Lucy made a choking sound. “Are you saying that you can’t control yourself around her?”
A memory of yesterday flashed before his eyes. He hadn’t expected the electric sexual chemistry between them.
“I can control myself. It’s just an itch.”
His friend patted his shoulder. “Baby, you and I are the same. And I agree. It’s just an itch. An infatuation heightened by the need to get laid.”
“Leighanne,” he murmured.
The thought of channeling his sexual frustration into Leighanne left him feeling beyond dissatisfied.
“You’d go all the way to Glasgow to get laid? That sounds like escaping to me. Does that mean … you honestly can’t control yourself around Robyn?”
That almost sounded like a taunt.
He eyed Lucy, but her expression was neutral. No evidence of the goading he’d been sure he’d heard in her voice.
“I can control myself. I have never been unable to control an attraction to a woman in my life.”
The rain came on before he and Lucy could make it to the beach, so they turned back. By the time they neared Loch Ardnoch, it was lashing down. Lucy yelled that she’d see him later and dashed toward Eredine’s studio. Lachlan hurried toward the castle. His white shirt was soaked through and water dripped off his beard and hair. He pushed the latter back off his face as he entered the side entrance near his office and froze in the doorway at the sight of Robyn leaning against the wall, trying to catch her breath.
Her gorgeous big eyes met his. They were a moss green today.
Strange, unpredictable, changing female.
As he closed the door behind him, the tension between them was thick, palpable.
Robyn pushed off the wall, her wet ponytail trailing over her bare shoulder.
Yesterday was bad enough … the tight T-shirt and yoga pants showing off every curve of her strong but feminine body.
Today was worse.
A sports bra her breasts strained against. Her nipples were hard. From the cold rain … or him? Wishful thinking?
Heat flushed through him, arousal heightening as a trail of water trickled down her toned stomach.
Lachlan’s mouth felt dry. All his blood rushed south.
Damn her.
“I hope you don’t mind I used this entrance,” Robyn said, breaking the tense silence. “It was the closest point of shelter.”
Rain moistened her lush lower lip.
Images of licking it off, of pushing her up against the wall and possessing every inch of her exploded through his mind, and he moved.
“Adair—” Robyn cut off as he grabbed her by the arm while roughly pulling his office key card from his back pocket. “Adair, what are—”
He hauled her into his office and used her body to close the door.
Chest heaving, desire for her fogging up every rational thought in his head, Lachlan braced his hands on the door at either side of her head, caging her in. “I don’t do relationships.”
Robyn looked baffled. “O … kay.”
“If we fuck, that’s all it will ever be.”
Understanding dawned.
Her face flushed as she glared up at him. “I think there’s been a misunderstanding.”
“Oh?” He leaned into her, letting her feel what she did to him.
Arousal flared in her eyes, and it was a wonder, with them both soaked to the skin, that steam didn’t rise from their clothing in reaction to the heat they generated.
Then Robyn pushed at his chest with force, anger clouding whatever lust she felt, and Lachlan let himself stumble back with an aggravated curse under his breath.
“One, I don’t need to know you don’t do relationships. It might be hard for you to believe, Adair, but you’re the last man I would want to be in a relationship with.”
Pride pricked, he glared at her. He wasn’t imagining things. This wasn’t one-sided. “You want to fuck me as badly as I want to fuck you.”
Her breathing grew a little shaky. “I can control myself. Better yet, I can find someone else to take the edge off. Anyone would be better than you.”
The thought of her taking what he’d provoked and giving it to some other man snapped Lachlan’s patience. He hooked a hand around her nape and hauled her against him, crushing his mouth over hers. Tell me you don’t feel this.
Her hands went to his arms as if to push him, but instead her fingers curled around his biceps and she melted into him.
Satisfaction roared through Lachlan, and they stumbled against the door as the kiss gave way to unbridled lust.
The taste of her, the feel of her, her smell, her electricity … he couldn’t remember the last time he’d wanted someone this much. As their tongues mimicked what their bodies needed to do, Lachlan thrust his hips against her, the heat of him throbbing at her core. Robyn gasped into his mouth, and he felt her arch into it, their bodies moving together until he was almost mad with the need to be naked.
To be inside her.
She sucked on his tongue, and he felt the last of the blood rush out of his brain. Grunting with want, his hands slipped down her slim back and beneath her yoga pants and underwear. The feel of her bare ass in his hands turned his kiss more desperate. He groaned into it, squeezing her firm, smooth cheeks and pulling her up against his erection.
Robyn gasped, breaking the kiss. “Lachlan.”
He kissed down her throat, licking, teeth scraping skin, wanting to devour every goddamn inch of her. Trailing his lips across her chest, he felt a change in its texture, like raised skin, and the sensation pulled him out of his fog. Lifting his head, Lachlan stared down at her chest, near the wide strap of her sports bra, and saw something he’d missed before. Curious, he removed his hands from inside her pants to pull at her strap to see better.
“Adair!” Robyn grabbed at his wrist, but it was too late.
He’d seen the scar.
That looked suspiciously like a scar from a bullet wound.
His head whipped up as he glared at her in question.
Robyn flushed, this time not with arousal, and she shoved at him. “Get off me.”
As he backed away slowly, drinking in the awesome sight of her trembling with unsatisfied desire—desire he’d be happy to sate if she’d let him—his eyes caught on something else he’d missed.
Another scar, not quite but almost hidden by the hem of the sports bra.
Jesus Christ.
She’d been shot.
Multiple times.
The thought was like ice water over his arousal.
“Does Mac know?” His voice was hoarse.
Instead of an answer, she threw him another dirty look and dashed out before he could stop her.
“Robyn!” He followed her into the hall and caught her by the waist.
She squirmed in his arms, full of fight that exhausted him now. “Let go of me.”
Instead he kissed her again.
He kissed her hard and almost punishing, wanting to remind her how she’d felt only seconds ago, before he’d discovered her scars.
The reminder of the scars gentled him, his kiss softening, almost coaxing, and she kissed him back. Her supple body relaxed into him, giving way to this bloody madness between them. Lachlan wanted to know about the scars. But he wanted her like this more. Needful and wanting and hot magic in his searching hands.