Chapter 33
Thirty-Three
LEWIS
Light streamed down from the domed roof of the museum as I followed Callie through the Grand Gallery.
Years ago, Dad brought me and Eilidh to the National Museum in Scotland, but I could barely remember the trip.
Callie’s grandparents on Walker’s side were from the Edinburgh area, so I knew she’d visited a few times over the years, but this was her first time at the National, and it was the first time in days something other than me had her full attention.
The woman had been insatiable, and I wasn’t complaining. Not in the least. Despite the lack of sleep these past few days, I was like a live wire. Callie had trained me to respond in seconds. As soon as she turned those hot eyes on me, I was ready to give her what she needed.
Right now, apparently that was learning about the twenty-thousand artefacts housed in the museum. And she wanted to see the Scottish gallery, to learn about Scotland through the ages.
“I may not have been born a Scot,” she’d said, flipping through the museum’s information leaflet, “but I might as well have been.” Her smile had caused feeling to expand in my chest. “The Adairs go back how many centuries? And I have a wee Adair brewing in my belly. I’ve never felt more Scottish.”
I kissed her at that, but she pulled away before I could deepen it. Now I was scowling as I followed her around like a lost pup.
We’d taken the train down to Edinburgh from Inverness yesterday afternoon, and Callie and I had flirted nonstop, so much so, by the time we got into our hotel room we dumped our luggage and started going at it on the bed without fully undressing.
The only time we stopped for a break was to grab dinner in the hotel, and the rest of the evening was spent relearning all the inches of skin we’d discovered of each other this past week.
It had taken me very little time to figure out all of Callie’s buttons and she mine.
To be fair, mine was pretty much her saying “Let’s have sex. ”
I was easy that way.
This morning, we made love, lazy, sweet, and slow.
Overall, since we’d started sleeping together again, I’d felt what little distance had been left between us disappear.
I hadn’t realized how much Callie needed to believe I fully trusted her, and to know she thought my physical distance meant I didn’t bothered me.
I hated the idea of her ever feeling hurt.
Now that she knew I was all in, too, things felt better than ever between us.
Yet, out of nowhere, since we’d walked into the museum, Callie had put up a physical wall. When I touched her, she eased away. And then there was the pulling away from my kiss.
Having no idea what I’d done to fuck up in the last fifteen minutes, I studied her, half hunger, half frustration.
July in Edinburgh was muggy, and Callie wore a white T-shirt with a rainbow cupcake and the words In My Baking Era on it.
It was tucked into one of the many pairs of wee shorts she owned.
The Converse on her feet might as well have been six-inch fuck-me heels for the way I reacted to her.
Bracelets tangled together on her wrists as she tucked her long hair behind her ear to peer at Dolly the Sheep, the first-ever cloned mammal.
She wrinkled her nose at the taxidermy and moved on, the ends of her hair brushing her lower back.
Images of last night, of her hair swaying against her arse as she rode me reverse cowgirl, flashed across my vision.
Done with the distance, I marched over to her, took her by the biceps, and pulled her into a quiet corner of the gallery. “What’s going on?”
Callie blinked up at me, confused. “We’re … in the museum. Looking at stuff.”
Unamused, I scowled. “I mean, why are you keeping your distance all of a sudden and pulling away when I kiss you?”
“Eh, because if I don’t, I’m going to get arrested for shagging you in public.
” She patted my chest reassuringly. “Don’t take it personally, Lew.
In fact, do take it personally because every time I look at your handsome bloody face or your shoulders or arse or hands or arms …
” Her gaze dropped to my arms, and I found myself struggling not to laugh as she licked her lips.
“Mmm … having a bit of an impulse control problem at the moment, so please keep your distance until we’re back at the hotel.
Mmmkay? Love you.” She gave me a quick kiss on the lips and then hurried off to look at Toby the Whale.
And I stood there like an idiot, grinning. “Love you too,” I murmured back.
For someone having impulse control issues, Callie certainly kept us busy doing the tourist thing all day.
By the time we made it back to the hotel, we only had time to shower and change before our dinner reservation at a Michelin Star restaurant on George IV Bridge.
It specialized in seafood, and Verity had said Callie could have fish as long as it wasn’t high in mercury.
The food was amazing, and Callie couldn’t stop gushing about how excited she was to eat in a Michelin Star restaurant.
Her excitement level increased when I finally revealed I was taking her to see Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet.
It had been her favorite play in high school, and we’d argued about it at the time because I thought it was melodramatic piffle and Romeo was a creep for perving on a girl Juliet’s age.
I saw the way Callie remembered our argument and how it ended with me kissing the anger right out of her. For the first time, the memory wasn’t tinged with melancholy. I knew by the amused, nostalgic look on Callie’s face she felt that too. We were healing from the pain of our past separation.
The museum, the dinner, the play, the sex …
it was my way of attempting to be a better boyfriend this time around.
To give Callie everything she desired. But it also had the added benefit of distracting her from the break-in.
The police were still reviewing the CCTV footage from a couple of businesses on Castle Street, and the team Walker had pulled in from his many contacts hadn’t found any other fingerprints but Callie’s, mine, and her family’s.
Worry about who the perpetrators might have been, if it hadn’t been a typical burglary, stirred in the back of my mind constantly. I couldn’t contemplate the idea of Callie being in danger without my chest tightening like there was a vise winding and compressing it shut.
In a way, her insatiable appetite and this trip to Edinburgh was as much a distraction for me as it was for her.
Since I was late in buying tickets, our seats weren’t spectacular, but we were at the end of the aisle in the stalls, and it wasn’t a bad view of the stage.
Halfway through the first act, I was bored, my mind drifting to the list of things we needed to do in the house for the baby coming, excitement and trepidation for our first scan next week.
We’d find out for sure Callie’s due date, and we’d hopefully get reassurance that the baby was in good physical health.
Verity had said we could ask at the twenty-week scan about the sex.
Callie and I had discussed it, and we both wanted to know the sex of our baby.
A touch on my thigh brought my attention from my own thoughts to Callie’s hand. I raised an eyebrow as she slowly caressed me, a bit too north of my knee. I cleared my throat and glanced at her.
She leaned into me, and I bent my head toward her. Her nose skated over my neck and she nuzzled her face against my jaw. “You smell so good.” I barely heard her whisper.
Fuck.
Here?
My skin flushed as my heart started to speed up, hot blood traveling worryingly south. I shifted, covering her wandering hand with mine and placing hers on her own thigh.
She licked my neck and I stiffened. “Callie.”
At my pleading tone, I heard her soft chuckle, and she relaxed back into her seat, attention fixed firmly on the stage.
Minx.
I waited until she was engrossed in the play again, and then I placed my hand on her bare knee.
She tensed, and I could practically hear her holding her breath. The audience suddenly tittered with laughter at something the actor on stage said, and I used that moment to slide my hand up her thigh, under her skirt.
Callie didn’t stop me.
I kept my gaze on the stage, pretending to pay attention to the play while slipping my fingers beneath her knickers. She lifted her hips ever so slightly, and I pushed inside her wet heat. Always ready for me.
My cock was stiff against the zipper of my suit trousers, but I honestly couldn’t give a fuck.
A red haze had crashed over me, and all I could think about was how she felt at my fingertips.
Not wanting to make too much movement, I shifted my attention to her swollen clit and fondled her in the dark.
It wasn’t the most comfortable angle for me but it was worth it.
I heard her breath catch and glanced down at her. Her lips were parted, her chest moving up and down in quick, shallow breaths she was trying her best to conceal. She was so sexy, there was a wild, lost part of me that wanted to fuck her right there and then.
Instead, I forced myself to stare forward as I kept tormenting her. Her clit was swelling, and I knew she was close when she suddenly grabbed my wrist in a panic. At first, I thought she wanted me to stop, but she pulled me closer.
My insatiable, kinky Callie. That’s what I’d call her from now on.
Unable to stop myself, I turned to watch her as she climaxed. It happened as the audience clapped in delight at something. Callie’s nostrils flared, she bit her lip, and her body shuddered with keeping her climax quiet as she came on my fingers.
The woman next to me shot us a bemused look, as if she knew something was up.
And something definitely was. I was hard as a rock.
Leaning over, I brushed Callie’s ear with my mouth and smirked as she shivered. “Can we leave?”
She nodded, and we quickly gathered our things. I was never so grateful for aisle seats. We pushed into the empty corridor outside the theater and Callie glanced at my crotch. Her eyes lit with delight. “I can’t believe you did that.”
“You liked it.” I grabbed her hand, willing my erection to go away.
Walker and ice-cold showers.
Worked like a treat every time.
“I did.” Her grip on my hand tightened. “We should have sex in public.”
A man we passed in the lobby heard and raised his eyebrows. I chuckled. “Say that louder for the folks in the back.”
Callie laughed. “Sorry. But we should.”
“Where did you have in mind?”
She seemed to give this serious consideration. “When we get back to Ardnoch, let’s drive to that wee beach car park and go at it in the car.”
“You’re so romantic. I feel so lucky,” I teased dryly.
Giggling happily, she tugged on my hand, pulling me out of the theater. “Hurry up, because you’re about to get luckier.”