Chapter 21 - Eredine
EREDINE
Icouldn’t remember the last time I’d made out in a car. It had to have been in high school. I smiled at the thought as Arran swept me up in his intoxicating kisses. He pulled back to murmur, “What’s the smile for?”
I shrugged, a little giddy. “This is nice. Making out in your car.”
He grinned. “It’s very nice.”
“With a view like that too.” I gestured out the windshield to the North Sea. Moonlight glimmered across the water beyond the cliff we’d parked on.
The entire night had been surreal. Arran picked me up wearing a suit that fitted him to perfection.
I wore a purple dress with a conservative neck- and hemlines, but it was sleeveless and contouring, so still pretty sexy.
My four-inch heels made me the same height as him.
He’d kissed me so hungrily at the door, I’d had to reapply my lipstick and use a cleansing wipe to wash the plum-colored stain off his lips.
We’d kissed every inch of the lip color off after an amazing seafood dinner at North Star.
If anyone we knew from the village was there, we didn’t see them.
Then again, we weren’t looking, so completely into each other.
Arran talked about the Gloaming and some of his travels; I chatted about work, his family, and life in LA, without delving too deeply.
He seemed to sense my reluctance to go there and swiftly changed the subject.
He also flirted outrageously with me, but Arran Adair had been doing that from the moment we met.
He stroked a thumb across my mouth. “That view out there doesn’t compare to the one I have in here.”
I rolled my eyes, chuckling at the overt flattery, but secretly, I loved it.
Arran smiled but continued, “I’m serious. When I saw you at Lachlan’s wedding last year, it was like waking up after years of being asleep. I’d never seen anyone so stunning in my whole life.”
My cheeks grew heated at the compliment and also at the reminder of the wedding, because I hadn’t been paying attention to Arran that night.
I’d been too preoccupied with Brodan. That felt wrong now.
Guilt rode my shoulders, even though my crush on Brodan had been obliterated by my feelings for Arran.
Deflecting, I said lightly, “We met before the wedding. You do remember that, right? Several times.”
He chuckled. “I do. But I … I’m ashamed to admit I was in my own wee world for far too long. I couldn’t see a damn thing in front of me. If I had, if I’d seen you then like I should have, I don’t think I would have left again.”
His confession made my breath catch. Like his words last night, it suggested a depth of feeling that both exhilarated and terrified me. “Arran,” I whispered, reaching for another kiss.
After a while, we drew apart, and he leaned his forehead against mine.
I felt closer to him at that moment than I’d felt to anyone in a long time.
“I was thinking …” Arran finally broke the sweet silence as he pulled back a little. “We should tell people separately that we’re dating.”
My belly flipped at the thought of everyone knowing. “What do you mean?”
“I’ll tell my brothers. You tell Arro, Regan, and Robyn.”
Nodding, I chewed on my bottom lip as a riot of nerves flooded me.
Arran gently released my lip from my teeth with his thumb. “What is going on in that gorgeous head?”
I released a heavy sigh. “What if … what if they’re not happy about it? What if they interfere?”
“Well, I think we can say with absolute certainty that Regan will be happy, since she’s been trying to make this happen for months.”
I chuckled because I was pretty sure he was right.
“And I love my family, Eredine, but we’re none of their business. We’re telling them because we don’t want to hide this, but that isn’t an open invitation for them to stick their noses into our relationship.”
I snorted. “Arran, we’re talking about the Adairs here. Noses will be stuck in our business.”
“Then they’ll just need to back off. And I’ll make that clear. They can stick their noses in once you and I are settled into this. But for now, we need time to figure this out together without their input.”
“I respect their opinion,” I said. Because it was true. It would bother me if one or more of them didn’t think this was a good idea.
Arran frowned. “More than you respect what’s between us?”
“Of course not,” I hurried to assure him. “It’s just … don’t pretend like it’s not complicated.”
“It isn’t complicated. Lachlan had an affair with his best friend’s daughter who is ten years his junior.
In turn, that best friend fell in love with our sister who is thirteen years younger than him.
And Thane started sleeping with Robyn’s twenty-five-year-old sister behind everyone’s backs.
Not one of them has the right to judge us for our innocuous decision to date. ”
I laughed, and then couldn’t stop, and soon Arran joined me. Finally, the amusement slowed, and I wiped tears of hilarity from my eyes. “Oh, man, when you say it like that”—I grinned at him—“you Adairs are a bunch of deviants.”
“Except me. There are only four years between you and me, and that is perfectly acceptable.”
“True.” I chuckled again, shaking my head. “Lord, this family has turned Ardnoch into a soap opera.”
He reached for my hand, tangling his fingers through mine. “The heart wants what it wants. And the Adair men seem to have a penchant for American women.”
The heart wants what it wants. Such a painful truth. If I wasn’t currently listening to mine, I’d be tucked away in bed with no fear of anything ever changing in my life. While my days had become stagnant until Arran, they had also been safe.
I was gambling with that safety by giving into my heart.
But looking into his beautiful blue eyes as he played with my fingers, sensation shivering up my arms and to other more pleasant places, I couldn’t imagine life without him now.
And wasn’t that utterly terrifying?
We’d moved this month’s book club meeting to Tuesday evening because Regan and Arro had wedding stuff to do on the weekend. This meant I had less time to think about telling them about Arran, which was both good and bad.
What I wasn’t expecting was to find Mac at book club—Arro hadn’t mentioned that. I’d thought he’d be with the guys because Arran had asked Lachlan to come over to Thane’s while we were at Arro’s, so he could tell them about us.
Now I’d have to tell Mac, and he was very protective of me, so I didn’t know how this would go down.
“I’m not a huge thriller reader,” Regan said as we settled in Arro’s living room. “But I gotta say, this one kept me glued. I finished it in a few nights.”
“I don’t know.” Robyn waved her copy at us. “The cop stuff was a bit off.”
“Agreed.” Mac grinned at her. “But I imagine only a police officer would be bothered by the inaccuracies.”
And since they were both ex-cops, that made sense.
“Let’s keep things positive and start with the good stuff,” Arro suggested, holding out a tray of snacks. Everyone else took a cookie to eat with the tea she’d served, but I waved her off nervously.
Mac took the tray from Arro and steered her into a seat, but she trained her eyes on me. “You okay, Ery?”
My stomach rolled, and I had to take a deep breath. Sitting up straight, I looked at my friends and gave them a tight smile. “I wanted to … well, I wanted to bring up something before we got started.”
Every single one of them sat forward, completely alert.
“I, um …” I tried to remember what I’d gone over with Arran last night.
He’d dropped me off at the lodge without coming in, teasing about wanting it to be like a proper first date.
But before that, we’d decided we wouldn’t give everyone too much detail about how long we’d been seeing each other or how it had only been casual at first. “Arran and I are dating.”
Stunned silence greeted me.
I looked to Mac, who was frowning.
“Our friendship,” I hurried on, “has been important to me, and, um, to Arran, but we realized it’s more than that.
So we’ve decided to date. Each other. Just each other.
We’re seeing just each other, no one else.
Not that I was, anyway.” I laughed nervously.
“But Arran is just seeing me. There’s no one …
yeah, we’re dating.” I clamped my mouth shut to stop the nervous rambling.
Arro’s expression was careful as she processed. Robyn chuckled, and Regan practically bounced with glee on the couch, her hands clasped together over her breast.
Mac … Mac had moved on to scowling.
Arro, following my gaze to her fiancé, sighed at his expression. “Mackennon, you know I was the first person to warn Arran off Ery last year.”
She was?
“But he’s different now. He’s different with her. I think this could be a good thing.”
He raised an eyebrow at her. “So now you trust your brother with Eredine?”
“Aye, I do.”
Mac scoffed. “He’s a player.”
“No, he was. I have to have faith that he’s become a mature thirty-six-year-old man who respects his family enough not to fool around with and potentially hurt someone we love. I didn’t give him his due all those months ago, but now I want to. I need to.”
Relief flooded me at her defense of her brother.
But her fiancé was still frowning as he turned back to me. “You’re happy?”
I smiled at his question. “I am.”
“Then that’s all that matters.”
Robyn snorted, smirking at her father. “You’re going to threaten to kill him if he hurts her, aren’t you?”
Mac took a noncommittal sip of his tea, but both his fiancée and daughter laughed, so I guessed that meant he was going to threaten Arran’s life.
And I thought about this with positivity.
Because it meant Mac cared about my well-being.
They all did.
“I’m happy for you.” Regan reached out to squeeze my arm. “I saw sparks between you from the very beginning and was hoping this would happen. You’re so good for him.”
Just like that, the sweet relief I’d felt from their reaction, from Mac’s protectiveness, died a sudden death.
Because I wasn’t the one they needed to worry about.
Arran was.
He was the one in danger of being hurt here.
He’d already confessed the darkest part of his past to me.
And yet … he didn’t even know my real name.
I doubted I’d ever be able to tell him.
Right then, it hit me in a way I hadn’t allowed before. If things went south with us … I could lose the Adairs.
I could lose everything.