by Karina Halle
Once it’s on, I step out of the bedroom and into the drawing room where Lachlan is waiting for me, already dressed. He stands up and we both take a long moment to take each other in. I thought he would have opted for a tux at this event but he’s in a navy blue three-piece suit.
With a kilt.
Dear lord in heaven.
“Oh my god,” I say. He looks like a fucking Highlander ready for a ball before the battle.
“You look stunning,” he says to me, coming over and taking my hand in his making me twirl around. “Jesus bloody hell. I don’t even think I can let you out of the house.”
“You’re not bad yourself,” I tell him, gesturing for him to turn around, “Let’s see all of you.”
He obliges. “Never seen a man in a kilt before?”
“Not other than the bagpipers on the street and I wouldn’t dream of doing this to them.” I reach down and stroke his warm, strong quads, my fingers flipping up the hem of his kilt and going up, up. Up.
I grin. “No underwear, huh,” I say, softly teasing him. He hardens under my touch. “It’s risky to get an erection in this. You’ll be tent-poling it.”
“Tell me about it,” he says gruffly. “But if you don’t stop man-handling me, we’re going to be very, very late for this thing. I’ll make sure of that.”
It’s always tempting, especially when he feels so deliciously hot, long and thick under my hand.
“I’ll make it quick,” I tell him, dropping to my knees and flipping the kilt over my head.
“Bloody hell,” he says with a throaty moan, his fingers curling into my hair as I take as much of him as I can into my mouth. The salty hit of him against my tongue spurs me on, wanting to make his eyes roll back in his head. He’s such a big, masculine man made up of so many dark and damaged parts, but the fact that I can ruin him with my tongue, mouth and hands is addicting beyond anything else.
It doesn’t take long to make him come, shooting nearly straight down the back of my throat.
“Fuck,” he mutters, voice straining. “Love, you undo me.”
“Good,” I say, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand and peering out from beneath the kilt. He’s staring at me with those lazy, hooded eyes and I know I’ve done a good job. His mood has changed from being slightly on edge to at peace. Maybe if I just keep fucking him throughout the event, everything will go smoothly.
“I’m ready to go,” I tell him, standing up. “Told you I’d be quick.”
He shakes his head at me and then impulsively kisses me. I love that he doesn’t care if I’ve just sucked him off or not.
I ask him if he’s going to call a cab for us, but since we’re taking Lionel with us, Amara comes to pick us up in her car. She also looks beautiful in a simple green cocktail dress, her red hair piled high on her head.
“Well aren’t you three the belles of the ball,” she says as we climb in. Even Lionel has a dark leather leash and a tartan bowtie that matches Lachlan’s kilt.
“You don’t look so bad yourself,” I tell her, proud that I’m the one who suggested her dress to her when we went shopping.
The gala is held at a hotel near the castle so it doesn’t take too long for us to get there, though Amara says she’ll drop us off first and find herself parking after. When I see all the fancy people outside, lining up to get in, I’m nervous. I mean, there’s even a person with a camera taking pictures of everyone as they enter the hotel.
“Is that the paparazzi?” I ask Lachlan.
He looks out the window and grunts, shrugging. Guess he doesn’t know but it does remind me that I told Jessica I’d try and write an article about the event. I bring my phone out of my clutch and check the battery power, making sure there’s enough juice left for me to take some notes and observations about the event. Just that alone makes the situation easier to handle.
I glance at Lachlan, studying his handsome face. He doesn’t necessarily seem nervous but that mellowness in his eyes is gone and he’s observing the world with a level of hardness.
“Hey,” I say softly, feeling nothing but love for him. I grab his hand. “Thank you for inviting me.”
He regards me like I have two heads. “Of course I would invite you. That’s pretty much a given now, isn’t it? Where you go, I go.”
But his words hang in the air for a moment because we both know that’s not exactly true. I wonder, if I asked him to come to San Francisco to be with me, would he do it? Would he give up everything for me? Why couldn’t we both be in a relationship where neither one of us has to sacrifice anything?
The world just doesn’t work that way, I guess. I’m not an expert on love, but from the love I’ve seen around me, it’s not always easy. Nicola had a hell of a time finding a guy – the right guy – before she found Bram, and even then there were some uncomfortable truths she had to come to terms with. Stephanie and Linden were friends forever before they made their stupid pact to each other and then Linden majorly fucked it all up, separating the two for a long time before they both realized they needed each other. And then my mother and father. They seemed to have an epic, fairytale kind of love story but in the end, death pulled them apart. The greatest obstacle of them all, something no relationship can ever overcome.
There was no reason why the road for us should be easy. I just didn’t understand why it had to be so hard. I figured if I ever met someone I loved with my heart and soul, that it would at least run smoothly at first, before the hard obstacles were thrown in the way.
But there is no time for pity and doubt, not now. I’d been with Kyle for years and years, after a long, slow courtship, and I had never ever felt for him what I feel for Lachlan. That alone has made it all worth it.
“Come on, love,” he says to me as Amara puts the car in park. Already the photographer turns his flashbulbs on us.
I freeze but Lachlan puts his hand on the small of my back and leans in to me, whispering, “It’s all right. Just smile. I don’t like it either but it’s just for tonight and it’s all a good cause. Think of the dogs.”
I think of Lionel as I step out to the sidewalk, Lachlan pulling me to his side, arm around my waist, staring stoically at the cameras. Lionel sidles between us and at the lightest command from Lachlan, sits down, hamming for the flashbulbs too.
I have to admit, it’s hard not to smile when you’re on the arm of this man, especially when people are yelling his name. I know that being the centre of attention is the last thing that Lachlan wants too, but he handles it with so much ease it surprises me.
He doesn’t waste too much time though before he whisks me inside the hotel, Lionel trotting proudly beside him.
It’s crazy inside. There are fancy-dressed people everywhere and even though I know I look the part, I sure don’t feel the part. This is part of some society that I’ve never belonged to and it’s only Lachlan’s vice-like grip on my hand that keeps me sane. In fact, he only lets go to shake the hand of someone and other than that, he’s holding onto me.
I can’t remember anyone’s names. I spot Thierry, John and a few other rugby players in different parts of the venue, and later we see Amara, Jessica and Donald, but other than that, all the people I meet blur into one. It’s pretty obvious right away that a lot of them don’t really care about the animals, or about Lachlan in particular. They just want to be seen doing the right thing in front of the right people. But charity for the wrong reasons is still charity and whatever can help the dogs is always a good thing.
I have to say, I’m completely smitten by the way Lachlan treats me. I was really worried about this event, more so than I admitted to myself. But he hasn’t had a thing to drink, while I swill champagne and feel guilty about it, he drinks sparkling water with lime and that’s it. While he’s approached by people again and again and again, he always introduces me first as his girlfriend. He pulls me into conversations, never leaves me out of them, always has his hand in mine or around my waist. He makes me as part of his world as possible, as
if I’m a permanent fixture, as if I always have been.
And I can’t help but stare at him with big, googly eyes. If I was a cartoon, I would have hearts in them and I would be constantly sighing and I’m sure I look no different to someone watching me from afar. I am smitten, hanging onto his succinct words in that elegant brogue, the way he focuses on each and every person with those magnetic eyes of him, holding them in his stare. I know that he’s doing this because he has to, that he’s not usually so personable, but he’s just so damn good at it that he fools even me.
Throughout the night I fall more in love with him. I swear if you look close enough, you’ll see my heart beneath my rib cage, bursting at the seams. I can’t stop smiling. I don’t want to ever stop smiling.
At some point a band starts playing and Lachlan hands Lionel over to Amara and pulls me over to the dance floor.
“You dance?” I ask him as he wraps his arms around me, Lana Del Rey’s “Young and Beautiful” starting to play.
“Not a bit,” he admits with a smile I feel down in my toes. “But I can fake it for a few steps.”
Okay, well maybe dancing isn’t one of Lachlan’s hidden talents. The man can’t be good at everything. But he does a good job of faking it and at least he doesn’t step on my toes.
We stay on the dance floor for more than a few songs. I’m in no hurry to return to schmoozing and I assume Lachlan isn’t either. That’s probably why we’re dancing for so long.
“I just wanted you to myself,” he says, burying his face in my hair. It’s like he read my mind.
“How much longer does this gala go for? I mean, when do you usually leave?” I ask him, staring at the other elegant partygoers gliding past us.
“I’m usually the last one standing,” he says. “I don’t want to be that guy who throws a party, asks for money, and then leaves.”
“No, that’s not you. Then we’ll stay till the end.”
“Till the very end,” he says.
The Beatles “All My Loving” comes on and he holds me tighter to him, his hands brushing down the length of my bare back and holding the small of my waist. He very faintly sings the lyrics in my ears and I close my eyes, letting the words sink deep, letting the moment last for as long as it possibly can. Everyone else drifts away and it’s me and him and a world built for two.
“I’m so in love with you,” he whispers, the roughness of his cheek pressed against mine. “So in love. There is no bottom. I just keep falling.”
I’m falling too. But my heart has grown wings. It threatens to carry me forever and each time I’m dropped, careening toward the abyss, it will pick me up again.
I never thought it could be like this.
I never want it to be any other way.
“I love you,” I say softly, my voice choking as all that emotion climbs up my throat, almost overtaking me. “I can’t leave you. I won’t leave you. I want to stay.”
The words are unplanned and take me by surprise, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t true.
His upper body stiffens, his steps becoming slower. He pulls his head back and eyes me carefully. “Are you being serious?”
I swallow and nod. “Yes,” I tell him, staring deep in his eyes. “Yes, yes. I want to stay. I can’t bear the thought of losing you, leaving you. I can’t go back to the life I had, not after this life here, as brief as it has been. I know what I want and I want you.”
He stops moving and cups my face in his hands and I can feel his strength seep into my skin. “You have no idea how happy you’ve made me,” he says, shaking his head. “No idea. No idea.” He kisses me hard, passionately and fingers sink into my hair, his forehead resting against mine. “I will give you everything you need. I will be everything you need me to be. I’ll take care of you.”
I’m about to protest that I don’t need a man to take care of me, but I clamp my mouth shut and don’t say a word. Because I do need Lachlan, at least in terms of my heart, and I also know how much it matters sometimes to just feel needed. I want him to feel that, to know that I need him as much as he needs me.
“I know you will,” I eventually say. “You’re my man.”
He breathes heavily into my neck, almost a gasp. “I’m going to make you so happy.”
“You do make me happy,” I tell him truthfully. “Sometimes I don’t think it can possibly get better but then it turns out there is more room in my heart than I thought.”
He sighs blissfully, holding me closer for a few moments. Then he whispers, “We need to find a room,” and his voice is back to that warm, growly tone that makes my panties wet in a second. Hell yes, we need to find a room. All these proclamations of love need somewhere to go.
He takes my arm and strides across the dance floor, shoulders back, taking long, wide steps, like he’s the King of everything. My eyes are peeled for a cloakroom as we dodge people here and there, especially avoiding Jessica because she doesn’t need to know what we’re about to do. We disappear around the corner, past the hotel reception, and find the washroom. It’s the best that we can do.
He pulls me into it, looks back and forth down the hall to make sure no one saw us, then locks the door.
I’m backed up against the sink, my hands resting on the edges, waiting for his onslaught.
But he doesn’t attack me, at least not right away. He just stares at me and our eyes are locked with each other.
“What?” I whisper to him, afraid to break the spell.
He tilts his head to the side, observing me, frowning, as if I am some riddle he’s trying to solve.
“Did you mean it?” he asks. “When you said you would stay?”
It nearly hurts that he sounds so doubtful. “Of course I did. I meant every word.”
“Do you promise?” he asks, stepping toward me, leaning forward with both hands on the edge of the sink.
I hold out my pinky finger. “I pinky swear.”
He dismisses it with a glance. “Nah, that’s rubbish. Your word is more than enough.” He brushes my hair behind my ears. “I want to make you feel as incredible as you make me feel.”
He grabs my hips and hoists me up so that I’m balanced on the edge of the sink, my hands gripping the sides to keep me steady. He tugs my dress up and over my ass, then crouches down, his head between my legs.
I barely have time to compose myself, to prepare. He’s at me like he’s starving, his fingers sliding me apart, his tongue and mouth so soft and warm. I feel every sensation like a hammer, each stroke a hit, radiating outward.
I want so much from him. I want him deep inside, all of him. But among his satisfied groans and his hungry sounds, I know he just wants to devour me. He wants me to have as much pleasure as he can humanely bring me, because he isn’t sure that he’s doing enough, making me feel enough.
But he is. He so is.
His mouth is savage. He’s tireless. His tongue plunges deep inside me before licking up my clit and sucking me into his mouth. I nearly scream, my body at the height of all awareness, on the verge of overload. He reaches down with one hand and two long, beautiful fingers thrust deep inside, curling against me. The heat builds deeper, my nerves are a million champagne bottles about to burst. It’s the slow, twisting anticipation that makes my mouth drop open, my neck arch back until my head meets the mirror.
I’m both hypersensitive and barely aware. My legs clench around his face, driving his lips and tongue and fingers against me, inside me, harder, deeper and he responds by acting as if I’m all he needs to live his life, like he’d die without me.
With impatient hands, he pulls me toward him, his tongue hard and urgent and the world begins to tip on its axis. This world built for two.
I want to feel him, feel him, feel him. My hips rock into him hard. He drags his tongue back over my clit, flicking it so fast, back and forth, over and over, and I can’t breathe anymore.
He moans against me.
And then I let go.
I just fucking let go.
I’m loud. I know I am. I always am. And I don’t mind if someone is outside the washroom, overhearing my cries, because everyone in the whole fucking world needs to know what kind of a lover he is. He loves with every inch of him and he gives with every part of him.
When my orgasm subsides against his lips, he straightens up, staring at me with feverish eyes. His eyes that say he knows me, knows what I like and will never stop giving it to me.
But I’m completely selfish. I grab his head and kiss him, long and soft, the taste of me on his tongue reinvigorating me.
He moans into my mouth, it’s a sound straight from his gut, making my blood run even hotter. “You see how good you taste,” he whispers, his lips moving to my neck. “I’ll never get full from you.”
I fumble under his kilt for his cock, grasping his stiff length in my palm, so hot and pulsing against my skin. He moves forward and I guide him in, so wet and ready for him that he slides in like silk, our bodies accustomed to each other with a beautiful kind of ease.
I wrap my legs around his waist, my heels digging into his firm ass as he starts rocking into me, each slow, slick glide inside igniting my nerves once again.
I whimper as we find our rhythm, like we always find our rhythm and this time, this time, I know it doesn’t have to be the end. My body aches from wanting him so intensely and without saying anything, his body responds, always giving me more than what I need.
“Oh Kayla,” he groans against me, breathless, as a bead of sweat falls off his brow and onto my collarbone. I nearly expect steam to rise. He pushes in harder, and deeper, and it feels like the air is being pushed out of my lungs and I’m clinging onto his body as his pace quickens.
I press my nails into his back, clinging onto the ride. Our skin slaps together in a violent, thick sound that echoes off the walls. Each push is long and hard and he grunts with effort until his cock hits me in just the perfect place.