I collapse into his arms, not even able to keep my head up. Every part of me is both soft and translucent and shaking from the strain.

He grabs my waist and pulls me off the glass, spinning me around and laying me on top of the bed. He climbs in beside me, hooking one of his large, long legs around mine, pulling me an inch closer so my face is nestled into the crook of his arm.

I regain my ability to breathe, in and out, trying to come back down to earth, while he trails his fingers over my hair, from crown to shoulder, over and over, this softness, this gentleness that nearly lures me into sleep.

I open my eyes and look at him. His head is propped up on his hand and he’s looking me over with a heavy, sated expression. Everything about him in this one moment is soft and diffused. Even the lines on his forehead and the hardness in his eyes have been worn away to a smooth slab.

He clears his throat. “Do you think anyone saw?” he asks gently.

I swallow, my mouth parched, everything in me so exhausted. “I hope so. We would have given them quite the show. Or the scare. I thought I was going to go over the edge.”

“I would have gone right with you,” he says gently, running his thumb over my lip. I gently kiss it then close my eyes.  The world is still spinning, but it’s beautiful.

It isn’t long until one of the dogs whines from the other room. I snap my eyes open and see Lachlan smiling at me happily. “Well,” he says, moving to get up. “At least they let me fuck you like that.”

I can’t help but grin at him and watch his ass as he strolls—nude, large, and in charge, into the other room. I fight the urge to run after him and take a bite of his ass, like an apple, and instead use the bathroom.

Once inside, I look in the mirror and barely recognize the girl staring back at me. My lips are red and puffy, my face and chest are pink from orgasm. My eyes are large, wet pools, and my hair is an absolute wreck. I look like I’ve had a few good days of nonstop fucking and that thought alone makes me wonder what I’d look like then.

When I walk out of the bathroom, I’m not really sure what to do. Do I go home? Stay the night? At least stay a bit longer? But Lachlan is at the door, already fully dressed with the dogs on leashes.

“Come on,” he says. “Let’s go for a walk.”

I’m totally naked still. I eye the silky dress on the floor. My heels are in the bedroom. They’re clothes for getting fucked in, not for taking dogs for a walk.

He’s smiling at me, amused, as I quickly slip my dress over my head then head back into his room to retrieve my heels. I slide them on, and when I come out of the room, he’s holding a black leather moto jacket out for me. It’s huge and looks like he’s had it for decades.

“To keep you warm,” he says as he puts it over my shoulders. He eyes me up and down, admiring the look. He nods and makes an agreeable noise. I pull it close around me and breathe in deep. The jacket is a relic, but it smells amazing, like him.

Though the little dog, Emily, is still looking at me like I’m public enemy number one, we get the dogs into the elevator and walk toward the waterfront. I’m amazed at how well they are behaving with him, walking on a leash like its second nature. It seems unlikely that he can’t train them.

My mind wants to focus on what he said earlier: behavioral problems. But I push the thought away. Even if it’s true, the fact that Lachlan has issues doesn’t scare me at all. In fact, it’s pretty obvious, just from looking into his eyes, that there are some demons deep inside of him. My only problem is the need to find out. My damn curiosity. If he’s broken, how and why? Because he was put in an orphanage? I can only imagine growing up like that would provide you with a lifetime of personal demons.

“So,” Lachlan drawls out in his thick brogue as we sit down on a bench, the Bay Bridge nearly over us. “I was wondering…how would you like to come away with me on Friday and Saturday night?”

My heart does a flip. “But I thought you leave on Sunday?”

“Aye, I do,” he says, twisting the ends of the leash over and over again in his hands. “It’s…last minute.”

“Where would we go?”

“Napa Valley,” he says, stealing a glance at me. “Bram invited us.”

“Us?” I repeat.

He nods once. “Yes. One last hurrah or something like that. He and Nicola. Linden and Steph. And…you and me.” He pauses. “I haven’t told him yes or no. I wanted to ask you first. I know that we don’t know each other well and that going away on a trip can be a minefield for relationships. As if relationships aren’t minefields by themselves.” He looks away and smiles bitterly at some memory, his face shadowed in the streetlights. “I also know that this…” He gestures with his finger between us, “…is different.”

“Not a relationship,” I fill in, even though something shifts in my chest when I say that.

He squints at me for a moment. “No. So what do you say?”

“Well, of course I want to go,” I tell him, putting my hand over his, partly to make a point, and partly to stop his nervous fidgeting. It’s almost adorable.

“You don’t think it’s odd? To go off with me?”

Hell, I’d follow you anywhere. But of course I don’t say that.

“It’ll be fun,” I tell him. “So long as we get more than enough time to ourselves.”

“My cousins will have to drag us from our room,” he says, and his expression is still so sincere that I know he means it. He lifts my hand up, flips my palm over, and kisses it, his lips so full, soft. and wet, his gaze never leaving my face. I love that he does that. Not the back of my hand, always the palm, the love lines, where my skin is delicate and my nerves ignite.

After we sit by the water for a bit, watching the cars on the bridge and the reflection of the lights on the silver water of the bay, we head back to the apartment. It’s still relatively early and we fall back into his bed, our bodies finding each other again. His hunger for me just doesn’t seem to abide, and I don’t think I’ll ever get my fill. We fuck and fuck again, every way we can, until it’s after midnight and I know, I know I have to go home.

Somehow I force myself to leave him. I kiss him goodbye as he stands naked in his doorway, not caring at all who might walk past. His eyes are soft, that beautiful peace he gets from sex, as he watches me go down the hall to the elevator. Not smiling, just watching.

Maybe wishing, just as I wish, that we didn’t hear that clock ticking in the back of our minds.

Counting down.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Kayla

I am completely obsessed with Lachlan McGregor.

And not in the good way, in the coy, polite, restrained, never giving into my urges kind of way like most proper girls are. Oh no, not me. I’m obsessed in the can’t stop furiously masturbating every moment I get because I can’t get him out of my head way. I can’t stop seeing his hips as they drive and drive and drive into me, I can’t stop feeling his lips on my skin, the way he refers to my cunt in that overly Scottish way, the way he looks at me sometimes like he can’t believe I’m there. I can’t stop picturing his beautiful face, his tattoos, and the parts of him they represent, the parts he locks away and rarely shows. I can’t stop obsessing over every detail of his existence.

Because it makes me happy. It makes me so fucking happy that I think I might be going insane. My heart is permanently swollen, like a red balloon, and the more it pushes at my chest, as if my body, my soul, isn’t big enough to contain it all, the more alive I feel. My head is just this fuzzy, warm, sparkling place, and I’m walking through the moments of the day in a dream. A beautiful dream that doesn’t end.

Before today I could hide my obsession. I kept it inside. But now that he’s gotten inside me, I can’t will it away. It has people in my office asking me if I’m on drugs. It has me smiling, beaming, at strangers on the street. It has me wondering if I should be committed, because feelings like this aren’t normal and aren’t to be trusted, but I feel too good to even care.