Working It (21 page)

“Remember the public affairs officer?”

I nod.

“He stepped off the helicopter and passed out, collapsed right there on the pad.” Calder shakes his head. “Poor lad had a heart attack.”

“Are you kidding me?”

Calder shakes his head.

“Did he have a preexisting heart condition?”

“Nay.”

“Are you telling me that your hotshot flying caused an otherwise healthy young man to have a heart attack?”

The grin widens. “Aye.”

“What kind of man are you, Calder MacFarlane?”

“The best kind.”

I snort and roll my eyes.

He reaches for his door.

“Wait a minute!” I peer out the window at the glowing windows of the apartment building. “Did you bring me to your place?”

“Aye.”

“I thought you said you were taking me to the best fondue restaurant in Sitka?”

“Aye,” he says, smiling. “I make the best fondue in Sitka.”

I frown.

“Didn’t ye believe me, then?”

“Nay!”

He chuckles.

“Your apartment?” I look around nervously. We are perched high on a hill, overlooking the cruel, black sea. It’s a fairly isolated spot. “Isn’t that a bit intimate for a first non-date?”

“Didn’t fash yerself,
banfhlath
,” he says, pressing one hand to his heart and raising the other. “I promise to be a perfect gentleman.”

I look at him through narrowed eyes, my lip lifting in skepticism.

“If it makes ye feel any better, lass, ye’re surrounded by several men who have been trained to risk their lives to aid others.”

“What do you mean?”

He nods his head at the building. “Half a dozen rescue pilots live in this building. That should make you feel a wee bit better.”

“It does.”

He grins before opening his door and climbing out of the Jeep. A few seconds later, he opens my door and helps me down from the vehicle. We stand close together, breathing the same air, but not touching.

“Besides”—he leans close and his warm lips brush against my ear—“you have your whistle.”

I lift my chin and look directly into his twinkling eyes, a tiny challenging smile curling my lips. “I thought you said when you took me to your bed I wouldn’t protest?”

He puts his hand on the small of my back and laughs. It is one of those smooth, belly-deep laughs that makes my knees go weak.

Wrapped Around You

Hottie McScottie was right: When he finally decided to take me to his bed—swooping me up in his massive arms and carrying me into his room—I didn’t protest. Not even a wee outraged peep.

After helping me out of the Jeep, Calder held my hand and led me to his apartment. He gave me a brief tour of his home, which turned out to be surprisingly classy, with a James Bond meets Man from Uncle feel. Modern, masculine, and stylish. Sleek leather furniture, am impressive collection of cut-crystal decanters and whisky glasses, and framed black-and-white photographs printed on slick metallic paper. The high quality photographs weren’t of sports cars, airplanes, or scantily clad supermodels—images you would expect to see cluttering the walls of a bachelor’s home—but of his family and their homestead in the Highlands. Calder’s apartment reflects his appreciation for the finer things in life and his deep, abiding love for his family and homeland.

He opened a bottle of Chenin Blanc, and we sat on his porch, warming ourselves in front of an outdoor fireplace, sipping our wine, and sharing our histories and hopes. I never would have believed it, but the cocky cowboy and I have a lot in common. We love fine wines, luxurious living, adventure sports, and hard work. And we both miss living in Europe.

We talked, laughed, drank wine, and exchanged enough sexual banter to make foreplay totally unnecessary. When he finally took my hand and led me into the kitchen, I thought we were going to strip naked, slather each other in chocolate sauce, and have kinky kitchen sex.

No stripping. No chocolate sauce. No kinky kitchen sex.

Instead, Calder served me a delicious meal. Fresh bread from the bakery in town, grilled sockeye salmon, filet mignon, and gooey fondue made of Emmentaler and Gruyere. If a meal could be compared to sex, Calder’s dinner was slow, delicious foreplay that progressed to a multi-orgasmic climax, and ended leaving me feeling blissfully satiated. I took everything he gave me without thinking about the repercussions.

After our meal, Calder poured us each a snifter of Drambuie and we sat in his living room beside the fireplace, savoring the liqueur’s nutmeg and honey flavor.

Calder reminded me that the last time we drank together was at a pub in Strathpeffer, Scotland, near his family’s sheep farm. What he didn’t mention was that he left me sitting in the pub with one of his mates so he could make out with one of mine.

“Connor liked you verra much, lass.”

His husky voice moved through me with all of the heat and potency of the whisky.

“I didn’t like him, though.”

“Why not?”

I took another swallow of Drambuie for courage.

“Because I liked….”

He reached out and tucked a strand of my hair behind my ear, his knuckles brushing my cheek, a shiver of pleasure working its way down my spine.

“Who, lass?”

My stomach roiled—and it had nothing to do with the liquor. Somehow, though, I dug down deep and found the bravery to say what was in my heart.

“You.”

And that was it.

Calder picked me up and carried to me to his bed.

I don’t remember taking my clothes off. One minute we were bantering over whisky, and the next minute we were making frantic, crazy-hot love. His chiseled body pushing me into the mattress. My legs wrapped around his waist. His mouth claiming mine. My fingernails scratching his back. His solid cock….

Usually, I like to be on top. I want to be in control. I don’t like the feeling of being pinned, smothered, but it was different with Calder. He stripped my gossamer-thin veil of control away as easily as he stripped my La Perla thong from my thighs.

I waited an appropriate amount of time after his climax before trying to make my getaway. My plan was to retrieve my clothes, call a cab, and leave while he was still lost in the post-coital masculine slumber world, but Calder trapped me with his arm and pulled me back against him.

I prayed he wouldn’t want to spoon, because it’s such a cloying, needy, predictably romantic position for lovers to assume.

Calder didn’t want to spoon though. Instead, he kept an arm under my neck and turned me so I was forced to drape an arm over his chest, a leg over his long, powerful legs.

He fell asleep fast, his muscular chest rising and falling with each breath, his solid body warm against mine.

I stared out the window at the full moon and sang the lyrics to Zella Day’s song “Sweet Ophelia” in my head. Day’s song is about Shakespeare’s Ophelia, how she lost her innocence, fell in love, and became careless.

When I woke a few minutes ago and squinted at the clock on the nightstand, I was stunned to discover I had spent the entire night in Calder’s arms.

I rarely spend the night with a lover. Not the entire night. I am not afraid for a lover to see me with my hair tousled and my face sans makeup—nothing that nauseatingly girly. I just don’t want to endure that awkward feigned intimate morning-after chitchat.

Spending the night breeds unwanted intimacy and expectations. Inevitably, the man uses a term of endearment, which always makes me want to vomit bile.

“
Bonjour, banfhlath,”
Calder whispers, pressing a kiss to my forehead.

I should be cringing, vomiting bile over his the term of endearment, but Calder’s linguistic mashup makes me smile.

“
Bonjour
.”

My voice comes out throaty, unwittingly sultry. Calder groans and pulls me on top of him. His massive erection pulses against me, and I gasp against his lips.

He rolls me over, keeping one arm around my waist and the other under my neck. Murmuring something in Gaelic, he eases into me with painfully sweet slowness and starts a measured, unhurried rhythm that soon has me moaning low in my throat.

In….

One, two, three, four…

Out….

One, two, three…

In….

Calder is making love to me as no man has—with restrained passion and profound, almost terrifying intensity. He’s making love to my soul, not my body. He’s making me feel things I can’t fathom, can’t describe.

And I am…

I am…

Putain!

I am crying!

“Are you crying?” Calder pushes up on one arm and looks down at me. “Did I hurt ye,
banfhlath
?”

I stare at his handsome face, avoiding his probing gaze. I don’t know how to answer him without sounding like a clingy psycho.

He swears and pulls out of me.

“I’m sorry, Stéphanie. I didn’t mean to hurt—”

“You didn’t hurt me,” I say, sniffling.

“Then what is it?” he whispers. “Please tell me.”

“I…I…” My voice comes out as one of those pathetic, weak girly whines, high-pitched and faltering. “I really like yooou!”

Calder gets it. He knows how much it took for me to make such a raw confession, pulled from my independent, aching soul. He pushes himself back inside me, kisses my tears away, and whispers in my ear.

“I really like you, too,
banfhlath
. More than I ever thought possible.”

This time when he climaxes, I don’t try to make a getaway. I lie there, his throbbing cock still deep inside me, his ragged breath fanning over my bare shoulder, and my heart aching for a need I never knew I had.

A need to be protected.

A need to be possessed.

A need to be loved.

With the same blinding clarity of a summer dawn, I realize am just like Hamlet’s Ophelia. I have been careless. I have fallen in love.

Enter the Perpetual Virgin

“Thank you for a most amazing morning,” Calder says, brushing a lock of hair from my cheek.

It is mid-morning, and we are standing on the porch at the TTTF cabin. Calder has a flight in a few hours and I have to mentally flagellate myself for telling him I really like him and for crying.

“It beat a cappuccino and cardio class.”

He laughs and then bends down to kiss me. He snakes his arm around my waist and pulls me close. I press my hands to his chest and am just about to push my tongue between his lips when the front door opens.

“Well, this is freaking awkward.”

My heart stops beating and I freeze in place. Even through the fog of desire, I recognize the voice.

“Vivian!” I pull out of Calder’s arms and run to my best friend, hugging her until there are tears in my eyes. “What are you doing here?”

“I had a feeling you might benefit from my fabulous company, and that uncharacteristically spontaneous hug tells me I was right!” She squeezes me before breaking our hug. “You sounded so defeated when we talked, and the tone of your texts kinda freaked me out. I had to make sure you were okay. So whassup with my Hype Girl?”

I laugh and then groan. “I see Urban Vivia is still in the house.”

“Word.”

She throws down her ridiculous version of a gang sign and we both laugh.

“I can’t believe you flew all the way from France.”

“Why not?” She puts her hands on her hips. “We made a pinky pact, didn’t we?”

I frown.

“Scotland?” Vivian says, prodding my memory. “We were standing in the cottage, and I was thanking you for picking up the pieces of my life. I promised you that if you ever made a mess of your life, I would be there to pick up your pieces. So here I am.”

“Your timing could not be more perfect!”

“It looks like it,” she says, glancing over my shoulder at Calder. “From the looks of that kiss, you’ll need me to play Annie to your Lillian soon.”

I stare at her blankly until Vivian sighs, rolls her eyes, and says, “Hello?
Bridesmaids
?”

I shake my head.

“Puh-leez tell me you downloaded that movie?”

I grimace.

“Fanny!” She stomps her foot. “It’s only my new favorite movie.”

“
Desolée
.”

“Whatever! We’ll watch it while I am here.” She smiles one of her big, toothy smiles that usually precedes a ridiculous statement. “You might pick up a few wedding pointers.”

I turn around to look at Calder. His face is as red as the Coast Guard patch on his flight suit. I know his pain intimately. Vivian is fabulously funny, but her missing filter means she often speaks before she thinks.

“Don’t be absurd, Vivian. That kiss was not what it seemed.” I adopt a blasé tone and expression, stopping short of covering my mouth with my hand and feigning a yawn. “In fact, it was nothing, really. Nothing at all. You read way too much into things,
mon amie
.”

Calder clears his throat and fixes Vivian with a tight smile.

“It was nice to see you again, Vivia,” he says, taking a step off the porch.

“You’re not leaving?” she asks.

“I have a flight.”

“Still saving the world?”

“One lost American tourist at a time,” he says, his smile softening.

“Thanks again for that, by the way,” she says, referring to the time he airlifted her off the side of a mountain. “I owe you one.”

“It was nothing.” He stabs me with an icicle cold stare before smiling at Vivian again. “Nothing at all.”

“Luc would disagree.” Vivian flushes. “I disagree. You saved my life and I will never, ever forget it, Calder.”

Calder grins and winks at Vivian, slipping the charming, flirty mask back on, before walking to his jeep, climbing in, and driving off without looking back.

“Well that was harsh.”

“I know, right? He left without even saying goodbye.”

“I was talking about you, Fanny.”

“
Moi
?”

“
Oui
!” She crosses her arms and stares at me through accusing, narrowed eyes. “I arrived last night. I stayed up all night worrying about you, imagining you in the pokey for having stabbed the ‘cocky cowboy’ with the heel of your Louboutin! Trust me, you wouldn’t survive in the pokey, Frenchie. I know. I did hard time.”