CHAPTER EIGHT
COVIN
Lindy offered little resistance as I led her up to the top of my tower. Some part of that seemed ass about, but I didn’t stop to think it through. All I wanted was this woman I’d been craving for the better part of two days. A woman I hadn’t known existed before then but now she was in my life I had no intention of her leaving it.
The remainder of my time in the castle looming without her after Christmas seemed long and lonely and bereft without her colorful presence. Even Al stayed away from the tower stairwell, and I was grateful not to have to tell him to find another room to play in or tins to stack for the time being.
The joke about the ghostly threesome notwithstanding, I had no intention of sharing Lindy with anyone, whether that someone had been dead for two hundred years, or not.
A ghost not getting any action was not my problem tonight.
By the time we reached the top of the stairwell, Lindy’s feet dragged. I placed the bags of forestry by the side of the doorway, toed it open with my boot and scooped an arm under her leg.
Her exhaustion showed when she didn’t bat at me, only offering a soft protest as she knotted her hands in my shirt and pressed her cheek to my shoulder.
Damn if I don’t want to kiss you silly right now .
But that wasn’t the plan, if I had one of those at all.
Instead of doing any of that, I placed her gently on a pile of rugs I used for when my middle aged knees decided the Scottish winter was too fucking cold and put on their old man hats and ached like a bitch. She sank into the nest I fluffed around her gratefully, making a little hood as she disappeared beneath a pile of fluff.
“Comfy?” I asked softly.
“Mmhm,” the rug pile answered.
“Good girl.”
I petted the top—I thought it was still the top and hoped I got it right—and turned my attention to the fire. That had burned down in the day I hadn’t spent in the room, though some of the larger logs were still tiny embers. I used a handful of kindling and pinecones and prayed they wouldn’t be the explosive popping sort.
Once that was going and the grill was back in place, I poured two glasses of whiskey from the bottle near my desk, and offered one to the rug nest.
A slim hand emerged. “Thank you, Covin,” she whispered, all tired and cuddly and so damn tempting.
“You’re welcome.” I forced the words out through a tight throat and sipped my whiskey, appreciating the burn for more than one reason.
Placing my glass by the mantle while she cradled hers, I fussed with the remaining garlands, spreading them across the tower room until it was filled with a veritable jungle.
“Is there family at home to benefit from your decorating talents?” Lindy’s voice faded with every branch I pinned above my desk.
The tack I was intent on shoving into a thin branch stuck me instead. “Ow. Fuck.” I drew the stabbed digit into my mouth and sucked on it, trying not to fall off my desk at the same time. Lindy peered up at me through her fluffy hidey hole. Even with the pang that clenched my heart as both sight and memory collided a smile broke across my face. “You’re too cute.”
“Sure. So. family?”
I sighed. She wasn’t going to let this go, and I knew it. Pinning the last of the garland and holly in place, I perched my ass on the desk and looked at her. “I used to. Beautiful wife, nursery painted and ready to go. Twin girls on the way. The room was blue on one side, bright, not sky blue. You would have loved it. Yellow on the other.” My throat closed, and I was done.
Lindy watched and sipped her whiskey. Waited, for once, like she knew what was coming dammit.
And me, like a fool, couldn’t stop fucking talking.
“I had it all. Family, career. Hell, I even stopped working. Dropped the job that could have ruined it all. I just…stopped. I was ready to become a home dad. Look after my wife and kids. And one day, one normal, usual day…I lost everything. One hemorrhage. That was it. Gone.” My voice grew hoarse.
The blanket nest shifted. Lindy didn’t say anything, just held out one corner. I fell off the desk, tears I’d held at bay for far too long, hadn’t ever been able shed even then, just closed off from the world, those tears made an appearance as I lay on my back under a corner of a borrowed blanket with Lindy’s warmth on one side and the fire on the other.
Shadows chased each other across the rafters as the room darkened. We didn’t speak, didn’t need to talk, or say unnecessary words. All the words were done. Like me. That was one of the reasons I hid away here, after all. Tried to find a new part of me, despite that I lost Sarah and my girls over a decade ago. That hurt would never go away. And I thought that hiding in books at the top of Scotland might help.
Maybe it did, just not in the way I expected.
By the time I blinked my way out of my memory pit I dug myself into the sky outside my tower window was filled with black velvet and studded with white diamond stars in a clear, frigid night. The remnants of my earlier fire burned low. Lindy slept at my side, her face free of lines, the only time she was completely at peace. Her face reflected warmth in the fire’s failing light.
I tossed a heavy wood round past the grill onto the fire, and hoped it didn’t miss. The log landed decently and after a few moments it started smoking.
“Don’t move,” Lindy muttered, winding her fingers across my stomach.
I found her hand in mine, linking our hands together. Some part of me insisted I should feel guilty, that this was a betrayal of the highest order, but my heart told me that Lindy would respect the old part of my life…
While a fraction, a tiny fraction of my logical mind screamed from the depths I banished it to that this would end in heartbreak because we were holidaymakers who met halfway around the world and wouldn’t be leaving together.
Ignoring all sense whatsoever I slipped my arm around her narrow shoulders, pulling her into me and kissed the top of her head. “Sleep, Lindy.”
She mewled softly into my shoulder. Her warmth spread across my body like a blanket, letting me share her peace. It took me a moment to realize just how much stress she carried with her, too. I’d told her my story, but I hadn’t learned hers in return. Not yet.
I made a mental note to ask in the morning but brain function failed me after that. I slipped with her into an unconscious realm where memories danced together, blending with the laugh of a woman I barely knew and the face of a sad boy with a name I couldn’t remember.
I woke with a screaming back to the chatter of a pretty artist conversing with a ghost who answered in salmon-tin language and remembered why I was too old to sleep on the floor.
“This was not a good idea,” I groused, pushing myself up onto my elbows.
Lindy shoved her mass of hair off her face and turned a sunny smile to me. “Best sleep I’ve had in ages.” She poked my chest. “You snore like a bear, Dustman. Ever had that checked?”
“Never had a reason to.”
She opened her mouth to say something, but Al rattled his tins. “You’re right. We need coffee.”
I blinked. “We’ve had coffee this whole time?” Lindy halted and twisted to stare at me. I had the impression the ghost did, too. “What?”
She let out a gust of a sigh. “Kitchen. Come on.”
This time around I let Lindy tow me about the castle. I checked the fire before we left the room but it had burned almost to ashes overnight. The moment we left the tower, the chill set in. I grabbed my coat and Lindy simply kept her rug.
Whatever works best.
It suited her, like everything she did. Lindy Watson didn’t concern herself with society’s prescriptive restrictions, casting them off to lead her life on her terms.
That was the sort of woman I could fall for hard and fast. Hell, I’d already started.
Telling myself the walk down the stairs would solve all problems with my back, I clambered after her through the castle like a lame puppy, trying not to wince when my bullshit mantra proved to be exactly that.
“And...coffee.” Lindy swept her arms in a ta-daa motion as she unveiled a short tower of instant coffee in—you betcha—tins that sat slightly behind the cases of root beer in the pantry.
Yep, they were stacked.
One edged out a little but didn’t rattle as Lindy reached for it in her tiptoes and threatened the natural existence of everything in the vicinity with the rug she wrapped about her.
I reached over her head. “Let me save, uh, that for you,” I offered, grinning.
“Sure. You’re still milking the cow.”
“Whatever you want.” I shrugged.
She twisted in the small space between the pantry shelves where I loomed over her, still clutching the coffee tin. “Did you just agree with me?” she asked, peering up at me through her lashes with no small degree of suspicion.
“Maybe?” I stifled a smirk, but she batted at my chest anyway.
“Stop it.” Lindy waggled a finger in my face. “There’s something wrong with you.”
“So many things.”
She let out an exasperated sound that fell so far into the realm of cuteness I couldn’t help it. Catching her chin in my free hand, I muttered, “Al, out,” giving her just enough time to squint at me before I kissed her.
Really kissed her.
This wasn’t a graze of lips on lips, or anything innocent or sweet. This was three days of me holding back around a woman who, in close confines was all things exhausting, stunning, frustrating and cute as fuck in varying degrees.
And the most creative and compassionate, quiet mind amongst her brand of chaos I’d ever met.
She was perfect.
My mouth crashed against hers in anything but a sweet kiss, warning her that if she responded or didn’t push me away, the ghost was likely to find himself banished from several rooms in the castle post haste.
I pulled back far enough to let her suck in a startled breath, placing the coffee tin carefully to the side. “Sorry. No, actually, I’m not, dammit?—”
She cut my rambling off by sliding a hand behind my neck and pulling me closer. The sheer determination mixed with vulnerability in her gaze nearly did me in. A groan left me as our mouths collided a second time and I knew I wouldn’t be pulling away from her hot, sweet taste anytime soon.
Her breath whispered against my lips as her courage failed, but that was alright; I had enough for both of us. Sliding my tongue across her bottom lip I tasted the sweetness of last night’s whiskey. That we never ate the night before at all hit me hard. I’d fallen into my own trap and not fed her. Which I would, and soon. But right now she was in my arms and I wasn’t letting her go for a while.
Her mouth parted, letting me in. A soft sound tore from her throat as I glided my tongue the length of hers, gathering her closer when she arched for me. Her body fit perfectly to mine as I knew she would when I was looking up at her yesterday as she fixed the garlands I mangled.
Lindy moaned when I kissed her harder, freeing her chin to tangle my fingers in her hair and holding her tight. My other hand gripped her waist beneath the blankets, and I slid a knee between her legs to push her up onto the benchtop beneath the shelves in the butler’s pantry.
Breath whooshed from her as her rump hit the flat surface. I used my knees to spread her legs, stepping between her thighs. The discarded blanket crumpled around her in a fluffy pool as I ground against her. Soft sounds poured from her throat into my mouth and I swallowed each that drove my arousal higher as she rubbed her body to mine.
“Fuck, you’re too perfect,” I growled into her mouth, fisting her hair and pulling her head back.
“No such thing,” she gasped, her body fighting to do what I wanted and trying to pull me closer at the same time.
“Just let go, Lindy. Let go of everything,” I whispered, gentling my grip a little, but still holding her in place against me.
She nodded, her breath catching, and her body molded to mine, fitting against me like a puzzle piece that had been missing but I hadn’t known. “Don’t stop?” she suggested.
That brought me back. I kissed her again, long enough to sear the taste and feel of her into my memory until she sighed into my mouth. Her fingers fluttered at my shirt, my forearms as she grew needy and restless, wanting more. She might hate this next part, but I was slamming the brakes on, if only for now.
“Coffee, minx,” I muttered. “And food, because I didn’t feed you last night while you were looking after me. I got lost in my head and forgot to look after you.”
She pushed up against me, her lips rosy and kiss bitten and so damn tempting. “Maybe I liked looking after you. I’m a big girl, Covin. One missed meal won’t ruin me. You, on the other hand…” She shook her head. “You’re clearly already a stick.”
“Thanks for that.” I slapped her ass as I pulled her off the butler’s benchtop and wrapped her back in the blanket. “Coffee.” I kissed her. “Then food.” Another kiss. “Then…”
“Picnic?” she suggested with a bright smile.
“A what?” I blinked at her.
“Picnic. You know, outside the castle. Where ghosts, not at all sorry Al, cannot watch their personal porn show with a front row seat.” She smiled at me, all innocence that was completely ruined by her filthy words.
I raised both eyebrows as I bit back a smile. “And what if I was a wait-for-marriage guy?”
She snorted at me. “You? Come on, Covin. Coffee awaits.”
Huffing a laugh to her fluffy blanket covered back I followed her clutching my prized tin of instant coffee. I shook my head at the thought of having to leave the castle I’d booked, thinking I had the place to my own for Christmas, only to find I shared it with both a ghost and the woman I was pretty sure I was going to be head over heels for by the time I left.
Broken hearted or not, this Christmas would be one to remember.