Skies Over Caledonia: A Small Town Marriage of Convenience Romance (The Highlands Series Book 4)

Chapter 26

The clouds above my head turned heavy and dark so quickly the automatic headlights on my Defender suddenly illuminated the road. I glanced up out of the windshield and saw the heavy, mauve bellies of the clouds straining.

A raindrop hit my windshield, then another and another.

“Well, at least something went right today,” I murmured, relieved at the sight of rain.

It had been dry and sunny for days, and while I had invested in an irrigation boom to water the fields during the summer, it wasn’t the same as nature’s version. Everything was connected, so even if the soil was wet, it still wasn’t the same when the trees and leaves surrounding the fields were dry and crisp from too much sun. The countryside was thirsty, and it needed the rain.

I drove toward the house, already anticipating seeing Allegra after hours of not being with her. She’d been a bit quiet these last few days because of what happened to the chickens. I wasn’t going to push her to invest in more birds until she was ready. And I wasn’t going to mock or judge her for developing emotions for the wee creatures. The way she’d looked after them and loved them was one of the many reasons she’d made it so hard to resist her.

Allegra had spent the day with her friends in town, so I knew she was all right. But I still needed to see her for myself, and, truthfully, I didn’t like her being at the house on her own. The security company was coming tomorrow to fit the cameras and alarm system. Jim’s police officers had found my father and pulled him in for a proper questioning. The bastard had tried to call me afterward from a new number and then texted me to back off and let him get on with his life. I’d blocked him. Again. The officers told me that my father had an alibi. He was in London the night the chickens were poisoned, and he had proof.

That didn’t convince me that he wasn’t behind it. He could have paid some arsehole to do his dirty work. And my father grew up on the farm. He’d know the easily accessible items that could poison a chicken or any animal, for that matter.

For now, however, there was nothing more the police could do. The officers had told me to contact them personally if anything else happened.

Relief flooded me as I drove up to the house. I could imagine in the winter it would be lit up, a warm, beckoning glow in the darkness. For five years I’d returned every night in the winter to no lights. To no one.

I thought that hadn’t bothered me.

Apparently, I was wrong.

Striding toward the house, I glanced down at my T-shirt that was smeared with mud and damp with sweat. I should really head upstairs for a shower first, but my priority was to check in on Allegra. Rounding the house, I headed toward the mudroom. The sound of music hit my ears before I even opened the door. A song blared in the kitchen and my first feeling was agitation. Anyone could catch my wife unaware when she was listening to music that loudly.

I stifled the irritation because tomorrow it wouldn’t be an issue. We’d have the security system in place, and I was going to insist she arm it when she was home alone. Just until this whole strange mess had blown over.

Toeing off my boots, I cocked my head as I realized she was listening to what sounded like jazz. It wasn’t her usual thing. We shared a taste for a decent amount of the same bands. As I walked through the mudroom, Allegra came into view at the kitchen counter. She was washing dishes, her perfect heart-shaped arse swaying in exaggeration as she crooned along with the woman singing out of her phone. Instead of her usual tee and shorts, she wore a short summer dress. A strappy wee number that was sexier than I think she probably realized. Allegra had gorgeous fucking legs that went on for days. The hem of her dress fluttered with her movements, dangerously close to flashing her knickers.

The song was a jazz version of “Creep” by Radiohead.

Leaning on the doorframe with my arms crossed over my chest, I let my gaze roam over my wife as she sang, with not a bad voice, actually, along with the woman. I was relieved to see her enjoying life amid the madness. Yet I also sensed that familiar hunger no amount of sex with her seemed to satiate.

“I’m a weirdo!” Allegra yell-sang turning on the balls of her feet, hair flying. “Whahhh!” Her hand flew to her chest as she caught sight of me.

I chuckled as she shot me an embarrassed glare that immediately turned into laughter.

“How long have you been there?”

Walking over to her phone, I tapped the screen to switch off the song. “That’s something you’d know if you could hear anything.”

“I thought I was alone.” She huffed, turning back to the sink.

With a gentle touch on her arm, I stopped her from turning away from me. I kept my tone soft. “Exactly. I just want you to be safe until we know who is behind the animal attacks.”

Her eyes shone as she nodded. “I get it.”

Brushing a soft kiss across her cheek, I stepped past her to wash my hands at the sink. Amusement bubbled on my lips. “So, apparently, sex with me is mind-blowing.”

There was silence at my back for a second, so I glanced over my shoulder.

Allegra gaped at me comically. “Who told you?”

Shoulders shaking with laughter, I turned to lean against the counter. “When are you going to realize that you can’t say shit like that in public here and have it not get around the entire village by the end of the day?”

“Seriously?”

I nodded, grinning. “So …?”

She threw her hands up, a faint flush of red on the crests of her cheeks. “Okay, so, Sadie … such a cool person and I can totally see why you went there. But her friend Ursula. Ugh. You should have heard what she said to me. I am not one of those catty women, getting into bitch fights. I avoided mean girls at school like the plague, but she was rude.” Allegra gestured dramatically. “Like, so rude.”

Annoyance cut through my amusement. I’d never liked Ursula. She was married and had come on to me multiple times behind her husband’s and Sadie’s backs.

Sadie was a different story. I’d first slept with her maybe a year after moving to Ardnoch. She was ten years older than me, a single mum, and she’d made it clear she didn’t mind a hookup. I didn’t want her getting the wrong idea, so I’d never gone back for thirds. We’d remained friends, though.

Then five years ago, on the night I met Allegra, I went home with Sadie. I’d done it to prove to myself I just needed to get laid, that whatever spark I felt with Allegra was nothing but lust. All I’d proven was that I was an arsehole for using one woman to forget another. I never slept with Sadie again, and she was cool with it. Ursula, however, had acted pissed ever since, like she somehow had anything to do with it. “What did she say?”

That Allegra wouldn’t meet my eyes was cause for concern. “Just what I already knew. That you’d been around. I didn’t … I didn’t know you were interested in Regan and Eredine, though.”

Fucking Ursula. This fucking village. I huffed. “I flirted with them. Years and years ago, before either of them got with their husbands. What the hell is Urs doing bringing that shit up?”

She finally met my eyes and some of the tension drained out of me at the warmth in them. “She … she’s jealous. Of me. Maybe even of Sadie.”

I grimaced. “Aye, she might have made her interest in me clear in the past. But I don’t sleep with married women, and even if she weren’t married, I wouldn’t touch Ursula if my life depended on it. She’s always been one of these people who covets what others have and is really fucking angry about everything.”

“Well, maybe she took your rejection out on me because she certainly wanted to bring me down a peg. Apparently, you only married me for my money.” She smirked, but I noted a hint of uncertainty there.

Fuck.

Fucking Ursula.

Reaching out, I took hold of Allegra by the waist and pulled her into me until her palms rested on my chest. “But I stayed married to you because the alternative sounds like the shittiest fucking fate I can think of.”

Her expression softened, her whole body relaxing into me. How did she not know that by now? “Yeah, I made sure she knew she was wrong.”

“And that sex with me is mind-blowing.”

“Actually that sex with me is mind-blowing,” she teased. “Are you saying it isn’t?”

Desire throbbed hot and thick between us in an instant. “Of course it is. Best sex of my life. I can’t get enough.” I’d never needed a woman the way I needed Allegra, and I knew, just like I’d learned the night we met, that no one could be a substitute. It was her or it was nobody.

Allegra’s hands slipped beneath my shirt, smoothing up my stomach with intent.

I groaned, my dick hardening against her. “I … I need to shower.”

“Don’t.” One hand slipped downward, pushing past my jeans. “I want you like this.”

I grunted as she rubbed me through my boxers. “Fuck … I’m sweaty.”

“I know.” She leaned on her tiptoes to lick my neck. “I want you just like this.”

My hands slipped down her waist, slowly tugging up the hem of her dress so I could slip inside her knickers and cup her bare arse. Her breath shook against my throat. “You sure?” I kneaded her arse, pressing her against my erection.

“We can shower afterward.” Her voice was hardly above a whisper.

My wife barely had to do anything to turn me into a sex-crazed teenager. It would be embarrassing if it wasn’t so exciting and utterly satisfying. I gripped her arse in my hands and hauled her up my body as I stumbled toward the wall. Allegra hopped up, wrapping her legs around my waist just as her back met the space between the doorway and the kitchen cupboards.

Her head fell back on a gasp of pleasure as I rolled my hips between her thighs.

My lips sought her skin, skimming her jaw until I reached her ear. “You’re on my mind all the time. You’re all I can think about. Your smile, your laugh, your body. I want to fuck you hard every minute of every day so you know who you belong to and who belongs to you.”

Her fingernails bit into my shoulders as her strong thighs tightened around me. “I feel the same. You’re in my head. All day. Every day. I want you, Jared. I want you so badly, all the time.”

Triumphant possessiveness heated my blood to the boiling point. “Lower your legs,” I demanded.

Allegra released me, lowering to the floor so I had to bend to reach for her mouth. I loved the taste of her, the feel, the way she kissed like she fucked, hungry and assertive.

Needing deep inside her, I pushed her dress up to her waist and curled my fingers around the fabric of her knickers. I yanked, and the sound of them tearing from her body made me impossibly harder.

“Jared!” Allegra gaped at me in shock … and pure horniness. She liked that. Good to know. She proved it by grabbing my head and crushing my lips over hers.

We bit and licked and nipped at each other as we both reached for the closure on my jeans. Allegra shoved them and my boxers down to my ankles, freeing me. She took my cock in her small hand and I watched her beneath my lashes as she pumped with a tight, hard grip that I loved.

I curled my hand over hers, enjoying it for a few more seconds before I released her hold. “Wait.” I bent down to get my wallet out of my back pocket to pull out a condom. My dick was in a serious state of pleasure pain as I rolled it on.

Unable to wait any longer, I commanded, “Up.”

Allegra hopped with ease and eagerness, legs around my hips, hands on my shoulders. I pressed her into the wall as I gripped her thighs, spread them, and thrust up into her. I groaned as sensation zinged down my spine and to my balls.

Being inside her tight, wet heat was perfection. Looking into her gorgeous, sweet face, watching her lips part and eyes glaze with pleasure was even better.

“Jared!” she cried out, arching into the feel of me. I let her adjust, sensing she was ready when her fingernails no longer bit so hard into my shoulders.

Then I took my wife.

Hard.

Her pants of excitement filled my ears as I pounded us into the wall, gliding in and out of her tightness, the wet slap of flesh against flesh spurring us toward climax.

It was always fast and explosive when we fucked like this. The need beyond our control. I was going to blow soon and I wanted Allegra to come first. My hand slipped between us, and I allowed myself the pleasure of feeling where I entered her before my thumb found her clit.

“Jared!” Allegra’s hand slid around my nape, fingernails scratching across my skin. “Yes, yes!”

I circled her clit as I continued to fuck her and within seconds I felt her stiffen, then?—

Allegra cried out as she came, her inner muscles pulsing around my dick in hard, awesome tugs.

“Allegra!” My spine stiffened as I peaked, my balls drawing up and then the release exploding through me. My dick throbbed as I shuddered against her, coming into the condom with such intensity it was a wonder the bloody thing didn’t come off inside her. “Jesus.” I trembled, resting my forehead on her shoulder as I continued to shake through the aftershocks of release.

The sound of us both trying to catch our breath and the scent of sex made me want to do it all over again.

See? Never enough.

“Mind-blowing,” I murmured hoarsely, thinking of her words to Ursula.

She giggled. A tender ache speared across my chest.

“Hey, Jared.”

“Mmm-hmm?” I brushed a kiss across her throat, loath to leave her body.

“How would you feel about tying me up to fuck me?”

I froze, not certain I’d heard her correctly. Lifting my gaze, I searched her face. She was flushed but her expression was serious. “Say that again?”

“I thought we could try you tying me to the bed. It might be nice.”

It might be nice?

“I think you might be the most perfect woman in the world.”

Her gorgeous face split into a wide smile. “I’ll take that as a yes.”