The MacTaggart Brothers Trilogy

by Anna Durand

  A big, warm hand seized mine and flipped it upside down. Something scraped across the bedside table. He slapped the condom packet into my palm.

  "There," he grumbled. "Hurry, love."

  "Feeling pressured?"

  "If ye donnae hurry, I'll lose my —"

  "Verve?" I tore open the packet and unrolled the condom onto his engorged penis. "Can't let you suffer, can I?"

  "Bloody hell, would ye —"

  I plunged my body down onto his cock. Seated astride him, with the full length of his erection buried within me, I slanted forward to lay my palms on his chest. He'd slouched down onto the silky sheets with his head elevated on a plump pillow.

  He let out a groan of such depth, such intense relief, that it resonated in his chest. His hands found my buttocks and gripped them. "Please, mo leannan."

  "I love it when you beg."

  My hands on his chest, anchored to him by his palms clamped on my ass, I lifted my hips and slid back down onto his cock. He cried out, hoarse and sharp. I rocked my hips, riding him at a leisurely pace, loving the feel of him inside me and the blissful friction of our bodies melding and separating amid the slapping of our flesh. The darkness made it hotter, our joining charged with an erotic electricity, the power of the unknown wildly seductive. When I could stand it no longer, I worked my hips with mounting vigor, my breasts bouncing in his face, as my own pleasure escalated into a burning need, an inferno that consumed me from the inside out. He thrust up each time I slammed down on his cock, our movements in sync, and I felt his heart pounding beneath my palms even as my heart pounded, the blood thundered in my ears, and the nerves in my sex throbbed.

  "Aidan, oh God!"

  He sputtered something in Gaelic and flipped us both over with me pinned beneath his sweat-sheathed body. His hips pistoned even faster. He shoved his hands under my hips, hoisting them up as he drove into me with frenzied force and speed. The squeaking of the bed mingled with his grunts and my strangled shouts. I clutched the slats of the headboard, my fingers aching from the strength of my grip on the wood.

  I threw my head back, my back arched, and I screamed. "Yes-oh-God-yes!"

  The world seemed to vanish, there in the dark, while I came with convulsive force and flung my legs around his hips to ride out the magnificent fury. He punched into me again, so deep he almost penetrated my soul, and I let out a whimpering cry as my climax pulsated on and on. One more thrust and he came apart inside me, bellowing from the ferocity of his own release.

  My breaths heaved so hard and fast I couldn't speak. The joy of our love, of declaring it to each other at last, had fueled a passion more exquisite than any we'd achieved before. At least, any I'd achieved.

  Aidan collapsed beside me with a thud that rocked the bed. He nuzzled my ear, his breaths blustering over my skin and ruffling my hair. "Are ye mine?"

  "I'm yours, always."

  "Ahm yours too, mo chridhe. Yours forever." He hooked an arm over my belly. "That was the best sex I've ever had. And I thought making love to you couldn't get any better."

  "Same for me. I love having sex with you almost as much as I love you."

  He chuckled, enfolding me in his arms, cradling me to him in the twilit serenity of our room. We lay like that for several minutes, silent except for our breathing, our hearts slowing with every passing second. The world seemed to have telescoped down to this room, this bed, the two of us entwined.

  A noise roused me from my trance. It sounded like bagpipes. Distant bagpipes.

  "My phone," Aidan mumbled. "Forget it."

  "It might be important. Maybe Jamie needs you to rescue her from my ravenous brother."

  Sighing, he heaved his body off the bed, turned the lamp on, and rooted around on the floor until he found his jeans. He dug the phone out of a pocket, answering with a groggy hello.

  He jerked ramrod straight, his eyes wide. "What happened?"

  I could hear the tinny, indistinct sound of someone talking from the other end of the call.

  Aidan's expression went as stony as his stiff posture. He responded to the caller with grunts and the occasional half-growled "aye."

  He hung up, tossing the phone onto the table. It clacked onto the wood surface.

  "Everything okay?" I asked, pushing up onto my elbows.

  Aidan scrubbed his face with both hands, then flopped onto the bed on his back. The mattress bounced, and the frame squeaked. Staring up at the ceiling, he said, "Lachlan and Erica spoke to Seona."

  "Okay." I rolled onto my side facing him, braced on one elbow. "Did it not go so well?"

  "She told them why she wants money. She needs it for the bairn."

  "The what?"

  He covered his face with both hands again, letting them slowly slide down. The anguish on his face made my gut clench.

  "A bairn's a baby," he said, without looking at me. "She's pregnant, and she says it's mine."

  Chapter Thirty-One

  A weight crashed down on me with such mental force I felt I might plummet straight through the bed and the floor, down into the depths of the earth. With shaky arms, I pushed up into a sitting position. I couldn't speak. Had no clue what to say. The man I loved might be having a baby with another woman.

  Might be. Should I cling to the hope it wasn't true?

  "They're sure," I said. "Lachlan and Erica are sure it's true. Seona is really pregnant."

  "Yes." Aidan kept his gaze glued to the ceiling, his hands on the bed, his body stiff and motionless except for the rising and falling of his chest. "Seona is very pregnant. Hard to tell for sure, but Erica guesses maybe six or seven months along."

  "Is that — Does the timeline match up?"

  "Sounds like it. The last time I slept with her was the night before the accident, about six months ago. I was sure I used a condom."

  I felt like such a creep for asking, but I had to know. "She could've slept with someone else, couldn't she?"

  He pinched the bridge of his nose, eyes shut. "I suppose so. We were casual, not exclusive."

  "You didn't ask her if she was with someone else."

  "Calli." He swiveled his head to look at me, his face the picture of grief. "How can I ask that? If she says it's mine, I have to take her word unless I find out otherwise."

  A coldness had infiltrated me from my skin all the way down to the core of my being. "What will you do?"

  "She nearly died, and for all I know, it was my fault. If the bairn's mine, I won't leave her out in the cold. I'll take care of them both."

  "You'll marry her."

  "Donnae know."

  He didn't know? Aidan was an honorable man, and I loved him for that, but now his honor would tear us apart. After two weeks of pursuing me, making me love him, I could lose everything and I didn't even have the option of resenting it.

  As everything he'd told me percolated through my mind, the suspicious part of me woke up and demanded some answers. "She didn't admit she's six months pregnant until today? The woman's been harassing you for money, but she failed to mention the baby. Doesn't that seem suspicious to you?"

  "Donnae know."

  I pulled the sheet over me, suddenly cold, while I considered my next words. "Did you ask for any kind of proof it's yours?"

  "That's why I'm flying home tomorrow. To find out." He levered himself off the bed, sitting with his arms limp at his sides, his body slumped forward. "Any sort of paternity test will take time. If she fights it, I suppose I'll have to try for a court order."

  Which would take more time. I'd waited so long to be free of Rade and with that endpoint finally in sight, Aidan and I got punched in the face by Seona's revelation. Maybe this thing with Aidan had been a huge mistake. How well could I know him after fourteen days? Maybe the universe was sending me a message that marrying him would lead to more trouble.

  Maybe this wasn't meant to be.

  "I need to talk to Jamie," Aidan said. "She's coming home with me, whet
her she likes it or not."

  He stood and collected his clothes. I watched in numb silence as he dressed and headed out the door. I sat there, unable to move, while he staggered down the hallway. The sliding doors zipped open and shut.

  Tomorrow he'd be gone. Would I ever see him again?

  I wrapped my arms around myself. If Seona was having his child…

  This just wasn't meant to be.

  *****

  The morning arrived and flew past, hurtling toward the afternoon. The afternoon when Aidan would leave me and fly back to Scotland, possibly forever. An ache had sprouted in my chest this morning, when I rolled over in bed to gaze at Aidan's sleeping form, and the ache hadn't eased up since. His head had been turned toward me, cradled by the pillow. His lips were curved upward at the corners in a contented smile.

  My beautiful Scot. Sweet, considerate, intelligent, funny Aidan.

  He wasn't mine, though. Seona could lay claim to him with a tie much stronger than any I'd forged with him. She might be having his baby.

  Now, hours later, I lay on the bed again. On my back this time. Fully clothed. I stared at the ceiling while Aidan gathered his things, stuffing clothes into a suitcase. My gaze drifted to the foot of the bed and the two puppies curled up there, observing Aidan with solemn faces, as if they sensed he was abandoning us. They loved him almost as much as I did.

  The zzzt of a zipper being pulled shut snapped me back to the moment. Aidan had closed up his suitcase. He slouched near the bedside table, morose and silent, his gaze on the blank screen of the phone in his hand.

  He didn't know what to say. Neither did I.

  So, I said the only thing I could think of. "I'll pack you a snack in case you get hungry at the airport."

  Crawling out of bed, I hustled down the hallway and across the living room into the kitchen, desperate to get some distance from Aidan. The puppies trailed after me, yawning. I shoved my hand inside the open cardboard box on the kitchen counter, tucked under the overhead cabinets, and pulled out a handful of little dog biscuits. As I began tossing them to the puppies one biscuit at a time, even their enthusiastic little leaps to catch the biscuits in midair failed to make me smile.

  Aidan was leaving. Today. In a matter of minutes.

  When the last biscuit had been devoured, Mandy and Misty raced out the dog door to tear around the yard in big circles.

  If only we humans could recover from heartbreak so easily.

  I turned toward the refrigerator, and though I hadn't eaten anything since breakfast, I couldn't summon the slightest bit of hunger. The thought of food made me queasy. I had to make Aidan a snack of some kind, I'd said I would. But my eyes stung, blurring more every second. Determined not to cry, I sucked in a breath through my nose and swiped away the tears pooling in my eyes.

  "What's wrong?"

  Aidan's voice made me jump. I shuffled around to face him across the bar.

  He stood with his hands on the back of one of the stools, his expression unreadable.

  "Nothing's wrong," I said, but the tightness in my throat made my voice strained. "We don't have much time left."

  The import of those words struck me the instant I uttered them. He was going away, and I might never see him again.

  "Aye," he said, sounding weary. His posture was slumped too, as if he could no longer hide the truth. "I… don't want to go."

  "You have to. It's time."

  "Do I have to leave?" His sapphire gaze drilled into me. The tone of his voice intensified too. "We could be together. If you come with me."

  "I can't marry you."

  "Not yet." He leaned forward, desperation tightening his features. "Stay with me. Live with me. I donnae care about the circumstance as long as you're with me. We can marry after your divorce comes through."

  "I have to be here for that."

  "You can fly back when the time comes."

  "Aidan —" His statement a moment ago flared in my mind, bright as lightning. "What do you mean if I come with you?"

  "Back to Scotland."

  I scuffled backward a step. "You assume I'll go with you? Why don't you stay here?"

  "Do you want me to?"

  "If I did, would you do it? Would you stay here to be with me?"

  "You know I have to go home to see Seona." He lowered his eyes, his mouth cinching into a tense line. "Besides, I don't belong here. Scotland is my home and I want to share it with you. I know you'd love it."

  "You know? How, exactly?" I raised my hands as if I might ward off the fear shivering through me on a cold wave of dread. "Let me get this straight. You assumed from the start that if you could make me fall for you, I'd happily trot off to a foreign country and leave my whole life behind."

  "What life? You've got no job, no money —"

  "I have a brother and a cousin I love."

  "Gavin lives in Minnesota and Tara's in Chicago. You hardly see them."

  My hands fisted at my sides, I stared at him with a sick feeling in my gut, like I was seeing him clearly for the first time. And in that moment, he looked an awful lot like someone else I knew. This is Aidan, not Rade, my logical brain insisted, and Aidan is a good man. He wouldn't trap me like Rade had. But he had worked damn hard to make me love him, the way Rade had wanted to do.

  Aidan hadn't forced me to love him. No one could do that. I'd fallen for him because of his strength, his integrity, his humor, his sensuality, and so much more. Despite realizing the truth of it, I could not shake the bone-chilling fear. He'd assumed I would move to another country. He never asked me if I'd do it but made it a foregone conclusion.

  I should've seen it coming. All his talk about wonderful Scotland. His cagey answer when I'd asked him two weeks ago on the beach what he would do with his American wife when he found one. Would he expect her to move to Scotland? He'd hedged his answer, saying he hadn't thought that far ahead. How could I have missed the signs?

  I backed up to the counter, grasping its edge in both hands. "If Seona's having your baby, this is all moot anyway."

  "We can still be together, even if the bairn's mine."

  My fingers had gone so cold I had to stuff them in my armpits. I shook my head. "You're not the kind of man who could do that. You'll marry her."

  "I want you, that's all I know right now."

  "You want a wife. Why does it have to be me? Seona can give you a family right off the bat. Why do you still want to marry me?"

  "Donnae love her. I love you."

  I was shaking, not entirely from the chill. "You wanted an American wife, and I was handy. It was an accident we met, you were only interested because you found me in the same stupid club where Lachlan and Erica met. Why marry me?"

  Aidan opened his mouth to speak, then shut it. He studied me with a piercing intensity and I could practically see wheels and gears turning in his mind, clicking into place as he figured me out.

  "Not for a bloody green card," he said with a bitter edge to his voice, "that's for certain."

  "I didn't mean…" Couldn't finish the statement, because he was right. I assumed the worst. Disaster mode had become my default position. Yet I kept coming back to one question. After two weeks, how well could I know Aidan?

  He straightened and strode around the bar into the kitchen, straight to me. Positioned in front of me, no more than a foot away, he said, "I'll do it. I'll stay here. To keep you in my life, I'll do anything."

  "What about Seona?"

  His features contorted as he hissed, "Shit."

  "Right, you have to go home and see her." I rubbed my temple where the beginnings of a headache pulsed. "Besides, you just said Scotland is your home and you'll never belong here. That means you won't be happy here, so if you stay, you'll resent me for making you do it."

  Aidan leaned forward, bracketing my body with his hands next to mine on the counter. His body surrounded me, his breaths blustered over my face. "What do you want of me? I will do whatever y
ou say, if you'll only tell me what I have to do to make you happy."

  I've never seen you this happy before, Gavin had said. And the irony was, Aidan had made me feel happy and normal and free.

  Until everything got ripped away by one phone call.

  My pulse raced, from more than anxiety. Aidan's nearness, his determined expression, the plea in his eyes… It all ratcheted up my pulse and squeezed a cold sweat from my brow. My palms had grown clammy too.

  "Aidan," I said, "go home. Take care of Seona and the baby."

  He ducked his head down and his lips scraped across mine. "Donnae want to go. I love you. I need you with me."

  "Doesn't matter what we want."

  I sucked in a breath, fighting to stave off a fit of wrenching tears. "This was never meant to be. It's time we face the truth."

  His lips, so close to mine, stretched into a tight scowl. "You're wrong. We are meant to be. I went to the club because it's what Lachlan did, yes. But you mistook me for someone else, like Erica mistook Lachlan for her blind date. I didn't make that happen. We took a road trip, which was your idea, and I didn't realize that's what Lachlan and Erica did too. Lachlan only told me a few days ago. Erica had legal problems and so do you. Erica had a dog and you've got puppies."

  "What's your point?"

  He splayed a palm over my lower back, drawing me nearer, his eyes blazing into mine. "I didn't do any of that, couldn't have planned it if I tried. Fate brought you to me and me to you. We belong together."

  I turned my head away, but his lips scraped across my cheek. "I don't believe in fate. This is a crock of shit and you know it."

  He placed one finger on my chin, compelling me to look at him. "I will come back for you."

  "You seem to be forgetting one important part of the Erica and Lachlan story. They broke up. We had a fling, like they did, and it's time for you to go home."

  "Not a fling." He rubbed the pad of his thumb over my lips. "And you're forgetting Erica and Lachlan got back together."

  "Then I guess you'd better leave it to fate to decide what happens to us."

  Aidan stared into my eyes, his thumb on my bottom lip. The silence stretched on and on, broken only by the muted barking of puppies outside. At last, he lowered his hand.