“Hamish was trying to sort it by himself, but he didn’t get very far. Then my agent brokered a deal that meant I had to do all sorts of media stuff and…like I said, it’s complicated. But I can’t keep doing the press they want me to. It’s killing me, and it’s going to kill my career.”
Janie saw him look at her, and she kept her face passive, as much as her heart beat a little harder for him. “Blackmailed? Spill. Half answers aren’t going to cut it.”
He gave her a long look that was half resignation and half skepticism. The resignation won. “The guy’s sister, Stephanie, worked out my brother’s connection to me and she decided she wanted a slice of fame. So I have to pretend to be engaged to her.”
Janie sat back on the chair. “Wait. You what now?”
“Pretend to be engaged. It’s all bound up in a contract. Purely platonic. But she’s a media vulture, wants her own reality show, and I’m the schmuck that’s supposed to make that happen.”
“And you just agreed to it? To be engaged to someone?”
“My brother and I made a pact when we were kids to always look out for each other. That stuff about the MacGreggor clan wasn’t a line. That is our family name. Our clan. The deal to help out Hamish was I’d be Stephanie’s fiancé for six months, she’d get the fame she craved, enough to give her some sort of leg up into the reality TV world, and she and her brother would leave my brother alone. Trouble is the press can’t get enough of it. They went after me a bit when I first appeared on TV because I was the new kid on the block, and to be fair I was an idiot. Got a bit of a reputation with the ladies, but I’m done with that, and they’d backed off.
“Now though they’re after blood. They’re waiting for me to fuck up so they can say see, we knew he was nothing, just like everyone my whole life. I can’t deal with it anymore. I don’t want to deal with it anymore.”
“Well.” Janie paused, still reeling from the fact that he was engaged, even if it was fake. “but isn’t it part of the job description? Part of you must enjoy being famous if you wanted to be on TV in the first place.”
“The fame isn’t the part I wanted.”
“What do you want?”
Blaine looked out the window a moment. “I want to prove all those fuckers wrong. Prove that I’m bigger than Glasgow, than Edinburgh, than Scotland. That Hamish and I are worth more than they ever gave us credit for. Hamish has been busy proving them right, so it’s up to me to make it and make it big. I’m going to get to Hollywood because this is all I’ve got. My career and my brother. That’s it. Trouble is, I’m burned out from the lies that Hamish has landed on my plate this time. That’s why I had to get away. If the press find me now, I’m bound to blurt out something stupid, and if Stephanie gets caught up in a mud-fight, that’s it for my brother.”
Janie sat completely still and didn’t say anything, not sure yet what she was supposed to do with all of this information.
“So there you go,” he said.
“Indeed.”
The two of them sat there a moment. “I guess you’ll be wanting to leave,” Blaine said softly.
“I guess so.” But she didn’t stand to leave.
Turning to her, Blaine looked her right in the eye and she saw, properly, all the pain that running from reporters and growing up too fast and looking after his brother had thrown into his life. What did she care if he was fake engaged? If it wasn’t hurting anyone. “So you’re not really engaged?”
“It’s only on paper. I haven’t even kissed her.”
But he’s kissed me. She straightened. This time away was about living her dream. Taking chances, ticking things off her bucket list. “I don’t need to go if you don’t want me to,” she said quietly.
His blink was the longest she thought she’d ever seen. And when Blaine put his hand on hers she felt, rather than saw, the release of some of the stress he’d been holding on to. The contact sent a shiver of energy over her skin, and with everything laid out on the table, the thought of carrying on from where they’d left off started to bounce around Janie’s head like a Ping-Pong ball.
“I wasn’t kidding when I said I enjoyed spending time with you,” he said.
“Me neither,” she said, almost in a whisper.
He shifted on the couch and the movement shuffled her leg closer to his. She let it rest there and felt the heat from his skin so close, it ricocheted into hers.
He circled his thumb over the top of her hand. “So you’ve heard my tale of woe. What about you? What do you want right now?”
Right now? Right now she couldn’t get her mind to let go of the sensation on her hand. The mess in Little Acre, the future of her blog, the rest of her life, all of it suddenly didn’t matter very much at all.
“I want someone to make me forget,” she said finally. “A day where who I am and what I’m going to be don’t matter.”
For the first time since they’d arrive in his room, Blaine smiled. “That sounds amazing.”
She found the smile creep onto her lips without even meaning it to.
“That’s what you do for me, did you know that? You make me feel ordinary. And I don’t mean that in a bad way. You make me feel like I can be whoever I want, not what my agent wants, not what the directors want, not what the press want. Just me.”
“I’m glad,” she said. He put a hand to her face and Janie practically melted into it. “You asked me what I wanted. I want to finish my to-do list.”
“Sounds good,” Blaine said with a chuckle. “So what other attractions do you need to visit?”
“Plenty,” she said. “But do you know what I added the day I met you?”
“No?”
“This.” And she leaned in and kissed him. She poured all her hurt from Two-Minute Tom into the kiss. All the passion and frustration and tears, and Blaine kissed her back with just as much fury.
Coming up for breath, he stroked her face. “Was that it?”
“Oh no,” she said, finally finding the cojones to ask for exactly what she wanted. “My list included the full fairy-tale happy ending.”
He slid his hand down her throat and down her arm to her hand. “Do I get to play the prince to your princess? Just for today?”
“I was hoping you would. I know the princess doesn’t usually proposition the prince, but I’ve never been called a princess before. Not by anyone other than my pop. So I think if we don’t make like a fairy tale and get all happily ever after, I’ll lose the one chance I have to pretend I have a tiara in my backpack.”
He chuckled and leaned in, running his lips lightly over her neck, then up to her ear, where he gently nibbled on her earlobe before whispering, “And we couldn’t have that.”
“No,” she said, shuddering at the delicious sensation shooting down her spine as he nibbled again.
As he kissed her, Janie let her worries about What Next dissipate, and fell into the sensations, letting them smooth the edges off her concerns. And when he slid a hand under her top, all she could think about was getting his shirt off and touching the slick of muscle she knew was underneath.
She thought he would press her down into the sofa and take every scrap of her clothing off straightaway. She was wrong.
He pulled back. “Stand up.”
“Excuse me?”
“I like this skirt. It makes your ass stand out.”
“Great, I’ll burn it immediately. Last thing I need is my ass sticking out.” They were bold words, but a tiny piece of her shrank as the reality of putting herself on display in front of Blaine sent nervous energy chattering around her veins.
Chuckling, he pushed her up gently before he ran his hand from her hip down to her butt.
“I didn’t mean your ass stuck out. I meant your skirt makes me want to look at it, to run my hands over it.” As he spoke he put his words into action as he stayed seated on the couch, and every inch of her skin tightened as if wishing it could have his hands on it too.
“Do you have any idea how deliciou
s you are, lass?”
“Tell me.”
“I want to taste every last inch of you, and then when I’m done I want to do it all again.”
Her skin tightened even further, the ache between her legs growing. He’d had a reputation with the ladies, he’d said, and he thought she was delicious. The glow of pride loosened her nerves. She was the one who asked for this. All of this. It was time to find out what she’d been missing out on after her cloistered time in Little Acre, and Blaine Galloway was the perfect man to show her. Taking a deep breath, Janie pulled her top up and over her head in one swift movement.
Blaine reached up and unhooked her bra, and suddenly she was standing in only her skirt. “Much better.” His hand reached up to smooth over her bare stomach and her skin goosed up.
The button on her travel skirt, with all its pockets and practicality, gave way easily, but he stopped her hands and ran his fingers in circles over her palms. “I like that skirt so much I think we’ll leave it on for now.” Leaving the button undone but the skirt on, he released her, moving on to stroke his hand from her stomach up to cup her left breast, brushing his thumb over the nipple so it instantly leaped into a hard, pebbled version of itself.
Janie couldn’t remember a moment when she’d ever wanted a man to put his mouth over her breast this much, but instead of obliging her, he slid his hand down and over the front of her pelvis, giving Miss Muffin another thrill before heading to the hem of her skirt and sliding along the outer edges of her thighs.
Janie bit her lip as his hands traveled higher, hitching up her skirt as they went. He held her gaze the whole time, and rather than feeling self-conscious standing topless in front of him, all she felt was beautiful—beautiful and desperate for him to get rid of all her clothes and throw her onto the couch beneath him.
Tucking one finger, then another, into the elastic of her panties, he started to pull them down, and Janie hissed through her teeth as the movement stirred her sex into a hot throbbing bundle of nerves.
“I should stop?” he asked, pausing.
“No,” she managed. “No, don’t stop. Take them off, and take that off right after.” She pointed at his shirt, the thrill that this was really happening making her bold.
“This?” he said, pulling his hands completely away from her and undoing one button on his crisp white shirt.
She nodded, and he undid another button, just enough that she could see the smooth planes of his pecs and the edge of one nipple. He undid the last two buttons, but left the shirt on, open at the front so she could see the flicker of his muscles as he moved.
Dear God of Highland Heroes, thank you.
“Think we should concentrate on you for a while,” he said, putting his warm hands back on her legs and pulling her toward him. She shuffled closer, and this time he didn’t hesitate, pulling her panties down to her ankles in one movement.
“I changed my mind about the skirt,” he said, and just like her panties, it ended in a puddle on the floor around her ankles. “Och, lass, that guy who left you, what a prize fool,” he said. “You shouldn’t hide this body under anything, ever again. We may have to stay in here for the rest of eternity so you don’t have to.” And if she’d still been wearing any clothes, Janie was one hundred percent certain that they would have melted right off. Burst into flames even, ignited by the heat pouring off her skin.
“Come closer.” And without waiting for her to move, Blaine pulled her right up to his face and planted a gentle kiss on her left thigh. “Such soft skin,” he murmured against her, all the while trailing his lips slowly across her thigh.
Having him so close to her was exquisite torture, the shivers of lust rippling their way over her skin like tiny tsunamis of lust.
His hands too moved in a steady, firm motion. His thumbs circling over her muscles, relaxing and tantalizing in turns. “Is this as soft as your skin?” he said as he stroked the triangle of dark hair covering her sex. “And what about what it’s hiding? I bet you’re silky on the inside too.”
The kisses moved to her inner thigh, and he lifted one leg so that her foot rested on the edge of the sofa and opened her up completely and then, oh sweet mother of MacIntosh, his tongue took a long, even lick.
“Oh,” she said before he did it again, and she lost the capacity to utter anything other than a groan.
“I was right about you being delicious,” he said as he pulled back. “And you feel great on my tongue, but was I right about you being silky smooth, do you think?” He pushed a finger deep inside her. “Oh yes, definitely silky, and so wet, lass. So hot and so wet.”
As he pushed his finger in and then drew it almost all the way out before plunging back in again, Janie nearly lost the ability to stand. Sensing that, he drew out and gripped her around the waist with both hands. “There, there, we can’t have you swooning like a damsel when we’re not even in the Highlands.”
“I want… I need you, right now.”
“But I want to see you. I want to smell your sweet toffee scent, have your taste on my tongue, feel you clench around my fingers. You came on holiday to find paradise, lass. I want to take you all the way there. If we only have one chance at happy ever after, then let’s not rush it.”
If she hadn’t been about to take her High Priestess Lust-Cult status to the next level of Absolute Lust-Queen, Janie might have laughed at the amount of cheese in his declaration, but when he put his face back to her sex and circled her clit with his tongue before he slid it inside her, she lost all capacity of thought, reason, and speech. Instead she pushed her fingers through his thick dark hair, let her head fall back, and went with his caresses.
His damn good, heavenly caresses. Firm and considered and thorough all at the same time, he started a steady rhythm, his hands moving from her hips down over her butt where they massaged in big, strong circles. A tiny shudder passed through her as his tongue delved deeper and he must have felt it because he slid one hand between her thighs. As his tongue kept up its licking, laving deliciousness, he stroked around the edge of her outer lips, circling the tight bud of her clit before slipping his finger back inside.
“Oh yes, just there.”
“Are you sure?” he murmured against her, withdrawing his tongue for a second. “I was thinking it might be more like here.” And he plunged a second finger in, somehow curving it toward the front of her sex and hitting a place she hadn’t known existed. Almost instantly his mouth was back at her hot, wet center, his tongue circling her clit and licking and sucking at her folds in turns, till every part of her was humming and burning like a tractor engine on fire.
“Don’t stop, please,” she gasped, and held him steady with her hands pushed through his hair.
He did as she asked and soon the explosion of sensation that usually only came when she was toying with herself charged through every nerve ending in her body. She shuddered and shook, clamping around his fingers, which he left just gently moving inside her.
When she had stilled and the stars cleared from her eyes, Janie unclenched her hands from Blaine’s hair.
“Well, lass, that was more than a little fun.”
After drawing in a couple of deep breaths Janie discovered she hadn’t, in fact, lost all capacity for speech. “Call that fun again and I’ll…I’ll wash your mouth out with pepper.”
The laugh was deep and loud, and before she could stop him he pulled her down into his lap, sprawling back against the deep, turquoise cushions.
“Delightful?” he asked, teasing her bare breast and sending soft shivers of new desire through her still-sensitive body.
“How about stupendous?” Janie said.
Blaine chuckled. “I’ll take stupendous, but if that was stupendous, I wonder what will happen when I take you to bed instead of getting distracted on this sofa.”
“Hold that thought,” she said, and jumped up, needing to have a bathroom break fast before he changed his mind about an encore performance.
Before she got to the bat
hroom there was a knock at the door. “Did you call room service?” she asked. “I hope it was for dessert. I could kill a tub of ice cream. In fact, I could probably lick the whole thing off your abs.”
Suddenly he was next to her, his hand on the doorknob as if to stop her from opening it. “There’s ice cream in the kitchenette already.”
“There’s more to this place? Holy hell, Highlander, this place is twice the size of mine.” But he didn’t appear to be listening to her. He flicked the corner of a curtain and was looking intently out onto the path in front of his rooms.
“Whoever it was has gone,” he said, his voice dark. Darker than she’d expect.
But when she closed the bathroom door behind her, a lightbulb went on: the note, a knock at the door. They’d found him.
The press were already here.
Chapter Seven
Shite. Blaine ran a hand over his face to try to clear his thoughts. Whoever had knocked had his back to him now and was walking away from the door. The temperature of Blaine’s skin dropped a couple of degrees. There was a black bag slung over the stranger’s shoulder. A camera?
If whoever had knocked on his door was the same person who had left the note for Janie, this could go real bad, real quick. And if that really was a camera bag—Blaine shut his eyes a minute and ran his hand back over his face again. The scent of Janie’s sex was still on his fingers, and Blaine tried not to groan as he looked around. Most of the windows had wooden shutters on them, and the one behind the couch was mostly covered by a climbing vine, festooned with purple flowers.
But if anyone had pushed a camera through the vine and been filming through that window… Blaine shook his head at himself. Having his picture splashed across the papers, buried in the crotch of a woman, a woman who was not Stephanie… The groan came out unheralded. It wouldn’t matter that she was as sweet as apple pie with scotch-toffee sauce; being with her, being with anyone, would land his brother in a whole world of pain.
Her Scottish Mistake (A Perfect Escape) Page 8
