The door swung open, and Mark entered, his coat and shoes already removed in the porch. Lena hopped up and went to him for a kiss.
“Did you have fun?” she asked.
I pretended interest in my paperback, giving them the semblance of privacy as Mark rattled through the details of the evening. But my ears pricked up at a familiar name.
“Bull didn’t know what to do. You should’ve seen his face..”
“What happened with Bull?” I sat up.
Mark pulled a face, his cheeks red from the cold night. “Bull’s ex came in right in the middle of dinner. She was shouting and crying and demanding all kinds of things. The boy was crying, too. Bull tried to manage her, but you know some people. She was there to cause a scene.”
“She brought his son?”
“Oh yeah!” He grabbed a beer from the kitchen. Lena and I followed. “It was heart-breaking. The toddler was holding his little arms out for Bull. So painful to watch.”
“That must have been awkward.” Lena shook her head, her lips hard in a line. “That woman is a walking nightmare.”
I didn’t want to hear about Bull by gossip, but it was hard to imagine him volunteering information. “What’s the problem with his ex?” I asked. “Someone in the bar implied something happened to his son.”
“Not his son,” Mark said, his eyebrows up in his shock of brown hair. “It’s why they broke up. She lied about who’d fathered the boy. Not that you’d know it from the fuss tonight. Poor guy looked distraught after she left.”
Mark then leapt on to a new subject—how drunk a colleague had got—but my mind was stuck on Bull.
He’d thought he was a father, then he wasn’t.
My blood surged, energy cresting. “Can I borrow your car?” I interrupted.
“Uh, sure.” Mark handed the keys over.
I didn’t miss the knowing look Lena gave him as I darted to find my shoes and coat, but it didn’t matter. I was out the door.
Snowflakes swirled in the car’s headlights. No traffic frequented the forest road that took me into town, and I put my foot down, driving as fast as I could without risking my neck. Outside a darkened Bhaltair’s, I parked up and paused for a second, watching the building.
Mark had said Bull’s ex left, and it was after hours for staff now. Usually, Bull was the last person standing, so he’d most likely be alone in there now, if he hadn’t already made tracks for wherever he lived.
Drawing a deep breath, I exited the car and marched straight up to the bar’s entrance and shoved the door.
It wouldn’t budge.
I hammered with my fist.
“We’re closed!” came Bull’s gruff yell.
“Let me in anyway,” I called back.
Locks clunked, and the door swung wide, Bull’s face appearing in the frame. He looked me over then glanced behind me and down the street.
“What are ye doing here, lass?”
I had no idea. I could’ve said that I’d heard what happened and I wanted to check on him. But that was more than I was willing to give.
Instead, right there on the snowy step, I pushed up onto my tiptoes and pressed my cold lips to his warm ones.
Bull growled and clutched my waist. In a rapid move, he swung me over the threshold and slammed the door closed before pushing me back against it. Yes. This.
The spark that we’d made with our kiss this morning ignited.
Exploded.
With no room for words or explanation, we pawed at one another, the draw irresistible. Bull hoisted me, and I automatically curled my legs around his waist. We sank into the kiss. I dug my fingers into his tied-back hair, and he gripped my backside with one hand and held my face with the other.
Excitement zinged in my veins. This had never happened to me. Sure, I’d had passionate clinches, but I’d rarely gone looking for it. Never been so bold as to knock on a guy’s door then leap into his arms.
“Don’t stop,” I begged as Bull moved his mouth to my neck. I shivered under his hot kisses and how his beard rasped over my skin.
“Wasn’t planning to,” he muttered in response then, abruptly, he put me down. “What did ye come here for, Autumn?”
“This. You. I thought you weren’t going to stop,” I grumbled.
“I don’t screw around,” he said. His hands went to the waistband of my jeans, and he found the button. Then he sank to his knees in front of me. “If we’re doing this for the duration you’re in town, you’re mine.”
“No argument here.” I clenched his black hair in my fingers and tugged his head back so I could see his eyes. They glimmered with a delicious darkness.
“Don’t, lass. Ye don’t control this. I do,” he bit out.
“Wrong. The same applies to you. If we’re fucking,” I let the word hang, pleased with how I was owning this, “then you’re mine.”
“Done.”
Then there was no time for talking. Bull dragged my jeans from my body, my underwear with them. “Naked,” he ordered, and I shed my jumper, t-shirt, then added my bra to the pile on the floor behind him.
I stood, nude, in front of the door to his bar, the wood cold at my back but the heat blazing in me keeping the chill at bay. The windows’ shutters had been closed to prying eyes; I let myself be bold. Proud.
Bull inhaled through his nose, his gaze skirting over my curves, the low light from the fire gleaming on my skin.
His two big hands found my thighs then skimmed up over my belly to my breasts. He moulded them in his hands, admiring what he’d found. Then he leaned in and took my nipple in his mouth. His thumb and forefinger rolled the other then pinched hard.
I moaned, pressing into his mouth.
He wasn’t gentle. There was a rawness to his attentions, a need that came from him in waves. He kept up his work, sucking on me and turning me on more than ever I had been before.
And we’d barely started.
His other hand wandered south. He took a rude grab of my backside then slid his finger into my soaking core.
I moaned loud and long.
“Good,” Bull murmured.
He stroked me, and when he moved his mouth to my other nipple, he lightly bit me at the same second he pushed two fingers inside.
“Oh, holy fuck.” I groaned, overwhelmed with sensation.
Then Bull abruptly pulled my thigh over his shoulder and dropped his lips from my breast. His hot mouth landed right at the apex of my thighs, and I arched back, my broken cry resounding in the empty bar.
Bull found my clit and sucked and licked me, keeping up a smooth rhythm with his two fingers. Then he added a third, and I yelled and gripped his head.
“Don’t you dare stop,” I growled then arched back as a rough orgasm built.
I tightened around his fingers, and Bull increased his pace, owning my body. Eliciting an overwhelming response built of lusting after him and desperately needing a distraction.
This was almost embarrassing, if it wasn’t so damn hot.
“Fuck!” I yelled as the first waves crashed down on me. I collapsed over him, draping over his head. My eyes closed of their own accord, and my mind swirled with sheer pleasure.
Distantly, I felt Bull adjust his hold of my hips, then he lowered me to hold me in his arms.