Chapter Twenty-One
In which there are nosy fishermen, tasty sandwiches, and long-overdue phone calls.
Luna…
The cold, composed Kai MacTavish reciting our wedding vows bears no resemblance to the man abruptly laying me down on the cushioned seats in the front of the boat. All those beautiful muscles and body ink are on display as he yanks his dress shirt off.
It doesn’t mean anything , I remind myself.
His hands run from my waist to my shoulders, pulling off my windbreaker and tank top. My nipples are painfully perky, straining against the thin silk of my bra as he pinches them, gently tugging one and then the other.
“Beautiful,” he grunts, kissing down my throat and fastening his lips around my nipple, sucking it hard through the fabric. My hands fly into his hair, holding his head against me as I feel a bright, sharp jolt, sparks of electricity streaking from my nipples to my center. This is ravenous Kai, and he yanks my bra off, burying his face between my breasts, kissing and stroking one, then the other.
He bites down, soothing the sting with his tongue and doing it again, chuckling low in his throat when I yelp and the vibration is too much, every nerve ending in my skin sizzling. My jeans are yanked down to my ankles in seconds and he pushes his broad shoulders between my legs when I try to close them.
“Take off your shirt,” I demand, pulling on it. I want to see his tattoos dance and coil as I run my hand down the sculpted curves of his abs. He chuckles a little wildly and tears off his dress shirt, tossing it aside.
“Trust me, little fox. I’ll make you feel good,” he groans, biting the thin skin of my inner thigh and then blowing hot air on my wet undies. “These have to go.” Wrapping his hand in the silk, I hear it rip as he tears them off me, the fabric rubbing harshly against my clitoris.
His mouth fastens over my center in the most filthy, carnal of kisses, and his arm comes over my hips, slamming them back down against the cushions when I raise them. “Hold still. I dinna want to have to tie ya down to be good for me.”
“I will,” I moan, hyper-focused on the feel of his slick tongue sliding down the slim furrow between my lips, the point darting inside me, circling and stroking along my walls. His hands slide under my ass, gripping my cheeks and lifting my hips to his mouth, and when his lips fasten around my clitoris and he tugs just a bit too hard, I’m shocked into coming, shrieking, thighs desperately tightening against his head.
“Stay right there like a good lass,” he grunts, “dinna pull away.”
“Ea- easy for you to say,” I’m gasping, “it’s a lot. It’s too much.” He’s pulling my orgasm from me patiently, making it last longer, the tip of his tongue tickling against my painfully sensitive clit.
“You’re not done,” he scolds as the waves of my embarrassing and almost instant orgasm ebb. Two thick fingers cram inside me, his rough fingertips searching for that sensitive little patch I can never find on my own. He chuckles against me as his fingers curl, pressing against it. “There it is,” he murmurs, mouth against my center. “So sensitive, aren’t ya? Be still. I have plans for this perfect little cunny.”
My fingers are gripping his hair, trying to ground myself, and I stare blankly up into the violet sky as the last of the sun’s rays recede. The boat’s gently rocking back and forth and the thrust of his fingers matches the movement. “You’re so wet, so good for me,” he praises, pulling his fingers from inside me and pushing them into my mouth. “Taste how much you want this.”
I bite down on them, glaring at his smug, beautiful face. Kai chuckles. “Harder,” he whispers. His glance darts to the left and I can hear voices carrying over the water and the low hum of a boat engine. “Keep my fingers in your mouth and stay quiet, little fox. You dinna want those fishermen to be getting curious and comin’ over, aye?”
One of my hands flails out, grabbing his shoulder and digging my nails in, trying to hold on as his mouth goes back down to my center, teeth gently tugging on one lip and then the other. His eyes look up to mine and he gives me a devilish wink as his teeth move to my clit.
“Wait,” I whisper around his fingers, “wait wait wait-” Two fingers in my mouth, his teeth carefully holding my clit, and then three fingers from his other hand drive up into me and I scream, eyes slamming shut, back arched helplessly. I’m shaking, toes pointing, and I don’t know if I’m trying to pull his head away or push it closer.
“Hey!”
Oh, god. It’s the fishing boat.
“Everything awright over there?”
Smoothly pulling his fingers from inside me, Kai sits up just enough to wave politely, my slick still glistening on his fingers. “All good! I dropped the feckin’ anchor on my foot.”
There’s a roar of laughter and various bits of unintelligible advice before I hear their boat trolling away from us.
When he looks down, I put my hands over my face. “They heard me, didn’t they?”
“They heard me droppin’ an anchor on my foot,” he corrects me, smirking slightly.
I pilot the boat back to the docks and Kai steps in to guide it into the slip. Two of his men are waiting and not looking thrilled about their suits being damp from the sea spray. They tie the boat off and Kai takes pity on them.
“Go change, aye? Send two more men down to take your place.” Nodding, they trudge back to the parking lot and Kai takes me down into the boat’s cabin.
“Ya need dinner,” he says, pulling food out of the fridge in the tiny galley kitchen. To be honest, I am a little shaky, but I think that’s from the orgasms and not low blood sugar.
“You put all this together while we were driving here from the registrar’s office?” I shake my head, looking at the roast beef sandwiches and a big chopped green salad. “It’s not like you could have known I would want you to teach me about boats.”
He, of course, is eating the salad, layering strips of roast beef on the top. My sandwiches have glorious crusty bread and along with the roast beef, they’re slathered with a garlic aioli sauce, tomatoes, lettuce, and onions.
“You still managed to sneak some vegetables into my dinner, huh?” I say, eyeing his sad, carbohydrate-free meal.
“The tomatoes and lettuce come from my rooftop garden,” he says, taking a huge bite of salad, “I promise, your sandwiches are still high fat. That roast beef is from the MacTavish Highland Cattle Ranch and you’ll never have better.”
It would be hard to top the last half hour, I think, lowering my eyes and tearing into my sandwich. I would like to think my animalistic table manners are understandable, those orgasms were high cardio.
We idly chat about the cattle ranch, about his insane collection of cars, and a few stories of his cousins’ truly bad behavior.
“Do Catriona and the others know you’re sharing all their most unnatural and depraved secrets?”
“They should be expecting it,” he retorts, “I know they’re gonna come up with all sorts of shite about me. It’s a MacTavish family rule, make the rest of ‘em look like complete bastards so ya look better.”
I laugh, which was what he’d intended, but I still feel a bit of a twinge at the complex family dynamics that make up the connections between all these MacTavishes. For as much crap as they give each other, their loyalty - and love - are almost palpable.
Kai’s phone dings! cheerfully, and he checks the text. “Grand.” He hands his phone to me, and I look down at the fancy, shiny new device. “We just got the location for your friend, the girl you saved on the island that night.”
“Marla? Is she okay?” I ask anxiously. “She got home safe, right?”
I’m treated to another of his half smiles. “Aye, she did. I know you’ve been worried. Her contact information is there in the text. Would ya like to call her?”
“How am I going to explain how I got her number?” I ask, “We never got around to exchanging contact info at the hostel.”
“That’s your excuse,” he says. “Tell her ya finally got her phone number from the people there and ya wanted to check in.”
“Thank you!” Impulsively, I lean over and kiss him before dialing her number.
“Hello?”
It’s her. I breathe in a deep sigh of gratitude. “Marla, it’s Luna.”
“Oh, my GOD WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?” I pull the phone away from my ear, wincing. “I thought you were dead!” Marla shrieks. “I never saw you again. The police, they couldn’t tell me anything!”
“I’m so glad to talk to you! I finally tracked down your number from the people at the hostel.”
“I tried that, too!” Marla says, “They told me all your things were gone, and they didn’t know where you went!”
“I…” Rubbing my forehead, I try to concoct a story that seems believable. “I was on the boat that left a couple of hours after yours. I got my stuff and just… you know. Took off.”
We talk for a while, Marla needing to process what happened to us and me deflecting awkward questions.
“We need to stay in touch,” she says firmly. “Promise you’ll call again.”
“I will. I know no one else seems to understand all of this, but I do. You were so brave, Marla. And we got out.”
“We got out,” she repeats softly, and we say our goodbyes.
“Thank you. So much, thank you.” I hand the phone back to Kai. “I needed to know she was okay.”
“I believe she needed the same thing, aye?” He smiles, gently kissing my forehead. “We MacTavishes keep our promises, little fox.”
Driving home in silence, I rest my head against the window, watching the shoreline turn to a highway, the ribbons of neon flashing past us, growing brighter as we head back into the city.
I’m still trying to comprehend everything that’s happened between us. As much as I hated that acutely uncomfortable ceremony at the registrar’s office, I’m already tucking away the memory of tearing across the waves with my hand on the throttle and Kai’s genuine pleasure in making me happy.
We’re standing in the front hall, my back against the little table as Kai drops his keys and puts his hands on either side of me, trapping me between his expensive handmade furniture and his enormous body.
“Come to my bed tonight.”
I freeze, staring up at his beautifully sculpted face. His bed. Not our bed. His. We may be married, but there’s no “we.”
My options are awkward: ducking under his arm or shoving against it. Turning my face away, I look toward the stairway. My guest room is on the third floor. His master bedroom is on the second, an enormous, sprawling suite of rooms that takes up the entire second story.
“No, I’m sleeping in my bed.”
From the corner of my eye, I can see his fingers tighten on the table before he pulls away. “Goodnight.”
Cold, composed Kai is back in the building.
I can feel his blistering stare all the way to the third floor.