Scot on the Run

by Janice Maynard

  “Gentlemen,” she said, “a lady doesn’t like to tip her hand.”

  Oddly, there wasn’t a woman in the group. Perhaps the seasoned veterans snagged all the plum assignments. All of the press here tonight were fifty plus, and they had the tenacity of hardened beggars.

  Her coy comment made them laugh, but they didn’t give up. A tall, gangly man who reminded her of Ichabod Crane, leaned in. “How does it feel to be with Britain’s number two bachelor? Can you tell us how you snagged him? What does a woman need to lasso a man like Larrimore? How did he pick you out of the crowd?”

  “Th-that’s enough.” Ian’s stern warning rescued her just in time. She was about to lambast the rude, sexist inquisitor when her escort’s deep, gravelly voice drove home the point. “L-leave her alone.”

  Flooded with gratitude and relief, she jumped up and latched on to his arm. She whispered in his ear, “Shall we tell them I’m your fiancée?”

  To her surprise, Ian shook his head vehemently, his expression grim. “No comment gentlemen,” he said. “If you’ll excuse us, M-m-miss Craig and I have a previous engagement.”

  By virtue of his size and strength, he literally shielded Bella with his body and muscled his way out of the pack of hungry newsmen. Moments later the two of them were standing outside. It had started to rain, a light mist that was cool and welcome after the crush in the gallery.

  The prize committee had provided transportation for after the event as well. All Ian had to do was give his name. In no time, they were escorted to a comfortable vehicle and whisked away.

  In the dark of the backseat, he loosened his tie and sighed. “Well, that wasn’t too terrible. Could have been worse.”

  Bella sat and stewed. At last, even a bumbling male noticed. “What’s wrong, Margaret?” he drawled. “Pining for handsome Harry?”

  “That’s absurd. I don’t understand you,” she said crossly. “The whole point of me coming with you tonight was to create a smokescreen. What happened to the elaborate story that was supposed to protect you from ravenous females and get you kicked off the eligible bachelor list?”

  Ian didn’t respond at first. Did he think she was using this opportunity to trap him somehow? Humiliation curled in her belly. “Your virtue is safe, Ian, I swear. Tonight was it for me. No more playacting. I don’t know why you passed up a perfect moment to document me as your pretend fiancée, and I haven’t a clue what those reporters thought, but you definitely missed your chance.”

  Suddenly, her companion leaned forward and tapped on the glass. “Driver, please take us up to Arthur’s Seat… as far as the road allows.”

  The car made a U-turn. Soon they were back at the very spot where they had enjoyed a peaceful morning after last night’s unpleasant confrontation. When the pavement ended, Ian helped Bella out, took her by the hand, and dismissed their only means of transportation.

  The silence echoed as the sound of the car’s engine faded into the distance. Ian held out his arm. “Take off your stockings. Give me your shoes. I’ll carry you over the rough parts.”

  She could have protested. She should have backed away. Every moment she stayed with him found her sinking deeper into the quagmire.

  Despite everything, she did as he commanded, as if she had neither an opinion nor a spine. Ian took the shoes and hosiery and tucked them into his jacket pockets. Fortunately, the rain had stopped but the air was thick with moisture.

  They picked their way carefully to the top. Ian was as good as his word. Twice, he scooped her into his arms and carried her as if she weighed nothing at all. Any woman would have to be silly and shallow to be impressed by such a macho demonstration of brute strength. Apparently, Bella was both.

  He set her down gently when they reached the summit. At this hour, they were alone.

  She wrapped her arms around her waist. “Why did you bring me here?”

  “I wanted to talk to you. I was afraid when we got back to the hotel we’d have to run the gauntlet again.”

  “So, talk.” She shrugged as if whatever subject he might introduce was of no interest to her at all.

  “Come here, woman.” He scooped her up and sat down carefully, cuddling her in his lap. “I decided I couldn’t call you my fiancée.”

  “I see.”

  To her embarrassment, she was unable to hide her wounded pride. Ian knew her far too well by now to be fooled. “It’s not what you think, sweet Bella. The more I thought about my original plan, the sleazier it seemed. Promising to marry someone is a sacred thing. I decided I couldn’t cheapen that vow by pretending. It wasn’t right.”

  “I see.” Apparently she only knew the two one-syllable words. This time, though, she wavered between relief and confusion. Since when did a cerebral scientist get to be so damned romantic and heartfelt?

  As Ian held her closely against his chest, the tension gradually drained out of her body. His warmth and masculine scent surrounded her. The lights of Edinburgh were soft smudges in the misty air.

  “Bella?” he said softly.

  She nuzzled her head beneath his chin. “Yes?”

  “I would very much like to make love to you tonight.”

  She respected the fact that he didn’t dress it up with fancy words and flowery compliments. A man. A woman. No past. A doubtful future. Definitely a here and now.

  “I’d like that, too,” she said.

  He tipped her back over his arm and kissed her. His lips were firm and coaxing as if recognizing her doubts. “God, you’re beautiful,” he said. He feathered his lips over her eyelids, her brow. “I don’t know what to do about this… about you,” he clarified gruffly. Palming one breast, he teased the nipple through two layers of silk. “It’s eating me up inside.”

  “The feeling is mutual.” Bella gasped as he slid a hand beneath her skirt. His long fingers were warm against her bare, chilled thigh. There was literally nowhere at all to do what they both wanted to do. Perched on a rocky promontory, they were exposed to the world… or they would have been if the world had been watching.

  He kissed her again, this time harder, wilder. His tongue mated with hers, tasting of champagne and chocolate. “I want you more than I’ve ever wanted another woman. All I can think about is what it felt like to be inside you the other night. Tell me you want it, too. Or I’ll stop. Right now. All you have to do is say no.”

  Raking her hands through his hair, she scraped his scalp with her fingernails. “Don’t be an ass, Ian. Of course I want you. Can’t you tell?”

  Gently, he pressed a fingertip to the damp center of her lacy undies. “I suppose I can.” His voice sounded like glass breaking. He trembled, although he was the one wearing a jacket while she was clad in nothing but a silk dress and cobweb dreams.

  “Holder me tighter,” she pleaded, “so I don’t fly away.” Her whole body shivered, not from cold, but with the intensity of the moment. Hunger clawed in her belly. “I’m on the pill,” she muttered.

  “Doesn’t matter.” His chuckle was rusty. “I brought a condom.”

  “Only one?”

  * * *

  Ian barked out a laugh when he could swear amusement was the furthest thing from his mind. His brain had turned to mush, his sex hogging all the blood supply. He plucked the pins from Bella’s hair one at a time, winnowing his fingers through the thick, black silk as her sophisticated twist fell apart like some erotic commercial for shampoo.

  The sharp edge of a boulder dug into his ass. He didn’t care. His hands shook. His mouth was dry. “Are we really going to do this?”

  Bella buried her face in his chest, her arms wrapped in a death grip around his waist. “I’m game if you are.” She touched him carefully, testing the length and breadth of his desire through his pants. When he gasped and cursed helplessly, she lowered his zipper and took him in her hand.

  Dizziness and lust dragged him under. “Stand up, Bella.”

  She did as he asked and shimmied her narrow skirt up her thighs until he could see the edge
of her black thong. No wonder her perfect ass had been smooth under the black silk.

  Recklessly, he took the tiny piece elastic at her hipbone and ripped it, tossing the remnant of silk and satin aside. The rush of raw satisfaction he got from that one quick move should have scared him. When Bella laughed low and wicked, he lost his mind.

  She stood there like a siren on the rocks, coaxing him to his doom. Fumbling clumsily, he found the condom, opened it, and rolled it on. “Wait,” he groaned, half blind from the dark haze of hunger.

  Taking her by the hips, he pulled her close, helping her straddle his lap. “Hurry,” she cried. “Before we get arrested.”

  “No hurrying,” he said bluntly. “Not this time.” With Bella standing and him sitting, he touched her gently, stroking the spot that made her sigh raggedly and put her hands on his shoulder.

  She shuddered as he concentrated on making her whisper his name in supplication. That sound was about the sweetest thing he’d ever heard… and the most incendiary. Bella was close. He knew it. Curling an arm around her waist, he pressed his forehead to her ribcage. With his free hand, he continued his quest. One last teasing brush of his fingertip and she came with a choked cry.

  He held her close as the ripples of release left her sated and weak. “Now, Bella,” he said surging upward until he was buried inside her. “Now.”

  * * *

  Afterward, Ian found himself embarrassingly weak and curiously absent from his body. Somewhere in the midst of their frenzy Bella had managed to twine her legs behind his back. Their bodies were still joined, damp with sweat that cooled rapidly in the night air.

  “You’re half naked,” he muttered.

  She nipped the side of his neck with sharp teeth. “Are you complaining, my genius lover?”

  “Hell, no. I think I’d better get you back to civilization, though. You’re shivering.”

  “I never get sick,” she said blithely. “Sex outdoors is fun. I’m ticking off all sorts of firsts on this trip.”

  Something about her description bothered him, but he couldn’t summon enough brain cells to understand why.

  When Bella wiggled her way off his lap and stood, he held her hand as she straightened her dress. He’d likely ruined his tux pants. He got up as well and stifled a groan. After dealing with the condom and zipping his trousers, he rubbed his butt ruefully with both hands. “I think I may have a permanent sex injury,” he complained. “Next time let’s try for a flatter surface.”

  “This mountaintop thing was your idea,” Bella pointed out.

  “True.” He stared down at her bare feet. What had he been thinking? “I’ll have to piggyback you,” he said. “It’s getting too cold out here for you to walk, and your fancy shoes will be dangerous until we get down the flatter part of the trail.”

  “Oh, no,” she said, her tone brooking no opposition. “Those rock steps are steep and wet. If one of us falls, no sense in both of us going down.”

  In the end, their descent was slow, but accident free. When they reached the spot where the car had dropped them off, Bella put her heels back on. She left the stockings in his pocket. He hadn’t a clue if she was miserable or not, but she never complained.

  He tried to call a cab, but none were available at the moment.

  “I can walk,” Bella said firmly. “These shoes are more comfortable than they look.”

  They set off toward the hotel holding hands. He would have given just about anything to know what she was thinking. On paper, he was a genius, but when it came to the female brain, he was as clueless as the next fellow.

  Now that the ceremony at the palace was over, another disconcerting reality loomed. It was possible that this feeling in his gut was infinitely more than passing interest in a pretty woman.

  He had feelings for Bella. Real, complicated human emotions. That much he understood. What was less clear were the options for pursuing a connection that was tenuous at best.

  Bella enjoyed his company. She even decoded his sense of humor and appeared to “get” him. Though he spent far too many hours alone in his ordinary workaday life, Bella had unwittingly taught him to enjoy the presence of another human being when he was working.

  But did he love her? His libido shied away from the topic, determined to keep tonight’s agenda on a carnal level. Bella wasn’t going anywhere. He had time to figure this out.

  At the hotel they were able to walk through the front door without incident. The messy weather and the late hour had discouraged the gutter press. Although the lobby was empty, the front desk clerk raised an eye at their appearance. Bella’s hair was a nimbus around her head. Ian’s pants were wrinkled, and his shoes were caked in mud where he had inadvertently stumbled off the path.

  Side by side, they walked up the narrow stairs. Bella stopped at her room and smiled. “Good night, Ian.”

  “Bella,” he said urgently. Backing her against the door he kissed her roughly, his hands on her shoulders. “I don’t want to say good night.”

  Big blue eyes searched his face. “I’m a mess. We both are. Shouldn’t we go on to bed?”

  “To bed? Hell, yes.” He cupped her cheeks in his hands. “I want to sleep with you, lass. After I make love to you again. Am I making too many assumptions? What do you want, lovely girl?”

  If he could have read the secrets in her eyes, his feet might have found solid ground. As it was, he was adrift and sinking. He knew what he wanted in the next ten seconds, but he couldn’t see past the end of the hall, much less into a future that included Bella Craig.

  She sighed…a long, drawn out sound that told him she was as conflicted as he was. “Okay, Ian. My room. Only after we’ve both had half an hour to clean up. Deal?”

  He nodded. “Deal.”

  * * *

  Bella stripped off her beautiful new dress and tossed it on a chair. Only then did she remember she was naked from the waist down. She groaned aloud. What kind of woman leaves her underpants on top of Arthur’s Seat in the middle of Edinburgh?

  In the bathroom, she avoided the mirror. She knew her hair was out of control, and on top of that, she didn’t really want to face the doubt she would see in her own eyes. Ian had practically come right out and said he wasn’t interested in anything more than meaningless sex. All that talk about Prince Harry choosing to play the field, and Ian not wanting to call Bella his fiancée even as a ruse.

  The man was a confirmed bachelor.

  Despite the many reasons she should cut and run, Bella took a shower, dried her hair, and put on the sexiest PJs she had packed. The teal T-shirt said Bookworms Rock. It was large and sloppy, and it covered her to mid-thigh, because she had purposely bought it two sizes too large.

  Ian was prompt. His quiet knock came exactly thirty-one minutes after he had disappeared into his own room. When she opened the door, he gave her a lopsided smile that curled her toes and tightened other spots. “I was hoping you hadn’t changed your mind.”

  She dragged him inside, took a quick peek out into the hall to make sure nobody was watching, and locked the door. “I haven’t,” she said. “You look nice.”

  His feet were bare, his hair damp from his shower. He had tugged on jeans and a black cotton crewneck sweater.

  Earlier tonight, the man in the tux had carried himself with sophistication and confidence. This Scotsman looked out-of-control, his body vibrating with tension and barely leashed hunger.

  Ian didn’t wait for an invitation. He took the hem of her T-shirt and raised it, tugging it off over her head. His quick, sharp inhaled breath told her he approved the fact that she was bare underneath. “I hope you weren’t planning on sleeping,” he muttered, gliding his hands over her breasts and thumbing the tips.

  She shook her head. “I can sleep when I’m dead.” His sweater came off as easily as her top. She put her hands, palms flat, on his hair-dusted chest. His skin was hot. She almost expected her fingertips to sizzle. For a nerd-genius he was in incredibly good shape.

  Ian
lifted her and backed her against the door. “Tell me what you want, Bella.”

  She smiled at him hazily, feeling everything morph into slow motion. “I want it all.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Bella didn’t have a headache this time when the sun peeked in. On the other hand, finding herself clearheaded and in possession of vivid memories from the night before was almost as devastating.

  She and Ian had barely slept, and then only in snatches. The man was a machine. Every time she fell asleep, she awoke to find his hands caressing her as if he had to learn every peak and valley of her body. In the midst of wild lovemaking, he murmured words of Gaelic to her all night long. Too bashful to ask for a translation, Bella had let the musical language sink into her soul.

  At the moment, a large male arm pinned her to the bed. When she wiggled experimentally, the arm tightened, but the Scotsman didn’t open his eyes. No matter. Maybe they could spend the whole day in bed.

  Reaching for her phone, she peered bleary-eyed at the screen and squawked in dismay. “Get up, Ian. We have to check out in twenty minutes.” She eluded his grasp, jumped out of bed, and started throwing things in her suitcase.

  He raised up on his elbows and frowned. “Dinna fash yerself, lass. We’ll call downstairs and tell them we want to stay another night.”

  “We can’t do that, you big crazy man,” she said, trying not to be distracted by his naked magnificence. “I already asked yesterday to extend our stay so we could play tourist, and they said they have a large tour group arriving this afternoon. The whole hotel is booked.”

  Ian groaned and muttered something under his breath. “I forgot,” he said. He closed his eyes and squinted as she threw open the drapes. “Lord help me, you’re a cruel woman.”

  “Up, Larrimore. Now.”

  It was all she could do not to swoon like a Victorian maiden when he tossed the sheet aside and rolled to his feet, buck naked. How in the world had she ended up in bed with this man? She was more accustomed to skinny, pasty-complexioned doctoral students. Males she could understand and control.

  While she fretted and dressed, Ian took his time. The more she hurried him, the slower he moved. Finally, she put her hands on her hips and pointed at the door. “Go to your room.”