Chapter Three
I slouched in a chair beside a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows inside the Gingko Room at the Morton Arboretum, gazing out at a glassy pond surrounded by greenery. The wedding had been a fairytale affair set on Thornhill Lawn beneath a clear blue sky, with Tara like a princess in her flowing gown and Blake the perfect groom in his elegant tux. I'd stood by my cousin, as both maid of honor and best friend. And yep, I cried through the whole thing.
My sentimentality had good reasons behind it. Though only twenty-four, Tara had been married once before. She'd said "I do" to her first husband in college, but he'd turned out to be a manipulative jerk who constantly berated my sweet little cousin for her looks and her brains. I'd wanted to run him over with my car. Luckily, I hadn't needed to resort to violence, because she'd dumped the cretin after fourteen months of marriage.
Now she had Blake. He seemed like a great guy. Kind, considerate, loving, protective without being overbearing. Everything a husband should be. I hoped she really had found the right guy this time.
Across the room, the newlyweds mingled with their guests. The band started to play a slow, romantic tune and Blake took Tara's hand to guide her out onto the dance floor. I watched them gliding across the shiny wood floor, smiling at each other with genuine happiness and love. I sent out a silent prayer that Tara had found her soulmate this time. She deserved a happy ending.
While they danced, the perfect fairytale couple, I sat alone in the corner brooding about last night.
The man in the kilt. Our searing kiss.
My cheeks heated at the memory of how wantonly I'd behaved with him. My encounter with Aidan MacTaggart had knocked me off balance — he'd literally knocked me off my feet — which might explain my lapse in judgment. Make that my string of lapses that culminated in the most outrageous moment of my life. Making out with a strange man inside a velvet-draped booth next to a bowl of condoms.
Oh for heaven's sake, forget about him.
Yes, I had to put that crazy night behind me. Go home, somehow sort out my messed-up life, and move on.
I was staring out the windows again when Tara approached, amid a flurry of swishing satin, and plopped onto the chair beside me.
She pointed at the half-eaten meal on the plate in front of me. "What are you brooding about?"
"I'm not brooding." I fiddled with the waistband of my bridesmaid dress — a long, mint-green chiffon number that draped over one shoulder and featured a side slit that revealed a portion of my thigh. Tara had picked the dress, of course. She had good taste, in everything, and I trusted her judgment more than my own at the moment. I admitted, "I'm distracted. Confused."
Her lips puckered as she tried to quash her knowing smile. "You're thinking about him, aren't you?"
"Who?" My attempt at seeming clueless fell flat and we both knew it.
Tara shook her head. "Kilt Boy. He made quite an impression on my cousin and you made quite an impression on him. When you came running back into the party, with your cheeks all pink and your lips looking just kissed, I knew you had it bad for the non-stripper."
I'd returned to the melee only to ask Tara if she minded me leaving, so I could go back to the hotel and rest up for the wedding.
"Last night," I said, "you thought Aidan might be a psycho."
"Gotta be careful with my maid of honor." She leaned in to pat my knee. "But I changed my mind about him. He's a sweetie."
I stiffened, the hairs on the back of my neck lifting. "Why does it sound like you've talked to him?"
"Because I have."
"When?" I clenched my fingers in my dress.
Tara shrugged one shoulder. "After you left the club, he came to see me. And boy, he was so polite, knocking on the door and waiting to be invited in. He was worried about you and, well, we got to talking."
My stomach churned as a sinking feeling had me gripping my chair. "What did you do?"
She gave me a look of overdone innocence.
"Come on, Tara," I said. "I've known you all your life and you can't fool me. You've done something I won't like. Tell me and get it over with."
"Well…" She smoothed the skirt of her gown, squaring her shoulders. "I invited Aidan to the reception."
My mouth dropped open but only sputtering came out. After a couple seconds, I managed to croak, "You did what?"
"I invited him. He's here." Tara surveyed the room with narrowed eyes until she found what she was looking for, then she smiled and waved at someone. "And he's coming over."
Speechless, I watched as Aidan MacTaggart separated from a group of wedding guests and strode toward us. Dressed in a dark blue suit with a crisp, white shirt, he moved through the crowd with ease, his wavy hair glistening in the sunlight that also shimmered in his blue eyes. When he caught sight of me, he shot me the most brilliant smile, as if he'd stumbled onto the lost treasure of Atlantis.
I squirmed in my seat, straightened, and ran my hands over the skirt of my dress, suddenly wishing I had a mirror to check my makeup. Not that I cared what he thought of me. Not that it mattered what I looked like.
"You're beautiful," Tara said, "so relax and enjoy yourself."
With that, she rose and sashayed back to her husband.
Alone, with acid burning in my gut and a strange excitement zinging through me, I struggled to look like I didn't give a damn, picking up my fork to shift food around my plate.
The Scot halted beside the chair Tara had vacated. "May I sit with you?"
"Um… sure."
He lowered his big body onto the chair, settling one arm on the table. Our shoes almost touched and our knees were uncomfortably close, but he seemed not to notice. I crossed my right leg over the left.
Aidan's gaze snapped to my right thigh. His tongue darted out to moisten his lower lip.
I glanced down — and froze. The slit in my dress exposed nearly all of my leg. I dropped my right foot back to the floor, yanking the dress to cover my leg, and crossed my left leg over the right. No slit on the left side. Had my subconscious driven me to flash Aidan an outrageous amount of skin? No, of course not. It was an accident.
His gaze met mine, those eyes simmering with interest.
My body responded, softening like butter in the sun, and my thoughts went fuzzy.
Nuts. Maybe my subconscious had done it after all.
"Calli Douglas," Aidan said, his brogue rolling the words into a sensual phrase. "I was hoping to get you alone again."
I folded my hands on my lap. "We're not alone. We're in the middle of a packed wedding reception."
"Everyone else is over there." He waved a hand toward the other side of the room, where the rest of the party loitered. "And we are over here."
How on earth did he make that phrase sound dirty? Maybe it was my fevered brain, still on fire from last night, that kept molding his every word into a come-on.
My mind finally realized what he'd said a moment ago. "How do you know my last name?"
"Your cousin told me."
Tara. My cousin had a nasty habit of meddling in my personal life, a hobby she shared with my older brother, Gavin. They both did it out of love and a desire to improve my life, but it still annoyed me.
I pointed at Aidan's slacks. "No kilt?"
"Don't wear one every day."
"Only at night clubs?"
"Ah…" He scratched the back of his neck, grimaced, and mumbled, "Bloody Lachlan."
"Is that some kind of Scottish cocktail?"
"No." He sighed. "My brother, Lachlan. He told me every Friday is kilt night at the club. Now I'm thinking he said that so he could get his revenge on me."
"Revenge?" I asked, slanting forward in spite of myself. "What did you do to him?"
Aidan cleared his throat, shifting in his seat, but soon a smirk tightened his lips. "At Lachlan's wedding last fall, I tried to trick his bride into repeating a Gaelic phrase. She's American and didn't know the language."
Oh, I could guess where this was going. "What did you get her to say?"
"An toir thu dhomh pòg." His smirk widened into a grin. "It means will you give me a kiss. Lachlan, the uptight man he is, warned her before she said it. Erica's a bonnie lass and I really don't see how he can blame me for trying."
I sighed, shaking my head. "You are a wicked one, aren't you?"
"Noticed, have you?"
Leaning back in my chair, I tilted my head to study him with a touch of suspicion. "What exactly are you hoping to accomplish here?"
"Have a good time. Drink mediocre whiskey." He gazed into my eyes, his face the picture of sincerity. "Dance with a beautiful woman."
Dance with Aidan? My skin tingled at the memory of his touch last night, how the simple brush of his fingers could inflame me and the way his tongue in my mouth had driven me to the brink of madness. Coughing, I gestured toward the throng of people, many of them female. "Plenty of pretty girls to choose from."
"Only interested in one." He stroked the tabletop with his fingertips. "Dance with me, Calli. Please."
"I think you've gotten the wrong impression of me."
His smile was sweet. "You're a bonnie, sexy lass who's well-spoken and charming. Am I mistaken?"
"Well-spoken?"
He sat forward, hands linked between his knees, expression earnest. "I heard your speech at dinner this evening. You're eloquent, entertaining, and clearly love your cousin very much."
"Oh." He'd listened to my speech, the one Tara begged me to make. I'd assumed no one actually paid attention to wedding speeches. Yet Aidan listened. Really listened. "I still think you might have the wrong idea about me. Despite my behavior last night, I'm not the kind of girl who makes out with strangers in night clubs."
"I never thought that." He glanced down at the floor, then looked up at me with a sheepish expression. "I don't normally take so many liberties with a woman."
I stared at him. "You don't?"
"No."
Right then, music began to emanate from his pants. Sounded like bagpipes. I pointed at his slacks and said, "I hope that's your phone."
"It is."
Mouth crimped, growling a sigh, he extricated the phone from his pocket, upside down, and tried to flip it over. He lost his hold on it and the phone flew through the air, plopping down smack on my lap.
Without thinking, I picked it up. A text message from someone named Jamie filled the screen. It read, "Have you found your quarry, Don Juan? Expect details about American fling."
I tossed the phone at Aidan.
He caught it in both hands and glanced at the screen. Grimacing, he let out a long groan.
Planting both feet on the floor, I tugged my dress to ensure it covered all of me. "So, Don Juan, am I right in assuming I'm your quarry? The hapless American you tried to lure into a fling?"
"It's not like that." He sank back in his chair, shoving the phone in his pocket. "My brothers and sisters have a strange sense of humor. They call me Don Juan because I like women, but I don't use them and I'm not out shagging a different woman every night."
The way he pronounced everything, with that silken brogue reshaping the vowels, it affected me in strange and enticing ways. I flashed back to last night in the booth, immersed in a full-on sense memory of our kiss. I needed a couple seconds to reassemble my scattered thoughts. "Shagging? What a funny word for sex."
His eyes took on a teasing glint. "I could've said fucking. Would that be more acceptable?"
"Normal people call it having sex."
He smiled, chuckling softly. "I've never been accused of being normal. But why does the word fuck fash you?"
"Why does it what me?"
"Fash." His lips tightened and he sighed. "Sorry. Fash means bother. Why does 'fuck' upset you?"
"I — The word doesn't offend me, but you could please stop saying it?"
"Dance with me and I will." He offered me his hand, palm up. "Otherwise, I'll have to remind you about our time in the club."
"Blackmail, hm?"
"Anything to get you in my arms again." He rose, still offering his hand. "Please, Calli. One dance. I promise to behave. Mostly."
I considered his hand, callused and rough as if he worked outdoors, an assessment supported by his tanned skin. I wanted to ask what he did for a living, but the answer hardly mattered since I would never see him again after the reception. I'd fly home to Michigan, he'd fly home to Scotland or wherever he'd come from, and that would be the end of our acquaintance. Why not take my cousin's advice and enjoy myself?
"One dance," I said, slipping my hand into his. He closed his fingers around my hand, the warmth of him suffusing my flesh, spreading through every cell of my body and melting me down to my core.
"Aye, one dance," Aidan said, leading me toward the dance floor. He flashed me a mischievous smile over his shoulder. "But I will make the most of the single dance I have with you."
Hand in hand, we weaved through the couples twirling across the floor in time with a sedate instrumental played by a small string ensemble. I bumped into Tara, shoulder to shoulder, as she danced with her new husband. Blake and Tara both grinned at me and Aidan, and my cousin winked at me. Giving her a fake scowl, I let Aidan propel me onward until we found a spot. He raised our joined hands, snaked his other arm around my side to spread his palm over the small of my back, and tugged me close. My heels boosted me up a few inches, but he still towered over me. The fragrance of his cologne enveloped me.
As he began to sway his hips and shuffle his feet, a tingle swept over my skin and settled between my thighs. Though not unseemly, his movements did things to me I couldn't explain. My breasts brushed against his chest. His palm on my back and our linked hands anchored me to him, while his hips compelled mine to move, matching his rhythm. The rest of the room seemed to fade away, leaving only the soft strains of the music and the feel of this man cradling me in his brawny arms.
He bent his head to whisper in my ear. "Couldnae stop thinking about ye. All night, all morning, every second till I found ye here."
Spinning us around the floor, deftly maneuvering between other couples, he kept his mouth near my ear. The room whirled around us, blurring into an abstract painting, my focus telescoping down to our bodies united in swirling, exhilarating motion.
"Did you think about me?" he purred into my ear.
"Yes." Why the hell I said it, I had no clue. My mind had shut down, rationality a long-forgotten concept.
"Good." He pulled me into him, our bodies pressed together, my breasts mashed into his torso. "I went too far last night. I'm sorry."
"I gave you permission to kiss me. Which makes it my fault, not yours."
"You're not angry?"
"No." Lustful. Confused. Intrigued by this odd and sweetly enticing man. But not angry.
"The party's almost over," he said. "Spend the evening with me."
"What?" I drew my head back to meet his crystalline blue eyes. "I don't know you."
"Get to know me, then." His hand on my back skated upward, then back down, his fingers teasing the upper curve of my buttocks through my dress. "I want to know you. Give me the rest of tonight, please."
"I'm flying home to Michigan in the morning. Have to pack and get some sleep."
"Can't you stay an extra day?"
"Why are you so determined? We're essentially strangers."
"Been told I'm impulsive and you are the most captivating woman I've ever met." He lifted our hands to his lips, feathering a kiss across my knuckles. "When I see what I want, I donnae give up easily."
Captivating? Sounded like a line to me, the kind a player would lay on a gullible girl to get her in the sack. But something about his manner made me wonder if he might be genuine.
Doesn't matter. You're leaving the state, remember?
Movement caught my attention and I glanced over to see Tara waving at me. She mouthed, "It's time."
I disentangled my hand from Aidan's. "The bride and groom are heading out. I have to see them off, so please excuse me. It was nice meeting you."
His mouth opened and then shut again as he tracked my journey across the dance floor away from him. I sensed his gaze on me, somehow knew he was watching, and with a great effort prevented myself from stealing one last glimpse of him.