Then again, I’ve noticed that Kayla is the odd one out when it comes to them. She’s always on the outskirts, even from the first day I saw her at the bar. I pretended she hadn’t intrigued me when she had. But it wasn’t her personality, or her looks, not then. Who she was wasn’t more than a blip on my radar. What I had noticed though, was that she was the one who didn’t really belong. That she was with them, but apart.
I recognized it because I understand it. I live it. If there’s someone else out there like you, you’ll see it. It’s a pattern. You recognize it in a look, in a philosophy, in a song. It’s this quiet vein of understanding, a connection. I think we’re all looking for that in everyone we see, everywhere we go, so when we do find it, we find ourselves. Through a mirror darkly, they say.
But what I saw in Kayla then was far from darkness. It was light.
“Listen, I better go, Bram,” I tell him. “I’ve got some mutts here that need my attention.”
“So I heard,” he said, and it made me wonder what else he knew. Maybe Kayla did talk a lot. “Listen, I was thinking…now that you’re with Kayla—”
“I’m not with Kayla,” I interject. With time running out, I don’t want us…whatever we are…to be a bigger thing than we should be.
“Now that you’ve got a limited time fuck buddy,” Bram corrects himself, though that doesn’t sound so right either. “I was thinking the six of us should get out of town for the weekend.”
“I’m leaving on Sunday,” I remind him, glancing down at Ed and Emily who are staring up at me with big eyes. “And I’ll have at least one dog until then.”
“I know, I know, hear me out. Your flight is not until the afternoon, right?”
“Aye. Three p.m.”
“Friday and Saturday night. Napa Valley. You been?”
I sigh, not really wanting anything last minute to mess up my plans to have Kayla all alone and to myself. “No, I haven’t.”
“It’s about an hour and a half from the city,” he tells me. “Gorgeous place. I’ll book us all hotel rooms, and I know a resort with a vineyard that takes dogs.”
“Maybe you should start saving your money now, Bram,” I advise him. “Scots should be cheap.”
He snorts. “I’m not paying for everyone. You’ll do your own room, yeah? But listen, I don’t want to step on any toes. Talk it over with Kayla and let me know. I won’t say anything to the others.” He pauses. “It would just be nice for all of us to see each other before you go, and that way you don’t have to be away from her either.”
I stare up at the mist rolling in from the west, blowing between the high rises, and sigh. “All right. I’ll ask her. But if we do go, don’t expect to see us much except for maybe lunch. And even then, I’m not predicting anything.”
“Thatta boy,” he says before saying goodbye and hanging up.
I shove my phone in my pocket and stare down at the dogs. “Well, so much for trying to lay low.” They cock their head as if they’re listening. Sometimes I think they are. Thankfully a dog can never try and give you advice. They just listen and watch you come up with your own decisions.
When I see her tonight, I’ll ask Kayla if she wants to go. I just hope such a trip doesn’t scare her off. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t dream of going off with a girl I’d just slept with, and I’d assume Kayla would feel the same way. But because I’m leaving, it makes everything a little different. It bends the rules.
I’ve never much cared for rules anyway.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Kayla
I can’t walk properly.
My body aches everywhere. Like after the rugby game, but worse and better all at the same time. Because there’s friction between my legs, and other places, that reminds me of what we did all night long.
Because…
Oh my god.
Oh my god.
It’s like I need to keep pinching myself all day, except my sore body keeps doing it for me. Every move I make I’m reminded of Lachlan. His unbelievable cock. His skilled, possessive hands. His gorgeous lips…everywhere. Those eyes, those searing, searching eyes that wouldn’t look away, not for a minute. Those eyes touched me, held me, caressed me just as any other part of him did. Last night I felt completely, wonderfully overtaken by this Scottish beast, and I’m still in awe.
It actually happened.
He gave me the best sex of my whole entire life.
How the fuck am I ever going to get over this?
Luckily he wants to see me again. Right away. I would have come over right after work—it makes sense since he lives close to the office. But I need to gather my thoughts and regroup. I need to process what happened before I’m swept away again because that man is a current that I can’t fight against. The next week with him will drown me if I don’t get my head on straight.
Before the work day is over, I finally answer Steph and Nicola’s frantic texts and tell them to meet me at the Lion at six o’clock for girl talk.
Of course, when I actually get to the Lion and see Steph and Nicola at the booth, talking to each other over beers, I freeze up. Everything that happened doesn’t seem like something I can communicate, not without sounding like an idiot, not without selling him short.
I breathe in deeply and walk toward them, trying to keep a straight face, even though I feel a smile tugging at my lips.
They both turn to look at me and stop talking.
“My god,” Steph says slowly, looking me up and down.
“What?” I look down at what I’m wearing, skinny black jeans and a tie-neck blouse. I put the outfit on in a hurry this morning while Lachlan was taking a shower. My thoughts immediately flit back to his eyes as they watched me soap up, then our reflection as he fucked me from behind. Up the goddamn ass. I’d done that before, but it had never been like that. That was good. Hot as all hell. And unexpected, especially from Lachlan, but the man he was when he was fucking was a lot different from the one I’d been around before.
“Kayla?” Nicola asks.
I shake my head and look at them. “Yeah, what?”
Steph laughs, eyes wide in disbelief. “Oh my god. You so got fucking laid.”
There was no point in denying it. “What makes you say that?”
“You’re glowing,” Nicola says.
“And you’ve got a shit-eating grin on your face,” Steph adds. “Now sit the fuck down and tell us about it.”
I guess I can’t really help this smile. I sit down beside Nicola. “Are you working tonight?” I ask her.
“Yeah, soon. Bram has Ava,” she says quickly. “But don’t change the subject. You owe us. Tell us everything.”
“What happened?” Steph asks, leaning forward excitedly, gripping her beer tightly. “He came here looking for you, you know, and—”
“Yeah, you gave him my address.”
“Would you rather I hadn’t?”
I shake my head. If she hadn’t, last night might not have happened.
“You know that he was only with Justine because of Bram,” Nicola adds.
“I know, I know,” I tell her, trying not to think about it. “He explained.”
“And then you fucked,” Steph says with a nod.
I eye her. “That we did.”
“Well,” Nicola says, staring at me with big, eager eyes. “How was it?”
I lean back against the seat. “It’s hard to say.”
“What?” Steph asks incredulously. “You mean you’re not about to wax on about his Hulk penis?”
Old Kayla would have waxed on about any Hulk penis she may have encountered, but this Kayla…this Kayla didn’t feel like talking about Lachlan that way.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I tell her.
“That bad, huh?” Nicola says sympathetically.
“No,” I say quickly. “No, no. It was the opposite of bad. It was…” I shake my head back and forth, trying to think of the right word. “Earth shattering. Life changing. His cock has r
uined me for all other cocks on earth.”
Nicola and Steph exchange a look.
“Uh,” Steph says. “Wow.”
“Yeah. I’m so scared.” So screwed.
A lengthy pause.
“So there was a Hulk penis,” Steph goes on.
I give her a look. “His dick is ridiculously proportioned to his body, and he’s already a huge man. That’s all I’m going to say.”
“Good thing you’ve had a lot of practice to loosen you up,” Nicola says with a smirk.
“Shut up.”
“So now what?” Steph says.
“What do you mean?” I ask carefully.
She shrugs and takes a swig of her beer. “Well, he’s leaving.”
“Yes, I know.”
“So…are you going to see him again before that?”
I fish my phone out of my pocket and glance at it. “I have two hours before I’m meeting him at his apartment. This will be the last time you’ll see me until he leaves. Does that answer your question?”
“Got it,” Nicola says.
“Kind of a bummer, huh?” Steph muses. “I mean…you’ve finally got him…and he’s going.”
I sigh heavily and brush my hair back from my face. “Yeah, thems the breaks though, right? I mean, heaven forbid I actually get a chance with the first guy I’ve fallen for ever since Kyle.”
Both of them stare at me with open mouths and it takes me a moment to realize what I’ve said out loud, what I haven’t even admitted to myself.
“Oh my god,” Steph says. “Are you saying that you’re in…”
I eye her sharply. “No.” I clear my throat. “No, I’m not. Obviously. I don’t know him. It’s still just a crush, whatever.”
“This is way more than that,” Nicola says. “It’s okay to admit it, Kayla. It’s about time you felt something for someone.”
“Is it about time?” I challenge. “Because this is shitty timing. I don’t want to feel anything more for him than just seeing him as a vehicle for awesome sex. Really. So let’s forget I said anything. I’ve got one week to have my mind blown and then he’ll leave and I’ll go back to being me again. Fuck. It’s better than nothing.”
Nicola’s lips scrunch together, looking stupidly sad.
“What now?” I ask, rolling my eyes.
“You’re going to get your heart broken.”
“What?” I exclaim, slapping my palms on the table.
“Nic,” Steph admonishes. “Way to be optimistic.”
The blood is rolling in my head so loudly that I can barely hear Nicola. “I’m just saying that if I were you,” she explains, “and I finally started to have feelings for a guy, and I only had a week with him, I’d be heartbroken.”
“That’s because you’re a sap,” I tell her snidely. “Even though you weren’t such a pussy before Bram got his dick in you.”
“He was the right dick,” she counters. “And this is your right dick.”
“Look,” Steph interjects. “We’ve all got the right dick right now. But Kayla and Lachlan are way, way different than Linden and I. Or you and Bram.”
Somehow I’m finding a way to take offense to that. “Oh yeah, how so?”
Steph’s brows raise to the ceiling. “Well. As you just said, you don’t know Lachlan. He doesn’t know you.”
“True.”
“And he’s leaving, so you don’t even have the time to get to know each other.”
“True,” I say, dragging the word out.
“And even though you seem a bit softer around the edges these days, you’re still you, Kayla. I bet even if he wasn’t leaving, you’d find some excuse to pull back and extract yourself. So actually, contrary to what Nicola thinks, I think this relationship, arrangement, whatever it is, is tailor-made for Kayla Moore.” She raises her beer in the air and looks me hard in the eye. “You go and screw the hell out of him this week. For those about to fuck, we salute you.”
Nicola grumbles something but raises her glass.
I don’t have a glass, so I can only nod at them. “Well, all right then. To fucking.”
“To fucking,” they say in unison.
***
When eight o’clock rolls around, I park in his empty space and sit in the car for a few minutes, just wringing my hands together and working up the nerve to go upstairs. It’s not that I’m scared. But I am nervous. I don’t even know why, but I am. Since I left the girls at the Lion, I’ve been thinking about Lachlan, about what we did. About what we might do again. I feel like I’m pining over a celebrity, someone larger than life, someone who makes me feel completely out of my element. It’s surreal.
“Get a fucking hold of yourself,” I say out loud and crane my neck to look up at the floor-to-ceiling windows of Lachlan’s apartment building, trying to count floors and see which one is his. I anxiously open my compact and dot more lip stain on my lips, wondering how fast it will be rubbed off once I get into his apartment.
Is he going to kiss me right away?
Will this be a Netflix and chill night?
Immediate fucking?
The possibilities have me on edge.
With a deep breath, I get out of the car and walk over to the entrance. My finger hovers at his apartment number. I take a moment to eye myself in the reflection of the glass doors. I sped home from work to change into a strappy black dress, something like the nightgown trend of the nineties, with hot pink platform heels. No bra. No underwear. What’s the point?
I press the buzzer and wait a few moments, my pulse pounding in my wrist. Lachlan’s distinct voice comes through, slightly drowsy and smooth as butter. “Kayla?”
“Hi,” I say. I’m about to say something else, probably something awkward, but he immediately buzzes me through. I exhale loudly, trying to release tension, but I remain a fidgety mess all the way up the elevator. Last time I was in here, we’d just rescued the dogs. He was shirtless. He’d felt so close at that time and yet oh so far away. To think that now, now, after I’d had my hands and lips all over him, my need for him was stronger than ever.
I knock on his door, biting my lip in anticipation, until it swings open and I see him leaning casually against it. The dulcet tones of Fiona Apple’s “Slow Like Honey” drift in from the room.
“You shouldn’t be wearing that,” he says, a faint smile on his lips. God, I’ve missed those lips.
“Why not?” I ask with a raise of my brow. In a second, all my nerves smooth out and I realize how easy it is to talk with him like this.
“You’ll make it impossible to get through the appetizer,” he answers, moving back and letting me inside. He’s back to casual wear—a white thermal shirt that’s partially unbuttoned just enough to show a glimpse of tanned skin, chest hair, and tattoos, a necklace with a small wooden cross, green cargo pants. I like him like this just as much as I like him in a suit.
I walk in, my heels echoing on the tiles. “I thought I was the appetizer,” I tell him, looking around. The two dogs are on the couch, curled up next to each other like sleeping mice. In unison, they both lift their heads to stare at me. The pit bull gives a thump of its tail but the scruffy mutt shivers slightly, showing teeth.
“Don’t mind them. They’re still adjusting,” he says, closing the door then gesturing to the table by the kitchen, where I had done my interview with him last week. “That’s the appetizer.”
On the table is a bottle of red wine, two glasses, and a cheeseboard topped with brie, cheddar, camembert, figs, jam, honey, and crostini.
“Wow,” I say softly. “You did all this?”
He shrugs, making a dismissive noise. “It was nothing.”
“This is romantic,” I tell him. “I didn’t peg you as a romantic.”
He raises a perfectly arched brow. “Oh yeah? What did you peg me as?” He slowly pours a glass of wine.
I stand there, watching him pour a smaller amount into the other glass. His forearm flexes, the lion tattoo seeming to roar. His forehead i
s creased with concentration, perhaps in anticipation of my reply. He seems completely at ease with me, but there’s always that wildness in his eyes that never seems to go away. The only time I saw peace in them was after he came last night.
“I pegged you as a man who wouldn’t give me a second glance.”
He gives me a crooked smile and corks the bottle “Well, love, you know that isn’t true.”
I slowly walk toward him, looking up through my lashes like some kind of femme fatale. “Oh, it’s true. You wanted nothing to do with me.”
His look softens for a moment before he heads into the kitchen, grabbing two small plates from the glass cupboards. “I want nothing to do with most people. Never take it personal.”
“Tell that to old Kayla. She had no idea she’d get the chance to put your gorgeous cock in her mouth.”
The plates rattle against the counter. “You do have some mouth on you.”
“Exactly.”
He comes back into the room with his hulking swagger, setting the plates down. He nods at the pushed out seat. “Here. Sit down, please.”
I hook my purse on the corner of the chair and take a seat. Both dogs stare at me from the couch.
“So, how are they?” I ask him.
He looks behind him and I take a moment to appreciate every hardened, strained muscle in his neck and shoulders. “As I said, they’re adjusting.” He sits down and folds his hands in front of him. “Someone is coming by tomorrow to see about adopting Ed. But I think Emily will be coming home with me.”
“Which one is Ed?”
“The pit,” he says.
“Funny, I would have thought he’d be harder to find a home for.”
“Usually. But Ed is a big sweetie, and people in this city are a little more tolerant of bully breeds than people in the UK. Emily, however, as sweet as she looks,” he glances back at the scruffy dog, who immediately bares her teeth at me, “has behavior problems. She’ll need work.”
“And are you the one who teaches them?” I ask. “Because if so, then you are the dog whisperer, which means there’s pretty much nothing you can’t do.”