“Ugh,” I say, making a face at myself in the mirror. “I don’t know.” I turn to face him as he leans against the bathroom door. “Do I look okay?”

He raises a brow. “Are you taking the piss?”

“No, I am not taking the piss, though I’m still not sure what that means.”

He shakes his head, walking over to me. He studies my face, blinking in almost disbelief, before brushing my hair off my shoulders. My eyes close, surrendering briefly to his touch.

“It means you’re insane if you think you don’t look okay,” he says in a growly voice. “And that I’ll never think you’re anything other than beautiful.”

“You know how to say all the right things,” I tell him, and he plants a few kisses down my neck, making me shiver.

“Because I’m with the right girl,” he says against my skin.

I swallow at that, trying to find the courage to speak. “About that,” I say softly. “Am I your girl?”

He pauses and pulls back to observe me, brows pinched together. “What are you on about?”

“Am I your girl? I mean, we’ve never really discussed our actual relationship, what we are with each other, and so…I don’t want to be presumptuous and assume I’m more to you than I am. So I just wanted to know, so I could be clear, you know…how you feel.”

Oh god. I’m a rambling fool.

He stares at me for a long moment, which only makes me wince. Finally he says, “I invited you to come to Scotland with me. I bought you a plane ticket just on the hope that you would come. Kayla…you’re my girl. You’re my beautiful world. And I’m whatever you want me to be, just as long as you know that I have never, ever, felt this way about someone in my entire life.” He lowers his face, eyes focused intently on my lips. “I’m losing myself in you. Every day. And it’s the most wonderful, terrifying feeling in the world. If I’m being honest here, you’re starting to drive me a bit mad in my affections for you. I don’t know if I will ever be of right mind again.”

Jesus. My heart is near combustion. His words are like sunshine, banishing everything scary and dark. It’s everything I want to hear.

I clear my throat, trying to act cool. “So, am I your girlfriend or what?”

He grins at me. “You’re my girlfriend. My girl. My woman. And I’m all yours.”

“My man,” I say, kissing the stubble on his cheek. “My beast.” I pause. “My sex slave.”

“Bloody right I am,” he says before kissing me so deeply that it steals my breath away.

Satisfied that I look okay, at least to him, I snatch up my purse and we head on out for the night. Lachlan calls a taxi, and it’s only about ten minutes before we’re on Grassmarket, heading for the pub. This one in particular is underground, though it’s done up with lots of teak wood and orange and green plaid seatbacks.

Lachlan nods at a table near the middle of the room where his teammates are sitting. I recognize them both from earlier, even though I was watching from far away.

“Hello, hello,” says one with a crooked nose and a mop of reddish brown hair. The other one, olive-skinned and darkly handsome, just nods with a shy smile.

“John,” Lachlan says to the ginger, then nods at the other one. “Thierry.” He pronounces his name like “tea-erry,” which sounds terribly French to me. “This is Kayla.”

“Ah,” Thierry says, and low and behold, he was a terribly French accent. “Nice to finally meet you. You must be the reason Lachlan’s been fumbling at practice.”

Lachlan gives him the stink-eye which would make any another man shrink in his seat, but Thierry only gives us a slow smile, pleased with himself.

“Oy,” John says, elbowing Thierry in the side. “You better watch your mouth, mate, or I’ll tell Lachlan all about your latest escapades over the summer.”

“Latest escapades?” Lachlan repeats, clearly interested. He sits down across from them and motions for me to do the same. “What did I miss?”

Thierry rolls his eyes but says nothing. He folds his arms across his wide chest and looks away.

“You see here,” John says, leaning forward with a goofy grin. “And I only found this out a few minutes ago, so you can’t blame it for being fresh in my mind, but it turns out Thierry met a girl back in Paris over the summer. She broke his bloody heart, though if we know our Thierry well, he probably broke hers. Always playing the victim, eh, Thierry? On the pitch and off.”

Lachlan is grinning at this and gives me a conspiratorial glance. “Thierry is what we call a manwhore, so even the idea that someone could have broken his heart is nearly joyous news.”

I look at Thierry and can immediately see why he’d be breaking hearts. He’s not as tall or as built as Lachlan, and he only has a few tattoos on one bicep, but with his warm dark eyes, honey skin, smooth lips, and thick black hair, he’s pretty arresting. If I wasn’t attached to the most gorgeous, giving man on the planet, I could see myself throwing some flirts his way. He definitely looks like he’s built for speed and agility.

“So,” Lachlan says to him with a nod. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Thierry gives him a dry look. “Right. To you, of all people.”

Lachlan shrugs. “Fair enough.”

“Though I have to say I’m surprised you dared to bring this beautiful woman to meet us,” Thierry says. He gives me an apologetic smile. “Rugby players aren’t known for being very classy.”

“Only French rugby players,” John jokes. “You should see him when he makes a try. He practically ballroom dances across the line, like a fucking pansy-footed waltz.”

“Well, I’m not very classy either,” I tell them. “Which is probably why I get on with Lachlan so well.”

“Get on?” John repeats. “You’re sounding like him, too.”

“I’m going to get you a drink,” Lachlan says and quickly leaves the table. I don’t miss the warning look he shoots his teammates.

They, of course, ignore it.

“So where on earth did you meet Lach?” John asks. “Don’t tell me they play rugby in America.”

“Actually, they do. He joined a pick-up league for a bit,” I tell them.

Thierry laughs. “That I would love to see. What a one-sided game that must have been.”

“He was trying to downplay his skills, but I don’t think it worked.” I turn to John. “I met him through friends. My two best friends are with his cousins.”

“Huh,” John says. “Seems I need to go to America to meet a good woman.”

“No,” Thierry points at him with his beer. “You need to go to France.”

He shakes his head. “They sound like heartbreakers over there, no thank you. As you can tell, Kayla, deep down inside, we’re all a bunch of softies looking for love in all the wrong places.”

I shrug. “Aren’t we all?”

They both exchange a questioning look. Thierry cocks his head at me. “Do you think you’re looking in the wrong place?”

I’m not sure what to do with that question because it’s oddly serious for what we were just talking about.

“I hope not,” I tell them just as Lachlan comes back, putting two big pints of dark beer on the table, foam spilling over the sides.

“Sorry, love,” he says to me. “They’re out of cider and their house wine is rubbish.”

“That’s okay,” I tell him, actually preferring the dark Scotch ales over the stuff at home.

“Hopefully they weren’t giving you a hard time,” he says, eyeing them both cautiously.

“Them?” I say. “They’re nothing but pussycats.” I raise my glass. “Here’s to you, softies.”

We all clink glasses, and as if on cue, the music in the pub gets louder.

More people come in.

The sky goes dark beyond the narrow basement windows.

By the time I’m done with my giant beer, Lachlan is on his third, as are Thierry and John.

They are all drunk and I’m struggling to catch up. The thing is, it’s loud in here and there are a bunch of girls giving Lachlan and Thierry the “eyes” and the music is grating and I’m feeling left out of the drunken conversation. They try to bring me in but their accents get thicker and thicker until I can barely understand what they are saying. I just want to drink more so that everything stops annoying me. But the beer is so strong and thick it takes forever to get through another glass.