And Julie’s hair was still in its chastity belt.
Niall sat beside her. “Your expression was far more animated when you faced a full bowl of sticky toffee pudding with a spoon in your hand.”
“I’m not married anymore,” Julie said. “There’s nothing my ex can appeal, no chance the decree can be overturned, but this…”
Her head came to rest against Niall’s shoulder.
“This makes it real,” he said. Like when the tour started, and he wasn’t on it. “You’re alone again, but you prove that by being with me. A paradox.” Or an irony. He slipped an arm around her waist, because sex was only part of what they were doing. “Are you scared, Julie?”
She hiked a leg across his thighs, adopting a very friendly posture.
“Niall, I am so relieved, so shamelessly, endlessly, unendingly relieved. No more trying, no more misplaced loyalty, no more pretending I haven’t been betrayed, no more ignoring the disappointment or the anger. I get my future back. I get my self back. I get back a simple, honest reality I never should have let slip from my grasp.”
Julie was savoring a moment of victory, when Niall had feared she was hesitating before a decision she’d regret.
“You’re quitting the tour,” Niall said, wrestling her into his lap, “giving up the sponsorships, and doing as you damned well please. Good for you, Julie Leonard. I’m proud of you, and you should be proud of yourself. Now, will you give up your clothes too?”
Chapter Five
* * *
A combination of joy, calm, and desire burbled through Julie as she treated herself to more of Niall Cromarty’s kisses.
This was right, this was her right. Ten days from now, she might have regrets, but a missed afternoon at the driving range would not be among them.
“I have protection,” Julie said, turning to straddle Niall. “I believe in protection.”
“As do I, but I also believe in being naked, Julie Leonard. I want your skin next to mine, nothing between us save for that protection you so helpfully tucked among your socks.”
Niall fell back on the bed, tugging Julie with him. She went down laughing, until his hand slipped under her polo shirt, a warm, welcome sensation amid many other welcome sensations.
“I’m wearing a sports bra,” Julie said. “There’s no clasp. I’ll have to—”
Niall’s expression—tender, amused, and patient—said he knew very well what a sports bra was.
Derek had made jokes about Julie’s breasts, about a Holstein having contributed to the Leonard gene pool, and it being impossible to have too much of a good thing, right?
Julie sat up and pulled her shirt over her head. “I like my breasts, do you hear me? They’re pretty, they can nourish babies, they bring me pleasure, and I like them. Love them, in fact. A lot. Girls, say hello to Mr. Cromarty.”
The bra went next, while Niall’s smile became tinged with emotions Julie couldn’t read.
“Say something, Niall,” Julie whispered, abruptly feeling foolish, to be sitting half-naked on a man she’d met only days ago, lecturing him about her breasts.
“Hello, ladies,” Niall said quietly, kissing the tip of each breast. “My name is Niall, and I’m the luckiest man in Scotland. My mission in life has become to see that we get on famously.”
Julie braced herself to be handled, because a well-endowed woman expected that. She’d never told her husband he was being ham-handed. She’d learned instead to ignore—
Niall’s tongue, soft, damp, and delicate, circled a nipple, one direction, then the other.
“You taste of lavender,” he said. “I like it. Tell me if you like this.”
In the next small eternity, insights wedged themselves past the pleasure Niall brought Julie. She’d been enduring sex with her husband, telling herself for years that intimacy took time to fine-tune, that she’d raise her complaints—that’s what they were—when she and Derek were on a walk, or at the mall.
That orgasms were overrated.
The time had never come to open that discussion—to even go for a walk—and another part of Julie had gone into hibernation, an important part she should have paid more attention to.
“How am I doing?” Niall asked, glossing his thumbs over Julie’s damp nipples. “How are we doing?”
Another insight: Derek had never asked that question, never invited a conversation about their lovemaking. He’d been all dirty talk, dirty jokes, and in a subtle way, disrespect.
For their marriage, for Julie, for the intimacy a husband and wife ought to share.
“I’m overdressed,” Julie said. “So are you.” She rose off Niall and gave him a hand up, so they were standing close to each other beside the bed. He took off his shirt in a single motion, up, up, off, and tossed it across the room to land on the floor near Julie’s slides.
For a moment, she simply looked at him. Niall wasn’t bulky, but his musculature was defined. His strength would last, and be supple and quick. She permitted herself a sniff. Cedar, seaside, heather… the great Scottish outdoors.
Yum.
“If I start touching you now,” she said, taking one step back, “I’ll just have to stop to get my slacks off. I’ll resent the hell out of any interruption once we get started.”
“Goal-oriented,” Niall said, toeing off his shoes. “I like a woman with a sense of purpose, but Julie, we’re not in a hurry. We won’t ever be in a hurry.”
Oh, he sounded so confident. Julie hoped he’d eat those words, but first she’d get her clothes off.
They made a race of it, shucking the rest of their clothes and tossing them onto the heap. Clothes on the floor had been one of Derek’s pet peeves, so Julie snatched her sports bra off the bed and flung it to the rug.
“I’m naked if you are,” she said as Niall’s socks—the last of his clothing—landed beside her bra.
“You’re lovely is what you are,” Niall growled, prowling around the bed to take Julie’s hand. “Also brave.”
What a perceptive man. “A little nervous,” Julie replied, kissing his cheek, “but I’ve been nervous for a long time.”
Uncertain, weary, frustrated, angry, a tad crazy. The whole legacy of a troubled marriage, and she could finally, finally cut it all loose.
Niall leaned closer, still Niall, but in the last five years, Julie had seen only Derek without his clothes. Niall was beautiful, but also… so very male.
“Take me to bed, Julie. I’ve a few nerves of my own that want tending to.”
She longed to touch him everywhere. Chest, shoulders, back, face… and the less obvious places. His lean flanks, the soft crook of his elbow, the long, honed strength of his quads. His back was smooth, his chest dusted with hair, his arms. Julie particularly liked his arms, and his hands.
Niall tolerated Julie’s exploration patiently, until she gathered her courage and wrapped her fingers around his arousal, which was… another reason to relax. Another burden to cast off. With Derek, she’d had to use her mouth, every time, sometimes for what felt like forever, until—
Niall closed his grip around her hand. “You’re not shy about touching me. I like that.”
He was… hot, hard. Nothing tentative or unready about him. Julie loved that.
She let Niall go and got under the quilt. The sheets were cool, the sound of the rain on the skylight peaceful.
“Niall Cromarty, I am amazed at how much room there is in this bed.”
He climbed in beside her and simply took her hand, no octopus-ing himself around her uninvited, no climbing on top of her, no grabbing, no hurrying.
“I’m amazed at the quality of the company I’ve found here,” he replied, kissing Julie’s fingers. “You can change your mind, you know, or we can talk for a bit.”
Julie shifted to her side, facing Niall. His expression in the dim light was simply calm. Not serious, not regretful, nothing but calm.
“You can change your mind too, Niall, but when I say ‘room in this bed,’ I mean there’s n
o… baggage. No disappointment folded across the bottom of the bed with the extra blanket, no weary going through the motions while thinking about tomorrow morning’s plea bargains. The bed has room for me to be here with you, however that turns out.”
Julie would always love Niall a little for giving her a chance to see that. Divorce could be scary, but staying in a dead marriage would have been scarier. Being intimate with Niall Cromarty was simply… new.
Niall’s palm cupped her cheek. “Welcome to Scotland, Julie Leonard.”
The rest was easy.
Niall had the gentle, perfect touches, the right moves, the exquisite timing—or maybe Julie had learned to subsist on so little consideration that she was easily pleased. Niall liked to be touched, too, and he wasn’t shy about showing his pleasure.
Then he was poised above Julie, both of them breathing hard, their bodies touching only where he’d laced his fingers with hers on the pillow.
“Now, Niall. Please, now.”
He brushed her hair back—her tidy bun had been an early casualty of their foreplay—and laid his cheek against hers.
Niall joined them slowly and easily—she was ready and he was patient—and then he cuddled close.
“I don’t like to rush this part,” he said, “but you’ll let me know what works for you.”
“I don’t like to rush any of it,” Julie said, kissing the corner of his mouth. For years she’d been rushing, trying to skip over the feelings. “Not when you feel this good, Niall Cromarty.”
Soon, he felt nearly too good.
Niall had self-restraint to burn, and before he let himself go, Julie was thrashing against him, flogged witless by pleasure and relief, and by other emotions too precious and fragile to name.
When she’d been wrung out by a satisfaction she hadn’t experienced in far too long, she was ambushed by a chaser orgasm all the more intense for being unexpected.
Niall remained quiet above her, his hand cradling the back of her head, their breathing in counterpoint.
“Enough for now, love?” he asked a few wondrous moments later.
They were still joined. Julie flexed experimentally, went for a third brass ring just to see if she could, then relaxed back against the pillows, very much in charity with life.
“You said I could have thirds,” she said, tracing the long curve of Niall’s back. “You were telling the truth.”
“I said you could have all you wanted,” he replied, lifting up and pulling away. “I meant it. Don’t run off.”
He dealt with the condom and disappeared into the bathroom. Julie stayed where she was, in the warmth of the bed, breathing in the scent of the Scottish outdoors and a joy so complete, it encompassed hope, freedom, homecoming…
Everything good, and new, and lovely.
And she’d only had to travel thousands of miles from home to find it.
***
“It’s a ceilidh,” Niall said, stepping into his briefs. He preferred the darker colors, while Julie liked to lounge in bed and watch him get dressed—or undressed. “Half the valley has been getting together on the last Friday of the month back as far as anyone can recall. Everybody dances, there’s food and drink.”
His jeans went on next, but he was a generous soul. He wouldn’t put his shirt on until they were ready to leave the bedroom. The past two days had been intermittently rainy and unrelentingly delightful.
“C’mon, Julie Leonard, or I’ll haul you from the bed naked.”
Niall could do it, too, and had a time or two. They’d made love on the porch swing in the dark of night, on the desk in the office… on the living room rug before a roaring fire.
And always, before and after, they talked. About the cases Julie couldn’t forget, the ones she’d lost on a technicality, the people she’d put behind bars who needed to go there, the ones she’d put behind bars and still fretted about.
From Niall, she heard about the perfect golf games and the perfectly awful games, about the sense of fun some people brought to a pro tour, the silly traditions, and the bad moments.
He’d let it all go, and could talk about those years fondly. Julie could not envision a time when her memories of Scotland would ever be merely fond.
“I’m not much of a dancer,” she said, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. “But food and drink and live music sound like fun.”
“Donald will bring his pipes, and if we’re lucky Sheila MacNeil will give us some mouth music. You’ve never heard anything like it. Declan MacPherson plays a mean fiddle, and Hamish gets out his concertina.”
Julie found a clean pair of jeans, a blue silk blouse cut a little low, and loafers. Next would come her hair—Niall had a genius for undoing French braids—and a spritz of perfume.
“You aren’t fussy,” Niall said, as Julie started on a braid. “You don’t spend hours peering at yourself in the mirror, admiring what you see.”
“Pretty women are entitled to their vanity,” Julie said. “I’m the ambitious sort, so—”
Niall spun her so quickly she lost her grasp of her braid. “You are lovely. You don’t talk about your husband, so maybe he’s not to blame, but somebody neglected to convince you that you are lovely in here,”—he tapped her chest—“and you are smart and brave, generous and kind. And you will dance with me tonight.”
When in Scotland…
“I will dance with you tonight,” Julie said, kissing him. “What is ‘mouth music?’”
Julie was learning that Scotland wasn’t simply the US with whisky, plaids, and kilts. Scotland was a bilingual culture with centuries of complicated history, and an embarrassment of genius in fields such as literature, philosophy, engineering, and medicine.
The food was different, the scenery was different, the social priorities were different, of course the music would be different.
No wonder Dad had loved this place.
Niall explained to Julie about the Celtic version of scat singing that had developed where instruments had been in short supply. He pulled up some videos for Julie to watch while he changed into his kilt.
The singers almost uniformly offered their music while otherwise standing motionless, and the tunes poured nimbly from that stillness.
Could I learn to do this? The thought was… new and familiar, both. Familiar from the years before law school, when anything from a PhD in folklore to training for a marathon to a year studying abroad had all beckoned.
“C’mon, you.” Niall said, as Julie closed the screen. “The Hare gets crowded if the weather’s decent. We’ll want a table, and the simpler dances are often early in the evening.”
They drove to the Hare, which had been rearranged for the occasion. Some of the tables had been pushed to the walls, and one end of the room had been taken over by musicians. No fire burned in the hearth, which was fortunate, because a crowd made the place plenty warm.
Hamish winked at Julie from behind the bar. Uncle Donald raised his glass, Jeannie was sitting with a petite red-haired woman, and a violin and concertina duo was finishing up what sounded like a reel.
Little Henry, in some sort of baby backpack, grinned over his mother’s shoulder, a lock of her hair clutched in his damp fist.
“Is it like square dancing?” Julie asked as Niall put a beer in her hand. Beer wasn’t served as cold at The Hare as it was back home, which seemed to improve its taste.
“More accurate to say square dancing bears a resemblance to Scottish country dancing,” Niall said, leading Julie over to Jeannie’s table.
“You can’t sit with us,” Jeannie said. “Julie, this is our cousin Morag. Niall will take you to her pottery shop if he knows what’s good for him.”
Morag, even standing, was a small woman. Also beautiful. Green eyes slanted above a definite nose, full lips, and high cheekbones. She looked not like an artist, but rather, like an artist’s muse.
“Pleased to make your acquaintance,” Morag said. “How’s the golf coming along?”
A small
, pleased, guilty silence followed beneath the noise of the crowd.
“Bit difficult to play golf in the rain,” Niall said. “Are you waiting for somebody to join you?”
“Yes, so go away,” Morag replied. “You can still get a table over in the corner. Make him dance with you, Julie. Niall cuts quite a dash after the second beer.”
“Family,” Niall muttered, leading Julie to the corner by the hearth. The blue and white pansies sat in alternating pots on the mantel, with the occasional half-full beer mug between them.
Niall found a table that looked to have been abandoned, only three chairs around it, and a half-empty beer in the middle near a plate with a handful of potato chips.
Crisps, they called them here.
“We’ll just put this—” Niall made to move the plate to a windowsill when Declan MacPherson appeared at Julie’s elbow.
“Are you after stealing my dinner now too, Cromarty?”
Declan’s kilt was a gray, red, and black plaid, and a quick sniff suggested his boots were clean. He smelled of roses and soap, in fact.
“Mr. MacPherson,” Julie said, sticking out a hand and slapping on her courtroom smile. “A pleasure to see you. May we share your table?”
A look passed between the men, one of incredulity followed by reluctant smiles that agreed on the need to indulge women when they got to feeling hospitable.
“You are welcome to share my table,” Declan said. “But touch my beer, and we’ll be notifying the police.”
He pronounced it oddly, the accent on the first syllable.
“Your beer is safe,” Niall said, holding Julie’s chair for her. “Has Donald played yet?”
“Still warming up at the bar,” Declan replied. “Piping’s thirsty work, but Pete and Gregor are in fine form.”
Julie settled in to enjoy a gathering for which she couldn’t think of an American counterpart. All ages were present, from scampering children, to sulky teenagers, to young people without partners, married couples, and even old people, who seemed to be having more fun than anybody.
Must Love Scotland (Highland Holidays) Page 7
