“Show me.”

His words ripped the orgasm out of me and I came wildly, unraveling for him, pulsing around his fingers and losing the world around me.  I had given Callum everything inside me by the time he pulled me back down onto him, draping my arms over his shoulders and watching me catch my breath.  He let himself crack a smile as I shook my head in disbelief of where he’d brought me.  His fingers brushed up and down my back as he wrapped his arms around my waist.  I could feel the affection in his touch and I could see the admiration in his eyes.

But swirling through the air were a million words unsaid.

He wanted to ask me something, I could feel it.  I sensed it hanging in the deep silence and I knew it was about me.  I knew it was about what he still didn’t know.  I could ease Callum’s every physical ache and he could addict me to his passion, but we were still incomplete.  And it was because of me.  Because of the secret I insisted on keeping.

Closing my eyes, I rest my head on his shoulder, relishing his gentle stroke of my hair.  I thanked God he didn’t break the silence or ask me a thing but at the same time, I felt a weight pulling at my heart.  Because no matter how much I filled his need, whatever I gave was sucked right back out but what I refused to tell.

Chapter Fourteen

Callum

I was in my office at The Pike when Ana Hale called from the Times with “good news, bad news and an idea.”  Our piece in their magazine was going to run later than expected.  Apparently, she’d shown what she had to her editor and it’d been good enough to warrant a single positive concern: that readers would want more.

“They want it to be longer.  More detail – specifically on you, which I don’t blame them for.”  Her flirtatious voice on speaker lifted Oz’s eyebrows.  He’d come in halfway through the hall and when she said that, mouthed what the fuck while jabbing a thumb at himself.

“Really? What about Oz?”

“Him too, of course.  Both of you handsome men.”  Oz and I exchanged smirks.  “My editors were suddenly much more interested in this article after they saw your portraits from the photo shoot.”  Her giggle was surprisingly girlish.  “What can I say.  Sex sells.”

Oz pumped his fist and I laughed.  “Glad for that.  So I’ve heard the bad news and the good news at this point.  What’s the idea?”

“You, me and your Viking friend going to Scotland.”

I lifted an eyebrow.  Oz mirrored my expression.  We both nodded at each other, slow at first but with increasing excitement as Ana detailed the plan.

“They want pictures of you two at the actual home of your barrels.  Maybe a shot of the pub you met at.  We know all about the Scotch and the brand but we don’t know enough about the team behind it, so you two are going to reminisce for us in front of the scenic backdrop of Dufftown – which, of course, will boost tourism and visits to Pike Distillery.  Sound good to you?”

“Yes would be an understatement.”

“Great.  I think we’re going to have a really good time, Callum,” she said, a sultry roll in her voice.  “I’m looking forward to it.”

“Same.”

Oz laughed hard when I hung up.  “She’s not one for subtlety.  I’m sure you’ll have her bent over a barrel on the first day.”  When I didn’t give him much of a response, he grinned.  “Unless, of course, you’ve got a special thing going on with the River girl.”

“Lake.”

“Is it official? Am I gonna be fighting Logan for best man duties?”

“Doubtful.”

“What? Trouble in paradise already?”

The phrase made me snort.  My paradise with Lake was defined by trouble.  It thrived on it.  “I wouldn’t say that.”

“What would you say?”

“Nothing.”  Lake and I were unexplainable.  There was a universe of context behind every move we made and every word we spoke.  It was pointless to try to get any outside party to understand whatever entity we were on our own.  “No trouble in paradise.  We’ve been having a good time together,” I said to shut Oz up.

It wasn’t a lie.  I’d been enjoying myself with Lake.  I forced myself to forget the shitty dreams that had been plaguing me since she left.  I made myself bury the dark thoughts.  They still lingered in my head and told me she refused to reveal where she went because she had plans to go back.  But I stifled them by just being with her, watching her, taking a million notes in my head about the new things she liked.  The little habits she’d either developed while she was gone or I’d never gotten the chance to know.  They reminded me that she was real, present and right there with me.  They brought me closer to her again, connected me back in a way that made me confident that I’d feel it in the air next time – feel it in her body if she was thinking about disappearing.

I watched her sleep the way I used to.  The sound of her breathing was still exactly the same.  But in the night, she always found her way to the very edge of the bed, till she was almost falling off.  She’d stay asleep but sigh with relief when I pulled her back and bury herself straight into my chest.  In the morning, she wandered aimlessly all over the house while brushing her teeth.  A new habit.  She sometimes started the coffee machine or flipped through a magazine with her toothbrush hanging out of her mouth.  I told her to stop because I loathed the idea of toothpaste existing outside the bathroom but I eventually started following her, mostly because I was curious to see where the hell she was going, what she was even up to.  Only she could be so fucking annoying and cute in one shot.

They were small things that shouldn’t have been a story but I’d been without Lake for long enough to recognize that simply watching her was a privilege.  Her every move around the house was something I took in with pure fascination.

I loved it.  But in our fashion, of course, it all came with a downside.

Whenever I asked where the new habits came from, Lake gave a strained smile and some generic answer that I knew was a cover-up.  A complete lie.  I tried not to let that ruin it for me because for all the thrills and success that I’d achieved in recent years from building a business from just about the ground up, I was somehow finding the most satisfaction in living with Lake.  Just existing with her again.  I looked at her and knew I didn’t want anyone else.  She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever see in my life and the best feeling I could ever wish for.  There was only one thing left to want with her but obviously, it was an important one – the security of knowing that she was here to stay.

* * *

I tossed hard in bed.  I felt it yet I didn’t stir or wake and with that, with the first chords of the song, I knew what was coming.

I’d been having the dreams of Lake for so long that even in my sleep, I knew where I was – at home, in bed, simply enduring the bullshit my sick brain still insisted on putting me through.  It started the same every time, with an achingly accurate flashback to the day she left.  The memories were still vivid.  It was a Sunday and rainy.  I was twenty-one, Lake some months from the same age.  She lived in a dorm and I had my own apartment but we spent a couple weeks out of every summer living with my mom at the townhouse because it made her happy.  She needed the company.

In my dream, I always carried the context of the night before.  We’d been having dinner when my mother had asked Lake if they could do brunch the way they used to when she first moved in – big and theatric, a dazzling event complete with Ella Fitzgerald blaring on the speakers and cheek-to-cheek tangos down the hall.  Lake cringed at the childish memory but said yes – as long as my mother made Liège waffles.  “Deal.  And don’t you back out on it, girly, because I have a surprise for you.”