One Hot Scot

by Donna Alam

  Post Scriptum, Rory has the most amazing bellend. It’s bloody huge!

  He didn’t speak to me for three days after reading it, almost as though I’d dictated the thing.

  I realise the line is quiet, so pull the phone away from my ear to check the signal again. Bloody countryside.

  ‘Y—your sweet-talking isn’t going to work,’ she splutters, her words rising in tone and volume with each word. ‘You see some people are loyal, though I’m sure it’s a strange and unusual concept to you, but some people can’t be bought off with a few vague promises—’ Her tirade halts abruptly. ‘Yes, well,’ she adds, her delivery turning brusque, her professional façade slipping back into place.

  I can almost imagine her standing there in the office, straightening her blouse as she makes her point. Not a difficult thing to do given I’d seen her do that exact thing not so very long ago. My mind slips to the image of her palms smoothing the pale sheerness against her skin. Of how she’d tucked that blouse into her waistband before shimmying the dark material of her skirt downwards, stealing the sight of her bare pussy, then her toned and tanned thighs.

  I shake my head to dislodge the memory. Office sex is great, but sex in your own office is not without its disadvantages.

  ‘Besides, I tried the agent earlier this afternoon but they’re not inclined to kick out the family who’ve rented the place two days into their stay—strange that.’

  ‘But it’s my house.’ Okay, it belongs to the company now. ‘How is it possible that I can’t stay in my own property for the night?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. Maybe something to do with contracts and legalities. Maybe you should have made the call to the agent yourself. You seem to think you can talk a girl into anything.’

  ‘As I recall, it was entirely the other way around.’

  As usual, she refuses to acknowledge her part. ‘And now it’s late. I’m not even supposed to be here in the office and . . . and I have a date, so go f—find someone else to sleep with.’ And with that, the line goes definitively dead.

  ‘Bastarding arsehole fuck!’

  I bring my fist down on the steering wheel with a thump, chucking the offending phone into the passenger seat. At least I’d managed to take a screenshot of the causeway crossing times earlier before the signal went to hell, especially as I’m supposed to be seeing the site manager today. And the gardens, maybe. Frustrated, I run both hands through my hair at the same moment my phone chimes with a text from Anna.

  I’m told the cottages adjoining the main house are habitable, former servant quarters, I believe.

  I’d forgotten about those. God knows what state they’re in, but it looks like that’s where I’ll be bedding down for the night. Better than some crummy motel or travel lodge, and better than driving the length of the country overnight.

  That there is a lack of local accommodation has to be good for business, I suppose. Not that Tremaine House will be offering stays for anything other than an elite clientele. One thing’s for sure, the sooner the helipad is installed the better it’ll be for everyone concerned.

  The tide looks fairly low as I pull the truck onto the greying road, and my phone is still in hand as it chimes with another text from the same comedienne.

  Enjoy slumming it.

  I consider texting back, offering to send her a picture of me slumming it while stroking it, just to piss her off, but accelerate instead.

  It takes only a few minutes to cross and getting to the house, probably another ten on top of that through very circuitous country lanes. Out of all of the properties I’ve seen, the ones we’ve bought or are in the process of acquiring, this one’s my favourite, though maybe it shouldn’t be. Especially as it should’ve been mine already. It’s a Georgian villa built with symmetry and proportion in mind. And, as was the fashion almost two hundred years ago, constructed with sandstone extracted from a nearby quarry. A moss covered fountain sits in the centre of a circular driveway and you can almost imagine the horse drawn carriages being pulled to a stop there. A dozen or so steps lead up to a portico and a massive pair of Scottish oak doors, their patina darkened by the years.

  My footsteps are light on the well-worn steps, the old hinges creaking as I push open the door. The place looks . . . different. Tidier, for sure, but not quite habitable. It’s no longer the genteelly tired residence my mother brought me to every summer since I’d turned twelve, and not yet the striking escape it will become. Work had begun on the reception area and the residents bar had also begun to take shape, at least until Beth had her wee tantrum. It’s less chaotic looking today, and even half finished, it doesn’t take much of a stretch of the imagination to see how it’ll eventually all come together. Of how the rooms will be filled by parties booked for weekends of hedonism and champagne, in the house perched above a sandy beach the likes of which you won’t see anywhere else. Sure, it’s not a tropical beach where the sun is always shining and the drinks are dressed in fruit and thatched parasols. It’s a beach where, dependent on the weather, the ocean is anything from a deep blue to a stormy grey, where you can watch the storm clouds rolling in like the hounds of hell before chasing your way through the dunes to avoid the thunderous downpour.

  I’m not a man known for poetry, but there’s something about this place that is both tranquillity and mayhem all in one day.

  That I can smell the ocean makes me almost think I can see it, so I follow my nose along the hallway, through the out-dated kitchens to the back courtyard. From here, I can see the beach in the distance, a lone figure standing on the sandy shoreline. A woman. There shouldn’t be anyone on the beach—it’s private property, and inaccessible from anywhere but the house—but that’s not what pulls me closer. No, that would be the pull of a fantastic pair of legs. You’ve got to love leggings, well, in some circumstances—these circumstances—covering the loveliest bum I’ve seen in days. The wind coming off the North Sea can be brutal during the summer, let alone this time of year, yet she’s dressed in nothing more than a t-shirt. I notice this as she pulls back her arm as though to throw something into the ocean, her arm dropping by her side almost as quick.

  Blonde strands blow across her pink cheeks as she turns, her eyes as blue as the pair of Hunter wellies covering her feet and calves. Eyes that, I realise with a jolt, are familiar. Blue and glistening now, though the last time I’d stared into them they were glassy from another cause. I don’t bang the same woman twice, said no man ever—not without good cause. And let’s just say, in this case, I’d be up for more than seconds. Fuck, thirds.

  Well, hello, American Rose.

  ‘You can’t . . . be . . . here.’ Her words are almost whipped away by the wind but not so much that I don’t grasp her bewilderment, because it’s also written in her expression.

  My gut tightens pleasantly and things don’t seem quite so bleak. Misery loves company, so they say. You know who else loves company? My cock.

  ‘I think,’ I say stepping closer, ‘you’ll find that you’ve got that the wrong way around. And while you’re a sight for sore and sorry eyes . . .’ My gaze deliberately roams over her body as she folds her arms across her chest hiding cold-prominent nipples. ‘. . . I’m pretty sure it’s you who’s trespassing.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. You’re the one that shouldn’t be here—what are you doing here, anyway?’

  Fiery. I can deal with that. Fire keeps you warm. Burns pretty good.

  ‘Don’t stress it, titch. I’ve got designs on more than your body today.’ I say this light-heartedly, though I can’t seem to make my gaze behave, because those legs? They’re fucking fantastic and I’d like to feel them wrapped around my head. ‘I’ve got a meeting at the house.’ I look pointedly at my watch, hoping to keep her eyes from dipping to my crotch. Doesn’t do to look too eager.

  ‘If you’ve a meeting up there,’ she says, gesturing towards the house, ‘I’d know about it.’

  ‘Aye?’ I feel the corner of my mouth twist. A temporary site m
anager Kit said; nothing about a fucking assistant.

  ‘Yes.’ She pulls herself taller, slipping something from between her fingers into the breast pocket of her t-shirt, and she shouldn’t have done it if she didn’t want my gaze to return there. Jesus, pay attention; eyes up top. ‘I’d know about it because—’

  ‘I’m looking for your boss,’ I say, forcing my gaze back to her face and cutting her off. The sooner I get this meeting over, the sooner we can start the business of getting reacquainted. Intimately. ‘Why don’t you take me to meet him and then maybe you and I can catch up. Over dinner, say?’

  Her arms remain folded, and as her left eyebrow rises, I get a good look at her pissed off face. I cut her off as she opens her mouth to respond.

  ‘I’m looking for Fin.’

  ‘Ah.’ Her hands fall to her sides, one shoulder lifting slightly. ‘Then you’ve found her.’

  Then is . . . Fin her surname? Would that make the new guy her so called ex-husband, or make her not divorced at all? Thoughts, lightning fast, slip through my head before I recall Kit saying he’d employed a guy by the name of Fin Hayes, not someone with the surname Fin. What kind of coincidence is this?

  ‘No, I’m looking for the site manager, Fin.’ Not the fit-girl-Fin.

  Her neutral expression hardens; her mouth pursing and her brows drawing down. For some reason this makes me chuckle. She looks like an angry kitten.

  ‘That’s funny, huh? And I suppose that would be because I’m a woman? That I couldn’t possibly be managing a construction project on account of possessing a fully functioning vagina.’

  My smile breaks into a bloody great grin as she makes the head of an arrow with both hands—an arrow pointing south to her pussy, no less. I just manage to stop myself from agreeing that her vagina is indeed fully functional, and that as a fully-fledged vagina enthusiast, I confirm her pussy is top shelf. That is, if pussies were available on shelves, which is something I don’t want to imagine right now. Chuckling now, partly at myself and my ridiculous thought pattern, I try to keep a straight face, conscious that our second encounter isn’t going so well.

  ‘I was thinking,’ I say, holding up my hand to ward off her ire. ‘Seriously, I was thinking more along the lines that you can’t be the person I’m looking for seeing as your name is Rose.’

  And then I’m not laughing anymore as her expression changes, the random thoughts rolling around my brain dissolving as more sensible ones begin slotting into place.

  We all lie. It’s a fact of life, and a one-night stand doesn’t owe you anything, much less honesty. So why does it feel like I’ve just been sucker punched?

  ‘Yeah, so I’m Fin.’ She tips her chin, raising her arms to cross them, halting mid-motion. She slides them down her backside as though expecting to find pockets there. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve never given a girl a false name.’

  ‘Hand on heart,’ I reply solemnly. ‘I never have.’ And that’s the truth.

  ‘Really?’ Her tone drips with scepticism. ‘I find that very hard to believe.’

  ‘I also have the decency to hang around until morning. I don’t creep out during the wee hours.’ Her cheeks, already pink from the wind, turn a satisfyingly deep red. ‘Touch a raw nerve there, did I?’

  ‘I don’t . . . I never . . .’

  ‘Let’s just call it even, yeah?’

  She nods and holds out her hand. ‘Finola Rosalie Hayes.’

  ‘That’s some name. Did your parent’s not like you, Finola Rose? Or maybe you were just an ugly bairn?’

  No idea where that sprung from; so much for calling it even. And if she was an ugly baby, she definitely blossomed into nothing short of beautiful. She’s stunning even in anger, and there aren’t a lot of women that can pull that off, or so I’ve found. Contrary to popular belief, not all women are hot when enraged. It’s an emotion that twists more than just the mind. Not Rose—Fin, though. The way she looks as she straightens is almost imperious as she pushes the wind-whipped strands from her cheek like she can’t believe they’d dare be anything but perfectly behaved.

  She’s so fucking hot.

  But all of this, I know, pales as to the way she looks when she comes.

  Like it’s something new. Something unexplored. Like something I want to see again.

  ‘It’s Fin,’ she says coldly, ignoring my childish taunts and retracting any semblance of embarrassment or regret. ‘You say we have a meeting scheduled? I think you must be mistaken, unless . . .’ And then it’s her turn to appraise me, though maybe not as hungrily. I get the impression she’s trying to place who I might be. ‘You—you’re not from the office in London, are you?’

  ‘Nope.’ My answer is immediate. She’s not the only one who can lie. I’m hardly dressed for the office, not suited and booted as I usually spend my days; I can be whoever I want. And right now I want to be the man who gets inside her knickers within the next few hours. It’s not like she’s going to be with the company long term; she’s not an employee . . . technically. No, definitely not. This situation’s nothing like Anna. For a start, we won’t be working out of the same office. Second, she’ll only be with us a matter of weeks. Third, we’ve done the dirty deed already. Isn’t life grand!

  Hear that, Kit? Thinking with my big head, not the little one, like you said.

  ‘Then do you mind telling me why you’re here?’

  Again with the superior tone. I’d like to hear her try to keep that up while she’s riding my face.

  ‘Sure,’ I answer smoothly. ‘But why don’t we discuss it over a brew?’

  She hesitates, clearly conflicted. So I smile blandly. Sure, she’s ballsy, but that could be to mask her discomfort. We’ve screwed, but she doesn’t know me from Adam and she’s here, alone on a secluded beach, with me. She has every right to be concerned.

  ‘You know, the only thing I could murder right now is a cuppa.’ She laughs, her hand moving quickly to smother both it and her smile. ‘I’ve been working on a job miles away and have come straight from there. Offer me something wet and warm—’ Sorry, absolutely not. Not one jot, and also not able to keep a straight face at the sight of hers right now. Talk about scandalized. ‘—then maybe you can show me around.’

  ‘Show you?’ Her stunned gaze swipes over me once more.

  ‘You mean they haven’t told you? I’m here to play with some of your more delicate stuff.’

  ‘Delicate—’

  ‘Needs versus wants. I’m very much a hands on man and definitely what you’d call an expert.’

  ‘You—you’re—’

  ‘Here to look at the gardens. Did I not say?’

  God loves a chancer, or so my granny is wont to say.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Fin

  He’s got the arms for it, I suppose. Do gardeners have big arms, or is that some kind of porn-workman-genre thing? Because arm porn, if it isn’t a thing, it surely should be. And he’d make a fortune.

  He’s so big. And masculine. And that ass. Wonder how many squats it takes to get an ass that firm?

  I’m so screwed.

  And I was so sure this day couldn’t get any worse.

  I’d woken this morning from another watery nightmare, arms flailing and saltwater stinging the back of my throat. Only this time it was different; different as in worse. This time, Marcus was there. Marcus and his PA—as in personal ass-piece—had stood on the deck of his yacht, laughing as I’d struggled against the current, my legs growing heavy under the effort of staying afloat. He’d wrapped his arm around her waist, anchoring himself before he’d used his boot to push my head under, ignoring my begging and desperate cries for help.

  It was only a dream, I know, but the echo of it had followed me all day. I’d wanted to end it—the day, not my life—draw a line under my marriage once and for all. I needed something symbolic; some way to take my power back and it seemed I’d decided just how.

  I’d stopped wearing my wedding ring, regarding it as a sign of my
own stupidity, one I’d kept in the bottom of my make-up bag. But yet not fifteen minutes ago, the baguette-cut diamonds had glittered in their platinum band, weighty and solid as always, though this time not on my hand, but rather in. I’d stood on the freezing cold shoreline, contemplating the level of cliché of pitching it in.

  Because, yep, that was my big gesture. Cure all ills.

  A more sensible plan would’ve been to sell it—I’m sure I could’ve lived off the proceeds for a year or more—but it seemed I wasn’t feeling so sensible. Either then or now. A sensible person would’ve at least remembered to pick up her jacket before dashing out. I’d gone as far as to raise my hand when I’d noticed the pale circle of skin where the ring once sat, memories rising like mist from the ocean. Though not those of Marcus. No, my body had heated and tingled in all the wrong places as I’d recalled the best bad idea I’ve ever had.

  Twice.

  Warming rapidly, I’d lowered my hand as tiny sparks of awareness began plucking at the edges of my focus. I’d turned, not truly expecting anything, and yet, there he’d stood. Rory. Like I’d conjured all six foot something of him.

  As though my imagination is that creative.

  I close my eyes as I crush the dish towel between both my hands, right now recalling that other impressive length of him. Long, thick and hard. Just how the hell did he get to be so striking? Tan and tattooed, ripped and so very, very masculine. As Nat would say, he’s built like a brick—

  Oh, shit house.

  Fucking Rory. He coughs slightly and I realise he’s smothering a laugh, no doubt catching me staring blindly while my mind had slipped into the land of alcohol fuelled nights, bulging biceps and hot sex. Of how, in this land, one of those strong arms had banded my chest as he’d twisted my face to his, covering my neck and mouth with kisses. He didn’t so much as take possession as he did move in lock, stock and massive barrel, demolishing the hell out me.