Lachlan (Dangerous Doms #5) - Jane Henry Page 0,17

right thing to do, though.

“Take me home, Lachlan.”

There’s a sadness in her voice that breaks my heart, a plaintive plea to take her away from what we can’t have. To bring her home to safety.

I give myself one last second of closeness. My forehead on hers. Our breaths mingled with salty air. A hum of unrequited longing between us.

“Let’s get you home,” I agree, unable to mask the resignation in my tone.

I pull away from her, and she shivers. Swallowing hard, I swear she looks as if she’s going to cry again.

“Don’t cry, lass,” I try to encourage. “Please don’t.”

I take my hoodie from the pile of clothes and drape it over her. She swims in it, like a child playing dress-up. I’m torn between thinking she’s adorable and feeling like a prick for even wanting someone so young. She looks down bashfully and sticks her arms through the sleeves.

“Thank you,” she says with a laugh. Thank God she can laugh still.

“You’re freezing your arse off. Can hardly bring you home to Sheena and Nolan all frozen.”

“Suppose not. Aren’t you going to freeze?”

Not going to happen. My lust-filled blood pounds through my veins, boiling with need and longing.

“Hardly,” is my only response.

Tonight, I told Keenan I wasn’t going to Boston. I made the decision to stay right here where she is, though I don’t fucking know why if I can’t have her. I should trust my brothers to give her the protection she truly needs.

It’s freed me, though. I didn’t tell him why, and a part of me wondered if he knew without me saying, for he agreed readily and said he’d assign me duties this morning. It’s partly why I came for a late-night swim, to clear my brain and school my thoughts. When I’m submerged in the depths of the frigid water, I can’t think of things I shouldn’t.

“Have fun at the club tonight?” she asks. For some reason there’s an edge of hardness in her tone when she asks me, though she actually winces.

Bloody hell. It was her.

“What do you mean?” I ask. “At the club? So help me, Fiona, if you tell me you’ve been to the Craic—” That quickly, she’s renewed my desire to punish her. More than once I’ve clenched my fingers when my palm itched to spank her good and hard.

She wraps my hoodie around her like a blanket and snaps her eyes to mine. “And what if I have? Hmm? You’ve no control over me, Lachlan. You can’t tell me what to do.” She pauses, and her next sentence is weighty, laced with meaning. “Especially now that I’m an adult.”

Is that hopeful challenge in her eyes?

I stop and reach for her hand, making her stop. “Were you at the Craic tonight?”

Christ, I’m glad I didn’t touch another woman.

“I don’t have to answer to you, you know.”

I reach for her arm and grab at thin air as she’s marching away. We’re almost back at her family home, only paces from her door now.

“You’re a right brat sometimes,” I mutter, and for one brief moment I consider stopping her right here and yanking her straight over my lap for the spanking she’s had coming for years. No one brings out fire in me like Fiona.

“Fuck off,” she says. She spins around to tell me off, her eyes flashing at me. “If I want to go to the fucking Craic, I’ll go.” Her voice is strained, and her eyes flash at me. “If I want to go to Boston, I fucking will.” She juts her chin into the air. “I told them tonight I would.”

Boston?

Jesus fucking Christ, she can’t be serious. One moment I want to pull her over my lap and redden her arse for her cheek. The next, I’m stricken.

I’ve just told Keenan I’m not going. I’ve told him I’m staying here, and he’s already made arrangements for just that. I’m heading to Madrid in the morning.

“You can’t be serious?”

“I’m so fucking serious,” she says. Her voice catches at the end, and she’s swiping angrily at tears again. She breaks my heart when she cries.

“Why? Why the bloody hell would you leave here and go so far away?”

She looks me straight in the eyes and doesn’t blink.

“Because of you,” she says, her voice tight and shaky. “You.”

I feel my brows draw together in consternation.

“Me?”

“You,” she repeats, crying freely now. Her lower lip trembles. “You were with another woman at the club, and I know…” her voice wobbles. She blinks hard, shedding fat tears.