Except that I’m ready to catch up now.
“Do you really want to get back on birth control?”
She shrugs. “Yes… no.”
Well, that’s not confusing. “What does yes-no mean?”
“I want some ‘just us time’ because we’ve been apart for so long, but then I’m also ready to start a family.”
“There’s still nine months of ‘just us time’ before the baby actually comes.”
“True.”
I know Lorna. I know her heart. I know what would make her happy.
And I want to give her that.
“What would you say if I told you to skip the doctor and the birth control?”
“I would ask you if you were serious.”
“I’m very serious.”
Her smile is wide. “You want a baby now?”
I’ve known Lorna her entire life. We aren’t strangers. We aren’t new lovers. Sure, we have some catching up to do, but it’s not like I’d be jumping into marriage and parenthood with someone I’ve only been dating for a week or a month.
“We are already part of each other. Why not give life to that?”
“It wouldn’t take a lot of work to talk me into it, but I think you already know that.”
Lorna has been yearning for her own family for a while. It started shortly after her parents died and she was left all alone. She was so afraid.
“Maybe we don’t set out to try, but we also don’t do anything to prevent it. We just see what happens?”
“Whatever happens is okay with you?”
“I didn’t suggest the idea because I wouldn’t be okay with it.”
“All right. Whatever happens… happens. I’m down with it.”
“What about a wedding date?”
“We can give notice to the registrar on Monday.”
Twenty-nine days later is the soonest that she can become my wife. That’s too far away. I want to marry her today. “I wish we didn’t have to wait a month.”
“Me either but since we do, will you let me come back to work until we’re married?”
Why is she so insistent on coming back? “What’s going on with you and working at Duncan’s?”
“I want to see what’s changed since I left.”
Bullshit. “Oh really? Because I think it’s more than that.”
“Okay. I may want to set some clear boundaries with the women who work at the pub.”
“There are already clear boundaries in place.”
“I think that I recall you saying something like ‘a single touch, a lingering look, a wrong word—that’s all it would take for you to jump over the bar and choke one of them.’ I feel the same and they need to know that your wife will kick their arses if they try anything with you.”
Possessive Lorna is hot. “All right. You can come back to work and let the lasses know what’s what. But only until we’re married.”
“We’ll see.”
“Forget it, Lorna. You won’t talk me into working after we’re married. Don’t even try.”
“We’ll see.”
I always want to give Lorna everything that her heart desires… except this. But I’m not going to worry too much about it. When she gets a baby, working at the pub won’t be on her mind at all.
“I want our engagement announcement to be a big deal.”
Lorna is mine and every brother needs to be clear about that. And they also need to understand that as her husband, I won’t tolerate any shite talk about her.
“You want an engagement party?”
“Aye, a big one with the entire brotherhood there.” I want each of them to personally witness my public claim on her.
“Isobel is the party specialist. She’s very good at pulling off an event on short notice. I could ask her to help with the planning.”
“Aye, Isobel will make sure that everything is perfect.”
“What about the wedding venue?”
“I was thinking Duncan’s, unless you’d prefer a church or something formal.”
She shakes her head. “Fancy venues require booking and prior notice. And I don’t want to wait a minute longer than we have to. The pub is fine with me.”
Duncan’s is home to both of us, and it’s where we should become one. Unless it holds too many bad memories for her. “A lot has happened at the pub. Are you sure that you’re all right with getting married there?”
“There have been some not so pleasant things to happen there, but we have a ton of happy memories ahead of us and they’re going to outweigh all of the bad.”
“You love that place as much as I do.”
“Because it’s a part of you.”
“You don’t know how much I’ve missed your being there. It’s not the same without you.”
“Do you work tomorrow?”
“Kenrick’s opening.” Thank fuck for that because I plan on keeping Lorna up late. Very late. “I’m supposed to pick up for him at three o’clock, but I have to go in a little earlier and take care of payroll.”
“Can I come with you?”
“Aye, but only if you stay with me tonight.” As if she wouldn’t.
“There’s no way in the world that I would consider leaving you tonight.”
“Or any other. You’re never going to spend another night away from me. We’ll move your things in day after tomorrow when I’m off.”
She giggles. “Are you going to let me decorate your flat so it doesn’t look like a bachelor lives here?”
“This is our flat now and you can do anything you like with it. And if you don’t want to live here, we’ll move. I’ll buy you any house you want.”
Lorna doesn’t know it yet, but I’m going to ruthlessly spoil her.
“A house is expensive.”
Lorna has been forced to live on a small budget in recent years. But no more. It’s time for her husband to take care of her.
“I can afford a house. A big one. I just never saw the need when it was only me. But now there’s you and me and soon there will be bairns. This isn’t where I want to raise our children.”
Her eyes widen and she smiles. “Our children. Say that again.”
“Our children.”
“All of this is so surreal.”
“Not surreal. Real. That’s what this is, Lorna, and it’s long overdue.”
Her fingers stroke the palm of my open hand, and she laces her fingers through mine. “Jenny is going to be happy.”
“She’s going to be well beyond happy.” She’s been hoping and praying for this day for a long time.
“When can we tell her?”
“Let’s go day after tomorrow before we move your things to my flat.”
“That sounds good.” Lorna scoots away from me. “I need to grab my phone and text Bleu to let her know that I won’t be coming back to her house.”
Her words remind me that I need to text Sin to let him know that I won’t be making it to the gym. There is no way in hell that I’m leaving this bed in the morning with Lorna in it.
“Bleu’s going to flip out when I tell her where I am and what’s happened.”
“Don’t say anything about our engagement. I want to see Sin’s and Bleu’s faces when they hear the news.”
“Me too.”
Lorna gets up and leaves the bed, walking across the room naked, and I watch every step that she takes. It’s so fucking exciting to have her here again.
She’s looking at her phone and typing when she returns to the bedroom, blindly walking back to the bed.
“I want you to know that I never brought another woman into this bed after you left.”
While we were apart, I wasn’t loyal to her in the same way that she was loyal to me, but I need her to know that her side of the bed was never filled by anyone. It remained empty for her.
She stops typing and looks up at me. Her mouth opens but no words come out.
“This was our special place. I couldn’t bear to have another woman here.”
Lorna looks at me for a moment, saying nothing, before she places her phone on the bedside table and comes back to bed. She crawls over me, straddling my body with a knee on each side of my hips, and leans down so that we’re face-to-face. “I love you. And I don’t know why fate separated us for so long, but it’s never going to happen again.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Swear to me that we’ll never be apart again.”
“We will be together for the rest of our lives. I swear.”
And we will be. I’ll kill anyone who tries to separate us.
Chapter 8
Lorna Frazier
I stretch and every muscle in my body protests. Name any sexual position you can think of and I’m pretty sure that Leith and I were in it at some point last night. It’s highly possible that we may have created a few new ones while we were at it. Everything felt so damn good, but now my body is paying the price.
Leith wraps his arms around me from behind and pulls me close. “Wake up.”
“Mmm… I don’t want to. Someone exhausted me last night, and I’ve not regained my strength.”
“I’d love nothing more than to stay in bed with you all day but I have a fiancée-soon-to-be-wife to support now. I can’t blow off work.”
“You’ve never blown off work a day in your life.”
“Because you don’t get to do that when you own the place.” Leith pushes my hair away and kisses the back of my neck. “Get up and come into the shower with me.”
I bet that a hot shower would feel wonderful on my aching muscles.
“I’d love to but I don’t want to shower and then put on my dirty clothes from last night. I need to go back to Sin and Bleu’s for clean ones.”
Leith loosens his hold on me. “Fair enough. Give me a minute to shower and I’ll drive you to their house.”
“You don’t have to. I drove my car here last night.”
“Forget it. You aren’t driving that heap of junk anymore.”
I’ve driven it for the last five years. “Why not?”
“First of all, I’m not even sure that it’s safe. And secondly, my wife isn’t driving a piece of shite. I’ll buy you a new one.”
I don’t want Leith spending his money on me. “You don’t have to do that. It’s fine. I’m used to driving something old.”
“I want you in something safe and reliable. You’re getting a new car. Hopefully, this week if I can get away from the pub to go and take care of it. Be thinking about what kind you want, preferably something family-friendly that we can grow into.”
“Well, I hate that car. It’s left me stranded more times than I care to recall, so I’m not going to argue with you about it.”
“Good. Our first compromise.”
“I’m not sure that it can be called compromise when I give in and let you have your way.”
“I’m happy, you’re happy. Does it really matter what we call it?”
“I guess not. At least not this time.” But I won’t always be so quick to give in to him.
“That’s my girl.”
Leith kisses the side of my neck and gets out of bed. Of course, I admire his naked body when he gets up and crosses the room. I couldn’t look away if I tried. And I smile when I notice red lines down his back.
My God, the man knows how to fuck. And he also knows how to make love. I am one lucky girl.
I get out of bed, a bit slower than Leith did, and I follow him into the bathroom. “Can I use your toothbrush?”
“No need. I just bought a new pack. They’re in the drawer.”
I open the drawer and smile when I see what’s in the back. “You didn’t throw away my body spray?”
“No. I love the fragrance too much.”
“It’s been sitting in the drawer all of this time?”
“Well, no. Sometimes when I was missing you, I would take it out and smell it.”
“It still has fragrance?”
“Just like it did when you left it.”
Wow. I can’t believe he kept it. That’s unexpected.
I tear into the pack of toothbrushes. “Can I have the pink one or would you like to keep it for yourself?”
“I think I can give up the pink one for you.”
When I’m finished brushing my teeth, I put my new pink toothbrush in the holder next to Leith’s. It’s such a simple act yet so significant, seeing them side by side.
“I kept all of my Duncan’s uniforms, but I’ll have to go through my storage boxes to find them.” I dread digging through that stuff. I didn’t exactly keep things organized when I threw my shite in those boxes at Wallace’s.
“There’s no fucking way you’ll ever wear that barmaid uniform again.”
What? “Then what am I supposed to wear?”
“Something that doesn’t put your tits and bum on display.”
No doubt about it, the uniform is tight and short. “You didn’t have a problem with my wearing it before.”
“Oh, trust me. I had a problem with it. A big one. Especially when I saw brothers ogling you. I didn’t have a say about it then, but I have a say about it now. You won’t be wearing it again.”
“You admit that the uniform shows off a barmaid’s tits and bum, which means that your female employees are displaying theirs for you to see.”
“Not for me to see.”
“But you’re there. How is it possible that you don’t see them?”
“I don’t see them because I choose to not look. I stopped looking a long time ago.”
“Why?”
“Because none of them are you.”
Well, hell. It’s hard to be pissed off when he says something sweet like that.
The girls told me that Leith had changed his ways after I left Duncan’s. No more fucking his barmaids. No more girls in his office with the door closed. I wasn’t so sure about it, but I guess they were right.
“I changed… because of you.”
“I didn’t know.”
“I stopped fucking around when I realized what I was doing to you. I made the decision to live like we were together even though we weren’t. I swear to you that I haven’t been with anyone in a year, over a year actually. It was all part of devoting myself to you.”
Oh my God. I can’t believe that I didn’t see it. “I was so hard on you. I didn’t give you a bit of slack.”
“You were no pushover. That’s for sure. I had no idea that you were so strong. Maybe not then, but now I’m glad that you didn’t take it easy on me. It means that I earned your trust and forgiveness and it wasn’t given freely. I won’t be forgetting that anytime soon.”
Bleu is all smiles when Sin leads Leith and me into the reception room. “Well, good morning, Miss I’m-not-coming-home-tonight.”
“Good morning.” I’m dying to tell Bleu about our engagement.
“How good of a morning is it?”
I hold up my left hand. “It’s a wonderful morning. The best I’ve ever had, actually.”
Sin chuckles. “Well, fuck. Would you look at that?”
Bleu points at my hand. “Bam! Look at that, dear husband. One date with Maddock Hendry and Leith caved. I win.”
She wins? Wins what?
“You did indeed, love.”
I’m not sure what to call the dance that Bleu is doing. “That means that you get all three babies for a full day while I do whatever I want to do. I get some me time.”
Sin looks at Leith and shakes his head. “Could you not have held out just a wee bit longer, mate?”
“No way; I’ve held out long enough.”
“I need you to say it and make it official,” Sin says.
“I’ve claimed Lorna and we’re getting married.” Hearing him say those words sends chills over my body.
Sin slaps Leith on his back. “Finally. When can we expect a wedding?”
“We’re notifying the registrar on Monday, and we’ll plan to do it as soon as the paperwork goes through and we’re app
roved.”
Bleu comes to me and wraps her arms around me, squeezing tightly. “This has been such a long time coming. I almost can’t believe that it’s happening.”
“Girl, you’re the not the only one.”
“I want you to call Maddock and let him know that Lorna is no longer single, and he needs to look somewhere else for a wife,” Leith says.
Sin nods. “I will happily let him know that her situation has changed and that his interest should be directed elsewhere.”
Leith puts his arm around me. “We want to have an engagement party to formally announce our intent to marry.”
“How soon?” Bleu asks.
“As soon as possible. And I want the entire brotherhood to be there to hear me call this woman mine.”
He’s so proud to call me his. It sort of reminds me of the way my father was with my mother.
“With Isobel’s help, we can pull it together in three days but that means the party will be on a Tuesday,” Bleu says.
“I’d prefer to not wait until the weekend if that’s all right with you.”
I’m happy that he’s proud but why is he so impatient? Is it because I’m coming back to work at the pub?
“Tuesday is fine with me.”
“Will you let us throw the party here? Our gift,” Bleu says.
“Are you sure?” A party for the entire brotherhood is a lot of work.
“We would love to do that for you.”
“Then yes. We would love to announce our engagement at your house.”
Chapter 9
Leith Duncan
I reach for Lorna’s left hand and bring it to my mouth, kissing the top. “We’re official.”
“We are.”
“How does it feel to no longer worry about being labeled as tainted?”
“It’s a huge relief.”
“No more worrying about marks on your neck.”
“Good thing that I don’t have to worry about them because I certainly have plenty after last night.”
I’m a man who hasn’t fucked in a really long time. My hand is the only form of contact that my cock has had. I may have been a wee bit overeager.
“Last night was the best ever.” The physical act itself was great, but the emotional side of it was everything.
Complete Sin Box Set Page 122