Here With Me: An Adair Family Novel, стр. 50
Lucy, dressed in workout clothes, hurried toward him. “Hey, you!”
“Hi.” He nodded toward the castle and raised his voice to be heard. “Not going in for afternoon tea?”
“Not today. Where are you going?”
“Just a walk down to the beach.”
“Can I join you?”
Lachlan didn’t want anyone to join him, but he’d never say that to Lucy. “Of course.”
They fell into step together, the breeze particularly strong as they walked through nothing but rolling, wild fields that would eventually lead them to the water in the distance. As Malcolm ambled around the other side of the castle and he and Lucy moved farther away, the pipes became a distant wail.
“Are you okay?” his friend asked.
“Fine.”
He could feel her eyes on his face. “Did something happen between you and Robyn?”
“Why would you ask that?” It seemed unlikely that Robyn would say anything about the kiss. Right? Though she and Lucy had grown close these last few weeks.
“Robyn is off today too. But it could be because she’s gearing up to see Mac.”
“She’s here?” He glared. No one had told him Robyn was on the estate.
“Yeah. She’s with Ery. She said she’s going to see Mac after their session.”
“About bloody time,” he muttered, satisfied that his visit yesterday had yielded a result. Though, considering he’d gone there with the intention of commissioning photography from her and instead pissed her off, kissed the hell out of her, and pissed her off some more, it wasn’t much of an accomplishment.
He’d never gotten off on needling a woman before in his life, but there was just something about her—
“You’re scowling so hard, it’s a wonder your face doesn’t crack.”
Lachlan turned that scowl on his friend.
Lucy just laughed. “What is going on with you?”
He considered confiding in her. If there was one person he could trust with his personal life, knowing it would go no further than her ears, it was Lucy. But what was the point? It was never going to happen again.
Lucy’s laughter died. “Seriously, Lachlan. What is going on? You’re wound so tight these days.”
“I kissed Robyn,” he blurted out, rubbing a self-conscious hand through his hair.
At her silence, he looked at her, and to his annoyance, Lucy was quite obviously struggling not to laugh.
“Oh, it’s funny, is it?” he huffed.
Her reply was a long snort that turned into laughter. “Oh baby, what have you done?”
“It was an accident.”
“What? You tripped into her mouth?”
“For Christ’s sake, you know what I mean.”
“No, actually, I don’t.”
“It shouldn’t have happened.”
“Why?”
Lachlan’s answering glower was incredulous. “Have you met the woman?”
“Yes, and I happen to think she’s almost as great as I am.”
He sighed, ignoring her teasing. “She’s Mac’s daughter.”
“True.”
“She’s immature.”
“Ah, no, I quite rightly disagree. You just happen to provoke an immature side. And vice versa.”
“I’m immature?”
“You two go at each other like kids at recess.”
The comment was scarily similar to something Mac had said.
Fuck.
This whole time they’d been snipping and snarling at each other, attracted to one another and resenting the other for it.
“It makes no bloody sense.” He picked up his stride, as if moving farther from the castle—and from Robyn—would somehow help.
Lucy hurried to keep up. “Why? Because she’s not one of us?”
“Not that. You know me better than that.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
He stopped abruptly. “Luce, you know me. I’m never going to settle down with one woman. My family are the Adairs and you, Ery, and Mac. It’s one thing to be attracted to a woman who drives me up the bloody wall, it’s another that she also happens to be my best friend’s daughter.”
“It’s still so weird Mac is old enough to have had Robyn,” Lucy opined.
“It doesn’t matter. She’s Mac’s. She’s ten years younger than me. And I don’t do serious. So she’s off-limits. I just need to avoid her.”
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.