McGillivray's Mistress - By Anne McAllister Page 0,54
as Lachlan secured the boat. Then, when he scrambled up on the dock and held out a hand to her, she let him pull her up beside him.
Fingers laced together, they walked up the dock and along the quay. Half a dozen teenagers were hanging out under the streetlamps, laughing and talking, and as Fiona and Lachlan passed, they turned and watched.
So much for shutting down the island telegraph. Fiona had no doubt but that the island telegraph would be working overtime tonight. She didn’t care.
They reached her door and Lachlan said quietly, “Can I come in?” and she knew it was reality time, not fantasy time any longer.
She’d never actually dared dream of having Lachlan in her own bed. But the net in her arms told her he understood her, the day on the island said she mattered, and the look in his eyes was impossible to resist.
She kissed his cheek, took his hand and drew him in.
SHE WAS AS FIERY AS HER HAIR.
He’d known she would be and relished every minute as, defenses battered down at last, she came to him as wild and strong as the sea.
He’d worried that once he brought her home the idyll would end and the walls would go up again. He rejoiced when instead she kissed him, when she opened her door to him, when she brought him upstairs to her bedroom, when they undressed each other slowly, stopping to touch, to kiss, to stroke, and when they lay together on her narrow bed and loved each other once more.
He loved the way she met him every step of the way, move for move, touch for touch, kiss for kiss. He loved the way he could make her writhe and arch and lock her heels against the backs of his thighs and sob his name. He loved the way she could make him bite his lip with longing, could make him quiver with need, and could satisfy both in the warmth of her embrace.
He loved her once, twice. They fell asleep in each other’s arms and woke twice more to love again.
And when at dawn Lachlan woke to find Fiona in the curve of his arm, her legs tangled with his, her lips pressed against his chest, more than anything, he wanted her again.
But she didn’t wake this time as he shifted and eased his leg from between hers. She sighed and slept on when he levered himself up on an elbow to look down at her.
Her hair was fire against the pillow, strands glowing red and copper in the streaky dawn. Her lips were full and slightly parted, asking to be kissed yet again.
And he kissed them lightly, willing her to wake, but he had worn her out, and so she slept. He stroked her hair, touched her cheek. Still she slept. And so he kissed her again gently, then reluctantly got out of bed.
He had to go back to the Sandpiper this morning. He had to see what Sylvester had done. Then there was a lunch meeting in Nassau with his banker, and then more meetings with more investors to go over a proposal for his next acquisition. He didn’t want to do any of them. He wanted to stay in bed with Fiona.
But he couldn’t. And he knew she couldn’t either.
She worked at the bakery at lunch. She’d be at Carin’s this afternoon. But she would be home this evening. And if he got moving now, so would he. He dressed quickly, then wrote her a note.
He wasn’t good with words, had always wished he could be better. He simply told it like it was. “Fiona,” he wrote, “it was the best day—and night—of my life. Back tonight. Love, Lachlan.”
He propped it on the nightstand, touched her cheek for just a moment, then scratched Sparks behind the ears, went down the stairs. The net and the float were lying on the sofa where Fiona had left them before they’d come upstairs.
Lachlan spared them a grateful glance, then let himself out the door and hurried up the road.
FIONA SANG HER WAY through the morning.
She could have wished to wake up with Lachlan still there. But he had been there; she hadn’t dreamed it.
She had the note to prove it, had found it the moment she awoke, alone and oddly lonely in her bed. Then she had remembered and rolled over, feeling bereft, to find the paper leaning against her reading lamp. She picked it up and smiled at Lachlan’s spiky