The very idea made her press her thighs together against the instant need that sprang to life between them. Ridiculous, really, to assume such a thing. Certainly, he wasn’t having the same kinds of thoughts she was. She looked a fright and had been nothing but a nuisance to him.
“I canno’ imagine having the weight of the world’s expectations piled on top of my own,” he went on.
His fingers traced lightly along her jaw. She went perfectly still. He ... the way he was looking at her ... had he seen something in her eyes? Was it wrong of her to want, almost desperately, for that to be true?
When she didn’t move away from him, he slid his fingers beneath the weight of the hair on her neck. “But at the moment, I can only seem to think of one thing and one thing only ...”
Her breath caught when he pressed lightly against the nape of her neck, tipping her head back.
“And what would that be?” she asked, amazed she’d found the words at all.
“Finding out what you taste like.”
Her heart was pounding much as it had earlier, in the car, when she was trapped. Only now it wasn’t in fear and trepidation ... but the rather exquisite torture of anticipation. If she allowed herself to think at all in that moment, she’d pull free, push him away. He was certainly giving her plenty of time.
So she simply refused to think.
Life had been too hard for too long, and she’d felt so guilty for hating what, by all rights, was a fairy tale existence most people could only dream of having. But the truth was, she hated that life. She wanted to be left alone to write, to pursue the craft she loved without all the hoopla and pressure. Right now she didn’t want to think about any of it. For far too long now, she’d felt very alone in a constant sea of people. Swimming in chaos and trying not to drown.
It had taken almost drowning for real for her to step outside of that chaos. And into the arms of the man standing in front of her. One man, surrounded by nothing but serenity and peace ... even in the midst of a raging storm. He was like a life preserver being thrown right into her hands. She could hardly be blamed for wanting to grab on to it—him—and hold on tight. The rest could sort itself out later.
“So why don’t you?” she told him, shocking herself, but the hell with that, too. “Find out, I mean.”
“I shouldn’t,” he said. “The offer to stay was no’ contingent on this, ye know that.”
“So, if I asked you to stop, would you?” she asked.
He instantly started to lift his head, to pull back. Without thinking, she reached up and slid her hand into the thick mane at the back of his neck, not pulling him closer, but keeping him where he was.
“What if I’m curious, too?” she asked. “What if I’ve been thinking about this, too, ever since ...” She broke off then, feeling her skin heat up. Images of him, soaked to the skin, all but completely naked, flashed through her mind, and she realized that no matter how worldly wise she’d become over the past year and a half ... in the ways that mattered at the moment, there was still a lot of small-town librarian left in her.
His mouth kicked up a little at the corners. “Ever since when?” He shifted slightly, put a hand on her hip and held her close to him without actually allowing their bodies to make contact.
Just the way he moved, the easy confidence he had in the way he touched her, moved her ... made the ache spread. Words might be her life, but speaking them out loud to a man who was looking like he wanted to devour her whole, was suddenly impossible for her. She tugged his head a little closer. “Since I had enough sense to know better ... and still wanted to, anyway.”
His eyes grew darker and his fingers dug into her hip as his grip tightened. “I feel as if I’m taking advantage and I don’t do that.”
Take advantage
, she wanted to scream. Couldn’t he sense how rare it was for her to be reckless? She didn’t want him to be all reasonable and levelheaded, she didn’t want to stop and think.
“I know I shouldn’t, but ... there’s something about you, Bree Sullivan. You’ve been through a lot.”
“You have no idea.”
“So, we probably shouldn’t.”
“Probably.”
“Are ye tellin’ me to stop, then?”
She gave him a slight shake of her head, her gaze never once leaving his. “I’d really rather you didn’t. I have been through a lot. I feel like I’ve been living my life for a whole lot of other people, because I feel I owe it to them for all they’ve given me. Even if I didn’t exactly ask for it, or expect it. It’s been a very long time since I did anything that was just for me, and to hell with what everyone else wanted. I took off this morning knowing I needed to get away, to stop the world and get off, at least long enough to ask myself some hard questions about what I want, about what I need. And where I want to go from this point forward.”
“So ye don’t need me crowding ye, makin’ demands—”
“What I need,” she said, with surprising force, “is to do whatever I damn well please. I’ve been so micromanaged for so long, I don’t even know myself any longer. I don’t want to overthink things, I don’t want to analyze. I just want to feel. I want to do what feels good and right and natural, without worrying to death about who might think what if I do this, or don’t do that. I just want, for once, to follow my instincts and the hell with everything else.”
He surprised her with a sudden grin that made his eyes twinkle in such a devilish way, she should have had immediate doubts. Yet, all it did was make her want him more. After all, if she was going to jump, she might as well jump big.
“If your instincts are tellin’ ye to come after me, ye might be more battle-weary than ye think.”
His teasing just made him all the more attractive to her newly discovered renegade spirit. He made it easy to respond in kind. “I don’t know about that,” she countered. “I think I’m getting a second wind.”
“Are ye now,” he responded, the twinkle still there, but his voice had dropped to a murmur ... as his gaze once again dropped to her mouth. “I’ll have ye know we’re both playin’ with fire here.”
“I can stand the heat,” she parried, secretly thrilled by her ability to do so. He called to something inside of her, and she discovered a side to herself she hadn’t known she possessed. A somewhat playful, demanding spirit she could never have owned up to before. And she liked it. Quite a lot. Perhaps if she’d been more in touch with this side of herself, she’d have been more insistent about creating a better balance to her life in the past year or so, instead of being a doormat to everyone who made a demand on her time, feeling as if she owed everybody everything for the success they’d made her into.
He tugged her an inch closer. “I meant what I said,” he told her, his tone a bit more gruff, and a bit more rough with need. “I’ll stop if ye but give me the word. You’ve found yer haven, but that does no’ mean ye have to let yer host—”
She took the final step and closed the remaining space between them, pressing her body against his. A small moan slipped out when she felt the proof of his desire for her pressing rigidly into her belly. “We’re consenting adults.” She looked up into his eyes. “I’m consenting, Tristan.”
His eyes went even darker, if that were possible, and she felt him twitch, where he was trapped between their bodies. “I like the way my name sounds on your lips, with that accent of yours.”
She smiled. “I don’t have the accent, you do. In fact, it’s probably the only reason I’ve fallen under your spell.” He was so much fun to tease, and it came so easily to her, she should be shocked. And a part of her was. But it felt like she’d been set free, to romp and play and be completely herself without fear of reprisal, very public reprisal. No, this was private and personal and for no one other than the two of them, as it should be. It was intoxicating, to be certain. And far too much fun to waste a second worrying about whether she should indulge or not.
“Is that so?” He grinned again and moved against her, eliciting another little gasp of awareness from her. “I suppose we’ll just have to see about that, now won’t we?”
“I suppose we will,” she breathed. And in that moment, the rest of the world fell away. For now, her existence was based exclusively on herself and Tristan, and the very private, exquisitely intimate world they were about to explore together. “So, what are we waiting for?”

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