Chapter 14
Fourteen
THEO
“There’s a rumor going around that you’re a missing person,” North told me wryly.
I huffed, ear pressed to my phone against the winter breeze, as I watched Sarah walk along the beach.
We were entirely alone this morning, and she was enjoying her sedate stroll near the shore.
Even bundled up in a winter coat, scarf, hat, and gloves, my hunger for her stirred in the warm tightening of my balls.
I’d expected my attraction to fade or to at least calm down over the last two weeks.
I mean, I’d had Sarah every which way on almost every surface of the cottage.
Yet, my need for her had only increased. It was bloody inexplicable.
It was utter madness, is what it was.
I didn’t … I didn’t quite feel in control of it, which was disconcerting.
Irritating. But I also didn’t want to analyze it.
I knew eventually I’d have to put a stop to it.
However, I was the most selfish bastard I’d ever met, so that wouldn’t be happening anytime soon.
Sarah hadn’t asked for a commitment. She seemed as reluctant as I to talk about what this thing between us was.
So I’d decided to just give and take what I could from the situation.
“Theo?”
I shook my head, looking away from the woman who had turned me into the equivalent of an amorous, sex-obsessed teen. Bloody hell. “I … I, uh, well, I’m not missing, as you can clearly hear.”
“Where are you, then?”
“If I tell you, you can’t tell anyone. There are some people I don’t want knowing where I am right now, including my brother. So you can’t even tell your fiancée.”
“My fiancée is in the Highlands while I’m in Glasgow,” he muttered almost petulantly. “I can’t wait for filming on the show to end.”
“I thought you were enjoying it?” The filming was set to wrap near Christmas.
“I am. But I miss Aria.”
I rolled my eyes. “You see her nearly every weekend.”
“It’s not the same.”
My gaze darted back to Sarah as I grunted.
“Is that it? No commentary on how pathetic and lovelorn I am?”
“You just did it for me.”
“Bawbag,” he said without rancor. “Anyway, back to the topic at hand. I won’t tell anyone. Where the hell are you?”
Sarah slowed to a stop and tilted her face up to the sky.
I couldn’t see her expression, but I imagined her eyes were closed as she enjoyed the tranquility of the beach.
My heart beat a little faster as I told North about Sarah being the author of the S.
M. Brodie books. How I’d followed her to Gairloch and somehow ended up in her bed while we wrote together.
There was silence on his end of the phone.
Then, “Sarah McCulloch? As in Ardnoch’s shy wee housekeeper?”
I scowled. “No, Sarah McCulloch as in Ardnoch’s resident master storyteller and—” I’d been on the verge of making some droll, overshare comment about how exquisite she was in bed, but I stopped.
Not because I hadn’t before. I’d made all sorts of outlandish comments about my one-night stands to North and other friends.
Somehow, however, it didn’t sit right to speak about Sarah like that.
She wasn’t some casual stranger I’d enjoyed a good night in the sack with.
I didn’t know what she was, but she wasn’t that.
“And?”
I cleared my throat, willing my heart rate to slow. “And … a grown woman. She’s thirty-one, not some innocent child. And you can’t tell anyone about her pen name. That’s up to her when she wants that information made public.”
“She might as well be an innocent child, Theo, for fuck’s sake. Of all the shitty things you’ve done, this is the shittiest.”
Anger flushed through me. “You don’t know a damn thing about her.”
“I know she’s not some gymnast from Thurso you can fuck around with.” He referred to my last casual affair.
A busy line sounded in my ear and I pulled my phone away to see a London number was trying to call me.
I ignored it and said into the phone, “You know, it’s unlike you to be such a judgmental bore, North.
” But that wasn’t true. The man was extremely protective of women.
I just didn’t think he thought they needed to be protected from me. It chafed more than I liked.
“It’s unlike you to go after women who don’t know how to play the game.” He was pissed. “I have to go.”
He hung up on me.
The little prick hung up on me.
So much for friendship.
A burn scored across my chest, and I refused to explore that feeling. Instead, I noted the voicemail message the London number had left. Pressing the phone back to my ear, I listened to it.
“Mr. Cavendish, this is DCI Rick English of Scotland Yard. If you could contact me on 08904313002 immediately, I’d be grateful.”
That was it. That was the message.
I suddenly remembered North joking that there was a rumor going around that I was a missing person. Oh, for Pete’s sake, please tell me my brother has not made a missing person’s report.
Ridiculous ass of a human being.
Grunting, I shoved my phone in my pocket with no intention of calling the bloody detective chief inspector my moronic brother had sicced on me.
Sarah turned my way, a soft, pretty smile on her face.
No, I had far better things to do today.
“I want to read your latest chapters.” I turned my head on the pillow to look at Sarah.
She was flushed, still trying to catch her breath. Her hand rested near her cheek, her elegant fingers relaxed as her gorgeous tits trembled. “What? Now?”
I ignored the surge of desire and the ludicrous thought that if I were a painter, I’d grab a paintbrush right now to capture the stunning, sexual creature at my side. “Yes, now. You can read the revisions I made to the script while I read yours.” I slid out of bed to haul on my boxer briefs.
Sarah pushed onto her elbows, a frown marring her brow. “But I haven’t had a chance to read it through myself or edit it.”
“I think I can manage through a couple of spelling errors.”
“Fine,” she grumbled, pushing out of the bed to pull on her pajamas as she muttered, “So much for round two. Get a woman used to multiple rounds of sex and then suddenly, a book is more interesting than her vagina.”
Laughing, I rounded the bed to haul her against me just as she pulled her pajama bottoms up.
She made a little grunt of surprise and heat flashed through me.
Smoothing her hair back as I cuddled her, I bent my head, my lips almost touching hers.
“Later, I will fuck you until you can’t walk straight, little darling.
But first, I want to know what happens next to our Juno. ”
She pulled back, one eyebrow raised. “Our Juno?”
Trying not to smile, I released her. “Did I say our?” With a shrug, I turned and walked out of the bedroom. Despite the heating system, the cottage couldn’t seem to get to a nice temperature without the fire on in the sitting room, so I hurried to grab our laptops and return to the bed.
Sarah sat crossed-legged on it, waiting for me. “Just to be clear, she’s my Juno.”
I snorted. “Dear God, woman, don’t panic. I know Juno is yours. It was just a slip of the tongue. And I thought you liked that sort of thing.” I wiggled my eyebrows suggestively as I slid under the duvet next to her.
She smirked as I gave her my laptop. I opened her laptop to pull up the latest draft of the next book in the series.
I was barely a page in when I felt Sarah lean against my arm. Glancing out of the corner of my eye, I found her watching me as she bit nervously at her fingernails.
Taking her hand from her mouth, I threaded my fingers through hers and held her hand in reassurance as I read the rest of her new chapter.
“Well?” she asked once I’d finished.
“It’s good.” It was. Her writing always was.
“But?”
Christ, she was starting to know me well.
“I think you’re giving too much away about Colton.
” I referred to one of her red herrings.
We’d already discussed at length Sarah’s plans for the book, so I knew the red herrings and I knew who the real villain was.
“There’s almost too much information about him here.
I fear readers will decide for that reason alone that he isn’t the main guy. ”
She leaned against me, nibbling her lip. “Aye, I did wonder that myself.”
“You would have caught it on your read-through.”
We talked a little about which lines to cut and which to keep.
Then I prodded at something I probably shouldn’t, but as soon as I’d read it, I’d felt a gnawing curiosity and suspicion. Honestly, I wanted Sarah to allay my suspicions.
“The scene where the attacker hits Juno … you describe that well. What it feels like to be punched in the face and gut. It isn’t the first time in the series that Juno is physically attacked and … there’s a realness to it …”
Sarah met my questioning gaze. “Have you ever been punched in the face and gut?”
“My father backhanded me a few times as a child,” I told her with an indifference I tried to feel.
“There were a few tussles at school because I was quite an angry little shit. And I mistakenly slept with a married woman a few years ago and her husband found out and gave me a well-deserved beating.”
“You didn’t know she was married?”
I shook my head. “We met at a pub. He found some texts on her phone and tracked me down to said pub and clocked me in the face. Caught me unawares so I hit the floor and he kicked me in the gut before someone pulled him off.”
“I’m sorry. That wasn’t deserved, Theo. You didn’t know. You wouldn’t sleep with a married woman.”
I glanced sharply at her. “How would you know that?”
“Because you wouldn’t do to someone else what was done to you.”
My throat tightened and I found it a little harder to breathe. Pushing through it, I shook my head. “You changed the subject. I asked you the question.”
“Did you?”
Angry now, but not at her, I bit out, “Do you know from experience what it’s like to be punched in the face and gut?”
I already knew the answer.