That nickname. . .he said it again. Mags. I run my sweaty casted palms over my shaky thighs. The brief distraction steadies my irregular pulse. I’m finally able to exhale and gulp down a fresh lungful of air.
“I wanna hear ye speakin’. I wanna see ye walkin’. But for now, I’m gonna leave ye here, bring back yer present, and we’re gonna spend the day layin’ in the sun, sippin’ on lemonade. Dinnae try tae run from me, lassie. I won’t take na for an answer.” With each gruff word, Lachlan’s accent thickens and I have to listen harder to understand him. His thumbs swirl at the base of my neck, stroking my sensitive flesh, entrancing me.
A wetness dampens my inner thighs and I quake, squeezing my eyes tighter. I just have to get through this. He’ll go away soon. Bridget will be a buffer. Just a few more minutes. I can do this. I know I can power through it. If only my stomach would stop with the fluttering.
Lachlan pulls away with a long groan, and I expel a rushed exhale. Relief washes over me, ebbing the tension away.
“I’ll see ye soon. Dinnae go anywhere,” he orders earnestly, an edge in his tone.
And just like that, he’s gone, moving away. I wait to make sure he truly left before prying my eyes open.
Would you care to tell me what the heck just happened?!
Oh boy. . . .
He touched me. Touched. . .me. Me. He. Touched. Lordy, my brain can’t even wrap around that crazy thought. I can still feel his phantom fingers caressing my skin.
I have to stop thinking about it or it’s going to make things worse.
Staring across the gravel drive, my eyes settle on an old tree standing alone in the middle of the yard. Abundant leaves fill its branches, as a squirrel barrels down its side and is followed by another chasing him. Around the trunk they race, tumble, and play. Then back up the trunk they go, getting lost in the foliage. I smile at the sight. It’s simple and peaceful, just like the MacAlister’s home.
By focusing on the tree and following its beautiful lines, a sense of tranquility shoves all those other feelings to the back of my mind. I have to focus on something else, ‘cause if I actually think, I’ll be wondering what Lachlan is doing upstairs with his wife. Is his tongue plundering her mouth? He looks like a man who plunders, a lot. Maybe he’s taking her against the wall in a scorching hot quickie? Isn’t that what men who look like him do? Maybe the other night wasn’t a fight at all, maybe it was their own form of foreplay. It didn’t seem like it at the time, but what else would you call it if he’s up there with her now, ‘kissing her goodbye’? After all, she did speak sweetly to him. Which indicates they made up. Right?
I must’ve been staring off into space far too long, because the next thing I know, the screen door is opening. Glancing over my shoulder, I hope to see Bridget. Instead, I get Lachlan carrying a clear pitcher of lemonade in his hand, with two glasses tucked under his big arm. Thankfully, he’s changed, his goatee has been trimmed, and his hair’s even wet.
How long have I been out here? Long enough for him to plunder his wife and take a shower? Maybe he had to wash off all that post-coital. . .aftermath. My stomach recoils at the thought.
Gosh, what is up with me today? Do I have a burr up my butt, or what? Of course, it was to shower off his workout and the sex with his wife. Why shouldn’t he be allowed to plunder her? She’s his wife. No matter how many nasty things she said about me, she is allowing me to sleep in her house. Sure, I’m a stranger she doesn’t know and has shown little interest in meeting, which I can’t say I’m too broken up about.
Frick. . . .I’ve got to stop thinking.
Lachlan seems to understand my thoughts without knowing it, because he sets the glasses and lemonade down on the concrete. Then, one second I’m sitting in my chair, and the next, I have beefy arms touching me, lifting me way too easily and sitting me on the lounger; where my casted leg can stretch outward and my back can sit up. I’m too stunned to make a sound or put up a fight, so I don’t. I just stare and frantically try to keep my dress down, so my parts aren’t suddenly exposed.
I exhale, not realizing I had held my breath that entire moment. My fingers remain curled around the base of my dress, holding it down with arms of steel. I can’t believe he just did that. Lifted me like that.
Once I’m over my initial shock and my heart calms, I turn my head and glare at him. Which turns out to be a wasted effort since he doesn’t even notice. He’s already seated himself beside me on another lounger, having pushed my wheelchair out of arm’s reach, leaving me once again, helpless.
Pouring some lemonade into a glass, he hands it to me. I unpeel my fingers from the hem of my dress and wrap them around the cold glass. Taking a sip, I gently balance the glass on my lap, before carefully setting it on the ground beside me. Out of the corner of my eye, I watch Lachlan settle into his lounger, crossing his bare ankles and tucking a hand behind his head before he takes a deep breath and releases it on a sigh. I’m not sure if it’s an, I just had great sex sigh, or an this is nice sitting out here sigh, or possible I’m beat sigh, and I’m not going to ask to find out.
He takes a sip of his own lemonade and rests it beside him on the ground, the glass clinking and scratching against the concrete. My attention reverts to the yard and that same tree, ignoring his proximity.
“Ye comfortable?” he asks sweetly.
Nodding, my eyes stay cast forward, and my heart beats faster just because he’s talking to me. I’m used to men speaking to me at work. I’ve worked at nine different auto repair shops, so it comes with the territory. It’s always small shop-talk. And the men I dated, those small town countrymen I told you about, they would talk some. But mostly, I don’t talk, so they don’t talk; and they seemed perfectly content with that as long as they got some candy every now and again. I couldn’t tell you the last time a man has sat next to me without an alternate agenda on his mind. And I definitely can’t remember a time, if ever, a man asked me if I was comfortable.
“If ye need tae use the bathroom, I’ll help ye get inside,” he tacks on. This time, he sounds more uncomfortable with that prospect of helping me to the toilet. Not that I’m too keen on the idea myself. I’m not. Not at all.
To keep things unruffled, I nod again, watching a bird dart out of the tree and over to the forest at the edge of the property. Even though I really want to tell Lachlan he can help me to the bathroom, over my dead body, but, the man did save me from that very thing. Saying what I want is a bit too morbid, not to mention, rude. So I don’t. I go with the flow. Which is something I’m not very good at.
I like to hold the control—all of it. I like my ability to pick up and leave whenever it suits me. I like being unattached, unburdened, and unemotional. It serves its purpose in life. The less you care, the less you feel. The less you let bother you, the better you are. Emotionless. Which, as of late, has been the complete opposite of what I’ve been experiencing. I don’t know what’s come over me. The near death experience, maybe?
I was always the type to go to work, drive Viola home to whatever fully furnished apartment I was renting at the time, cook dinner, shower, go to bed—wash, rinse, and repeat. Then, the boyfriends came; and trust me, they always did. Working at a repair shop in some small country town, I was bound to catch the eye of some halfway nice guy who had a job, drove some sort of truck or motorcycle, and found me cute. They’d hit on me a few times, then ask me to dinner. The same old story every time—wash, rinse, and repeat.
Beside me, Lachlan sits in companionable silence, both of our eyes cast forward over the beautiful land. The sun rises higher in the sky, beating down on my legs while the rest of me stays shaded by the deck above. Quietly, we sip from our lemonades and just be. There’s something perfect about it.
I haven’t sat and enjoyed life this simply since my grams was alive. We used to perch outside on our front porch, rocking in our rocking chairs, drinking ice water and soaking in nature’s beauty. Sometimes we’d talk. Sometimes we didn’t. Sometimes we read. Sometim
es we shucked corn. And sometimes, we peeled apples. Always on our porch, and in those two rocking chairs. Always together. Even in her last days of life, I wheeled her to the porch and there she’d rock in that rocking chair, as it creaked methodically over the oldest of floorboards on our whitewashed porch, and I’d read to her.
Four months to the day that Brian tragically died, she died in that chair. Skin and bones, oxygen tank at her side, those little things stuffed into her nose. A hospice nurse sat inside the house, playing on her phone to pass the time. We knew cancer wouldn’t take long to eat away at her organs. Stage Four lung cancer had metastasized, and spread to every vital organ of her body before we caught it. There was nothing we could do, and nothing she wanted to do. She wanted to die at home. She wanted to die just like she did, looking over the yard with me reading ‘The Stand’ by Stephen King to her. It was peaceful, and in its own way, beautiful.
“I love the way you read to me as the birds sing. . .I can smell the roses, Magdalene. You’ll pick some for me, won’t you, honey?” my grams whispered softly.
Wrapping her innocent request around me like a warm blanket, I nodded, “Yeah, Grams, I’ll pick you some roses.”
Although I knew I couldn’t. The roses weren’t even in bloom. The birds weren’t singing in the trees. I knew that God was right there with us, knocking on our door. And all my grams could do was rock slowly back and forth with a little smile on her face, as the good Lord took her. Her eyes closed for a moment, and when they didn’t open again, I knew she was gone. I sat and watched death claim her frail body, seconds passing rapidly. Then, I set the book on the porch railing before I went to her and kissed her forehead, saying my final goodbye to the most amazing woman I’d ever known.
A tiny tear slips down my cheek at the thought. Ten years ago it happened, and this is the first time I’ve felt anything similar to the peace I used to have, rocking on my grams’s front porch for all of those years.
“Ye all right?” Lachlan whispers softly beside me; he must have been watching.
I turn my head and smile sadly, nodding my head. ‘Yes,’ I mouth.
Lips pressed together, Lachlan’s eyes catch mine and hold them, his hand slipping into his pocket. Whatever he grabs, he lays in my lap. “For ye.” His gaze flicks to the item, and I glance down.
A phone. And it’s not just any phone. It’s an iPhone—an iPhone with a blue and white daisy case.
Lachlan reaches into my lap and slides on the screen with the flick of his finger. I jump at his sudden movements, yet he doesn’t say a word.
The background of the phone is daisies, too. How did he know those were my favorite flower? They were at the hospital, too. A small vase of them had died and we threw them out before I left. Still, they were there for days. I had figured they were from Thor, or maybe Bridget. And since they came with no card, I had settled on one of those two people. Maybe I was wrong about that, too.
Lachlan reaches into my lap again and presses the contacts button. I don’t jump this time. Though, I’m not entirely comfortable about this either.
“Yer new phone. Pip’s, Whisky’s, and my number are in there. Ye got any family tae add, ye can. It’s yers tae keep.”
I turn my head and look up at him to see if he’s kidding. He’s not. His face is fierce, unnerving. Pretty much what his face always looks like.
Our eyes lock again, and he jerks a nod at the phone still sitting on my lap, untouched by me. “Ye understand what I just said, lassie?”
I understand him perfectly fine; which means I think he’s lost his flippin’ marbles, too, handing me an iPhone with a daisy case and expecting me to take it. Nails meet coffin. That’s the first thing a gold-digging moocher would do, accept an iPhone. Well, I’m not one of those women. I refuse. Whether he’s being nice or not, or if this is a test, I can’t accept the gift.
Picking it up between two fingers like it’s diseased; I toss it back into his lap and cross my arms over my chest. My eyes cut to the tree again, face tight.
Lachlan growls, yes, growls, his dislike. “The fuck?” he bites off.
Yes, what the fudge? I would like to know the same thing.
The phone is tossed back into my lap again, and this time I toss it right back at him, releasing a satisfied humph, as I re-cross my arms over my chest.
“Ye care tae tell me what crawled up yer arse and died?”
I would if I had a voice that worked! I’d be happy to tell him all about it.
Firstly, he’s nice enough to let me stay in his house with his daughter and his wife. And possibly the best dog I’ve ever met in my entire life. And that is saying a lot, because I loved Rock, Brian’s old coon dog. Secondly, he saved my life. That’s a huge thing that I can never repay; just like I can never repay his kindness for letting me stay here. There are just some things money can’t buy. Kindness is one of them.
Lachlan’s kindness is irrefutably endless. I know he gave Bridget money to buy the clothes for me. The food I ate for dinner last night. Let’s not forget my ruined car taking up space in his barn. Or, that weird chain hanging from my ceiling that has a bar attached to help me get out of bed in the morning. And that’s the short list.
Now, the last thing I am going to do is accept an expensive cell phone from a man I barely know. Who has already shown me more kindness in the few weeks I’ve known him, than most people do in their lifetimes. Granted, most of the time I’ve actually known him, I was drugged. But that doesn’t mean he wasn’t sitting in my room, burning holes through me with those penetrating teal eyes. Or grumbling for whatever reason, which he seems to do a lot.
Lachlan seems to get my point, or at least I hope he does when he gets up, grabs the empty pitcher, and goes inside. I sigh guiltily, feeling terrible for possibly hurting his feelings.
A couple minutes later, Lachlan returns with a bottle of sunscreen tucked under his arm, and a refilled pitcher of lemonade. He must really like that stuff. I’ve only had one glass.
Lachlan refills his cup, chugs it down, and refills it again. Then he sets it down, along with the pitcher, next to his chair before grabbing the sunscreen and snapping open the cap. He steps around his lounger and stops at the end of mine. Squeezing some lotion into his hands, he slathers them together, coating them in white, and leans down. I barely get a chance to let out a terrified squeak when he touches my leg, running his hot, rough hands up my calf to my thigh. I grab the hem of my dress to keep that from coming up, too.
Oh.
My.
God.
His hands knead in the lotion, taking away that creamy white color. My heart rate goes from zero to a million miles an hour at the feeling, and even more so at the sight. His corded forearms contract as his palms and fingers not only rub in the lotion, they massage me, too—digging in deep, but not enough to be painful.
I go ramrod straight, and hold my breath the higher he creeps, not paying any attention to my reaction. It’s like he doesn’t even care; he’s too intent and focused on my leg for anything else to matter.
Lachlan then lifts my leg, bending it at the knee, and I stuff the dress between my thighs, covering my nether region. That was a close one.
He massages the lotion into the back of my thigh, and gets so close to the crease where my butt meets my leg that I think I might actually faint from his touch. More wetness pools between my thighs, forcing me to inhale deeply, praying I don’t smell myself. I don’t.
Squeezing more lotion from the bottle, he scoots up the lounger between my legs and gently tugs one of my arms, massaging sunscreen into the cast-free parts. I can’t decide if I should push him away, slap him, or let him keep going. It feels so good I instantly start to become noodley as the cranked tension in my muscles floats away. People would pay loads of money for a massage this good.
Staring straight ahead, I try to keep from looking at his face. Which leaves me with an up-close eyeful of his black t-shirt covered chest. The shirt leaves very little to the imagination, li
ke most of his clothes. I don’t know if it’s intentional or not, but Lachlan’s clothes hug each muscle like they’re best friends. They don’t drape like most men’s; instead, they hug and cuddle the muscles in a way that make most women drool and all men envious.
Lachlan finishes my quasi-massage, sunscreen rubdown and drops back into the lounger beside me. This time the satisfied sigh that escapes his parted lips I know isn’t about sex; it’s about something else entirely. And I like that, since I know it has nothing to do with Meredith.
Lachlan doesn’t bother lathering himself in lotion as he relaxes back, and I close my eyes, relishing in the sun's warmth beating down on my legs.
Our companionable silence ensues.
I nod off for a few, and when I wake, Lachlan is still on the lounger beside me, both of his massive arms tucked comfortably behind his head, and he’s wearing a pair of sunglasses.
I glance down and gasp. That damned phone is in the top of my dress, nestled between my breasts. That stinkin’ jerk!
This time I don’t even think when I yank it out, slide on the screen, and find his number so I can give him a piece of my mind.
How dare you! Putting a phone, I don’t want, between my boobs. That was rude! I don’t want the phone. I’m not a moocher. I don’t need your money or your pity. I just need a place to crash. And seeing as though you refused to let Thor come to get me, I guess I’m stuck here.
I click send and throw that damn phone between my thighs; it bounces on the cushion for a moment before settling there. Clenching my jaw, I wait to see if Lachlan even has his phone with him.
Seconds later, I find out that he does when he removes one hand from behind his head, tugs the phone out of his cargo shorts pocket, and lifts his sunglasses to read the screen. He rumbles a deep noise in his throat. Out of my periphery, I watch his giant thumbs type away on his matching iPhone that has some sort of blue and black armor case on it.
Beyond Her Words (Corrupt Chaos MC) Page 7
