Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
BLAIR
“Your turn, Blair!” Finn announces, passing me the dice.
I’m sitting cross-legged on the living room carpet, Finn kneels opposite me, and Gus is to the side. He’s appointed himself official game supervisor, which apparently means drooling on the Snakes and Ladders board and nudging the little counters with his nose.
“Hey, Gus, stop moving things around!” I say, rescuing my counter from his slobbery nose and putting it back where it belongs.
Finn giggles. “He thinks everything’s a toy.” Then, reaching over to scratch behind Gus’s ears, loyally adds, “But we love him anyway, even if he is silly.”
I roll the dice—two measly spaces—and land smack on a snake’s head. “Ugh!” Back home it’s chutes. Here it’s snakes. Just another minor cultural difference. Either way, it means I’m going back a lot of squares.
Finn whoops with delight at my misfortune, then the front door opens with a creak. Both Gus and Finn snap their heads toward the sound. Gus is first to bolt for the hallway, paws skittering on the hardwood. Finn’s right behind him, abandoning our game without a second thought.
Lachlan’s low chuckle reaches me from the hallway, followed by, “Aye, hello to you too, you daft mutt. Miss me, did you?”
“Da, guess what!” Finn’s words trip over themselves in his rush to tell his father the big news. “Logan’s invited me to his house for a sleepover! Isla’s going to go too. There’s going to be a boys’ room and a girls’ room. Can I go? Can I?”
I step into the hallway to find Lachlan in his ferry captain uniform, Finn bouncing beside him like a human pogo stick.
“Douglas is taking tomorrow off to look after the kids,” I explain. “His parents can’t do tomorrow for some reason.”
Lachlan glances my way and raises an eyebrow. “Aye? And he seriously wants two more kids to look after? Four kids total?”
“That’s what I said, but Douglas assured me Logan and Rosie are easier to look after when they’ve got friends to keep them busy—and to stop them fighting with each other.”
“Rather him than me,” Lachlan mutters, but there’s fondness in it.
I notice he’s not quite looking at me, and there’s something careful about the way he’s holding himself. Controlled. Familiar. Frustrating. I thought we were past this after yesterday’s beach conversation.
Then again, something was off last night in the garage too. He’d been distant, almost twitchy, like he couldn’t wait for me to leave. Almost like he was... no, it couldn’t have been that.
“Well, Finn, I suppose that’s all right. Just so long as you don’t let Logan lead you astray. You know how he likes to get up to mischief. Be on your best behaviour for Douglas, please.”
“Woohoo!” Finn takes off down the hallway like he’s been shot from a cannon, pumping his fists in the air.
“I can pick him up in the morning,” I offer. “It’ll give me an opportunity to finally see inside Douglas’s house.”
Lachlan nods, his gaze skimming past me again. “Aye. Thanks, Blair. That’s good of you.”
The politeness in his voice grates. After all that progress yesterday—the apology, the honest conversation on the beach, the way he’d smiled at me—he’s putting the walls back up again.
It’s like one step forward, two steps back with this man.
From my window in the granny flat, I watch Lachlan, Finn, and Gus disappear down the lane toward Douglas’s house. Finn’s practically skipping with excitement about his sleepover, chattering away to his father about all the games they’ll play.
Twenty minutes later, I see Lachlan and Gus trudging back up the hill alone. Lachlan’s shoulders are set in that familiar tense line, and even from this distance, I can tell he’s wound tight.
I pace around the small space, Gerald the plant my only witness to my growing frustration. This hot and cold routine of Lachlan’s is driving me crazy. One minute we’re having breakthrough conversations on the beach, the next he’s keeping me at arm’s length like I’m radioactive.
Well, enough is enough. Finn’s not here to overhear whatever awkward conversation we’re about to have, and I’m done tiptoeing around whatever’s eating at him.
I march across the backyard and knock hard enough to make the door rattle. Lachlan opens it, surprise flickering across his face. He’s ditched the uniform for dark jeans and a soft grey henley that clings to his chest in ways that do nothing for my concentration.
Gus trots over, tail wagging. I give him a distracted pat, eyes still on Lachlan.
“Hi,” he says. “Er . . . washing machine? Gym?”
I fold my arms. “Do I have a load of dirty clothes with me? Am I in gym gear? No. I’m here to talk.”
“Oh. Right.” He steps back stiffly. “Best come in, then.”
I brush past him into the kitchen. He hovers by the counter, hands shoved in his pockets. Gus claims his blanket in the corner.
“Tea? Coffee?” Lachlan offers.
“I’m good.” I fix him with a look. “Talk to me, Lachlan.”
“About what?”
“About why you’re acting so weird around me! Are you avoiding me? I thought we were getting somewhere, and then suddenly it’s like we’ve taken a step back again.”
“I’ve no idea what you’re on about,” he mutters, but there’s no conviction in it.
“Oh, come on. I thought we were past this after yesterday after your apology on the beach. But today you can barely look at me, and last night in the garage you got all weird on me at the end.” I take a step closer. “What’s going on?”
He runs a hand through his dark hair, leaving it mussed. “Blair...”
“I’m looking after your son five days a week. I’m right next door. I’m here for another month. If this is going to work, I need to know what the deal is.”
The silence stretches. I can see the war playing out on his face—what he wants to say versus what he thinks he should.
“It’s not...” He stops, swallows. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Then what?”
His jaw tightens, working the words before he spits them out. Finally, quietly: “Last night. In the garage. What you were wearing... and those exercises you were doing...”
Heat floods my cheeks, but I don’t back down. “The glute bridges?”
He nods, not meeting my eyes. “Aye. They were... distracting.”
I fold my arms. “Please. Every morning I have to look at you in that uniform. Ever think about that?”
He scoffs, finally looking at me directly. “Aye, but you’re a beautiful woman. I’m?—”
“A handsome man,” I cut in.
The words hang in the air between us. Lachlan stares at me like I’ve just claimed the moon’s made of cheese, disbelief etched on every line of his face.
“Blair . . .”
“What?” I step closer, close enough to catch the clean, masculine scent of his soap. My pulse skips. “You don’t think you’re attractive? Because newsflash, Captain Munro—you are.”
Something flickers in those green eyes, surprise melting into something darker. Hotter. Dangerous.
The world narrows to this: me stepping closer, tilting my face up toward him. His breathing’s shallow, his pulse thudding at the base of his throat.
“Don’t,” he rasps, voice rough with strain.
I pause, lips inches from his. “Why not?”
“Because if I start, I won’t be able to stop.”
Heat spirals through me. I drink in the conflict tightening every muscle in his face, the way his fists clench like he’s fighting himself.
Screw it. I close the distance and press my lips to his.
For a heartbeat, he goes still. I start to pull back, panic spiking, thinking maybe I’ve misjudged everything?—
Then his hands are in my hair and his mouth crashes back onto mine. He kisses me like he’s starving, desperate, stealing the breath from my lungs. When I open for him, his tongue slides against mine, rough and demanding, and the sound he makes is broken, guttural, like a man in pain.
“This is a bad idea,” he mutters against my lips, even as his hands slide down to grip my hips.
“I know,” I breathe, tugging him closer anyway.
He backs me against the wall, his body pressing against mine, and I feel him hardening through his jeans. The realisation sends a jolt through me that makes my knees weak. I fist my hands in his thick hair, marvelling at how soft it is, how good he smells this close.
His hands roam over me, mapping every curve, and when he cups my tit through my sweater, I arch into his palm with a soft moan that drives him wild.
Across the room, Gus lifts his head at the commotion, then huffs and flops back down, as if deciding humans are hopeless.
“Bedroom,” Lachlan growls against my neck, the rough command sending a shiver racing straight to my core.
We stumble toward the stairs, pausing every few steps to kiss, hands roaming, pulling at clothes.
My sweater hits the floor somewhere between the kitchen and the landing.
His henley follows soon after, and I get my first real look at his chest—broad, solid, a landscape of dark hair that makes my fingers itch to touch. Tom Selleck, eat your heart out.
By the time we reach his bedroom, I’m breathless, my bra hanging loose. I don’t even know when he unhooked it.
Lachlan stops just inside the doorway, hands poised to push the bra off my shoulders. “Tell me to stop,” he says, his voice hoarse.
I meet his eyes, seeing the conflict there, the vulnerability. “I don’t want you to stop.”
The bra slips from my shoulders and hits the floor.
For a moment, he just stares, like he can’t quite believe I’m real. “So fucking pretty,” he says hoarsely. Then his hands are on me again, rough, greedy palms closing over my tits, thumbs teasing my nipples until I’m gasping his name.
When he lowers his head to take one nipple into his mouth, the scrape of his beard against my sensitive skin is exquisite torture. I thread my fingers through his hair, holding him there as he devours me, teasing first one, then the other until I’m squirming.
“My turn,” I manage, pushing him back just far enough to fumble at the buttons of his jeans.