Chapter 30 Fraser
THIRTY
FRASER
Summer screams as we hit the frigid loch. Big waves crash up around us and slop over onto the bank. I throw my head back and laugh. I love wild swimming.
Summer doesn’t seem to appreciate it quite so much.
“Oh my God!” she shrieks, tightening her legs around my waist like a vice. “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, Fraser!”
I grin, kissing her neck, then dip us deeper into the water until it’s lapping around her shoulders. “Feels good, right?”
“No!” She scrabbles to get higher on my body. I feel myself harden as her slippery body writhes over mine. “I’m gonna die, gonna die, gonna die—”
I pull her even closer. “Shh, shh. It’s okay, baby. Relax, all right? Unclench all your muscles. It hurts, but in a good way, right?”
“N-no,” she chatters, clinging to me. “Th-this is h-horrible.”
I nuzzle her cheek. “It’s good for you to jump into cold water. Gives you endorphins for hours.”
“D-don’t c-care. I like hot showers and Lush bath bombs. I don’t like this.”
I have to laugh. “Poor baby. You need me to distract you?” I cup her soft tit under the water. “Breathe into it, aye? In and out, there’s a good girl.”
“I can’t,” she whimpers, sticking herself to me.
“Aye, you can.” I let my hand slip lower, touching between her legs. Summer goes very still as I start slowly rubbing her. “There we are. Relax, and take it all in,” I instruct. “Feel the sunshine on your skin. Listen to the trees.”
She gasps and shudders. “F-Fraser—”
“Breathe,” I remind her. “You gotta keep breathing, love.” She whimpers as I tickle my fingers around her throbbing bud. “You feel it coming over you?” I say into her ear. “Like waves? Just let go. Let ’em take you.”
She buries her face into my neck. I keep stroking her, drawing little circles over her sweet spot as she gasps and gasps and gasps, her chest heaving as she twists in my arms. “Aye, aye, I know. I know, baby. It’s a lot. You’re doing such a good job. Easy now.”
“Oh,” she says suddenly, her body jerking around me. “Oh, oh God—” I feel her clenching against my fingers.
“Gonna come?” I ask in her ear. “Easy, now. I got you. Let go.”
She shakes her head. “I can’t…” she manages. “It’s too cold.” I hum, keeping my pace on her steady. She wriggles desperately. “Fraser, please, I can’t— I need—” Her breath is hiccupping in her chest, her wet breasts crushing against me as she tries to find her release.
“Breathe,” I repeat. “You’re okay. I’ve got you.”
She struggles with it for a moment, writhing over my hand. Then, finally, she cries out, and it echoes into the clear morning air. A flock of startled doves scatter from a nearby tree as she thrashes against me. I hold her close, greedily drinking in the sight of her slick body shaking in my arms.
When she finally stops trembling, I pull her into a tight hug. “That wake you up?” I grin.
“O-oh my God,” she chokes out. “I just came in a loch.”
I stroke wet strands of hair off her pink cheeks. “Aye, well. I do like to show visitors the wonders of Scotland.” I heft her closer. “C’mon. Better get you warmed up.”
I carry her back to the bank, wrap her in one million towels, and ply her with coffee. When we’ve both stopped shivering, we lie back in the moss together. I play with her damp hair as she snuggles against my chest.
“Feel better?” I check.
She looks up at me. Her eyes are bright, and her face is pink. She’s lost that dull, sad look she had this morning. “Much. Thank you for bringing me here.”
“It’s a special place,” I say, looking out over the still water. “Probably saved my life, to be honest with you.”
“What?”
I take another sip of coffee. I want to tell her this, but I’m not quite sure how. “My sister, Rosie, was…real sick all throughout school. It’s why I spent so much time on the farm as a kid. Mum was so busy taking her to all of her appointments.”
Summer’s eyes widen. “Oh. Is Rosie—”
“Alive and well and living in Edinburgh with her wife. They started a charity that saves hedgehogs.”
She relaxes. “Not all heroes wear capes.”
“No. Some wear dungarees with pockets full of hedgehogs,” I agree.
“I used to work on the farm with Cameron and Alec. I wanted to keep doing it after graduation, but then Rosie had this big recurrence right before I did my A-levels…” I frown at the memory.
“I knew my mum wanted me to be the first person in the family to study outwith the Highlands, so I applied to the University of London to make her happy. She had to have one kid she didn’t need to worry about, you know? ”
Summer nods, like she gets it.
I watch birds flitter overhead. “It was bad,” I say. “I hated the course, hated the city, hated everything about my life. I’m not made to sit behind a desk. After a while, I got real depressed.”
Her eyebrows rise. I know she’s surprised. No one expects it from me. I try to be the happy-go-lucky guy who smooths everything over. And most of the time, it comes naturally.
Just…every so often, the sun goes down.
I cough. “Anyway. Started drinking way too much. One night, I finished a whole bottle of vodka and wound up in hospital. When I woke up, Alec was there. Apparently, he was still my emergency contact. He’d dropped everything.
Came all the way down to the city. The doctor was chewing me out for being irresponsible, but Alec wasn’t mad.
” I pluck at the grass. “He told me to come back to Lochview with him.”
I still remember him standing over my bed. I felt the shittiest I ever had in my life, and he’d just smiled at me.
Come home. Lochview needs a shepherd.
“So I did. When I first came back, I was useless. Alec put me in the paddocks with the sheep and let me sit there with them climbing all over me. Or he’d bring me to the loch. I sat right here for hours every day. Hours and hours.”
God knows Alec didn’t have the time to take care of me. Not with his dad running the place like a damn drill sergeant. But he did it anyway.
Summer makes a soft noise. When I look at her, her eyes are shimmering dangerously.
“Oh, baby, no. I wasn’t trying to make you cry.
I just…” I fumble for the right words. “I’m trying to say…
that I’m worried about you. Something’s wrong.
You’re sobbing at parties and breaking down on the floor of the guest room.
Don’t be embarrassed. It’s not your fault, I’m just saying it’s not right.
You can try to twist yourself in knots to please other people.
You can ignore your heart and your body telling you something is wrong.
But you can’t do it forever. Eventually, you’ll fall apart.
I don’t want that to happen to you.” I cup the soft curve of her cheek.
“I’m not telling you to quit influencing.
But maybe you could take a holiday? Stay here until the end of the month, turn your phone off, and get your head on straight.
” I give her a hopeful smile. “Alec’s down to extend your stay. And Lochview is a great place to heal.”
In response, she tackles me. I fall on my back with an oof as she climbs on top of me and kisses me hard. “Baby—” I manage.
“I’m so sorry all that happened to you,” she says earnestly. “It must have been horrible.”
“Right now, I’m just worried about you. Broke my heart to see you like that last night. You know something is wrong, sweetheart. You can’t keep on like this.”
She bites her lip. “I know I’m way too stressed out right now,” she allows.
“But I’m scared if I stop posting, I’ll lose everything I’ve built.
Working regular jobs was exhausting too.
I hated it, I felt burned out, and I was barely making enough to get by.
Being an influencer, I make good money, and I can set my own hours… ”
I stroke her hair. “I just want you to be okay.”
She nods into my chest. “I’ll think about it. About taking a break.”
Relief floods me. I hold her closer. We lie there for a few minutes, breathing against one another. The sun comes out overhead, bathing us both.
The silence is broken by a soft crack a few feet away. Summer looks up and goes very, very still. “Fraser,” she whispers.
“Aye.”
“Er, there’s a cow spying on us?”
I follow her gaze. Standing in between the trees is a huge furry Highland cow. She’s watching us both placidly, chewing slowly on some grass.
“Oh, that’s just Bessie. She’s in love with me. She comes down here to perv on me while I’m swimming.” I blow her a kiss. “Hiya, love.”
Bessie blinks at me slowly, then wanders on through the trees.
Summer lets out a disbelieving laugh, shivering against me. The winds are starting to pick up, so I sit, patting her pert bum. “C’mon. Let’s get you back to the house. I bet Cameron’s cooked you ten million pancakes.”