Chapter 22 #2
She’d had her future planned since the age of seventeen: culinary school, travelling the world as she worked her way up the ranks, until one day, she would have had enough experience and money to open her own fine dining restaurant somewhere in Lochaber to better establish Scotland on the culinary map, hopefully in synergy with the farm’s exceptional produce.
Never had she stopped to think she might come home, burnt out and discouraged, to find intimacy in the most unextraordinary, most familiar of corners with a man she’d known for over half her life.
He’d seen sides to her she could barely remember now, and sides she’d worked hard to forget: face covered in pizza toppings after she’d fallen asleep with her head in the box; exhausted after an all-nighter spent watching horror movies that meant she’d been too scared to walk home from Martha’s alone; in tears the day she’d broken the old swing-set in the Macgibbons’ backyard; a nervous wreck on the first day of secondary school.
He had always been there, in her periphery, yet she’d never thought to turn her head.
It was turned and locked now, especially when he tilted her chin to kiss her.
‘Maybe it’s Mercury,’ she suggested when he pulled away to rove over her chest.
‘What?’ His stubble brushed the space between her breasts, and she shivered.
He felt so good, she was almost afraid to pay attention to it, mind beginning to race with all the ways this might end terribly.
She could be awful at it. So awful he wouldn’t enjoy it at all, and then they’d spend the rest of their lives avoiding eye contact whenever they were in the same room.
Or they could be so good together that she’d never be satisfied with anybody else.
She’d fall, deeply, ruining her friendship with Martha – if not because she’d broken an unspoken rule, then because eventually they’d break up the way all couples did, and Martha would be put in the impossible position of having to choose between her brother and her best friend.
She forgot she’d said anything at all until Struan met her gaze expectantly.
‘In retrograde,’ she clarified. ‘Something has definitely gone wrong with the planets to get us here.’
‘That’s exactly what you want to hear before sex.’
‘Sorry. I’ll hush now.’ She spread her legs wider in invitation, every muscle in her body quivering not just with excitement, but nerves.
The same she got before she locked herself in the freezer, when the kitchen was too busy and Yvette was yelling, so close Rae could feel her hot breath break through the rising steam of the frying pan.
She couldn’t move without her elbow colliding with Yvette’s stiff torso, one of the reasons she’d spilled a whole pot of vegetables on her first day at Lapis, which had only made things worse.
Struan’s mouth closing over her nipple barely tore her from that memory. She squeezed her eyes closed, trying to focus on how good it felt, but all that noise continued to crest like waves of static in her brain.
‘Sure you’re ready?’ he asked quietly.
She nodded without really remembering what she was agreeing to, because no, she wasn’t ready. She was spiralling, and there was no freezer to hide in, just this dry, stifling heat all around.
His tip brushed her centre, and she twitched involuntarily, leaning her back against the stone. Sex. That was what she’d agreed to – and she wanted to. What was wrong with her? Why couldn’t she turn it off? It was like the connection between her brain and her body had severed completely.
‘Rae,’ he said.
‘Hm?’
His face eclipsed the view of the branches above, that wrinkle back between his brows. ‘Where have you gone, sweetheart?’
‘I don’t know.’ She chewed her lip bashfully. When concern lined his features, she was quick to explain: ‘I think I’m nervous.’
‘We don’t have to do this—’’
‘I want to. So much. My brain just…’ She waved her hand to signal her inner mayhem. ‘It never switches off.’
‘What are you worried about?’
‘I don’t know,’ she repeated.
The intensity of the worry in his hazel eyes almost robbed her of breath. She was ruining it. He was so kind and thoughtful and he’d already given her so much, and she was ruining it all.
‘We can go somewhere else,’ he proposed. ‘Or do this any other way. Tell me what you need, and I’ll give it to you.’
‘You,’ she said, and realised it was true. ‘I just need you.’
‘I’m already yours, Rae.’ It was uttered like a vow, and proven in the way he traced over her belly with such careful reverence.
Rae remembered, then, why she’d been so desperate moments ago, that fire rekindling in the very pit of her.
‘Tell me if something doesn’t feel right,’ he instructed.
She nodded, sure that would never happen. He touched her like he already knew exactly what she needed, sometimes even before she knew herself.
So, when she felt the tip of his shaft nudge at her entrance, she could do nothing but tug him closer by the shoulders, legs twining around him in a desperate need for more.
He listened, like he always did, sliding into her with controlled, patient care. His eyes never left her face, and she knew it was to make sure she only felt good.
She did, walls stretching around his length with a pleasant sting, legs clamping in a plea for him to go as deep as he possible could.
She wanted to feel him everywhere. They swallowed one another’s gasps in open-mouthed kisses, her arms coiling around his neck as his frame trembled with restraint.
When he’d sheathed himself fully, he stopped, giving her time she didn’t need to adjust.
She’d never felt so enmeshed with another person before, like they were made from the roots of the same tree.
‘Does it feel okay for you?’ she asked.
His laughter bounced around the woods. ‘Feels like fucking paradise, sweetheart. God, you’re perfect.’
‘You can move now,’ she said.
He did, her stomach dropping the moment he slipped gently away only to somersault when he returned. She clutched him, breathless, as her hips began to match the considerate pace of his thrusts, taking him deeper than she thought possible.
He clenched his teeth, gripping her arse with bruising force. ‘Fuck, Rae. Like that. Just like that.’
She moaned at the fire beginning to smoulder inside her, only for it to be doused moments later when her gaze fell past his scrunched, open-mouthed face to the leaves again.
She was naked on a rock where anybody could find her with her best friend’s brother.
She was letting him in, letting him rearrange her, knowing that they couldn’t go much further than this.
How would she be okay with losing this when she’d only just gotten it?
How would she be able to hide it from Martha when he was scoring stamps all over her body?
He slowed, cupping her jaw, a vein in his forehead protruding. ‘I need you here. Look at me, sweet girl.’
‘Sorry,’ she whispered. ‘It feels so good. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.’
‘Nothing’s wrong with you.’ His nose grazed hers, vision blurring with his proximity. ‘I’ll take care of you, okay? You’re safe. You’re here with me.’
A lump of frustration filled her throat.
This was just another reason on her long list as to why she’d never had a partner.
She couldn’t just be here. Even when she pleasured herself, she’d often find her orgasm just out of reach until eventually, she remembered something she had to do and stopped trying at all.
It wasn’t fair. He deserved the release he’d been craving for what must have been hours.
‘Can I take you to the water?’ he asked.
She hummed her yes, gasping when he pulled her up while still buried deep inside her.
She leaned into that pleasant stretch, clutching it with both hands before it went away again.
And when the chill water poured down her back, she couldn’t quite imagine ever being anywhere else.
Here, her thoughts couldn’t touch her. Here, there was nothing but him and the cold lashing against her hot skin.
She blinked through the droplets to look at him, finding him smiling as the torrent pasted his hair to his face. She scraped it back for him.
‘You can put me down if you need to.’
He shook his head. ‘I don’t need to.’ Instead, he propped her against the smooth rocks behind the falls – careful, as always. ‘Is this better?’
‘Yes. So much.’ To prove it, she rocked her hips, back arching at the contrast between his warmth and the water’s cold. Cursing, he used the rocks to support his free hand while he buried deeper.
After only a few thrusts, her orgasm approached, though he was still moving slow, still trying to keep from losing control. She wanted him to, dragging his face down to kiss him before moving to his earlobe to suck the dripping water there.
‘Rae,’ he mouthed on a low keen. ‘Slow down, sweetheart. I’m too close.’
She refused, desperate to finally make him feel as good as he did her. She scraped her teeth over his neck, using one of her thumbs to toy with his pink nipple.
Determination flickered bright over his features as he lowered to circle her clit, which was already as sensitive as exposed nerves from her first delicious orgasm.
‘Oh, God.’ She was writhing all over him, no longer co-ordinated or cautious as the pressure between her legs built.
The rocks scraped her back, so she scraped his harder, leaving pink ribbons over his skin.
She was here, like he’d asked her to be, and with the water keeping her locked in her body, she could finally enjoy it.
His finger moved to her full, dripping entrance, as he whispered, ‘There she is. My sweet girl. So good for me. So full of me.’ Those words were all it took for her orgasm to flood her.
She’d never felt one like it before, every fibre of her reacting in tandem as her walls clenched around him with reckless, liberated abandon.
‘That’s it. Come for me. I’ve got you.’ Struan’s brows pinched as he chased her, hips snapping erratically and his head flinging back into the water. ‘Fuck, Rae. You feel—’
He let out a guttural growl that only elongated her own pleasure, and for a moment, she wondered if they’d ever stop. It felt bottomless, this bliss, something she kept careening through even as her muscles contracted in protest.
Eventually, they reached the ground, both of them collapsing against the stone as the water continued to pour.
He stayed inside of her as though reluctant to leave, touches turning tender again as he pulled away just far enough to soak in her no doubt sanguine expression. ‘Was it okay?’
‘Perfect,’ she replied. ‘It was perfect.’