The Calum (10 page)

Lovie skimmed the stubble
on his jaw with her fingertips and slipped a hand into his hair.
His fingers tightened around a handful of hers.

Duff pressed her body to
his, and she sighed into his mouth. She felt him, hard against her
belly.

They fit together like
chocolate and peanut butter. Like Ross and Rachel. Like scotch and
rooftop kisses.

His arm banded around her
waist, nearly lifting her off her feet as the kiss deepened into
something more than mere lust. It was magical.

A shout from the doorway
broke the spell.

Duff leaned away, a
shocked expression on his face. After a breath, he quickly set her
down and removed his hands from her body. The cold air rushed back
in with
a
vengeance
. Duff took a step back, but his
eyes were on her mouth.

Lovie could still feel his
lips there.

Indecision was written all
over his face.

Yeah, me too.

“
Duffy where are ye, ye
bawheed? Pizza’s ready.” Hamish yelled from the top of the steps.
His voice bounced off the eaves, grating against her
ears.

Duff scrambled back.
“I’m...sorry, I didna mean to...”

“
No worries.” Lovie cursed
her breathy laugh. She pulled the blanket tight around her. “Heat
of the moment.”

“
Right.” Duff frowned, but
his eyes drank her in. “Yeah. Look, we should-”

“
Right.”

She followed him back down
the steps, torn between thanking Hamish for saving her from herself
or killing Hamish for, well, cockblocking.

Discoveries

Lovie hated the smell of
nail polish, but they’d somehow ended up in her room after dinner.
It was the same back home. Jo blew on the nails of her right hand.
She’d painted them candy apple red, the same color as Hamish’s
convertible, apparently. It matched the red in the paisley quilt on
the bed. “I think Duff’s into you.”

Lovie looked away, the
blood rising in her cheeks. “Nah,
he’s just being
nice, keeping
me
company while
you work your magic on The Calum.”

She flipped through
a worn,
leather-bound book containing the history of the estate.
Judging by the portraits of his ancestors, Hamish was the product
of some very strong genes. His family had a long history. In
another time, he might actually have been a laird or
something.

“
Nice? The way he looks at
you,
he’s being
more than nice.” Jo’s freshly painted toes nudged
her thigh. “Did something happen between the two of
you?”

“
What?” A sharp edge slid
along Lovie’s finger as she flipped the page. “Ouch! No! Why would
you-? W-What about you and The Calum?”

“
It’s
Hamish.
” Jo said his name as
if it were
title
. “And no. Not yet.”

“
Are you playing
coy?”

“
Believe it or not, no.”
She shrugged. “
He
is.”

Lovie laughed. “You’re
kidding.”

“
I know, right?” Jo gaped.
“He flirts like crazy, but whenever I hint about taking it to the
next level, he backs off.”

“
Well, huh.”

Jo went over to an ornate,
maybe even gilded, full-length mirror. It was one of two in
the small
room.
“Maybe he’s not attracted to me.”

Not attracted? Jo had to
be suffering from some latent body dysmorphic disorder. She turned
this way and that, assessing her near-perfect figure.

Lovie sucked in her
stomach.

“
Do you think he might be
gay?”

“
I don’t know,” she
replied. “I doubt it. He seems way too interested in your
tits.”

Jo turned to her,
grinning. “Really? Not that there’d be anything wrong if he were
gay, but it would explain a lot.” She checked out her ass in the
mirror. “Oh! Maybe he and Duff are-”

“
No, Duff’s straight.” It
came out more forcefully than Lovie meant it to.

Jo glanced back at her,
puzzled. “Are you sure? You said he
has
n’t made a move.”

Oh, he’d made a move. Or
she had. Either way, Lovie didn’t trust herself not to blurt it
out. She slammed the book shut and went over to the bookshelf that
sat by the window. It was old. Everything there was.

“
I’m pretty
sure.”

“
Well, I only have a few
days. If I can’t get Hamish to make a play, this whole trip will
have been a bust.”

“
We could always go down
to Glasgow early. Find another Calum for you there.”

“
What? After all of
the
effort
I’ve put into this one? Hell no. I will crack this nut
tonight. Literally.” She bit her lip, grinning.

“
Um, ewww.”

“
Hey, I was going to say
‘suck him off’ but you’re such a lady.” Jo curtsied.

Lovie laughed. “You’re
disgusting sometimes.”

“
It’s why you love me.”
With one last flounce of her hair, Jo went to the door. “Wish me
luck!”

Worried, Lovie grabbed her
hand. “Just be careful, ‘kay?”

“
That’s my middle name.”
Jo winked. The door closed softly behind her.

Lovie flopped onto the bed
and stared at the ceiling. She needed to see Duff. What happened
between them earlier, whether it was wrong or not, was amazing. Her
lips still tingled from that kiss. She hoped that they would get
another moment alone to explore whatever there was brewing between
them. Not that she would ever see him again after the week was
through, but they’d formed a kind of friendship. She hoped, at
least, to stay in touch with him.

Oh, who was she kidding?
She wanted that boy, and bad.

Lovie checked her hair in
the less-ornate mirror. After trying to run a brush through it, she
gave up. If ever there was a lost cause.

Duff’s room was only two
doors down from hers, but her palms were sweaty by the time she
walked the fifteen feet of carpeted hallway. She took a breath,
rubbed them on her thighs and knocked. Booty calls were so not her
thing.

Duff opened the door
wearing nothing but his jeans. They were unbuttoned and, just like
that, so was Lovie’s brain.

Holy mother of
pearl.
His chest was a wall of muscle. His
stomach a rippling, slalom course of manly goodness. An inky trail
of hair led down from his navel and disappeared below his open
waistband. When she lifted her eyes to his, one eyebrow was arched
over his piercing blue gaze.

He had the kind of eyes
that smiled even when he wasn’t.

He let out a heavy sigh.
“Lovie. Whadya want? Come to ask me more questions?”

“
What? No, I...uh...I-”
His reaction to her appearance at his door was markedly cold for
someone who had his tongue down her throat a couple of hours ago.
Had she imagined the intensity of their moment on the
roof?

Her mind went blank. What
was the proper protocol for a botched booty call? She stood there,
hoping for rescue.
Throw a girl a
bone…er.

He sucked his teeth and
backed away, swinging the door wider for her to enter. It was the
only welcome he offered. Lovie stepped gingerly into the
room.

Duff’s space was larger
than hers, furnished more like a lived-in room than a guest room.
The bed was a king to her queen. An armoire filled one wall, and
there was only one mirror which sat atop a dresser. Lovie walked
over and ran her fingers over the armoire’s intricate
carvings.

“
This is
gorgeous.”

The door closed with a
thump. She looked back to find Duff leaning against it, his legs
crossed at the ankles.

“
It’s an antique. Probably
original to the house.” He shoved his hands into his pockets.
Beside him, on a small table, sat the bottle of Scotch from the
roof. It was much closer to being empty.

Lovie was taken aback.
“Are you drunk?”

“
No nearly enough.” Duff
rubbed his eyes. He seemed so tired.

“
Did something
happen?”

His head popped up, eyes
wide. “How can you ask me that?”

Suddenly Duff was on his
feet and moving toward her. It wasn’t that she was afraid of him,
she wasn’t. It was the intensity of the look on his face that
backed her up into the armoire.

“
What happened on the roof
should never have happened.”

Oh. Duff’s words would
have been a cold splash of water on her simmering desire if the
hunger in his face weren’t quite so apparent. He still wanted
her.

He dropped his eyes, and
Lovie had to catch her breath. Her lungs burned as if she’d been
underwater too long.

“
Why not? Am I that bad a
kisser?” She tried to cover with humor, putting her hand on her hip
to hide the shaking.

“
Because you and I have
got
nothin’
in common. And I know your type, you canna just be about the
sex.” His voice, deeper than before, rumbled from his chest like
thunder.

Lovie straightened. “Are
you saying that because I’m a woman?”

Duff lifted his chin in
response.

“
You don’t think women
just want to get
laid
sometimes
?”

“
O’course they do, but not
you, hen.” His eyes swept her from head to toe, something that -
five minutes ago - would have dropped her panties to the floor.
Now, it just pissed her off.

“
What makes me so
different?”

“
Ye just are!”

“
Like you know
me!”

“
You sure as bloody hell
don’t know me, do ye?” He glared at her.

What had changed since the
roof, other than the conspicuous consumption of the twenty-year-old
whiskey?

“
Asking all of
yer
questions,
like we’re on a bloody quiz show.
Diggin’
up me past.” He barked out a
laugh. “Is that your idea of seduction, because I’d havta say yer
sorely lacking.”

“
You’re drunk.”

“
So what if I am? What’s
it to you,
Luuvie
?”

Lovie seethed. “You’re an
asshole.”

Duff smiled and that
stopped her short.

Okay…
Maybe he’d been hoping to get a rise out of her, but to what
end? She cocked her head, studying him.

“
Or at least you want me
to think you are.”

He frowned and stepped
back. Something like fear flickered behind his eyes. “Come
again?”

Lovie knew she was on to
something. “You’re hiding.”

He laughed out loud then
and crossed his arms, his biceps bulging. “From what, pray
tell?”

“
I dunno, but you shroud
yourself in sarcasm to hide your...your...cherophobic
tendencies.”

“
My what? D’you just call
me a cherub?”

“
No, a
cherophobe!
It’s someone who’s
afraid to be happy. Someone who willingly sits under a thousand ton
emotional tower, waiting for it to collapse. Almost hoping for
it!”

Duff’s eyes
narrowed,
his
lip curling. “Don’t tell me. You took a Psychology course at
university.”

Actually, she had minored
in it. Lovie huffed with indignation. She would have made a great
therapist, dammit. “That’s not the point.”

“
It’s entirely the point!”
Duff brushed by her, reaching for the scotch. “You think you have
some rare insight into my psyche. Let me hand you a clue,
darlin’
, ye
don’t.” He took a swig, slamming the bottle back down. “Ye don’t
know me and, trust me, ye don’t want to.”

“
Because you’re, what,
dangerous? A loner? Some kinda bad wolf?” Lovie crossed her arms.
She was growing bored of his pity party. “You’re just a lost soul
determined to stay lost.”

“
Jesus, d’ye ever listen
to yerself?” Duff turned away from her and stalked toward the
window. “Since ye want to know all about me family history, I’ll
give ye the short version.” He faced her, bracing his arms inside
the window frame. They were really…
really
nice arms. And his six-pack had
come with two freebies. Wow.

Stay focused,
woman.

“
You want to know all
about me
ma
and
me
da
and me
fucked up childhood, and all the reasons why I stay the fuck away
from Inverness, aye?” Lovie gave him a short nod, uncertain if she
really did want to know, now that he seemed inclined to tell
her.

Too late to back out
now.