Laird of the Highlands: International Billionaires IX: The Scots (16 page)

The sound of her warm urging went through him like a straight shot of Ross whiskey. For a moment, he thought about rearing up to take her mouth again, but his brain worked now, barely, and he had some wits about him.

Give to her.

His hand lifted, slowly, as he sank to his knees in front of her. His cock roared its disapproval, still, the cool air on his lower body was a good thing.

His focus went clear.

She hummed.

He was doing this right.

Slipping the robe’s belt apart, he kept his gaze firmly attached to what his hands were doing. Until…

Until…

The robe dropped apart, leaving the length of her bare to his stare.

Lorne had seen his share of porn. No boy hanging with his group of nerdy, horny college mates would have escaped the avalanche of magazines with the centerfolds and the twenty-minute videos starring impressive breasts and wet pussies.

He’d never seen anything like Ceri.

That amazing collarbone was a prelude to the music of the rest of her body. Her breasts rose, a lush expanse of white female, tipped with rosebuds. Her waist curved in and then out into hips made for his hands. Her belly looked soft and yet slender, like a pillow made for his head.

His gaze dropped to the juncture of her thighs and everything he’d ever learned or known or remembered went white.

White as her plump thighs.

He took in a breath, trying to find his brain and instead, all he got was more of her.

The scent of her sex. The heat of her want.

Her dark curls fluttered as he gasped the breath out.

“Lorne.”

She did that to his name again. The thing that tickled down his arms and legs, down his spine and his cock.

Lornnnne.

“What should I do?” he said to her sex. “Where do I start?”

Her laugh came once more. But it wasn’t the laugh she’d made on the rock or the sexy laugh she’d done in his bedroom. This laugh held something he couldn’t define, other than to say it made him feel like he stood ten feet tall. That he was capable of taking on these womanly valleys and mountains lying before him.

He glanced up to meet her gaze.

And just like the laugh, her eyes weren’t goldenrod or red dirt. Her eyes weren’t even a color he could define.

Other than they told him one thing.

He had her.

* * *

C
eri had thought
this would be easy.

She knew sex. Lorne Ross clearly didn’t.

She would have the power. He would be the supplicant.

She would get her fix of good sex she’d been wanting for the last five years, hell for her entire life. Her enemy would give her this pleasure.

Then, he’d be driven far from her. Far from her castle and her estate and far from her need and desire. She’d go back to living for her herbs and her brother. Safe in her glass garden house and her little cottage.

His slate-blue gaze locked with hers and a rumble of doubt at her conclusions ran through her. “Never mind my questions. I’ve got this. I’ve been studying.”

His words made no sense and yet, a bubble of amusement exploded inside making her chuckle. “What?”

“Studying.” He shifted his gaze back to her curls.

Her chuckle went to laughter. When she was naked in front of a man and vulnerable in a way she’d never been, she laughed. That was astonishing. Horribly, deliciously astonishing. And also troubling. Her doubts about this man and how easily he could be discarded rose in her chest, making her heart beat a frantic staccato.

He looked at her again, his gaze narrowing. “Don’t laugh at me.”

“I’m not laughing at you.” This was so true, she nearly gasped the words. Her heart banged harder in her chest. “I guess I might be laughing at myself.”

His head cocked at her admission and the blue of his eyes softened. “Don’t be scared.”

Her truth. One of several she kept well hidden from everyone and the world. How had Lorne Ross come so close to her to find this inside? To carve this piece of her out and hand it to her like a gift rather than what it really was—a bomb. “Perhaps we shouldn’t—”

“Och. No.” His expression turned fierce. “Not when we’ve come to this point.”

She shifted, suddenly feeling the hard wood under her. “I don’t know—”

“Listen.” He leaned closer, his one word whispering on her abdomen. “As I told ye, I’ve studied.”

“Studied what?” She finally said when he’d gone quiet for several seconds, focusing on the skin of her stomach.

“Porn.” His gaze drifted to her curls. “I aim to show ye, I can give ye pleasure.”

Another bubble of amusement escaped her. “Porn?”

“Aye.” A glance of blue came her way before he focused on her body once more. “And women. What they want and need.”

“You’ve been with other women?” The thought shocked her, because she’d been almost certain he hadn’t been with anyone else. His frantic, first kiss and unintended ejaculation had told her so. For some reason, his virginity had made him even more desirable.

Clean and new and untouched by ugly human reality. That’s what he’d represented to her.

His auburn lashes closed. “No.”

The confession cost him, she could tell in the tight line of his shoulders. A tender part of her heart she hadn’t known existed, went soft. “Lorne—”

Those eyes of his flashed open, a brilliant blue of determination. “But I aim to show ye, it doesn’t matter.”

He went right to the core of her, making her groan. He burrowed into her curls and his tongue and lips curled around her clit as if he’d been waiting for this moment all his life. He wasn’t sloppy or tentative like a man who didn’t have experience.

He gave to her. He gave everything.

Ceri went limp on the table, her body sagging on the wooden slats, her head thrown back, her eyes closing.

The pleasure. The delirious flash of pure pleasure.

He sucked on her as if she were a passionfruit. The lapping sounds of his lovemaking made her head buzz with need. The soft brush of his beard across her inner thighs created threads of tingling lust throughout her body.

It had never been like this for her. Never.

Every one of the times she’d played her part for Gareth went dim. The times she’d pumped him with her hand to get him hard. The times she’d ridden him so he could see her tits bounce. The times she’d lain under him, wondering what she’d do in the garden in the morning. Her husband had never knelt before her and gave. He’d only taken. Not once, during any of those encounters with her husband, had she experienced an orgasm.

Not once.

Lorne’s rawboned fingers slipped from her knees to the juncture of her thighs, smoothing over her hot skin like a cool breeze.

She shuddered.

Then he went under, scooping her butt into his strong hands. All the while, he kept licking and sucking, making her wet with his mouth and her want.

Her legs hung down, her toes touching the hard stone.

“Ceri,” he whispered into her curls. “Put your legs on my shoulders.”

She couldn’t take it in. How he’d taken her into his control, how he’d taken her body into his mastery. How she’d lost any sense of power. In its place was only pleasure.

“Ceri.” His dangerously gentle voice wafted on the skin of her thighs. “Your legs.”

Her legs were his to command. Lifting them, she slid onto his wool-clad shoulders, embracing his head with her naked flesh.

He returned to his sucking.

Time fell away into the mists of desire and need. She opened her eyes, taking in the beauty of this man. His fire hair, the red-gold curls lying on her white skin. His straight brows furrowed in concentration, his dark auburn lashes sweeping down on his freckled skin. Her enemy on his knees, a supplicant in front of her.

Yet, she was at his mercy.

She’d always been quiet when having sex. Gareth hadn’t wanted her distracting him and she hadn’t had much to inspire her to scream or moan. So she’d been quiet.

This time was different. In every way.

He nosed farther in, his hands positioning her so he could flick his tongue at her entry.

The moan rose from her throat before she could stop it.

“Ah,” he murmured into her wet lips. “Ye like that.”

“Lorne,” she groaned his name.

His shoulders trembled, and for a moment, she remembered his vulnerability, his inexperience. But then he went back at her, licking up the length of her lips to her clit.

She made noise. Quite a lot of it. Later, she noted vaguely, she would be embarrassed. Right now, though, in the fire of his attention, the only thing she could do was moan and groan out her need.

Her enemy settled into a rhythm, rolling his lips and tongue back and forth over her most sensitive area. Her nails dug into the rough wood edge of the table as she arched into his mouth.

The orgasm flashed through her like a firestorm.

All her muscles went tight. All the blood in her body went hot. All the breath in her lungs froze.

Then her cry of fulfillment echoed from the glass walls of her garden house.

Ceri drifted into consciousness to find him still kneeling in front of her. His eyes were open now as he laid a string of kisses along her inner thigh. He met her blurred gaze and grinned.

The grin was wide and joyful. His grin made her want to smile back.

She frowned at him, instead. Straightening, she whipped her robe shut and dropped her legs from his shoulders. Embarrassment, the emotion she’d known was in her future, came at her like a lightning bolt. Her entire body flushed.

His grin fell, his mouth going slack in surprise. “Ye liked it.”

Sidling along the edge of the table, she jumped to her feet and turned to face him. “I want you to leave.”

He didn’t move from his kneeling position. A puzzled frown crossed his face. “Ye liked it,” he repeated.

“Leave.” She waved at him, not willing to leave herself until she was sure he was gone from this place, her place.

Finally, he stood. For the first time, she really took note of what he wore. Again, he was the Lorne Ross that fit. His light wool jumper was dark green, making his hair glow like a blaze of glory in contrast. He wore sturdy boots. His jeans rode low on his hips and were brand new.

He was still fully erect.

Glancing away, she focused on her plants. “I want you to go to the castle.”

“Ye want me.”

A bubble of amusement popped into her irritation. The man was so doggedly on point. And also correct. She did want him. She wanted to see him naked and see him groan with pleasure, too. She wanted to take him and use him until she was satisfied.

But tonight, he’d given too much.

He’d given her a bliss no man had ever given her. He’d given her an orgasm when only she had been able to do this for herself. He’d given her his lips and tongue and attention. He’d given her too much. Fear raced around in her head like a mad hare running for his life.

She was scared of him. Scared of his money and his power, and more than anything, scared of what he could give her. “Go,” she croaked.

“Ceri.” He didn’t move, yet she felt as if he reached his rawboned hand out to her and caught her chin.

Jerking around, she glared at him.

His slate-blue eyes weren’t blank. They were alive with curiosity. As if she were one of his codes he was determined to understand. “What’s wrong?” he said, a tender lilt in the words.

Everything.

For a moment, she wished she’d met this man when she’d been eighteen and as fresh and new as he was. But she held a scarred heart in her chest, a heart that wasn’t on offer, a heart that no longer trusted.

“Please.” She hated to beg, yet she had no choice. It would be worse to burst into tears in front of her enemy and give him more weapons. “Go.”

Confusion swam into those eyes of his, replacing the curiosity. He shrugged before leaning down to grab the tie for his hair. “All right.” He fisted the red curls into a bun and wrapped it tight. “I’ll go.”

She put her arms around her waist and kept her glare on her face. Swinging around, he headed for the door. She tried not to notice how his butt and thighs filled out his jeans or how broad his back was. Her eyes slammed shut, but the image of him remained.

The glass door creaked open.

“Ceri.”

She wouldn’t look at him.

“I’m going.” The words came in his gentle, dangerous voice. “For now.”

“
I
think
you should go to Edinburgh.”

Lorne stared at the morning sun as it crested the top of Ben Ross. The light filtered into the garden, like fingers of gold sliding through green life. It reminded him of the coding he’d done overnight since he’d been unable to sleep. The rich gold and green matched the colors he’d used on the hero’s breastplate.

“Did you hear me?”

His gaze lingered on the flowerbeds before swinging to look at the glass house. The panes twinkled in the sunlight, flashing white stars into his eyes.

“Lorne.” Doc’s voice echoed from the mobile phone, irritated. “Are you there?”

She hadn’t come out at her usual time. It was almost seven a.m. and yet she still hadn’t come out of the cottage. Worry curled into his gut. Along with astonishment. He hadn’t worried about anyone in years. Not since his mum died and he’d left his da because he had to.

“I’m going to hang up if you don’t say something.”

“Why Edinburgh?” he finally said.

“Because I need to get you to leave there before you do something wrong.”

“She hasn’t come out yet.” The worry had sprung into him at two minutes after six. The woman was predictable in her habits and he’d been tracking her for days. She always got to work on her garden at six a.m.

“What? What do you mean?”

“She always comes out into the garden at six a.m.”

An amused chuckle rumbled from the phone. “Maybe she decided to sleep in. It does happen on occasion.”

“I think I should go to the cottage and check on her.”

“No, you should not.”

“Why not?” He’d called Hugh as soon as he’d returned to the castle last night. He hadn’t understood what had happened. Why she’d suddenly gone cold when he’d been doing so well?

“As I said last night, you need to give her some time.”

He frowned at his land. That had made no sense to him hours ago and made no sense now. He’d been making progress with Ceri and he wanted to continue. He’d barely begun to take all of her in. There was the flush of her skin he needed to detail. The taste of her nipples to investigate. The feel of her waist going to her lush hips that needed his hand to trace into his memory.

That didn’t even cover her mouth and her kisses.

That didn’t even cover the moment he’d come inside her. For the first time. Then over and over again.

“You scared her last night,” his friend continued. “I’m sure of it.”

Scared her? Just like he’d hurt her before?

This whole area of what went on between a man and a woman was fraught with far more pitfalls than he’d imagined.

When he’d studied porn, the photos and the videos, he’d paid careful attention to everything. Where on a woman’s body a man should touch. What a woman’s body did when it became excited. He’d also listened intently to his buddies when they talked about sex with their girlfriends. He’d catalogued the variety of ways a man could kiss and what kinds of touches women liked. He’d spent quite a bit of time making sure he’d committed this information to memory so he’d be ready.

Ready for Ceri
.

But this…this hurting and scaring…he didn’t know anything about any of this. Porn didn’t tell a man about emotions, and his buddies hadn’t talked about the delicate feelings going on in their relationships.

His head began to throb.

“You need to go to Edinburgh.”

“Why?” That made no sense, either. He’d visited the city as a child several times. His mum liked to shop and his da enjoyed the shows and culture. Lorne had never particularly liked the town. When he’d been young, he’d found it overwhelming. Now, now that he was used to London, he assumed he’d find it boring.

“Because you need to give her some time,” Hugh stated. “And you need to buy her something.”

“I don’t want to give her some time. I want to see her now.” He wanted to see her naked again. There was so much he still needed to do with her. The variations that had run through his head last night when he’d lain in bed, wide awake, had staggered him. He doubted he’d be able to do all of them within the short time he had with the woman. “I don’t have enough time as it is.”

“What do you mean by that?” Doc’s voice went sharp.

“I mean I heard from Reid.” He kept his gaze on the cottage, willing her to appear. “The court accepted my challenge to the will.”

“And?”

He frowned at his mobile before putting it back to his ear. “And this means Ceri Llewellyn will soon be gone.”

“Her last name is Olwen.” Hugh’s voice filled with immediate annoyance. “It’s not like you to miss this detail.”

“She was married—”

“I know what you’re doing, old chap. It won’t work.”

His headache thrummed into his neck, making him sullen. Mouth tightening, he thought about hanging up.

“You’re trying to distance yourself from her,” his friend inserted before he could make the decision and execute. “It’s too late for that.”

“I just want to have sex with her.”

Doc’s sigh gusted down the line. “Keep telling yourself that.”

“I’m going to hang up now and go see where she is.”

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

Something in his partner’s tone stopped Lorne’s finger just when he was about to tap the phone off. “I don’t want to go to Edinburgh.”

“Do you want to have her in your bed?”

“Yes.” He leaned his forehead on the windowpane and scowled at her cottage, willing her to come out.

“Then do what I tell you to do, okay, Skiff? Don’t I know how to deal with the ladies?”

Yes, Hugh Brooks did. At Oxford, he’d been the one male every girl wanted. He’d been happy to oblige as many of them as he could. Once they’d landed in London and Gaes, Inc. had taken off, his partner had spent the last five years plowing through London females like he aimed to date every one of them. What astonished Lorne above anything else was how they all continued to love him. Even after he gave them the inevitable goodbye and danced on to the next one.

Hugh knew women.

“All right,” he muttered into the phone. “What do I do?”

“You go to Edinburgh today without saying anything to Ceri Olwen.”

He twisted around and stomped to his armoire.

“Did you hear me?”

“Aye.” Yanking the door open, he glared at his clothes. “I heard ye.”

“You spend the night there.”

His headache banged like a drum inside his head. “It only takes three hours to get there. I can drive there and back in one day.”

“You’re going to want to shop for a house in New Town.”

His hand stilled on the hanger holding his best shirt. “What?”

“You heard me.”

A sudden splash of loud voices rose in the background, telling Lorne his partner was at work. Doc had chosen to place his office in the middle of the pool of intern designers that came through their doors every quarter. The kids were deafening and intense, but his friend said they helped him keep a finger on the pulse of the industry.

A door slammed shut and the voices went quiet.

“Okay, now we can talk again,” Doc said.

“What do ye mean?” he growled into the phone. “I don’t need a place in Edinburgh.”

“Yes, you do. You’ll see that eventually. Plus, New Town is a better fit for you than the Old.”

He hated being confused. Rarely, did his friend ever put him through it. In his logical mind, he knew there must be a solid reason Hugh was doing this, yet everything inside him wanted to tell him to go to hell.

But Doc knew women.

And he wanted to have sex with Ceri.

Bending down, he yanked out his suitcase. “I’m going to the city to buy her something nice. That’s all.”

“Yes, that too.” His friend’s voice turned cheerful. “Good idea.”

“It was your idea, arsehole.”

“There’s my Scottish laddie with his fine temper.”

“I don’t have a temper.”

“With your red hair?”

A hoot echoed into his ear making his headache ten times worse. His seven college buddies, his team, his clan, always claimed he had a fiery temper that would flame into a bonfire eventually. Lorne had always answered these claims with stoic tolerance. Because he didn’t have a temper often, and usually it flashed only for a moment or two. He’d never understood what his friends were aiming at with this kind of nonsense.

“I’m packing,” he snarled.

“Excellent.” Hugh ignored the snarl. “I know a smart lady who sells property in Edinburgh. I’ll give her a call and set up an appointment for you tomorrow morning.”

“I’m not buying property.”

His friend whipped right by his surly statement. “I’ll call another lovely lady who is the manager of a grand hotel in the heart of Edinburgh. I’m sure she’ll have a room for your sorry soul.”

He stuffed his best shirt and suit into the suitcase and slammed it shut. “I’ll stay for one night, Doc, and then I’m coming back.”

“To Ceri.”

Problem of Ceri.

Solve Ceri.

To Ceri.

His headache shot into migraine territory, making him question the wisdom of driving in this condition. Still, he couldn’t code in this state and Doc’s warning about staying away from the woman rang in his ear. If he drove slowly and didn’t turn on the radio, he’d calm down soon.

“I’ll buy her something in the city, but—”

“Some pretty lingerie would be a good idea,” Doc suggested. “I’ll ask my Edinburgh lady friends and see if they have any suggestions.”

The thought of Ceri in tight lace and high heels swept through him like a Scottish gale. He stopped on the top of his stairs and closed his eyes to take in the picture and imprint it on his brain.

“Doing some imagining, Skiff?” His friend chuckled. “You’ve gone quiet.”

“Bugger off.” He opened his eyes and took the stairs two at a time.

“Give me a call when you get into town and I’ll have directions and contact information.”

“I’m not buying property.” Grabbing his keys off the Chippendale pier table, he went through the castle’s front doors and locked them behind him.

“Here’s the thing,” Doc responded. “With the new center opening in your area, it would be smart to open offices in Edinburgh.”

Lorne went through the calculations in his head as he strode to the Range Rover. Stuffing his suitcase in the backseat, he then climbed into the driver’s seat. By the time he’d snapped the seatbelt around him, he’d added up the profit and loss of Doc’s suggestion. “That wouldn’t be sound financially. We only need one office.”

“I knew you wouldn’t go for it,” his partner mumbled.

“Then why did ye suggest it?” The car’s engine rumbled to life.

Doc ignored the question and went at him with another side of the proposal. “Ceri strikes me as a woman who’d like to go to town once in awhile.”

His hands tightened on the wheel. “What?”

“She seems a bit out of place hidden in the wilds of Scotland.”

Punching on the gas, he swerved onto the long, paved road leading from his property to the highway. “She chose to live here so she could get at my da.”

“No, I don’t think that’s true.”

The confidence in Doc’s voice shook his own. “How do ye know?”

“As I said before, I did my own investigation on Ceri Olwen.”

He didn’t want to know anything about her past. He only wanted to understand her current habits enough so she’d let him have sex with her. Puzzling over Doc’s suggestion that this was something more, only made his headache worse. “Don’t tell me.”

“This isn’t like you, Skiff. To ignore facts.”

“The fact is I’m going to the city to buy her something nice and to give her some time.” He swerved onto the highway and realized he was driving too fast. Which told him this conversation needed to end soon or he’d likely get in an accident. “What I’m not doing is caring why she lives here or buying a property so she can have fun in a city.”

“Okay.”

The easy concession made Lorne frown. He’d learned to become wary when Doc turned complacent. “I’m not buying property.”

“You’ve said that.”

“I’m not.”

“Okay.”

He breathed in through his nose. “I’m hanging up now.”

“Talk to you soon.”

Doc’s phone clicked off and the image of his friend’s smirk flashed into his mind. Lorne glared at the highway and stepped on the gas.

He’d go to the city, buy something, and by tomorrow midday, he’d be back.

Back to getting Ceri.

* * *

L
orne Ross was leaving
. With luggage.

Ceri’s heart clanged inside her chest with joy. She told herself it was joy because she didn’t want to think it was anything else.

Was he going for good?

She peered through her cottage window to watch the Range Rover and its driver circle the parking lot before shooting off down the lane to the highway.

Gone.

Something jumped inside her that didn’t resemble joy at all, but she pushed it away and strode to the door. This morning, she’d hid. It was embarrassing to admit, yet she couldn’t deny what she’d done. She’d been afraid to go out into her garden on the chance he might come from his tower and flash his grin. And that she might be tempted again to do something stupid.