Chapter 9
Nine
We barely made it to the room. And less than ten minutes after our lobby conversation, I was entirely disabused of the notion of going home. Not just because of the desperate sex we began having as soon as the door closed behind us, but also because I soon had nothing to wear.
He ripped open my blouse, sending buttons flying. And I didn’t get the zipper down on my pencil skirt fast enough. He took over, pulling the little piece of metal so hard, it resulted in more torn fabric.
With the skill of a natural-born puppet master, Iain soon had me completely naked, down on my forearms with the suite’s front entrance mat underneath my knees.
His hand once more found the back of my neck, and that was all the warning I got before he shoved himself into me from behind.
Oh God …
I soon forgot all about the ruined Top Shop clothes and any arguments that had come prior to this moment of entry. The wildness had once again overtaken me, and all I wanted was him. I moaned loudly, then bit into my own forearm as I surrendered to his strokes.
But Iain hadn’t forgotten our downstairs argument.
“I will not be misunderstood by you again. Repeat the words, chridhe.” His hand fell away from my neck and moved to underneath my body.
His strokes took on a hard quality. Sharp and succinct. Punishment … this was my punishment, I realized for delaying our sexual reunion even for a second. So bad … I’d been so bad. I moaned my apology into my arm.
But that wasn’t enough for Iain. He cupped my sex, the ball of his hand rubbing circles on top of my clit as he commanded, “Repeat the words to me now!”
I raised my mouth from my arm and pushed all the way up to my hands to answer him. And, I discovered I still had the words memorized when the Gaelic fell out on another long moan.
Then as if rewarding me for getting the answer right, an orgasm claimed me right there on the hotel room floor.
I cried out, and his arms dropped down in front of mine as my sex milked him with uncontrollable thirst. But as helpless as I felt beneath him, a powerful feeling came over me when I drew out his release too.
He made a sound I could only describe as a roar and bit into my neck, his hips rocking hard into the back of my legs, I would have fallen over if not for the weird sex cage he’d made around my body.
It left me with no choice but to stay seated on his dick as he released another flood of condom-free sperm into my sex.
Not that it mattered. Cancer, I remembered vaguely. I had it. And my American doctors had warned that future pregnancies would be tricky at best, probably requiring an act of God on top of fertility treatments.
“Dinnae think about the cancer tonight,” he suddenly commanded. “You’re here with your male now. Safe. Trust me, Millicent.”
Trust me, Millicent.
Somehow, I did. Somehow it was easy to come right back to the here and now and what Iain was doing to me on this hotel room’s carpet. Not just crossing an item off my end-of-life bucket list, but completely obliterating it.
Still, something about this situation wasn’t quite right …
On a weird instinct, I turned my head and bit down on one of the forearms caging me in. Iain yelled out—but not in pain.
“Christ, Millicent!” he said, right before his body seized. The base of his cock once again swelled inside of me, and the delicious pressure of his family’s genetic condition made my inner walls stretch, then tremble with a new climax.
“How did you know to call forth my knot like that?” he demanded on a strangled laugh. “Look at you, controlling your male, turning him into your devoted thrall. You learn so quickly, my beautiful, clever Millicent.”
I couldn’t answer. Iain’s praise made the orgasm even more intense, on top of the pressure from his—what had he called it? His knot? Yes, his knot. I could do nothing but pant and gasp and explode around his cock as he dropped more words of praise into my ear.
But the time for praise was soon done. Eventually, he cut off. Then spilled inside of me with a long groan before collapsing onto my back. Spent and empty. His arms gave out and we both crashed to the floor.
His weight was so crushing, for a moment I thought I might suffocate under it. And it didn’t matter. Not that thought nor any other could keep away the sleep that began to claim me.
My eyes closed on the dim realization that this was a much better way to die than cancer.
Iain did not kill me.
I discovered that when he shook me awake early the next morning so that we could enjoy a long overdue meal that included a basket of breakfast pastries, yogurt, freshly squeezed orange juice, and … my eyes lit up.
“Porridge oats! I love porridge oats,” I said, grabbing a spoon.
“I ken,” he answered with a knowing smile. “I’ve seen you eating Scott’s Easy Pots at your desk more times than I can remember. That’s why I ordered them for you. Can’t stand ‘em myself.”
I sprinkled salt on top, Scottish style, and then poured some cream over the salt before tucking in.
But as I indulged my porridge craving, I took the opportunity to peep up at Iain.
I’d never met a Scot who didn’t like porridge.
I also was surprised he’d noticed such a small detail about my morning routine.
As it turned out, studying him was a big mistake. That strange odor erupted from between my legs once again, filling up the suite as a wave of ferocious lust overtook my actual hunger.
I was ravenous. But not for food.
Iain’s nose flared, and he reached out and took the bowl out of my hands and the spoon out of my mouth. Then he very deliberately placed both items on the tray before setting the whole thing aside.
And that was how I ended up spending the rest of the morning on my hands and knees, my porridge going cold before I had the chance to finish eating it.
I soon came to understand why Iain was so insistent we stay in a hotel with room service.
After that, I learned to eat faster. And although I wouldn’t say I got used to the waves of extreme lust that continued to overtake me during the next few days, I at least became more familiar with the sensations and less caught off guard.
To my surprise, Iain didn’t mind my constant need to have sex with him.
In fact, he seemed to be unusually prepared for my waves of lust, it made me wonder if this was normal for him. Maybe women always went this crazy for him in the bedroom.
I tried to ask him about it twice. But both times, just the thought of him doing this with another woman sent me into another frenzy of lust.
Even worse, I kept falling asleep with him embedded inside of me after our rounds of sex.
But I’d often wake to room service meals—mostly sandwiches, smoked salmon, and salads that could be eaten cold—waiting for me near the bed. As horrible a boss as he’d been every day in the office, Iain was turning out to be a wonderful caretaker behind the hotel’s closed doors.
Twice on Friday, he scooped me up and carried me to the suite’s white marble tub, where he ran me a bath, and afterward used a towel to dry me off.
The first time it happened, I’d protested that I could manage on my own. He just ignored me, cleaning my body, then lifting me like a baby out of the tub before setting me on my feet. He even insisted on drying me off himself with one of the hotel’s big fluffy monogrammed towels.
And that’s when I discovered just how wrong I’d been about not needing help.
I swayed on shaky legs. Despite all the sleep I’d gotten, my whole body felt weak with soreness and fatigue.
It was a huge effort just to stand while he dried me off with the plush white towel.
And my heart warmed with gratitude when he scooped me up again and carried me back to bed.
I honestly didn’t know if I was still capable of walking.
However as soon as he laid me down, the smell erupted again, and it was off to the races.
I kept expecting it to stop, for my exhausted body to cease constantly wanting him.
But Saturday came and went, along with Sunday.
And that spring bank holiday everyone at AlgoFortune had been looking so forward to?
I spent most of it with the side of my face planted in a pillow, either getting plundered from behind or sleeping.
By late Monday morning, I’d become used to vacillating wildly between extreme lust and sex-induced exhaustion. However, I did finally manage to ask my big question.
“Is it always like this for you?” I asked Iain as we lay spooned together in bed, after yet another crazed sex session.
He let out a grumbly laugh, his knotted staff pulsing inside of me. “Nay, chridhe. Of course not. Deep down, you ken that.”
Maybe. His answer pleased me—pleased the wild thing inside of me, but it somehow didn’t come as a surprise.
Still, I had more questions.
“Iain?” I asked.
“Aye?”
“What does chridhe mean, exactly?”
“Heart,” he answered softly. “Moi chridhe is ‘my heart.’”
Now that surprised me. I started. Then said. “Iain?”
“Hmm?”
“Could you maybe stop calling me that?”
All the practical reasons why this new nickname wasn’t a good idea flooded my head.
It was too romantic a moniker to give me considering this was really nothing more than a glorified bucket list sex romp.
Tomorrow we’d go back to being employee and boss; two colleagues who could only sort of stand each other.
Getting involved with someone when you only had a few months left to live seemed like a really bad idea.
Iain stilled behind me, stiffening like I’d spoken all those reasons out loud. Then he said, “Nay, chridhe, I won’t stop calling you that.”
And I squirmed around his knot, unable to move but suddenly wanting to put some physical distance between the two of us. My heart … our wild bucket list sex had taken a way too intimate turn.
“My da warned me about girls like you,” he said, seemingly out of the blue.
“Girls like me?”
“Aye. Growing up I was always so keen to come to the city. Glasgow or Edinburgh, I dinnae care. Faoltairn is an auld place. We speak the auld language, and no matter what passes in the outside world, we keep to the auld ways. From the time I was a wee lad, I had a deep yearning to live somewhere else. You ken, a city where I wasn’t known by name to every single person who crossed my path.
When I was accepted into the University here in Edinburgh, I thought it were a dream come true.
But I needed my da’s blessing to leave. You see, back then he was a verrae powerful man in our village.
And according to the auld ways, if any of us wished to leave for more than a week or two, we had to have his permission.
It was a few months after my mum left him when I came to ask for his blessing, so it wasn’t a certain thing at all for me. Fifteen days of thought, he gave it.”
Whoa. I tried to imagine what it would be like to have to ask the father your mother had just abandoned for permission to leave.
“Did you get it? His blessing?”
“Aye,” Iain said as if the answer were obvious.
“I wouldn’t be here with you, running a company all these years if he hadn’t given it to me.
But before I left he warned me that in time I’d see the auld ways were not so bad.
We’ve kept our village safe through good times and bad.
He’d gone off to university in Venice and returned to Faoltairn with an Italian wife.
He’d warned me that girls from the city weren’t like the village girls.
He said your lot guard your hearts like wounded animals and are afraid of men like me.
Is that how you feel, Millicent? Afraid?
Are you trying to protect your heart from me, then? ”
I stilled, hating how close he’d come to the truth. “Look. In my admittedly limited experience, when people get close to you, they either leave or die. So yeah, I guess I’m a little protective of myself. And considering I now have a clear expiration date, I’m really not looking to get hurt.”
“I’m not looking to hurt you, chridhe,” he said quietly. “The faster you start believing that, the easier this will go for us.”
“Not looking to hurt me?” I repeated softly. “So, you’re saying I can hand in my two weeks’ notice without you suing me?”
Again, he stiffened.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” I didn’t bother to mask the bitter note in my voice when I told him, “Don’t call me that anymore. I’m not your heart. Obviously.”
Iain didn’t respond. He just continued to hold me while my sex contracted around his knot—stubbornly maintaining our physical bond, even as I mentally began to push him away.
And maybe that’s why instead of falling asleep, I said, “My father … the one I’m going to see in New Zealand … he’s dead. Drunk driving accident, and he was the drunk driver. So yeah …”
I let out a sad sigh. “Totally his fault. The only reason I know any of this is because I got a Google alert about it a few weeks after it happened. He never tried to reach out to me. He knew he had a daughter and he never sent me a text, an email … nothing. I guess you could say I’m treating Milford Track like his grave since that’s where he and my mom met. ”
Iain cleared his throat. “You’ve had a hard life. I wish like hell there was something I could do to change that.”
“Yeah, me too,” I said with a soft laugh.
“But my point is, your life doesn’t have to be so hard.
Your parents are alive. Both of them. And, look …
I know you’re angry at your mom for leaving, but the fact is she’s been trying to reach out to you.
Stop pushing her away. And maybe start taking her calls. ”
There came a long, heavy silence.
But somehow, I knew he wasn’t angry at me for giving him my opinion on a very personal matter. Or even offended. He was just … processing my words, giving them the consideration they deserved. For some reason, I felt very sure of his emotional state.
More certain of his than of my own.
That certainty thrummed in my chest as I drifted off to sleep again. What was this thing between us? I wondered.
And why did it feel so right? Even though I knew it was all wrong?