Gift-Wrapped in a Kilt (Hot Scots #4)

Chapter Nineteen

Gavin rang the doorbell of Dùndubhan and waited. And waited. The sun had set, plunging the world into a darkness broken only by the light positioned above the door and the faint glow of more lights inside the house. The castle. Sheesh, who lived in a freaking castle?

Rory MacTaggart did. Like he was a king or something, looking down on his subjects from the highest floor of the frigging tower.

Gavin groaned. Okay, maybe he did have a weird complex about Rory, about his wealth and his lifestyle. Not jealousy, not exactly. Something more like anxiety.

He had no frigging idea what that meant.

The door swung inward, revealing Jamie.

Gavin somehow clung to a neutral expression even as his cock twitched. She wore a babydoll nightie made of sheer, midnight-blue fabric that billowed around her, its hem barely below her hips. The spaghetti straps that held the nightie up seemed about to tumble off her shoulders. Panels of intricate lace covered her breasts, sort of, though he glimpsed the rosy peaks of her nipples, stiff and jutting against the fabric. Through the gauzy length of the babydoll, he spied matching, minuscule panties as sheer as the nightie, revealing the thatch of cinnamon hairs on her mound.

Jamie leaned her curvy body against the door, waving for him to enter. "Let's go into my bedroom."

He scuffled through the doorway into the vestibule.

She shut the door and sashayed into the hall, angling left toward the dining room.

Gavin couldn't resist admiring her voluptuous hips as they swayed and her round bottom as it moved beneath the flimsy fabric. His mouth watered, and his palms sweated. He hadn't seen her naked in five days. That might explain why he got a raging hard-on every time he came within fifty feet of her and why he'd been having the most erotic dreams of his life. Despite her claim she wanted only sex and her announcement she'd summon him when the mood struck her, she'd been avoiding him. Avoiding intimacy. Avoiding dealing with their problems.

Another irony in this whole mess. For months, he'd avoided intimacy — both the emotional and the physical kind. The more time he spent around Jamie's brothers, the more self-conscious he got and the more difficult it was to get it up in the bedroom. He was finally getting an inkling why her brothers bugged him so much, but he needed to talk it out with his best friend, the only person who understood him completely.

Jamie.

And she wouldn't tolerate conversation.

With Iain's help, Gavin had figured out one thing for sure. He had to cut out the wuss-bag behavior and act like the man Jamie had fallen for eighteen months ago. Act like the man who'd, half jokingly, threatened to murder Aidan for banging his baby sister. The man who'd swept Jamie off her feet.

Sex only with no real intimacy? Screw that idea. He'd proved her wrong five days ago when she tried to keep their encounter impersonal. Still, she refused to give up her lame idea. She left him with one option.

Keep seducing her. Keep forcing her to experience their connection. Keep her in the moment with him at all times, not retreating into her detached vixen persona.

She could keep some of the vixen stuff. He did love her feisty side.

Jamie guided him into her bedroom. She twirled around and fell backward onto the bed, her body sprawled across it and the nightie riding up to reveal a hint of the curly hairs between her thighs, with only a sliver of lacy fabric to cover them. The pinkish light from the bedside lamp sprayed across her golden-brown hair. Her breasts mounded on her chest, plump and succulent, the taut nipples begging to be sucked.

"Well?" she said, wriggling her red-painted toes. "Get to work, Gavin. I called you here for sex, not to have you gawp at me all night."

His cock pulsed. It wanted her. He wanted her. But this sex-only crap had to stop this instant.

Gavin shrugged out of his jacket, tossing it onto the floor. "I know what you think you want. But I also know what you really want. I know you, Jamie, and you can't fool me. I gave you what you really need the last time we were together. You can lie and say it meant nothing, but I know the truth."

" Bod an Donais ." She pushed up onto her elbows, and the nightie slipped out of position, allowing one breast to nearly spill out. "Fuck me, Gavin. That's what I want. It's all I want. Hot, screaming sex for twenty minutes, maybe half an hour, and then you leave."

Though her words hit him like a slap to the face, something in her eyes made him stop and study those hazel irises, glimmering in the soft light. Maybe she'd hoped erasing all intimacy and emotion between them would push him to do the right thing, finally. Well, it had worked, he supposed. He'd woken up to the fact he couldn't live without this woman.

No more dafty boy.

He tugged his T-shirt out of his waistband and pulled it off over his head. As the shirt flumped to the floor, he stripped off his sneakers, jeans, and boxers. Naked, he strode to the bed and bent over it to brace his hands at either side of her head, their faces inches apart.

"No," he said.

Her eyebrows and her cute little nose scrunched up. "No? Ye cannae order me to —"

Gavin covered her mouth with his own, silencing her complaint. He raked his lips over her softer, sweeter ones, licking at the seam and nipping at her flesh. She'd gone tense, though her breaths came fast and shallow. When her lips parted, he glided his tongue between them to tease her mouth with light flicks, then he coiled his tongue around hers, slick flesh sliding over slick flesh, and still he didn't touch her with any other part of his body. Only lips. Only tongue. A tiny gasp escaped her lips, and he deepened the kiss with rough strokes of his tongue, catching her exhalation, taking a part of her into him. He plundered her mouth with an animalistic hunger, starved for the taste of her and inflamed by the tickling sensation of her quick breaths gusting out her nostrils onto his skin. He burned to take her but forced himself to hold back.

His dick had gotten so hard, he didn't know how long he could restrain himself.

Until she caved. Until she admitted sex only wasn't what she really wanted.

"Say it," he murmured against her lips.

Jamie made a desperate little noise, halfway between a gasp and a whimper. "Say what?"

"Tell me you want me, not just sex. Admit you want us to talk. You want a relationship, not just a quick wrestling match in the sheets."

"I told you what I need."

He raised his head to gaze down at her, propped on his straight arms. "Tell me the truth, Jamie. Say it now, or I'm walking out that door. I'll come back every day and kiss you into a frenzy, but we won't have sex again until we talk. Say it ."

*****

Jamie couldn't tear her focus away from his eyes. Their honey color seemed to glow in the muted lighting. He regarded her in a way he hadn't done in months. With conviction. Certainty. Determination. A hint of tenderness tempered the commanding force of his gaze. Though his erection nudged her belly, hard and thick, he refused to give her what she told him she wanted. Sex. Only sex. Why couldn't he go along with it like any normal man would do? Another man would've been thrilled to have a woman order him to fuck her with no conversation required afterward.

At least, she thought other men would. Since she'd never demanded this from a man before, she had no way of knowing for sure.

Emery had been right that Gavin wouldn't really open up to her unless she plied him with sex first. He'd announced he wanted to talk, after previously announcing he needed time and space from her, but he denied her the one thing she'd sworn she needed — no emotional entanglement, no intimate conversation. After months of avoiding touching her, he'd suddenly shifted back into his old purposeful, irresistible self.

He was confusing the living hell out of her.

Could she trust him not to lose his nerve again? And what about his hostility toward her brothers? None of that had been resolved.

So talk to him, you silly hen , a voice inside urged her.

Not yet. She needed more time to… What? She didn't know anymore.

That kiss. He'd done it on purpose. He'd gotten her so worked up, so turned on and heated up, that she couldn't think. His take-charge attitude had always made her want to rip his clothes off, but when he'd casually stripped naked and bent his muscular body over her, she'd fought a thousand impulses to do naughty things to him. Her body tingled with need, her nipples ached, and the wetness in her sex oozed down the insides of her thighs.

"Sex, please," she said, breathless from the intensity of her arousal. "Talk later. We can talk about whether to talk after we —"

He lunged his head down to nibble at the hollow of her throat. "Mm-mm. Say you're done with the sex-only plan, or I'm outta here."

"You're naked, and it's cold outside. You'll catch pneumonia."

When he chuckled, his lips vibrated against her skin. "Thanks for worrying about me, but I'll get dressed before I go." He nuzzled her throat, his breaths hot and sultry. "Besides, I've been working outside all day. Got rained on too, and I survived."

"I'm surprised you took a job with Aidan. He's one of my evil brothers."

"Never said they're evil." His mouth traveled up to her chin, meandering along her jaw. "But I've made peace with Aidan. We're cool."

"What…" Her voice and her thoughts trailed off as he curled his tongue around her earlobe and drew it into his mouth. Her breaths hitched, but she managed to expel words between gasps of involuntary pleasure at his suckling of her flesh. "What kind of work… ah… were you… oh… doing for… mmmm… my brother?"

Gavin raised his face over hers. "Smashing rocks. With a sledgehammer."

She'd seen him at Aidan's job site, but she hadn't known what type of work Gavin was doing. Smashing things? With a sledgehammer? Her mind painted a vivid image of him wielding that tool, muscles rippling, sweat dribbling down his torso. In her fantasy he was, of course, shirtless. She imagined the perspiration droplets rolling down the outlines of his pectoral muscles and her tongue lapping them up, tracing a path up his chest.

"You're so hot for me," he said, his gaze capturing hers, "I can smell it."

She could smell it too. The realization didn't fash her as much as she would've expected.

He closed his eyes and sucked in a deep breath through his nostrils, then let it out while his lips curved into a smile of pure satisfaction. His lids parted, and he drank her in with hooded eyes. "Sweet and musky. Damn, I want to eat you up."

She choked back a pathetic little noise, one triggered by a lust more intense than anything she'd experienced before. Never in her life had she wanted a man this much. Never had she wanted him this much. Aye, he'd always been amazing in bed. But tonight, he'd become an unstoppable force luring her down into a warm, silken pool of pleasure.

And he'd barely touched her.

He lowered his body enough to rub his rigid length between her thighs. Somehow, they'd fallen open without her knowledge or consent. His shaft scraped along her cleft, lubricated by the juices her body released in preparation for him. Her panties, so thin and fragile, posed no real barrier. She couldn't help it. She moaned and arched her back, her fingers clenching the covers beneath her.

"Say it," he growled, his cheeks ruddy and his body tight with need.

All those bunched muscles. Ready to move, to act, to consume her body.

"Yes," she almost shouted as the head of his penis nudged her entrance, brushing her silken panties over her flesh. "We'll talk. We'll — oh. We'll do anything you want."

"Anything?" He pushed up on a single arm, straight and taut. With his other hand, he whisked the nightie over her hips, and when she lifted them, he slid the fabric higher until it cleared her shoulders. Tossing the nightie aside, he straddled her. "Better be careful with that promise."

He wouldn't take advantage of her promise, she knew that.

Not outside of the bedroom. In bed, he might. And the idea shivered a thrill through her.

"Anything," she gasped as he devoured her nipple. His cheeks caved in from the ardor of his suckling. She tunneled her fingers through his hair. "Please, Gavin. Please."

He crawled down her body, kissing and licking and nibbling as he moved. His hands glided down her arms as slowly as his mouth traveled down her body. His tongue dived into her belly button and flicked side to side. She writhed beneath him, pleading for more with her incoherent noises. How could any woman stay coherent with a man like him tormenting her body?

With a ravenous groan, he shimmied lower and lower, his hot tongue sampling her skin along the way. His breaths tickled the hairs of her mound, making her back arch and her fingers clench the covers harder. He took hold of her hips and then he moved between her thighs, his mouth poised over her folds. Her clit throbbed, craving his mouth.

She spread her legs wider, her breaths shortening into pants.

He took deliberate breaths, his hooded gaze riveted to her folds, his lips parted. With two fingers, he gently spread her flesh. He puckered his lips to blow a stream of cool air on her slick, burning skin.

He rasped his tongue over her nub.

"Gavin, please, hurry."

"What's the rush?" he said in a low and sensual voice. "We've got all night."

"I'll lose my mind if you donnae —"

He sealed his mouth around her clitoris, whisking his tongue back and forth, scraping his teeth over her flesh. When she bucked her hips, he pressed down with his hands to pin her to the bed. She didn't care how desperate she sounded, moaning and whimpering and begging for more, because his mouth was driving her insane. He lashed his tongue, drew hard on her clit, and released it to drag his tongue down and back up her cleft, then swirled it around and around her hard nub. When he let go of one hip to slip his hand between her thighs and tease her entrance with two fingers, she stopped breathing.

But when he thrust those fingers inside her and his mouth consumed her clitoris, she exploded.

The climax wrenched her entire body, hurling her outside of herself and straight into heaven, the joy of release too powerful to survive. She must've spun right into the clouds of the afterlife, weightless and free, until his lips on her cheek pulled her back into her body. He whispered endearments into her ear, but she couldn't comprehend them.

"Jamie, sweet Jamie," he said, nuzzling her cheek. "My Scottish angel, my heart and soul."

As her breathing slowed and her heart stopped thrashing in her chest, she marveled at the words he murmured to her. Never had he said such loving and unmanly things. He'd called her "babe" a few times, but never his Scottish angel or… What had he said? My heart and soul .

His erection raked across her belly.

Though she longed to talk about this change in him, she wanted him inside her even more. They could talk after.

Her heart thudded. She wanted to talk? That orgasm must've short-circuited her brain.

Or else it showed her the truth at last.

A wire had tangled itself around her heart lately. Tonight, he had unwound it. Emotion swelled inside her, and she couldn't fight the words any longer. She didn't want to, and she could no longer pretend she needed only sex from him. Giving up her plan, it frightened her. And yet, being with Gavin made her feel safe.

She folded her arms around him and turned her face into his cheek, her mouth near his ear. "I love you."

"I love you too. God, I love you."

He pushed up onto his elbows, shifting his hips until his arousal was nestled between her thighs. She reached down to touch it, but he grabbed her wrist and held it above her head.

"Uh-uh-uh," he said, his lips kinked into a sensual smile, his gold eyes smoldering. "We're doing this my way."

"Then do it already."

He rubbed his cock into her cleft, between her folds.

She arched into him, her mouth falling open.

The hand on her wrist shifted, and he threaded his fingers through hers, clasping her hand while he covered her open mouth with his. Tongues twining. Teeth clashing. Never had he kissed her this way, so deep and carnal it made her sex clench. He chafed his shaft up and down her flesh, his balls grazing her mound, and she gasped into his mouth.

He pulled his hips back and thrust inside her body.

The fullness of him, the sweet pressure of his shaft inside her, stole her breath. She dug her nails into his back, slung her legs around his hips, and silently pleaded for more.

Without relinquishing her mouth, he pumped his hips, driving his length deep only to withdraw until the tip alone lingered inside her. Over and over he drove into and abandoned her body as her breasts rubbed against his chest and he penetrated her mouth in sync with the movements of his hips. Faster , she commanded in her mind, unable to speak with his mouth consuming hers. As if he read her mind, he plowed into her faster, harder, bouncing her on the bed.

Another orgasm struck with stunning swiftness, wrenching her body as spasms undulated through her sex, clamping around him even while he kept pounding into her. He swallowed the cry that erupted out of her.

He tore his mouth away at the instant he came apart inside her, throwing his head back to shout a hoarse, wordless cry. The pulsing of his release made her come harder, and she clung to him through the waves of shattering pleasure until he collapsed on top of her, gasping for air. With his chest plastered to hers, she felt his heart pounding as fast as her own.

"Jamie, sweet Jamie." He rolled to the side, hugging her to him. "I want to marry you."

Her heart soared — but crashed down to earth when he spoke again.

"But I can't."