KiltTease (9 page)

So she broke out her smile and directed it at him. “There’s enough for another plate. I’ll make you one. Catch up with your uncle.”

His gaze said,
Bossy
. At least they had that in common. She made him a plate but only picked at what was left of hers when she settled back in at the table. An hour later, she finished faxing Douglass’s charts to St. Jude’s before clocking out for the day.

No surprise, Quinton said his good-byes too and followed her out on the steps. Douglass lived in a nice enough area in Glasgow. Kate preferred the country over the city, but the bustle down on the streets felt familiar, like home, especially when it perpetually smelled of an oncoming rain.

His demeanor changed as his focus went to the streets below. She followed his stare but didn’t see anything. “What is it?” she said.

“Nothing.” He didn’t give her a reassuring smile. Matter of fact, he hadn’t smiled at her once since he’d strolled into Douglass’s flat. He frowned at her when she didn’t follow his lead. “I just thought I saw someone. Let me drive you to your B and B.”

“Saw someone?”

“It’s nothing. Come on. Let’s go.”

She mirrored his strained expression. “I could walk.”

Irritation flashed over his features. “You could.”

Kate crossed her arms, confused and a little irritated too at his attitude. “I could also take a cab.”

“Aye,” his tone was sharp. “Your point?”

His stubborn stance wasn’t surprising. She’d seen this side of him already. What furrowed her brows was his demeanor. It wasn’t alpha but alpha-hole. That wasn’t the Quinton she’d gotten to know. Something more was going on.

She’d poke the bear and not care if it bit her back. “But you showed up just to take me to my B and B?”

He shoved his hands into his jacket’s pockets. “No,” he said and started down the steps.

She didn’t move. He stopped halfway down, sighed, and faced her. “I came by to see my uncle and hoped to catch my brother.”

The truth of his words stared back at her, but she couldn’t ignore the desire burning in his eyes that lived right alongside the irritation. “And that’s it?”

He pushed out a breath that sounded full of frustration. “What’s with the questions?”

Kate tended to take things at face value and wasn’t reading more into his actions, but his actions told her he’d gone out of his way to see her. She wanted to see him too. Maybe even share a kiss before she told him good night. You know, make the most of their time. Yet the harder she inspected his face, the more his jaw tightened, his demeanor…everything made it seem like wanting more than their unspoken rules allowed was a problem for him.

Curious to see just how deep this irritation went, she pursed her lips and thought of the right thing to say. “Cab fare is part of my budget. So I’ll see you later?”

The sound he made wasn’t quite a growl but close enough her brows rose. “You’re not catching a cab when my car is right there.”

She cocked her head to the side. “What is with you today?”

He ignored her question and descended the steps. Kate gaped at his back. He’d woken up on the wrong side of the testosterone bed. Did she want to be bothered? No, but Douglass was right. She was mercenary. Dealing with a pissy male was a small inconvenience, but it would save her a few quid. She chose her battles, and this wasn’t one of them.

By the time she’d joined him at the car, he had the passenger door open. She slipped in and clasped her hands in her lap, so confused about whatever had happened in the past twenty-four hours to make him so testy.

Five minutes later, he pulled up to her B and B. Not enough time to even make an attempt to figure out the reason for the Cold War. His focus turned laser sharp when he checked the rearview mirror and the streets around them. If Kate had been a lamppost on that street, she might have received more attention.

She didn’t wait for him to open the door before stomping out of the car. He got out too, his face a mask of hard lines.

When he made a move to go into the B and B with her, she put a hand on his chest to stop him. “I get I haven’t told you no—not really since we’ve met—but your shitty mood is not something I want following me to my room.”

His jaw tightened. “We need to talk.”

The words seemed genuine, and Kate, despite her own frustration with him, wanted to give Quinton the benefit of the doubt. She huffed, “Fine.”

The redheaded busybody who manned the desk only waggled her brows when Quinton followed close behind her. The elevator lost feet of space as they rode up in silence. And God, her room could fit into a matchbox after he entered it. Three weeks ago, when she’d coughed up the money for a two-month-long stay, it had seemed like a deal.

One of his bathrooms was bigger than the whole shebang. Hell, even the low-cost motels in America were bigger, but there was something quaint about the comforters that looked handmade along with the dark, heavy curtains that kept out Scotland’s chill.

He settled onto her bed, his brow a fierce line across his forehead. She started to ask what was bothering him, but that question had already been asked and ignored. Apparently, he just needed to sit and scowl. She started to take off her day’s wear—earrings first. After she’d toed off her shoes, she touched the beadazzled box on the dresser as she passed.

“Kate,” he said, finally breaking the silence.

“Yes?” She opened the drawer with her socks. A rainbow of colors assaulted her eyes. She chose a purple pair with fuzzy balls dangling from the ankle.

“Stop.”

She dropped the socks back into the drawer and faced him. He held his phone and offered it up to her. Wary, she took it and looked. Her breath whooshed out. It was a picture of them. She tilted her head. Her red dress featured predominantly on the small screen, so it had to be the first night they’d met. The angle of his head showed him whispering in her ear and her smile looked…wicked.

Her heart did a little skitter. Did she always look like that when Quinton flirted with her? Or worse, spoke to her? Heat rushed to her face. She didn’t look like a nurse, much less someone who preferred stability over anything else. This woman looked sexy and fun. So not Kate.

“This is the second picture they’ve taken of us, looking just like that.” No emotion tainted his voice. “I figured you should know.”

She’d signed up for this, being his pretend girlfriend and all. He hadn’t lied to her about what that could entail. Still, it was strange and disturbing to see herself on the web in a picture with a man for all the world to see. A picture she hadn’t even known someone had taken.

“Um.” Her hand started to shake, so she gripped the phone tighter. Someone had taken a picture of them and likely sold it to a gossip blog. How in the hell was she supposed to process something like that?

“Kate.” He started and stopped with a sigh.

This was his life. His dour demeanor didn’t seem so off now. Maybe he was worried she’d back out and leave him in a lurch. But it was going to take time for the epic creepiness of someone taking her fucking picture without her knowing to set in.

“Um…” She tried again, and her knuckles started to ache from the grip on the phone. She looked closer at the picture, this time her attention focusing on Quinton. The expression on his face made her swallow. It was the same one he wore when they had sex, like he was one breath away from devouring her. Like he wanted her more than anything in this world.

What did Quinton see when he looked at the picture?

Kate handed him back his phone, her fingers still trembling slightly. “I don’t have any snacks in here. I need snacks. Chocolate. Or liquor.”

“I can make a call,” Quinton offered, his tone calm.

“Right.”

He seemed ordinary, but regular people couldn’t get snacks or liquor dropped off wherever they happened to be. He was a man used to that kind of kowtowing. Her throat felt too tight to get any words out.

Quinton stood and stepped into her space. Worry had filled his gaze. The warmth of his hands on her arms settled the buzz building in her stomach.

“Kate,” he said softly, “I expected this. I’ve been through it. You can walk away if you want. They got a scent of you, but if they don’t see you with me again, they’ll go away.”

And then she remembered his reaction on Douglass’s steps right before he practically dragged her into his car.

“Was it the press outside Douglass’s pub?”

“Aye.”

She shook her head as though coming out of a daze. “Is this why you left rugby?”

“I just couldn’t play anymore. I’d been hiding my injury. I’d take pain pills before a game, which was dangerous within itself. I started playing safer, too safe. I’d rather not play than play like a fanny.” His jaw tightened. “I couldn’t tell the truth. A lot of my endorsement deals need me to be…unbroken. The deal I need you for makes me look like a man ready to settle down.”

He’d used that as his selling point, but it didn’t feel real until now. Without another thought she moved into him, cupping his cheek in her hand. “Then think nothing of it.”

Turning his head, he placed a slow, deep kiss on her palm. His mouth seemed to have a direct line to her stomach. It jumped whenever he touched her with his soft lips. She didn’t mind when he kept kissing up her arm, tugging her closer and walking backward toward the bed until they fell on the mattress.

At his soft groan, she straddled his lap. They’d walked into her room just shy of being angry, and now his mouth, his hands, had seeded an ache at her core. Lust, as it always did with him, settled in her stomach and made a home, but she pulled back as a niggle of worry…something lodged in her gut.

He sucked hard on her collarbone, and she tried to remember where she’d stored condoms.

The dresser.

Kate jerked back with so much force she almost fell of his lap. “Wait.” She scrambled up from him and the bed and went to the dresser. “
Wait
. Don’t forget that thought.”

Though he frowned, he wore a smile at her strange reaction. “Aye?”

He hadn’t given her any real time to straighten up. Not that she imagined having a man in her room when she booked her trip. When she made the promise—crap.

There was no way to be discreet, so she picked up the beadazzled box on her dresser and took it into the bathroom. Closing the door soundly behind her, she faced him, her breath huffing out. His arms were crossed and he held a questioning stare.

“Okay,” she said, her voice high and tight. “Where were we?” His stance had no give, so she added, “You have secrets. I have mine.”

“But what is the box?”

If she told him that, he’d stop his delicious kisses. Even if they were together for a really long time, she smelled like her day and looked just as bedraggled, he’d rather have that than the truth. Her secret could shrivel dicks at a hundred paces.

So she crossed the room and kissed him, hard, in hopes that would make him forget the question. He groaned, cupping her ass. She straddled his lap again. Soon, he had her shirt off, her jeans unzipped, and had his fingers feathering over her pussy lips. He took his mouth on the road and traveled down her neck, but then he stopped.

He leaned back and gazed up at her. “Why did you have to move the box, lass?”

“Nope. Not talking about it.” She kissed him, which was hard because his lips were tight, his gaze seeking.

Resigned to the fact their hot and heavy session was over, she rested her forehead on his. Kate closed her eyes so she wouldn’t see his visceral reaction when she confessed, “My grandmother.”

“What about her?”

She wanted to die a little. “It’s her urn. My grandmother made me promise I wouldn’t put her in something drab, boring, or depressing. So…I beadazzled it. And there she was, and you were touching me. So I put my grandmother in the fucking bathroom so I could get laid.” She finished the last in an embarrassed rush.

“Your…grandmother?”

She sighed again and opened her eyes. His were lit with laughter. “Don’t,” she urged him. “Please.”

But it was too late. A laugh rumbled deep in his chest. “I’ve never—”

She pressed a finger to his lips, seeing the threesome joke a mile away. “Don’t.”

He curled his lips inward for a second and tried for a somber expression. “Katherine Campbell, I can honestly say this too is a first.”

She shifted. Her breath hitched. Nothing had changed for him. His dick was still very, very hard. That changed her focus for a moment as she rocked her hips to get him settled just right between her legs. He groaned at her wiggling.

“Are you into necrophilia?” she joked.

“No.” His brows were arched down. “Just you.”

There was a definite part of her that went uh-huh because it sounded like a line. One a man used to get what he wanted. If not for the warmth and sincerity in his voice, that part of her would have won out. He meant those words without guile.

Her limbs weakened, and she pressed against him, rubbing her pussy against his cock just to watch his eyes go dark with need. Pinpricks of pleasure wrested up her spine at the teasing.

What was this man doing to her? The press was stalking them. Tomorrow there would likely be a picture of her standing on the stairs with Quinton. Probably with a headline,
Trouble In Paradise?
Someone was making money off them without their permission. That she still couldn’t process, especially as he continued to use that wonderful mouth of his.

She’d put her grams in the bathroom for him, for this. He licked her neck, and once again Kate didn’t care. She couldn’t place all the blame on him. Her grams had told her to say yes more than she said no. The crazier the situation, the more Kate should forget reason, and this was hands-down certifiable.

He broke the neck kiss and brushed his thumb over her lower lip. “I’d only meant to say thank you. If you’re not comfortable with more right now, that’s fine. I should go anyway.”

Could she be comfortable with more? No matter how much her grams would approve, Kate simply couldn’t. “There would be moaning, and even if I could get past that, I’d have to shower afterward. It would feel like the strangest, most judgmental walk of shame.”