“Thank you,” I said as she gathered the plates in her hands.
I waited for Caleb to follow suit and was not surprised when Emily walked away without receiving a thank you from him.
“Why?” I took a huge gulp of champagne.
His eyebrows drew together. “Why what?”
“Why do you never say please or thank you?”
“I noticed years ago at work that my staff responded better tae me when I stopped saying please and thank you and just started expecting them to do a good job. It’s psychological.”
“One, that’s still shitty. But two, okay, that’s your staff and maybe that really does work for you in the office. But you’re not in the office. People are doing you a kindness and you don’t thank them.”
“They’re not doing me a kindness. They’re doing their bloody job.”
“True. So say you got a shitty waitress or crappy flight attendant … you’re right. You shouldn’t thank someone when they’re doing a shitty job. But none of these people today have been doing a shitty job. It’s just good manners to thank them.”
“Why does it bug you so much?”
“It’s common courtesy. I know when I spend weeks, sometimes months designing a space or a house, that it feels amazing when the client thanks me. And it feels horrible when they don’t say anything. You know they like it because they’ve called a national magazine to have them photograph it or you see them plastering it all over their social media showing it off. But they never said thank you or good job.
“Being underappreciated is like being a ghost. They know once upon a time you were there, that you made a mark, but they already stopped caring before you even said good-bye. That’s shitty. And maybe being a flight attendant isn’t making someone’s home or office a place they love to spend time in, and it’s not making sure a tech company stays on the right path upward financially … but it’s making sure someone who is afraid of flying, or is tired and grieving, has a good flight at least. That they didn’t have to put up with obnoxious service. The same with Emily tonight. She got our food out to us and she did it with a smile. And we don’t know what kind of day Emily is having. If those assholes over there have been giving her a hard time.
“So maybe a please or a thank you doesn’t seem much to you. But I’m pretty sure that every time I say thank you to Emily—including the thank you I’ll leave in my twenty percent tip—it helps her deal better with the assholes who were rude to her while she stands on her feet for a twelve-hour shift in the four-inch heels her boss insists she wear.”
I drew in a breath after my rant and sat back in my chair, waiting for his sarcastic reply. It didn’t come. Instead, he just stared at me, his expression inscrutable.
“What?”
His answer was to look at the menu. “Are you getting dessert?”
Would it have been wrong of me to pour my champagne over him?
Yes, yes, it would have. That didn’t mean I didn’t feel the urge. I sighed and looked over the menu. “I am.”
We didn’t speak as we waited for Emily to return. “Dessert?”
“I’ll have the chocolate fudge cake.”
“Whipped cream or ice cream?”
“Ice cream, please.”
“Great.” She turned to Caleb.
He shook his head and handed her the menu. “Nothing for me.”
As Emily walked away, I frowned at my companion. There was a possibility if I stuck around him any longer I was going to form permanent wrinkles between my brows. “I thought you were eating dessert. I wouldn’t have ordered if you weren’t.”
“Why not? Frankly, it’s refreshing that you eat steak and chocolate cake.”
“I don’t normally. It’s a treat.”
“Because you’re grieving and tired?”
Stunned that he’d picked up on that and that he was curious enough to ask, I attempted to shrug it off. “I’m not drunk enough to talk about that.”
“Fair enough. But I’ll still wait with you while you have your dessert.”
“Well, as begrudgingly as it is given, I’m grateful.” I snorted. “I’m looking forward to that damn cake.”
This time there was no mistaking the male appreciation in those spectacular eyes. “Aye. Me too.”
He was obviously referring to my reaction to eating good food. I flushed and hoped he attributed it to a champagne blush. But if that cocky smirk of his was anything to go by, he didn’t.
Oh boy.
Six
Somehow after cake we still hadn’t left the table. After we’d paid for dinner (separately!), Caleb said he needed another drink. When I stood up from the booth to leave, he’d put a hand on my lower back and led me to the bar.
I was so hopped up on sugar and bubbles that I followed, completely bemused.
An hour later I was still sitting at the bar with this obnoxious Scotsman I didn’t like very much, sharing my wisdom about life in general and teetering over the edge into drunk. I was perfectly aware of my surroundings, but all the snark and defensiveness had leaked out of me as my alcohol consumption increased. Suddenly, I didn’t hate Caleb. We were just different people, and just because you didn’t agree with someone on everything didn’t mean he was a bad person. Caleb had sat with me during dinner to stop other men from harassing me, which was very thoughtful, I thought.
“It was thoughtful, Caleb,” I found myself saying.
He smiled at me over the rim of his third glass of whiskey, and I felt that now familiar flutter in my stomach. God, he was handsome! “What was, babe?”
And being called “babe” by him wasn’t so bad. When Harper called me “babe,” I found it cute. I felt something a little different when Caleb called me “babe.” “Sitting with me. Acting as a barrier between me and those awful men. That was thoughtful. You can say it was you owing me, but it was still thoughtful.”
“I thought you didn’t need me tae rescue you?”
“I didn’t. I don’t. That doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate the effort.”
His lips did that twitchy thing again. “Noted.”
“I mean, it has been such a shitty week. I just … I didn’t need guys acting like their usual asshole selves and bugging me. Just because a woman dresses nice”—I gestured to myself—“doesn’t mean she’s advertising that she’s looking for a guy to take notice.”
“No, you’re right. It doesn’t. But it would be naive tae think that some men dinnae still think that it does.”
“Oh, I know that. But I refuse to let misogyny and sexism and sexually aggressive a-holes dictate what I put on my body and how I do my makeup or my hair.”
“So this is all just for you?” Caleb waved a finger over the air in front of me.
I scowled at him, momentarily forgetting I didn’t hate him anymore. “Yeah, it is! This is my ‘Screw you, Nick!’ ‘Screw you, everyone!’ Being pretty doesn’t mean being empty.”
Caleb lifted an eyebrow. “Who is Nick?”
I laughed bitterly. “Ah, the million-dollar question. Nick, Nick, Nick. Nick Kane. He doesn’t like me very much. He used to. But he stopped. He … he was married to my best friend, Gemma.” Tears glittered in my eyes before I could stop them. “She died. Childbirth. They struggled to get pregnant and then … God … she needed a C-section and there were complications. She and the baby died.” I brushed a tear away, sucking them back. “I went back to Arizona for the funeral this week and, uh … I wasn’t welcome. It was a crappy experience and, you know, burying my ex–best friend and all, my expectations were already kind of low. But, shoot … those people managed to take that experience and make it shittier than fleas on shit. That, my friend”—I leaned toward him—“is a gift.”
Either I was getting really drunk or Caleb’s expression softened. “I’m sorry tae hear that, Ava.”
“That’s the first time you’ve called me Ava instead of ‘babe.’ You’re nicer than you let on.”
He scowled instantly. “I’m not nice.�
��
“Okay.” I leaned away from him and drank the rest of my champagne. “You may not be nice, but I am grateful to you tonight. This is the first time I’ve relaxed all week. It feels good.”
“Ava.”
“Mmm.”
“Ava, look at me.”
I looked at him.
Oh boy, he was so attractive. I wondered what those unshaven cheeks would feel like between my thighs. “Hmm?”
And as if he read my thoughts, he leaned into me. The scent of his sexy cologne made my senses prickle and tingle. “How drunk are you?”
“How drunk are you?”
“I’m not drunk but I’m not sober.”
I nodded. “I’m that too.”
“So if I ask you tae come up tae my room, I wouldn’t be taking advantage?”
My breath faltered as I stared into those beautiful eyes of his. I tried to remember how only a few hours ago I didn’t even like this guy. But that was hard to remember when he was so yummy and Scottish and talking to me in that accent. The only conclusion I could come to was that I’d been feeling uptight and defensive earlier. Now … not so much.
And I hadn’t had sex in a really long time.
Like a really, really, really long time.
Suddenly there was a tall Viking with a hot accent asking me up to his room and I was not really sure I wanted to say no to that.
The tingle that was growing in intensity between my legs and the tightness in my breasts also seemed kind of unsure that they wanted to say no.
“You don’t even like me. You said you wanted me to hate you so I wouldn’t want to sleep with you.”
His lips curled up at the corners. “I dinnae need tae like you tae want tae have sex with you.” He leaned in, making my breath falter. “And aye, I was going tae ignore the urge but it seems you keep getting thrown in my way. And just because you dinnae like me either, babe, doesn’t mean you dinnae want tae have sex with me tae.”
In that moment, I thought he was wrong. Not about the wanting to sleep with him part, but the liking him part. He didn’t seem so bad. And I wanted him. That in itself was unusual enough to make up my mind. “I could come up to your room.”
“Just sex, Ava.”
“Oh, I don’t do relationships,” I assured him honestly, staring at his beautiful mouth. “They just rip you open and eat your carcass and then leave it there for some other animal to finish you off. If you’re smart, you heal and you get your ass up out of those woods and make sure no animal gets the chance to rip you back open. But I’m amenable to having wild animal sex with you.” I reached up and ran my fingers over the prickle of thick stubble on his face and whispered, “Will it tickle my thighs?”
Caleb’s eyes flashed and I swear I heard him growl, before he slapped a lot of cash down on the bar and got up off the stool. Then my hand was in his, helping me off the stool, his fingers tightening around mine as he marched us through the bar and down the lobby toward the elevator.
Oh my God. I was really doing this. I couldn’t blame the alcohol, because the world wasn’t spinning or anything and I felt totally aware of what I was doing.
And very turned on.
My gaze drifted upward from Caleb’s black boots, to his black jeans, to the white shirt that attempted and failed to make him look civilized. Finally I settled on his strong profile. The proud, straight nose. The bristles of his blond stubble that did nothing to hide the sharp angles of his cut jawline. His full lower lip was so sensual it made me want to nibble on it.
Feeling my intense gaze, he looked at me and I found myself falling into those eyes. I’d never seen eyes like them. They were like wolf eyes. He looked like he was going to eat me up, and I sucked in a breath.
I couldn’t remember the last time a guy had looked at me with such sexual voraciousness that I welcomed. More than welcomed. I wanted him to wreck me in the bedroom—give me so many orgasms that it made up for the years of abstinence.
“You’re going to be as good at this as you look, aren’t you?”
His answer was a devastatingly arrogant grin as he pulled me none too gently into the elevator and pushed me up against the wall as the doors closed. He pressed his long, hard body against mine. “Never fear, babe. I’m about tae ruin you.”
The elevator dinged and quite abruptly he hauled me out and down the hall. I vaguely noted we were staying on the same floor, but Caleb marched me in the opposite direction from my room.
He let go of my hand to let us into his room and I found myself standing in the middle of a suite identical to mine.
The first thing he did was grab a remote control to lower the blinds over the window facing the runway. Then Caleb turned to me and studied me carefully for a moment. “Still sober?”
I swallowed hard, feeling more sober than I had downstairs. “Yup.”
“Still want this?”
There was a doubtful voice in the back of my head, the one that was quickly sobering up, telling me to stop this nonsense. But my blood was too hot and my inhibitions were down. I wanted sex. End of story. I nodded. “Do you still want this?”
Caleb’s response was as straightforward as ever. He crossed the distance between us, slipped his hands into my hair, and tugged me toward him. His mouth slammed down on mine, his kiss hard, hungry, needy—everything I couldn’t remember ever having.
I wrapped my arms around his waist, my fingers curling into his shirt as I tried to match his ferocious kiss. His tongue swept against mine and I groaned as lust shot through me, making my breasts tingle and my belly tighten. I found myself being pushed toward the bed as his large hands gently extricated themselves from my hair, slid down over my breasts, the pads of his fingers just tickling the swell of my cleavage. My nipples peaked against my bra as his fingers trailed down my stomach and his hands gripped my waist. All the time he kept kissing me.
I was jolted out of the kiss when he abruptly spun me around and moved my hair out of the way of my zipper. “You have gorgeous hair.”
“Thanks,” I whispered, shivering as he tugged the zipper down on the dress. He brushed the fabric away from my shoulders and I took over, releasing my arms from the short sleeves and pushing it down from my waist until it dropped to the floor. I stepped out of the fabric, wobbling a little in my heels as I undressed.
I felt his breath on my neck as he dragged the back of his knuckles down my spine. “Perfect,” he murmured.
Feeling hot—way too hot—I spun back around, reaching for him, but suddenly he gripped my waist again. He lifted me up like I weighed nothing and dropped me on the bed with a bounce. I made a little squeak of surprise.
Caleb towered over me, his body tense, his features taut, his eyes hot as they dragged over my body. I wore a matching black lacy bra and underwear. Something flickered in his expression—something I didn’t like—and he took a step back from the bed.
Confusion made me tilt my head. “Where are you going?”
He didn’t answer but a muscle ticked in his jaw.
Feeling vulnerable, I felt the snarkiness that had left me down in the bar return. “I’m sitting on your bed in my bra and underwear. Don’t be an asshole. Are we doing this or am I putting my dress back on?”
And just like that, he grinned at me. God, the man gave mood swings a new meaning! “Underwear off, babe.”
“Please.”
He shook his head. “Not even for sex.”
I rolled my eyes but reached for the clasp on my bra. I shimmied it off and dropped it at his feet. I knew I had great boobs. Right now they were swollen and my nipples were tight. I sat back on my hands, the natural arch of my back thrusting my favorite assets out.
The Scot’s gaze devoured me. “Jesus,” he muttered.
The tingling between my legs worsened. “I’m going to assume that means you like what you see.”
“Was it the hard-on that gave it away?”
My eyes lowered to where a bulge was straining the crotch of his jeans. A fizzle of de
ep, gnawing need hit me in the gut. God, I hoped he knew what he was doing because if so this was going to be delicious.
Caleb began unbuttoning his shirt with quick fingers, and my mouth really did go dry as I watched him rip the damn thing off. Only his left arm was covered in a full sleeve of tattoos, and the design continued onto the muscular left pec. There was a solo tattoo at the top of his right arm. Now I could see that above the modern soldier on his left arm, there was a kilted soldier like the ones I’d seen depicted in Outlander. The smoke above him gave way to a Spartan in among the ruins of an ancient building with broken columns. The clouds of smoke, debris, and ribbons of tattered material were drawn downward from his shoulder and collarbone to his pec, where words on two ribbons, one above the other, were tattooed. They read: “I don’t know how I’m going to win. I just know I’m not going to lose.”
My eyes wandered over the muscles of his six-pack and those broad, delicious shoulders to the other tattoo. It was of a skull sitting on a huge black rose.
His large bicep flexed as he began to unbutton the top button of his jeans. I licked my lips as I dragged my eyes back over to his muscled stomach. Lust flooded me. “Oh dear God.”
Caleb’s smile was full of ego. “Did he finally answer your prayers, babe?”
“Depends on what you’ve got in the pants.”
It was unclear who was more surprised by his sudden bark of laughter, me or him. It made me smile, though. Laughter suited him. He should laugh more. I grew steadily more turned on as I took in the sight of him and thought of all that masculine beauty becoming mine. Not that I dated, but when I did find myself attracted to a guy, he usually had lean muscle rather than brawn.
But I wasn’t complaining about Caleb’s physique in the least.
My eyes dropped to where the Scot’s jeans, now open at the top, hung low on his narrow hips, the hard-cut V of his obliques so goddamn sexy I was about to self-combust.
“Please take those off now.”
“Always so well mannered.”
“Just take them off.”
His answer was to kneel down and quickly unlace his boots. Staring at me, that arrogant heat in his eyes really far too attractive to be fair, he kicked them off.
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