“What is it?”
I stared, dazed at my phone. “Jaz, I have to go. Someone is here.”
“Yeah, okay. I better enjoy the Saturday quiet before the babies wake up.”
“You do that. We’ll talk soon.” I hung up, irritated that I’d been forced to end our conversation.
What was Adair doing here?
A hard knock rattled the trailer door and I spun around, making sure I didn’t have underwear or anything embarrassing lying around. Running my hands through my hair, I checked my body. It had been raining all week, adding to my depression, but the sun came out today, so I’d switched out my damp yoga pants and T-shirt from my run this morning for a fresh pair.
“Penhaligon, open up!” Adair yelled.
I yanked open the door. “What are—hey!” I cried out in annoyance as Lachlan pushed past me into the trailer. His huge form dwarfed the small living space, and he had to hunch his shoulders to stand up. He glanced around, eyes catching on my evidence board, before coming to rest on me.
Crossing my arms, I glared. “Come on in, why don’tcha.”
He ignored my sarcasm. “Where the hell have you been?”
My spine tensed at his tone. “Wherever the hell I’ve wanted to be.”
“Mac is recovering from knife wounds, and he hasn’t seen you in a week.”
The censure in his voice ignited that now-familiar anger where he was concerned. “Point?”
Adair’s azure eyes flashed with emotion that mirrored my own. “My point is, go see your father.”
Well, shit!
After my talk with Autry and Jaz, I had every intention of sucking it up and going to see Mac. But now it was going to look like I was only doing it because of this fiend!
“Why don’t you mind your own business?” I seethed.
“Mac is my business,” he growled, leaning into me.
Heat flushed the back of my neck. “Mac and me, however, is our business. Not yours. Does he know you’re here?”
“No. But he does know Stone tried to assault you this week, he’s restless as fuck, and he’s worried about his daughter.”
Dismay filled me. “Why would you tell him about Stone?”
“Because you’re his daughter and he deserved to know.”
“You are an interfering bell-end, do you know that?” Lucy had taught me British insults she’d learned from a fellow actor. Who better to practice them on than Lachlan?
His chest heaved as the air in the trailer turned thick and hot with his palpable anger. “Do you even know what that means?”
“I can guess.”
“It’s better than being an immature, selfish brat.”
His words hurt. But I wouldn’t let him have the satisfaction of knowing it. “Says the overbearing, egotistical man-child who has been gunning to get rid of me since I showed up. Now you’re here, trying to bully me into visiting Mac. What is it you want, Adair? Me gone, or me here … because your mixed signals are giving me a non-vehicular version of road rage!” I rarely yelled, even when I was mad, and he was making me yell! “I had every intention of going to see Mac on my time. Not yours! Mine! You can’t manage me like you manage—”
Adair’s mouth crushing down on mine abruptly cut me off.
I made a noise of shock in the back of my throat as I tried to process what was happening.
Strong, firm lips pressed to mine.
Beard tickling my face.
The smell of expensive cologne.
Heat. So much heat surrounding me.
The sound and feel of him breathing heavily into me.
Adair’s hands wrapped tight around my biceps, the heels of my feet lifted from the ground. Pulled up into his kiss.
Adair was kissing me.
His lips moved against mine with a grunt of feeling, and that noise, on top of all my other senses, caused lust to pool low and deep between my legs. I gasped at the thrilling awareness that electrified my very nerve endings. Adair took advantage and licked his tongue against mine.
Aroused beyond thinking, I reached for him, feeling his beard prickly soft on my palms. Suddenly his arms were around me, hauling me against his hard body, his kiss turning wild and voracious.
We stumbled against the kitchen counter as he wove some kind of spell over me. I forgot everything but how good his body felt pressed to mine, how exciting and intensely sexual the stroke of his tongue against mine was, eliciting an answering throbbing in my breasts and between my legs. I’d never been kissed like this. While it tasted of anger and frustration, there was a savage desperation to it that turned me the heck on.
His lips finally left mine, and they stung with the release, swollen by his fervent kisses. My eyes flew open, a sense of reality on the verge of returning—
Until I felt his tongue on my neck.
Oh God.
I arched into him as he scored a fiery trail of kisses down my neck while one of his hands pushed beneath my shirt. My back bowed, envisioning him ripping the neckline of my shirt so he could cover my breasts in kisses too. I gasped at the thought, my fingers pushing into his hair to pull him down. “Lachlan,” I panted, wanting him everywhere at once.
He tensed, freezing against the rise of my breasts.
Heart racing, I held still as that moment allowed reality to hit home.
Oh my God.
Adair exploded back from me.
There was no other word for it.
One minute he’d been sucking on my cleavage while caressing my stomach, and the next he was across the small space, standing at the trailer door, chest heaving.
Oh my God.
I’d just made out with Lachlan Adair. Like … really, really made out.
We glowered at each other like enemies on a battlefield.
“That shouldn’t have happened,” Adair bit out.
Rejection burned.
Refusing to let him see it, I lifted my chin. “You kissed me first.”
It was childish. I knew it even as I said it.
His eyes narrowed. “You didn’t exactly push me away.”
“Call it a moment of deep insanity.”
A muscle twitched in his jaw. “Visit your bloody father,” he demanded and then spun and pushed out of the trailer, seemingly taking all the air with him.
I sucked in a breath, my hand resting against my racing heart.
My skin was on fire.
Dissatisfaction was a bitter sting. The bastard aroused me to inflammatory levels within seconds, and now my body was a tightly wound coil.
“Wanker,” I bit out as I strode into the small bedroom at the back of the trailer.
Forced to take care of the tension by myself, I tried to block Adair out of my thoughts.
But I could still feel his hard kiss, his hot lips, his beard tickling my skin in a way that was surprisingly stimulating. I cried out in climax, the sound an empty echo around the small bedroom. As I tried to catch my breath, I felt strangely vulnerable.
Why him?
I didn’t even like him.
“That shouldn’t have happened.”
Then why did it?
Squeezing my eyes closed, I tried not to think about the next time I’d see him.
16
Lachlan
Ardnoch Castle and Estate ran like a well-oiled machine. The management team was beyond competent and dealt with the daily running of the place so that Lachlan had the freedom to put his energy elsewhere. Like securing famous musicians to play at the castle throughout the summer period and installing Michelin Star guest chefs for special weekend dining events.