With the skill of a natural born puppet master, Iain soon had her naked and on her hands and knees upon the suite’s front entrance mat. And then the time for protests over clothes that would be completely useless a month from now anyway came to an end.
His hand once more found the back of her neck, and he shoved himself into her from behind. And, oh God, forget the Top Shop clothes. All she wanted was him.
But Iain still seemed to have the downstairs argument on his mind. His arm unlocked, and he covered her back to command, “Repeat the words, chridhe.” His Scottish brogue, impossibly thick in her ear as he lowered what she’d come to think of as his commanding hand beneath her body.
His strokes had a hard quality to them now. Sharp and succinct like he was punishing her. Yet, he cupped her sex gently, the ball of his hand rubbing light circles on top of her clit as he commanded, “Repeat the words to me now!”
She moaned, already orgasming on his hand. So far gone, she couldn’t even pretend not to know which words he meant. And she discovered she still had the words memorized when the Gaelic fell out of her mouth on a long moan.
As if rewarding her for getting the answer right, he yelled out and bit into her neck, his hips pushing so hard into the back of her, she would have fallen over if both his arms hadn’t dropped down in front of her. Like a weird sex cage that left her with no choice but to stay seated on his dick as he released another flood of condom-free sperm into her sex.
Not that it mattered. Cancer, she remembered vaguely. She had it. It would kill her and thanks to chemo, her insides were so decimated that doctors had already told her it would take an act of God on top of some super form of IVF that hadn’t been invented yet for her to get pregnant.
“Dinna think about the cancer tonight,” he suddenly commanded. “You’re with me. Safe. Trust me, Millicent.”
Trust me, Millicent.
Somehow she did. Somehow it was easy to come right back to the here and now and what Iain was doing to her on this hotel room’s carpet. Not just crossing an item off her end of life bucket list, but completely obliterating it.
On a weird instinct, she turned her head and bit down on one of the forearms caging her in. Iain yelled out—but not in pain. “Christ, Millicent!” he said, right before his body seized and he spilled inside her on a long groan.
A delicious feeling of power washed over her when he collapsed against her back a few moments later. Spent and empty. But that feeling a superiority only last a second or two. Because then he knotted inside her, and it was her turn to go crazy.
Milly soon came to understand why Iain was so insistent they stay in a hotel with room service. Iain shook her awake the next morning so they could enjoy a breakfast that included a basket of breakfast pastries, yogurt, freshly squeezed orange juice, and…her eyes lit up.
“Porridge oats! I love porridge oats,” she said, grabbing a spoon.
“I ken. I’ve seen you eating Scott’s Easy Pots at your desk more times than I can remember. That’s why I ordered them for you. Can’t stand ‘em myself.”
Milly sprinkled salt on top, Scottish style, and then poured some cream over the salt before tucking in. But as she indulged her porridge craving, she took the opportunity to peep up at Iain. Not only because she’d never met a Scot who didn’t like porridge. But also because she was surprised he’d noticed such a small detail about her.
As it turned out, studying him was a big mistake. Because that strange odor once more filled the suite and a wave of ferocious lust overtook her.
Iain’s nose flared. Then he reached out and took the bowl out of her hands and the spoon out of her mouth. He very deliberately placed both items on the tray before setting the whole thing aside.
And that was how she ended up spending the rest of the morning on her hands and knees, her porridge going cold before she had the chance to finish eating it.
After that, Milly learned to eat faster. And although she wouldn’t say she got used to the waves of extreme lust that continued to overtake her during the next few days, she at least became more familiar with the sensations and less caught off guard.
To her surprise, Iain didn’t at all seem to mind her constant need to have sex with him. She wondered if this was normal…if women always went this crazy for him in the bedroom, because he seemed to be unusually prepared for it. Milly kept falling asleep with him embedded inside her, but she’d often wake to room service meals—mostly sandwiches, smoked salmon, and salads that could be eaten cold—waiting for her near the bed.
Twice on Friday, Iain scooped her up and carried her to the suite’s white marble tub, where he ran her a bath, and afterward used a towel to dry her off. The first time it happened, Milly protested that she could manage on her own. But he ignored her. And when he helped her out of the tub and set her on her feet to dry her off, she quickly discovered just how wrong she’d been.
Despite all the sleep she’d gotten, her whole body felt weak with soreness and fatigue. It was a huge effort for her to stand while he dried her off with a plush white towel. And her heart warmed with gratitude when he scooped her up again and carried her back to bed because she honestly didn’t know if she was still capable of walking.
However as soon as he laid her down, the smell erupted again and it was off to the races. Milly kept expecting it to stop, for her exhausted body to stop constantly wanting him. But Saturday came and went, along with Sunday. And the spring bank holiday everyone at AlgoFortune had been looking so forward to? Milly spent most of it with the side of her face planted in a pillow, either getting plundered from behind or sleeping.
By late Monday morning, she’d become used to vacillating wildly between extreme lust and sex-induced exhaustion.
“Is it always like this for you?” she asked Iain as they lay beside each other in bed, after yet another crazed sex session.
He let out a grumbly laugh, his knotted staff pulsing inside of her. “Nay, chridhe. Of course not. Deep down, you ken that.”
Maybe. But that didn’t mean she understood it. Any of it.
“Iain?” she asked.
“Aye?”
“What does chridhe mean, exactly?”
“Heart,” he answered, his voice flat as if he were answering a question about the weather. “Moi chridhe is ‘my heart.’”
“Iain?”
“Hmm?”
“Could you maybe stop calling me that?”
All the practical reasons why this new nickname wasn’t a good idea flooded her head.
1. It was too romantic a moniker to give her considering this was really nothing more than a glorified bucket list sex romp.
2. Tomorrow they’d go back to being employee and boss; two colleagues who could only sort of stand each other.
3. Getting involved with someone when you only had a few months left to live seemed like a really bad idea.
Iain stilled behind her, stiffening like she’d spoken all those reasons out loud. Then he said, “Nay, chridhe, I won’t stop calling you that.”
“Iain,” she said, suddenly wanting to put some physical distance between the two of them. Their wild sex had somehow taken a way too intimate turn.
“My da warned me about girls like you.”
“Girls like me?”
“Aye. Growing up I was always so keen to come to the city. Glasgow or Edinburgh, I dinna care. Faoltiarn is an auld place. We speak the auld language, and no matter what passes in the outside world, we keep to the auld ways. From the time I was a wee lad, I had a deep yearning to live somewhere else. In a city where I wasn’t known by name to every single person who crossed my path. When I was accepted into the University here in Edinburgh, I thought it were a dream come true. But I needed my da’s blessing to leave. You see, back then he was a verra powerful man in our village. And according to the auld ways, if any of us wished to leave for more than a week or two, we had to have his permission. It was a few months after my mum left him when I came to ask his blessing, so it wasn’t
a certain thing at all for me.”
Whoa, she thought, trying to imagine what it would be like to not only have a mother who’d just abandoned your whole family, but to then have to ask the husband she’d left behind for permission to leave. “Did you get it? His blessing?”
“Aye, after fifteen days of thought, he gave it. But before I left he warned me that in time I’d see the auld ways were not so bad. They’ve kept our village safe through good times and bad. He’d gone off to university in Venice and returned to Faoltiarn with an Italian wife. He’d warned me that girls from the city weren’t like the village girls. He said they guard their hearts like wounded animals and are afraid of men like me. Is that how you feel, Milly? Afraid? Are you trying to protect your heart?”
She stilled, hating how close he’d come to the truth. “Look. In my admittedly limited experience, when people get close to you, they either leave or die. So yeah, I guess I’m a little protective of myself. And considering I now have a clear expiration date, I’m really not looking to get hurt.”
“I’m not looking to hurt you, chridhe,” he said quietly. “The faster you start believing that, the easier this will go for us.”
“Not looking to hurt me?” she repeated softly. “So you’re saying I can hand in my two weeks’ notice without you suing me?”
Again, he stiffened.
Milly nodded. “That’s what I thought. Don’t call me that anymore.”
Iain didn’t respond, just continued to hold her while her sex contracted around him, maintaining their physical bond, even as she mentally began to push him away.
And maybe that’s why instead of falling asleep, she said, “My father…the one I’m going to see in New Zealand…he’s dead. Drunk driving accident, and he was the drunk driver. So yeah,” she let out a sad sigh, “…totally his fault. The only reason I know any of this is because I got a Google alert about it a few weeks after it happened. He never tried to reach out to me. He knew he had a daughter and he never sent me a text, an email…nothing. I guess you could say I’m treating Milford Track like his grave since that’s where he and my mom met.”
Iain cleared his throat. “You’ve had a hard life. I wish like hell there was something I could do to change that.”
“Yeah, me too,” Milly said with a soft laugh. “But my point is, your life—Iain’s life—doesn’t have to be so hard. Your parents are alive. Both of them. Look…I know you’re angry at your mom for leaving, but the fact is she’s been trying to reach out to you. Stop pushing her away. And maybe start taking her calls.”
There was a long, heavy silence during which Milly sensed Iain was processing her words. He didn’t seem angry with her for giving him her opinion on a very personal matter. Or even offended. He was just…considering. At that moment, she realized she felt very sure of his emotional state.
More certain of his than of her own.
She rubbed her thumb over his forearm in small circles as in the silence. Until she eventually drifted off to sleep, wondering exactly what this was between them. And why it felt so right, even though she knew it was all wrong.
Chapter Seven
Milly woke in near darkness, with only a thin slice of daylight breaking through the room’s thick curtains. To her surprise, Iain wasn’t already up and about. He slept heavily next to her in the bed, no longer buried inside of her.
She watched him sleep, taking the time to appreciate his long angular face up close for the first time. He hadn’t shaven since Thursday, so he now sported several days’ worth of unchecked beard growth. Truthfully, the heavy stubble only made him look that much sexier. Like a bad boy she’d been lucky enough to tryst with for four days, and not at all like her uptight, overly demanding boss.
Milly’s stomach stirred with frank appreciation that someone like him had deigned to spend an entire long weekend in bed with her. Then she braced herself for the next bout of super lust along with the strong arousal smell that popped up whenever she looked at him for too long.
But the lust didn’t come. She could still smell her arousal. But it was very faint, like a breeze as opposed to a tornado. Iain still definitely turned her on, but not in the unhinged, crazed way she’d experienced over the last few days.
She gingerly swung her legs over the side of the bed, waiting for exhaustion to set in… but no, she felt great. Worked over to be sure, but not frail and weak as she had been whenever she tried to do anything not related to sex over the last four days. In fact, even with the residual soreness between her legs, she had no problem standing up.
Maybe the drugs she took on Thursday had finally worked their way out of her system. Milly reached over to the nightstand for her glasses. But they weren’t there. She frowned and switched on the headboard reading lamp, looking to see if maybe they’d fallen on the floor. But no, the floor was clear and the nightstand held nothing but a clock radio and a glass of water.
Four days…
Milly was, as her grandmother used to say, blind as a bat without her glasses. But thinking back on it, she realized the last time she could remember wearing them was on Thursday, when she’d taken them off and tossed them on her office desk to relieve her headache.
She’d never gone this long without her glasses. And then something struck her. She could see everything in minute detail. The furniture, Iain sleeping next to her in the bed, the sitting room beyond the bedroom. She could see all of it. In spite of the low light. And despite her missing glasses.
Whoa…
Five minutes later, Milly left the bedroom to finally take advantage of the suite’s living room. It was still light enough to see outside despite the post dinner hour. But instead of checking out the views beyond the beautiful bay window with crown molding, she plopped down on the striped couch, and settled her laptop on top of her crisscrossed legs. Yet after thirty minutes of research into all three of the drugs she’d taken, she couldn’t find anything to explain her dramatically improved vision.
Milly clicked on another browser tab to start a new search. She’d looked the drugs up individually but maybe the vision thing was a side effect of taking them in combination…
However, all thoughts of the drug combo disappeared when she saw the page already open in the tab she’d clicked. It was for an all-inclusive guided tour of Milford Track in New Zealand. Just a daydream she’d thought back when she researched the trip before driving out to Iain’s cottage just over a week ago.
But Milford Track ranked as one of the most beautiful treks in the world, and it was gentle enough that she wouldn’t have to get in crazy good shape beforehand. It was where her parents met when her father had been the assistant guide for her mother’s summer exchange group of college students on a five-day trek. Where she was conceived.
Plus, sex had also been just a daydream for the awkward 25-year-old virgin she was only a week ago. And look at her now…!
An hour later, she’d gone from freaking out about her dramatically improved vision to researching what it would take to make her Milford Track dream come true. Milly didn’t have the knowledge or wherewithal to manage the trek by herself, but depending on how much severance she got when her time at AlgoFortune was up, she might be able to swing one of the less costly guided tours—
She suddenly whipped her head to the side, her nose flaring at a now familiar smell.
Iain stood in the doorway leading to the bedroom. But unlike her, he hadn’t bothered with a robe. He was completely, gloriously naked.
“Hi…” Milly said, her mouth instantly going dry out at the sight of all those delicious muscles. Strange. She hadn’t thought twice about jumping his bones for the last four days. But now that the uncharacteristic lust thrall appeared to have released her, she felt as nervous as the virgin she’d been before he completely rocked her world.
And maybe he sensed that because his eyes twinkled with dark amusement as he said, “Hello there, Millicent. What are you up to, then?”
He held her gaze, eyes hooded in a way
that let Milly know exactly what he wished she were up to back inside the bedroom. Well, his eyes and the flesh that suddenly sprang to life between his legs.
“Um, just researching my upcoming trip to New Zealand. I’m planning to go after I leave the company in a few more weeks.”
A dark shadow fell over his face. “I see. You’re still keen to leave then? Haven’t changed your mind?”
“No, I haven’t,” she answered gently. “I mean, this was fun—really fun. But Iain…I’m still dying. And I want to cross as many things off my bucket list as possible before I do. The Milford Track has always been at the top of my list. It’s where my parents met, and I want to go…assuming I can afford it.”
The annoyed shadow lightened a little but didn’t lift entirely.
He strode into the sitting room and sat next to her, seemingly not at all self-conscious about being naked in broad daylight. Then again, why would he be? Unlike her, he’d likely never had to feel self-conscious about his appearance. Not with that Greek god physique. Milly briefly pondered her skinny build and small breasts. She shook her head ruefully…clearly not everyone was gifted with a come-hither body.
“I like your breasts,” he said gruffly. “They fit perfectly in my hands, don’t they?”
Milly shot him a bemused look. Had she commented about her breasts out loud? But before she could ask how he knew what she’d been thinking, he took her laptop from her and set it aside on the coffee table.
“So what’s this I hear about you never having been kissed? That can’t be true…”
“Uh…hmmm,” she blinked. “Did I say that? Like actually say that out loud?”
“It’s what I heard,” Iain answered, his eyes lingering on her lips.
Wow, whether it was the meds or the sex or a combination of the two, she’d really been speaking out of character these last few days.
“Well…I mean, it’s no big deal. I enjoyed what we did a lot. Kisses weren’t—aren’t—at the top of my list now. I don’t need to be kissed to have fun.”
Her Scotttish King_Loving World Page 22