Chapter 12 You’re Human
YOU’RE HUMAN
The foggy green landscape draws my gaze as we leave the private airport.
Lachlan’s legs are spread in the backseat, his knee touching the side of mine.
There’s enough room for space between us, but he tugged me closer once the car began to move.
I thought it was to keep me from the window, but now I’m wondering if it’s so he can touch me.
He kept brushing my thigh on the airplane, and he held me on his lap.
I didn’t need to be protected, so why did he do it?
Even his brother pointed out that Lachlan was being possessive.
They said something else too, something about Lachlan needing me for something, but my mind can’t recall anything specific that was said.
My conversation with my mom, before I was drugged, jumps forth in my mind.
She said I wasn’t her daughter. Some lady named—what was it?
—Elora is, and that’s why my name starts with an E.
As a child, I questioned her about that.
Mom and Pippa had a closeness she and I don’t have.
I never felt as good as Pippa in Mom’s eyes. Could this have been the reason why?
My stomach rolls like it did in the airport bathroom in New York.
God, I’m not even in America anymore. My parents traveled internationally all my life, but Pippa and I were only invited on a few trips to England, France, and Switzerland.
Our sightseeing was limited to where our nanny was allowed to take us.
Mom and Dad did their own thing. I wouldn’t call them family vacations.
I’ve never been to Scotland. Under different circumstances this would excite me. Now I just want to go home and get the answers I deserve from my mother—secrets she’d never divulge while sober. Not that she is often.
Another thought grips me, and my lungs tighten. Am I the reason she drinks so much?
I need answers, but with the way my stomach feels and the stress constricting my chest like an A-cup bra, I don’t know if I can handle the truth.
“Breathe,” Lachlan murmurs and touches my knee.
I jolt and stare at his face.
“You’re safe,” he says with a sincerity that isn’t often in his tone.
“I’m not scared.” I lower my gaze to my hands on my lap, my fingers tightly hooked together. I could use a deep breath though. I force myself to inhale then exhale slowly.
“You’re not scared?” he asks with doubt, his tone carrying a bite this time.
“No.”
“You should be.”
I glare at him. “You just said I’m safe. Which is it?”
His jaw muscle ticks. “You’re only safe if you do as I say and stay in the castle.”
“You should have left me at my parents’ estate. I was safe there too.” Not once has there been an attempted kidnapping on me or my sister.
“You hated living there.”
Unable to deny that fact, I turn my head and stare out the window. Green rolling hills stretch for miles.
“You’ll like the castle,” he says, his tone placating. “You could get lost in it for days.”
Maybe I will.
“It has an indoor pool.”
I give him no reaction, just keep my gaze on the scenery out the window.
“It has a topiary garden.”
I’ve never seen one, and while my interest is piqued—are they all different shapes or uniform?—I give him nothing.
“It has an orangery.” His sexy tone implies he knows how much I love reading in the one at home.
My knee-jerk reaction is to ask him how he knows this, but I suspect he said it to get me to react. As for him knowing this about me, he admitted to researching his future wife—whatever that involved, which feels invasive. How much does he know about me?
Again, I won’t ask him, even though I’m dying to. An orangery at the castle sounds like the perfect escape during my prison sentence.
“Does it have orange trees?” I ask, doubting it does. Nowadays, most are used as sunrooms and have minimal plant life. If he says no, I’ll make sure to tell him the trees held the most appeal for me.
“It does,” he says with smugness.
At least there will be something familiar that I love. I bite my inner lip to keep my delight from showing on my face and act unimpressed.
“I’d like to fuck you in it,” he murmurs.
My eyes widen and my jaw drops, the reaction unstoppable.
Now I’m imagining this foul-mouthed man doing things to me in the orangery.
It’s my orangery. I haven’t seen his yet so I can’t conjure those images, but I can imagine his lips on mine, making me lightheaded while his expert tongue drinks me in.
His muscular body, warm and hard against mine as he holds me possessively and does things to me that I’ve dreamed about but haven’t been able to experience.
It’s not him causing me to feel this way.
It might be him.
More likely, it’s the sexual neglect I suffered for years that makes me want to hump the nearest attractive man like a poodle in heat—which happens to be him.
“You can’t say those things to me,” I murmur, hoping he doesn’t notice how breathy my voice sounds.
“Why not?” He leans his head toward my ear. “Why can’t I tell you what I want to do to you? You’re my wife. I don’t want it with anyone else.”
I swallow and fail to control my shallower breathing—not that I could hide it with the now faster pace of the rise and fall of my breasts.
“That’s a lovely shade of pink on your cheeks,” he purrs, and wetness pools between my legs. His voice is like an aphrodisiac.
I shift in my seat and my core clenches, letting me know it’s desperate for what he wants to give me. I must be certifiable to want him. His wife or not, he basically kidnapped me from my homeland to his country. That’s a crime.
He leans closer, his breath heating my ear. “I think you like when I talk dirty to you. I think you want me to ease your discomfort.”
I do! I paste on a sweet smile and meet his eyes, which are extremely close to mine. “It’s not you. My butt’s asleep. I’m just trying to get more comfortable.”
For long seconds, his face is frozen like I spoke to him in an alien language. Then the most magical, incredible thing happens. Something that will alter the way I look and feel about him forever.
Lachlan smiles.
At first, it’s a slow lift at the corners of his mouth, then his lips part and a row of straight white teeth appear in a smile that should be illegal.
A smile that takes the hard lines of his chiseled features and softens them, showing he’s indeed a human.
An insanely gorgeous human who looks younger and so beautiful when he smiles that my organs stop functioning and I die for a moment.
I can’t look away. I don’t want to. I want to see him smile like this all the time.
I’d do whatever he wanted—maybe—if he did.
I’ve never seen such a transformation. And now that I have, I can never unsee it.
I’ll remember this expression: the brightness of those aqua eyes.
The crinkles at the corners. How his lips curve with the perfect shape, and how the pink color stands out against his pearly teeth and warm toned skin.
This is not the Lachlan I know. This is a man who enjoys life, could stop hearts, cause traffic jams, rival the glittering lights of the Eiffel tower at night, even rival the sun and moon when they’re at their brightest, showing off the way they sometimes do.
“Don’t stop,” I whisper in awe, my gaze all over his face, committing his expression to memory.
As if he realizes he’s smiling or having fun or both, that stern mask slides over his face erasing all traces of the mesmerizing man I just saw.
“Lachlan…” I turn on the seat to face him, giving him a playful grin. “You’re human.” And beautiful. I keep that comment to myself. He doesn’t need the ego boost.
More than his words, or maybe just as much, that smile turned on the heat switch in my body and made me want to open the welcome door. Unable to resist, I rest my hands on the leather seat, my boobs squished between my straight arms, and lean toward him, biting my lower lip.
His gaze zeroes in on my mouth then lowers to my cleavage before trailing back up to my face. I might as well be holding up a blinking sign that says feast on me however you like.
Desire flashes in his eyes followed by a flare of anger.
What? Why?
“You should play harder to get.” The steeliness in his voice and eyes are a sharp blow to my ego.
I thought this was what he wanted. Me wanting him and his foul-mouthed come-ons.
He focuses on his phone, reading emails and ignoring me in a way only he can. I take that back. My dad reached a master-level of hurting me with disdain long ago. My entire life I was a pest—an annoying fly that deserved nothing more than to be swatted away.
“Fuck you, Lachlan,” I whisper, pain bleeding from my voice like a deep slice to the skin.
His shoulders tense but nothing about his expression shows he cares.
We ride the rest of the hour-long drive in silence with me plotting his death and my escape.
The next thing I know, we’re pulling through massive iron gates that open to a long, deserted road with low hills that stretch for miles on all sides. A stone guard house sits on the left, and the man inside nods as we drive by. I don’t see a castle or anything but green land.
Lachlan stares ahead, but I can tell he’s watching me from the corner of his eye.
We drive over a bridge that covers a long river, turn a few times onto more deserted narrow roads, and even pass some woods. The sun stays hidden behind a thin layer of clouds, but the fog has lifted.