Chapter 14
FOURTEEN
SCOTTISH TARMAC
Mathilda
The wheels screeched, and the plane jumped as we touched down on Scottish tarmac. I’d gripped the armrest the entire flight, my emotions a precisely equal mix of nerves and anticipation. In minutes, we’d be off the plane and into the airport where Callum waited.
A shiver caught me. Undermined me.
I’d been attracted to men, content on dates, acquiescent to sex, but never…more. Never the incessant yearning I had to be near the big Scot. It might make things harder for me, but my decision was made.
My conversation with Scarlet, as I’d walked her home from Regent’s Park last weekend, stayed my fears a little. Her worsening behaviour was a stunt. She’d planned it all to play Dad, winding him up to the point he’d send her away. And where? To the sister who kept asking to take her in.
That a fourteen-year-old had constructed such a plan hurt my heart, but I’d hugged her fiercely and promised her a happy home. I just had to find a way of making one.
Being closed off couldn’t help her. I needed to stop trying to cope on my own. It was a huge step but, if what I felt for Callum was real, I was going to let him in.
Beth fidgeted at my side, flicking her seatbelt fastener open then closed. Neither of us had been talkative during the flight, as though excitement had us strung out. When the plane taxied into its stand, I switched my phone back on, and my friend followed suit.
Both devices lit up with alerts.
Below a missed call and voicemail from my dad—yeah, I’d get right onto calling him back—was a picture message, Callum and James standing together, the sign for the departure lounge behind them.
“James is here, too,” I uttered, though it was Callum’s face that I got stuck on. How had I ever thought him not handsome? The man’s face melted my bones.
Beth hugged her knees, her face concealed under a sheet of dark curls. “I feel sick. But I’m not nervous.” She deliberately made her voice quiver.
“No, of course you aren’t. Neither of us are shaking.” I sent Callum a quick message to say we’d landed, and he replied with a heart. A heart.
I wanted to make like Beth and hide my face despite being minutes away from making a fool of myself. I couldn’t run to him. It would be undignified to cry his name and jump into his arms, even if that was everything I desired to do.
“If this is just a hookup, why are you so freaked out?”
“I don’t know,” came the reply from under Beth’s hair. “Maybe I’m just ill, there was a bug going around work. Or I might have a problem here. I’ve never taken the time to get to know a guy like this before. Been friends, first.”
“It’s good if you like someone like that.” I’d always wanted Beth to have a boyfriend, someone to breach the walls she had around her, but maybe I understood her reticence. From what Callum had told me, James didn’t seem all that available. They lived miles apart, and Beth’s life was so busy.
The cabin’s seatbelt light extinguished, and people stood, grabbing bags and sliding arms into jackets. My pulse stuttered. “We can’t hide in here,” I managed, but the control in my voice wavered.
Beth peeked out, sat upright, then threw an arm around me.
“We are strong, independent women. They should be quaking in their boots at seeing us, not the other way around.” She straightened, leapt on the seat to grab our bags from the overhead cabin, and hopped down again. “Come on, tiger, let’s go get them.”
Callum solved my dilemma about our method of greeting. As I rounded the corner, he started like he’d been shot, slapped his friend in the chest, then roared my name over the hubbub of the crowd.
His long strides ate the distance between us and, in seconds, I was crushed against his chest.
“Mathilda,” he murmured into my hair. Still holding me, he backed us into a pillar, giving us a semblance of privacy in the open space. He dragged in a breath, like he was inhaling me. “Christ, woman, you’re actually here.”
“I should have known you didn’t mind public displays of affection,” I mumbled into his shirt, inhaling him right back, flooding my senses with outdoors and coffee, woodsmoke and musky aftershave.
But my mountain man wasn’t done. At my words, he rumbled in satisfaction, dipped his face to mine, and laid a sweet, gentle kiss on my lips. Brief but perfect.
I melted into him.
“You have no idea how good it is to do that.” He inched his head back, and for a moment, he watched me.
A tremble began in my hands, because what I saw in his eyes scared the life out of me.
“If ye keep looking at me like that,” Callum said, his hold on me so tight, “you’re putting us in grave danger.”
“Of what?”
With a nod, he indicated across the arrivals lounge to where two airport security guards stood, then widened his pale-blue eyes. “Taking this display of affection thing too far and getting us arrested for indecent exposure.”
I burst out with a laugh, the intense spell between us broken. Callum was the last man on Earth who would engage in anything too risqué in public, same as I was the last woman.
Though the mere idea of being intimate with him took my stuttering pulse and sent it through the roof.
“Take me home, will you,” I managed.
He threw me a smirk, grasping my hand in his as he led me to the exit. Ahead, Beth and James crossed the road, his gaze on her, their bodies close.
“Home. You’ve said it now. I can’t unhear it. Those are the sweetest words to have come from your lips.”
Then he ducked his head so his lips were next to my ear, and I burned at his next words.
“Until, lass, ye scream my name. Those words will be all the sweeter.”
At the castle, Callum introduced me to his twin brothers—an experience in itself as the pair didn’t stop with their teasing and swiping at their brother—then showed me upstairs to my room. A bedroom just for me.
I paused at the door while he strode in then deposited my case and bag on a solid-looking dresser. As he turned back, I snapped my mouth closed. Disappointed.
“Do you like your room?” he asked.
“It’s lovely.” White plaster walls, exposed stone around the window seat, views over the loch. What wasn’t to like? Except… My cheeks heated. “I thought I’d be sharing with you.”
On the drive from the airport, Callum had held my hand clamped in his. He’d described the plans he’d made for us for the weekend, the sights he was going to show me, and the fun we were going to have.
He hadn’t tried to kiss me again.
“Did ye now?” Callum retreated to the wall, his hands behind his back. He squared his shoulders, a wicked glint in his eyes. “You haven’t even bought me dinner. Whatever made you think I was that kind of man?”
He joked, but the message was clear—he hadn’t automatically assumed I’d share his bed. A little piece of my heart became his.
I took a step into the room. “Well, I brought you a wedding venue proposal, but I think you like me for more than my good ideas.”
In my own way, I had the confidence to go after what I wanted. Except not always with a direct approach. With my career, I’d studied, taken a job in the industry I could easily find work in, rather than specialise with the one I loved. With my sister, I was working on options and moving carefully.
Callum took a more direct approach in life. There was a lot to be said for his way of thinking.
Dragging in a breath, I held his heavy gaze. Then I slid my coat from my shoulders and tossed it onto a chair. Beth, James, and the twins were downstairs, the hallway outside deserted.
I closed the door then stalked toward him.
“Mathilda,” Callum warned.
“Callum.”
Nerves gripped me, but I reached out and pulled his hands free, sliding my own up his arms until I’d circled his neck. He took hold of my waist, his gaze burning into mine.
For a glorious moment, we stared into the other’s eyes, not doing anything more than holding each other. The intensity of it alarmed me. Excited me.
My knees trembled. I pushed up onto my tiptoes.
“Careful, lass,” Callum murmured, but I didn’t want to take care. I wanted him.
So I took a taste.
Inching forward until my lips met his, I pressed a kiss to the laird’s mouth. Then another. Slow, sensitive movements. Chaste enough, but warming my blood.
Callum made a welcome, strained sound, and he brought a hand to my face and gripped my chin with his big fingers. “Fuck,” he muttered, then his mouth slanted over mine as he surrendered his restraint and took my mouth in a single plundering kiss.
The taste of him… We’d barely started when Callum tore his lips from mine. He dragged in a breath and turned his face, pressing his temple to my cheek.
“What’s wrong?” I breathed.
“We can’t do this now.”
“You’re telling me. One kiss and I want to rip your clothes off.”
“Christ,” he muttered and brought his gaze to mine. “That’s half the problem.”
“You like your clothes? I don’t have to tear them.”
This restraint in him was unexpected. His fingers gripped me as if holding himself back rather than drawing me to him.
A thudding came at the door.
“Cal! G’s home. He’s just parked his bike outside. Leave that poor woman alone and get out here.” It was Ally’s voice.
Callum groaned then called out, “News?”
“Aye, but he won’t say until you’re downstairs.”
“We’ll be there,” Callum replied.
His attention came back to me. Hot and heavy. “Gordain has been waiting on the result of his application. The next stage of his career. We haven’t seen him in weeks.”
“You’ve been worried?” I ran a finger over his furrowed brow.
“Aye.”
“Then we should go down.”
We stared a few moments longer, a tactical decision made—if we kissed again, if he allowed it, it would be too hard to stop. I already ached, a taut energy building in the centre of my body that needed a great deal more of Callum to ease.
Without any more words, we suspended the need, the burning desire to devour the other, and left the room.