by Cara McKenna
“You are. To me. Very strong and rugged and . . . different. Capable. Then there’s this other man hiding inside that capable act, isn’t there?”
Indeed. The oddest Russian nesting doll ever, Rob was. A gruff and self-sufficient shell snapped closed to hide a happily spineless wretch. Though inside that wretch, the gleefully belittled one of his fantasy life, slave to his fetish . . . there was another man still. The drunk. The outcast. A man too weak and damaged and loathsome to even inhabit those degrading fantasies. But he’d cracked open quite enough of himself for Merry to pick through for one afternoon.
“I’ve never let anyone see so much of me.”
She sat up straight and met his eyes squarely. “Promise me something.”
“Anything.” Anything at all. Take my word. My brain, my heart, every last cell in my body.
“Promise I’m not going to wake up tomorrow and find you’ve gone all cold again. Embarrassed by everything we’ve done. Or worried I’ve changed my mind and decided I never wanted to hear and do all that stuff.”
Could he promise that? She’d seen all of him—all but his darkest demons, and those couldn’t reach him, not out here. There was no reason she’d ever have to meet that Rob. “I promise.”
“Good.” She relaxed back against him. “Because I like this man, right here.” She squeezed his arm to her side.
“He likes you.”
“Enough to make me lunch?” she asked.
“Enough to carry you and that whopping great pack of yours to Inverness, so you’ll never suffer another blister.”
“Just lunch is fine.”
Funny how he’d exposed so much to her, yet it still took a surge of courage to plant a kiss on her cheek. But it was nice, this nervous feeling. I fancy her. A lot.
He let her go, leaving the covers, the bed—this space that would never, ever look the same. He eyed her as he pulled his shirt on. This marvelous woman. Kind. Funny. Beautiful, inside and out. Powerful beyond reason, for the secrets she knew and hadn’t shied from, and the masterful way she’d exploited them.
Where were you when I was twenty? How different might his life have been, if he’d known someone like Merry before he’d met his wife? But at twenty he’d never have shared what he wanted, not even with an eager ear such as Merry’s listening. She’d have been wasted on him back then.
“I ought to tie you up myself,” he teased, tugging his jumper over his head. “Keep you here forever.”
She smirked. “You won’t, though. That wouldn’t do a thing for you.”
“No, perhaps not.” Goodness, he was grinning. He couldn’t stop grinning. Extraordinary.
“Go make me some lunch, slave boy,” Merry commanded, and whipped a pillow at him. Rob jogged out the door, calling, “Yes, ma’am.”
He smiled as he fed the stove, positively giddy.
Bloody marvelous.
Chapter Ten
After lunch, they spent the entire afternoon in bed. Napping, waking, kissing, nodding off until the sky grew dark.
Merry was marinating in sexual spices, feeling alternately awed and evil from the things they’d done. The way she’d made him quake and beg and moan. The things he’d let her see, and the things she’d found herself saying. And just how completely she’d given herself over to the role he’d needed her to embody, let the script flow from some shameless well she’d never tapped before. Just surrendered to it. And found so much power in the core of that surrender.
Rob joined her under the covers, his skin cool from a brief absence spent stoking the fire. She rubbed his arms, trying to give him warmth.
He turned her onto her side, facing the wall, and held her tightly, burying his face in her hair. She rubbed the back of his hand at her navel. She wasn’t the only one who’d been changed by the sex.
Who is this man?
Yesterday she’d been plotting to seduce him. Two days ago he’d been a grumpy stranger—some handsome, angsty man standing wide-eyed in the threshold of this home. Now here he was, pacified by their sex, made affectionate and warm by what she’d done to him.
She felt closer to Rob than she ever had with any guy. She’d rounded her first boyfriend up to love in the service of relinquishing her virginity just shy of her twenty-second birthday . . . but she’d never been with someone and felt this—a haze of such perfect, decadent, smug laziness—post-sex. She wanted to wallow this way with him forever. No rush to get her clothes back on. No wondering if he’d noticed how slack and puckered her belly was. Who fucking cared? How could Merry care, after she’d seen the way he watched her during sex, his eyes burning with rapt disbelief? This body was worthy. This body was incredible, for all the things it felt, and all the things it could make Rob feel.
She did some math.
When she’d gotten sick, she’d still had three days’ hiking to reach Inverness. Uncertain if her timeline would prove realistic, she’d not booked any lodging in advance, but had planned to spend several nights there before taking a train south to catch her flight home out of Heathrow.
Her cushion was dwindling. She’d been looking forward to the luxury of a hotel or bed-and-breakfast, and to exploring her mom’s hometown, one café and pub and leisurely autumn riverside stroll at a time. The visit had been intended to teach her something about herself, about her mother. About where that woman had come from, a facsimile of what her world had looked like before she’d listened to Joni Mitchell’s Blue and rewritten her own destiny.
But it felt so good here in this modest little home beyond Great Glen.
Rob felt so good. And surely she was learning from this experience, too—this sex and this connection easily as enlightening as a few days spent wandering around the city, searching for . . . for she didn’t even know what. A connection to the place her mom had been only too eager to leave behind?
But Merry did know what she felt here. Powerful. And alive. Plugged in. She felt at peace in her skin in a way she hadn’t anticipated.
She sensed Rob nodding off behind her, and her stomach rumbled in protest.
“Hey,” she murmured, wriggling in his arms.
“Mmm?”
“Don’t fall asleep. Your guest needs feeding again.” She turned around, smiling at him nose-to-nose.
“I’m a horrible host.”
“Nah. A horrible host would’ve made me sleep on the floor. And only a horrible guest would’ve seduced her way into a man’s nice warm bed.”
The oil lantern still glowed, and she detected only a hint of Rob’s former bashfulness when he smiled back. They’d nearly banished that man for good, replacing him with this warm and accessible creature.
“I’d planned to make a roast,” he said, “but it’s far too late for that. Are just potatoes on their own too sad?”
“Works for me.”
He rolled over and untangled himself from the sheets. “Then it shall be done.”
She watched his back flex as he dressed, and the muscles that defined his arms. What a fantastic animal this man was. The simplest package hiding the most fascinating jumble of needs and wants. How sad that he’d kept himself a secret for so long, let his desires drive him to extremes. Such a shame, when plenty of women would be okay with them. Some even delighted.
But Merry was naive when it came to these sorts of things. Growing up where she had, it absolutely blew her mind that any gay person felt they had to stay closeted in this day and age, and yet millions surely did.
Still, she understood the shame of feeling . . . defective. Her overeating had for years felt like something she had no power over, just a curse she’d been born with. Rob surely felt the same about his fetish . . . though, of course, sexual wiring wasn’t behavioral, not like overeating. It couldn’t be treated as a compulsion. He might choose not to indulge, but he surely couldn’t will himself into a more
typical sexuality, no more than her dad might will himself to be straight.
She left the comfort of the covers and dressed while Rob clattered around in the kitchen. Wandering through the den, she took in every little detail. He’d lit a larger oil lantern. It hung from the room’s central beam, gilding everything in its warm light.
Such a fine vacation this had become. Merry had imagined things as silly as spying the Loch Ness Monster, but not this. If it weren’t for Rob’s clothes, she could believe she’d wandered into another century and wound up having ye olde kinky flinge with a grumpy tenant farmer.
She turned to find him smiling at her, cubing potatoes at the kitchen table.
She smiled back. “Yes?”
“Just trying to figure out how it is you’re actually here.”
“I was just trying to figure out how on earth my vacation wound up changing shape so drastically.”
Still smiling, he looked to his task. “I hesitate to say I’m glad you got sick . . .”
Merry laughed. “It’s okay. Go ahead and say it.” A couple days’ intestinal drama and the fading ache at her temple were a pittance. In exchange for this afternoon, and perhaps tomorrow as well, if she chose to cut things close, getting to Inverness . . . a tiny price to pay, to keep exploring this way, with this peculiar, intriguing, heartbreakingly handsome man.
“I’d thump my head on a rock again, if this is the payoff.” She wandered to him, and wholly without thinking, she wrapped her arms around his waist from behind, feeling his muscles twitch as he sliced.
Strange that she could hazard this kind of affection with Rob. She never would have tried this with Jason, and they’d hooked up for close to a year . . . though they’d never once gone on a real date. God, what a prick. How annoying that it’d taken her so long to admit it to herself. How sad, the things she’d let herself settle for, and for so long.
No more.
She gave Rob a squeeze, stood on tiptoe, and kissed the back of his neck before letting him go. She told him, “I think you’re wonderful.”
He glanced over his shoulder, brows rising. “Do you?”
She nodded.
He blinked, playing up his puzzlement, and Merry took a seat on the chair, hugging one knee. She could sit here all night, just studying him.
“I think you’re rather marvelous, yourself,” he announced, tossing chunks of potato into a wide cast-iron pan. “Though I also suspect you’re a hallucination.”
“Oh?”
He grabbed the jar of lard from his shelf and dropped a spoonful into the pan. “I half expect I’ll wake tomorrow in a field with a hunk of strange mushroom in my hand and discover I dreamed all this.”
She had to smile, hearing him say these things. This from the man who’d hesitated to even offer his name. Sex sure was powerful, the way it could change a person. Or perhaps Rob was high on his confession and the resulting liberation.
He sprinkled the potatoes with salt and pepper and some herbs, then stirred it all around in the tallow with a wooden spoon.
“I’d never eat this way back home,” Merry said, stomach gurgling with anticipation.
“No, I suppose this wouldn’t pass muster in California. You’ll find the North still loves its chips and lard, for better or worse. I’m sure you’ll have more worldly options in Inverness.”
“It’s not that. I used to eat terribly. I actually . . .” Tell him. He exposed far darker things to you. She took a deep breath. “I used a weigh a lot more than I do now. A lot more.”
He made a quizzical face.
“Like, a hundred pounds more.”
“Yeah?” He looked surprised, but not put off. “And here I assumed you were one of those pathologically sporty types.”
“Did you?” She grinned, delighted to think she’d passed for the sort of girl she’d always ached to be. The sort she was now, she realized, sudden as a bolt from the blue. “Really?”
“Why wouldn’t I? You’re hiking across Scotland.”
“I guess I still feel fat on the inside. I feel like everyone must be able to tell.” Like a fraud.
He stared at her a long moment, then set the pan on the stove. “I’m happy to take you at face value,” he said quietly. “Since you seem so determined to do the same for me.”
She remembered what he’d said about his erstwhile life as an asshole, the one he’d allegedly cocked up so badly. It was true—she didn’t care about who he had been, only who he was with her, right now. Here, together, they were in a unique position. A magical bubble containing exactly two inhabitants, with no past and no future. No witnesses to their former selves, only the people they’d become. Who they were.
“That’s why I haven’t . . . you know,” she said, chickening out.
He covered the pan with an enamel lid. “No, I don’t know. Why you haven’t what?”
“Taken my bra off.”
“Oh.” His expression said he didn’t follow this logic. Men.
“My boobs aren’t as perky as they might have been before I lost all the weight. I haven’t really made peace with them.”
“I’m sure they’re lovely,” Rob said, turning to her fully. After a pause, he took her hand and coaxed her to stand. He touched her waist, rubbing playfully with his thumbs. “I can’t imagine any part of you not being absolutely perfect.”
Oh my. Who was this man?
She must have looked visibly shocked, as Rob smirked.
He came even closer, wrapping his arms around her, pressing his lips to her forehead. Tremble.
“You liked all those things I told you. About my . . . fantasies. Or you said you did.”
She looked up so quick, she bonked her nose on his chin. “Sorry. And yes, I meant everything I said. I love your fantasies. And your imagination.”
“Those aren’t parts of me I’ve ever felt at home with. Ugly things, I’ve always thought.”
“I beg to differ.”
He dipped his face, lips brushing her temple. Soft as a whisper, he slid one palm up her ribs to cup her breast. “I love your body. And for so much more than how it looks.” He laughed faintly. “Though it looks gorgeous, I have to confess.”
She blushed. “Thank you.”
He let her breast go, his hand rising to cradle her jaw, angling her face so their eyes met. Goodness, those blue eyes. When had they ever looked cold, or hard? How? All she saw now was welcoming warmth.
“I love your body, for everything it’s given to me,” he murmured. “For letting me . . . letting me inside you. After all that time. And your hands, for touching me, and your soft skin, for letting me touch you. For your mouth. And kissing you, and for the things you asked me. For your ears, for being willing to hear my answers.” He held her stare with his, steady.
For once, Merry had no words. Her lips had nothing to offer but a kiss, which she pressed gratefully to Rob’s throat, burying her face against his wonderful, good-smelling skin. I love your body. I love your body. She let the words dance around her brain and make her dizzy. Then maybe I ought to love it, too.
She stepped back, the foot between them feeling like the coldest, widest chasm.
“I’d love to stay another day,” she said, heart sticking in her throat.
“I’d love to have you. As long as you need.”
“Not because my head really hurts much anymore,” she added. “Just to be with you . . . ?” If you want that, too? Please, please tell me you want that, too.
“As long as you want, then.” He eyes crinkled. Adorable. So fucking adorable.
She took his hands, squeezing his fingers. “I wish I could stay a week, frankly. But I’m pushing it, staying more than another night.”
“We’ll have to make the most of it, then.”
“More target practice?” s
he asked hopefully.
“If you wish. Or fishing. Anything you fancy.”
“Fishing?”
“Fly fishing,” he said, releasing her hands to mime casting. “There’s a smaller loch, maybe forty minutes’ hike. Hardly anyone else bothers with it. I usually have luck there.”
“Sounds good.”
“Then maybe a swim? If you promise not to swallow any loch water,” he teased. “Picnic lunch?”
“It’s a date,” Merry said with a curtsy.
“Excellent.”
Heading for the rocker, she added, “I’ll be expecting strawberries and champagne.”
She heard the clank of the lid, the scrape of the spoon against the bottom of the pan. “I’d kill for fresh strawberries in September,” he said.
“And I’d kill for some champagne.” Merry sank into the rocker and pulled the throw over her legs. Champagne . . . and damn the sugar. Champagne savored straight from Rob’s lips.
Cheers to that.
***
Rob woke the next morning scarcely knowing where he was. Though he’d dozed through the previous day’s storm with Merry in this bed, waking up beside a woman was still quite the revelation.
They’d had sex again that night—nothing so intense as the role-playing. Not unlike the sex he’d had while married, only this time when his turn had come, he’d raced his way home with actual rope chafing his wrists, instead of the shameful fantasy of it. And he’d had his eyes open, gaze dashing between Merry’s face and his own bound wrists where he held the headboard, unsure which sight excited him more. No sinister words or convoluted scenarios, just her warm, welcoming body, insistent hands and blazing eyes, and the mean rasp of the hemp. He’d merely imagined she’d taken him captive, promised him freedom if he paid her in his seed. For Rob, the simplest of fantasies. Vanilla—to steal the term she’d used—as his scripts went, but knowing she knew what he was thinking, and that she liked it . . . ? Fucking amazing.
The door to the den was open, the darkness telling him it was early. The cold had woken him. His back was tense, chest and belly and arms warm, hugged tight to Merry. It took a monumental effort to leave her, his body swallowed by the morning chill as he hurried through the cottage to get a fire started and a lantern lit.
