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

Chapter 32

Iwasn’t able to put my finger on exactly what I was feeling. But after a while, the sinking sensation was suddenly all too familiar. It was a mix of dread and devastating disappointment.

If I was honest with myself, it started with the tux.

I never minded putting on a kilt or socializing with my neighbors at Robert Burns Nights and Christmas ceilidhs at the village hall. I didn’t even mind donning my suit for my wedding.

But the tux was ridiculous. I could have handled the jacket, waistcoat, and shirt, but the bow tie was driving me up the fucking wall. Honestly, I thought I hid my discomfort well, but apparently, Allegra could see right through me. About ten minutes after meeting her ex fucking fuck buddy, she’d pulled me into a corner and tugged the bow tie free, stuffing it into the purse thing she called a clutch. She’d unbuttoned the top two buttons on my shirt and I’d instantly felt like I could breathe again.

“Better?” she’d murmured, smoothing a possessive hand over my chest.

I’d bent my head to kiss her in answer.

The best thing about dressing up for these bloody fancy dos was that Allegra looked good enough to eat. She was curvy and sexy in her pinup-style dress. I already planned to fuck her while she wore nothing but those flimsy pink sandals that inexplicably turned me on.

Everything about this woman turned me on.

Which was why as the evening progressed, the biggest black cloud started to gather over my head.

Technically, I knew Allegra had come from this world of wealth, fame, and glamor. Of travel and staff and privilege. It was one of the reasons I’d kept my distance from her in the first place. She and I were from two different planets.

However, I’d allowed myself to forget that while it was just us, living our life on the farm. But seeing Allegra stop to chat with familiar faces I’d seen on the screen and around the village because she actually knew them was an unwelcome reminder that by staying married to me, she would never really be part of this world again. She talked with other guests, and travel came up almost all the time. She’d met them in France. Or the last they’d seen each other was at a bar in Italy. Or a festival in Denmark. A fashion show in Tokyo. I’d never realized how much of the world Allegra had seen, or how much traveling seemed to have been a part of her life.

But Aria had tried to warn me that night at Sloane’s. She’d said then that travel was a part of who Allegra was. I’d shrugged it off because Allegra had disagreed.

Yet here we were, faced with the facts.

We’d never be able to just take off to Greece or Spain because we felt like it. The farm was a twenty-four-seven commitment, and I was attempting to grow another business from it. Perhaps I might be able to take Allegra on the odd holiday here and there once the business was up and running and we had folks to look after it in our absence, but traveling all the time was out of the question.

I’d never thought of myself as a broody bastard, but I was brooding. And it only got worse when Allegra led us over to Chiara and Wesley Howard.

I’d seen Chiara’s face in magazines, seen her on perfume adverts. On Allegra’s phone for that video chat. I knew she and Allegra were alike, but it wasn’t until the two women embraced that I saw the resemblance. Chiara either had the skin of a thirty-year-old or she was having something injected into her face to smooth out wrinkles.

Wesley Howard wasn’t the best-looking guy in the world, nor the worst, but he had a presence. His green eyes pierced right through me as we shook hands.

Chiara Howard refused to take my hand as Allegra introduced us. She sniffed haughtily, resting stiffly against her husband’s side as my wife stepped into mine. As I had when I bumped into Aria, I felt under inspection.

This time, however, I knew I’d been found wanting upon judgment.

Wesley gave Allegra a small, reassuring smile. “Your sister tells us you’re very content in marriage.”

Surely, he should know that directly from the horse’s mouth, but of course, his and Allegra’s relationship was secretly strained. Not so secretly, if you asked me. The tension between them was so obvious, it was a wonder Aria hadn’t guessed at the partial cause of her sister’s issues as a teen.

“We’re very happy.” Allegra’s words were tight. Probably because her mother was eyeing me like I was a criminal who had kidnapped their daughter into marriage.

Fuck that.

“Tesoro,” Chiara said, smiling sweetly at her daughter, “why don’t you go find Aria and North and bring them over so we can talk as a family? We’ll keep Jared company.”

My wife hesitated, and I wanted her to argue. Instead, she nodded, patted my arm, and murmured, “I’ll be right back,” and left me with her parents.

Chiara’s smile slipped as soon as Allegra was out of earshot. “How much do you want?”

“Chiara,” Wesley snapped at her.

My stomach knotted. “Excuse me?”

She waved off her husband’s warning. As beautiful as she was, there was a coldness to her that could never make her as appealing as her youngest daughter. Not even her musical accent could soften the harshness of her words. “How much do we have to pay you to annul this outrageous, ridiculous marriage?”

Wesley shook his head. “Unbelievable. I apologize for my wife.”

“Do not ever apologize for me,” she hissed angrily at him. “Just because you pretend to be ‘one with the people’… I know you are not happy that our daughter married a man who cannot give her the life she is used to.” Chiara stepped toward me. “I am sorry if I am being rude, but I am doing this for you, too, Jared. Allegra is impulsive, wild, and follows her emotions and artistry wherever the wind blows her. You are just another adventure until she gets bored with playing a farmer’s wife, of no doubt pouring all the money my husband and I earned to give her into a thankless business such as farming. She will end up penniless with no backup to protect her. She will miss traveling, parties, seeing the world. She’ll be trapped on a farm. With you.” She sighed unhappily. “Is that really what you want?”

I glanced at Wesley, but he only glowered at his wife. He did not refute anything she’d said.

After an hour of schmoozing with these people at a party I didn’t want to be at, seeing Allegra socialize with them with ease and talk about all the places she’d been … it allowed Chiara’s worries to take root.

Allegra and I were happy now, but what happened if she did grow bored?

I was never going to change.

I was a farmer and I liked my simple life.

“I see you understand.”

That dread and disappointment that had been gathering overhead suddenly burst in a thunderous storm of fury. Because I knew Chiara Howard made very valid points.

But she was wrong about one thing. I leaned toward her, my tone hard, “Don’t ever try to buy me off. I don’t want your fucking money.” Every penny of it that Allegra had invested into my farm and business, I was going to pay back. Every damn penny. “Maybe if either of you weren’t both so consumed with money and image, you wouldn’t have done such a grand job of fucking up Allegra.” I stepped toward them both as Wesley’s eyes flew to meet mine.

“Allegra isn’t impulsive. She was a devastated teen who needed her parents. And instead she found out her father was cheating on her mother and got slapped”—I spat the word at Chiara—“for her loyalty, and abandoned for knowing the truth.” I shook my head, disgusted by them. “The world may think of you as the perfect parents. Successful. Powerful. Legends. But we both know I know differently. Imagine being the partial cause of your kid’s pain … and then gaslighting her, so even her sister thinks she’s the fuck-up. You should be utterly ashamed. You’re not successful. You failed at the thing that mattered most.”

I gestured to myself. “You know, in Scotland we call a person a legend if they’re a good. Not because they’re globally successful or historically famous, but a good person who did a good thing for us. My grandfather was a Highland farmer and he was a fucking legend. Not a fancy Hollywood director or a world-famous supermodel. And yet as my parent, he was more successful than you two could ever hope to be.”

Turning on my heel, I left them behind, satisfied by their stricken expressions.

Maybe it was revenge for Chiara devastating me with the truth, but I liked to think of it more as justice for my wife. And a long time coming.

“What did they say to you?” Allegra asked for the hundredth time as she followed me upstairs to our bedroom.

Feeling an intense pressure on my chest, I’d found Allegra just as she’d come across Aria and North, and told her I wasn’t feeling great. We’d left the party without returning to her parents and she’d badgered me the whole way home.

“They upset you. I know they did.” Hearing the tremor in her voice, I turned as we stepped inside the bedroom and I shrugged out of the jacket.

I didn’t want to think.

Thinking made me feel like my chest was caving in.

“They didn’t say anything,” I lied. “I just couldn’t wait any longer to get you alone. Take off the dress. Keep the shoes on.”

Allegra’s tan cheeks flushed. “Are you serious? You’re telling me the truth?”

I nodded, because I couldn’t voice another lie. The buttons on my shirt gave as I quickly plucked them open. “Dress off.”

She couldn’t suppress a shiver. I knew and loved that shiver. My wife was turned on. “Fine. But we will talk about this later, mister.” Allegra yanked down the side zipper on her dress a little angrily.

As amusement curled in my gut, overwhelming feeling for this woman froze me to the spot for a second. I watched as she shimmied off the tight dress and gracefully stepped out of it. My heart thudded faster as my dick thickened, straining against the suit trousers. She wore a strapless see-through pink bra and matching knickers, the same shade as those fuck-me shoes.

“Jesus,” I murmured, hungrily eating up the sight of her.

The thought of never having the privilege of seeing her like this for the rest of my life was so goddamn painful, it left me breathless.

“Get on the bed,” I demanded, fighting off the grim thought.

She shot me a sassy look but walked over to the bed and climbed on. Her perfect heart-shaped arse swayed as she crawled up the mattress. I fought the urge to climb up and grab her arse between my hands, rip off her knickers, and just fuck her until we both saw stars.

Clenching my hands into fists, I waited instead for her to turn and lie down on her back. “Hold on to the headboard. Don’t let go.”

Her breath caught, but she did as I commanded, wrapping her elegant artist hands around two of the metal posts.

I drank her in, my chest heaving with want. Finally, I climbed onto the bed. Allegra’s breasts trembled against the flimsy bra, her nipples visibly taut. Dark eyes filled with trust and lust, she waited patiently for me to continue.

Without a word, I curled my fingers around her knickers and slid them down her slender thighs. I peeled them over those ridiculous but sexy shoes that had no place on a farm, and stuffed them into my arse pocket for safekeeping.

“Dirty,” Allegra murmured, teasing me. “What do you plan to do with those later?”

I grinned but it was tight with need. “Spread.”

She let out a wee whimper of arousal as she widened her thighs. Wrapping my hands around both her slim ankles, I slowly slid them upward, caressing her until her inner thighs trembled and her pussy glistened.

Ready for me.

Always ready for me.

I kneeled between her thighs and gently pushed two fingers inside her. Wet, tight heat made me groan as she arched her back off the bed and moaned. Pumping in and out of her, I watched her strain against her hold on the bed, her heels piercing into the sheets as she met the thrusts of my fingers. I leaned over, pressing my thumb down on her clit as I squeezed her right breast with my free hand.

“Jared!” she gasped. “I’m gonna come.”

“Aye, that’s it, baby.” I rubbed at her clit as my fingers continued driving in and out of her.

Allegra suddenly stiffened and then cried out as her inner muscles clenched around my fingers. Wet flooded them as she shuddered through her orgasm, but I didn’t stop. Her clit swelled and I kept toying with her as I finger-fucked her.

“Jared, Jared …” She reached for me, her cheeks flushed, her chest heaving, her thighs shaking.

“Hands on the bed.”

Allegra cursed and returned to holding on to the frame. In less than a minute, I had her climaxing around me again.

“Please, please,” she murmured as she shook through my continued torment. “I need you.”

Yanking down my zipper, I shoved my trousers and boxers just low enough to free myself. “I want to fuck you bare.” We’d both been checked, but we hadn’t yet had sex without a condom.

Allegra nodded, her knuckles turning white from straining against the bed frame. “Yes, yes.”

One hand gripping her thigh, my other wrapped around my painfully hard cock, I guided myself to her entrance. Heaven met me as I drove inside her. It felt more. I couldn’t even explain why. Just knowing there was nothing between me and her felt so fucking good, I might die from it.

Grabbing Allegra’s other thigh, I spread her, lifting her arse off the bed and I began fucking my wife. Wanting to see all of her, I briefly released one of her legs to reach over to unclip the front clasp on her bra. Shoving the pieces aside, I returned to driving into her. My eyes moved from the pleasure etched on her face to her lush lips parted on gasps, to her breasts trembling with my every thrust.

“God, I want you so much.” I pressed her thigh toward her and leaned over, penetrating deeper, my hips slamming against hers. “I can’t get enough.”

Allegra’s cries filled my ears as her inner muscles quickened around me.

“Take me,” I growled, fucking her harder, faster. “Take me. Feel me.”

My wife screamed with relief as she shattered around me, her climax tight-fisted tugs of her inner muscles that squeezed my dick with such intense pleasure, bright lights sparked behind my eyes.

I fell over her, my head bowed between her neck and shoulder as I filled her with my cum. Some primal, ancient thing left over from a previous time was a powerful possessiveness within me as I sat up to pull out of her and saw the evidence of my release between her thighs.

“Fuck, that’s hot,” I murmured gruffly.

“Every bit of that was hot,” Allegra replied breathlessly. “My God, just when I thought sex with you couldn’t get any better.”

Staring at her, disheveled, thoroughly screwed, I could feel that edge of panic creeping in again. I didn’t want to lose this. Not yet. Instead, I touched her gently, brushing her clit with my thumb.

Her eyes flew wide. “Jared?”

My cock was already twitching, ready for round two. “Again.”

“Already?”

“Might as well while you’re covered in my cum,” I joked as I crawled over her to find her mouth with mine. I kissed her like I intended to take her again and by the time I released her, she was panting and squirming. So I kissed my way down her breasts, taking my time, sucking and biting at her delicious nipples until she was aching and throbbing for me all over again.

If it would hold my dread of tomorrow at bay, I planned to keep my wife coming all bloody night.