Page 57 of Kilt Trip

“You sound like Elyse.”

“No, Elyse sounds like me. Or a caricature of me. Shut up.” The flush on her cheeks was probably from the dancing, but it warmed his chest either way.

Malcolm shouted, “Now your side partner!” and Logan repeated the box step with Ravi.

“And down the line!”

The four people at the ends linked hands up and over the two lines while everyone crouched down, clapping and laughing.

They repeated the steps until the song changed, and they fell back into their parallel lines. The people at the far end hooked elbows and spun like cogs twisting down the line.

The utter mayhem that was Birdie and Gertie barreled toward them, and Logan pulled Addie out of the crosshairs. She stumbled and fell against his chest. Her face glowed, framed by the light curls at her temples. One glittery smile and he wanted to bury his hands in her hair, push her against the castle wall and claim her mouth, the tourists be damned.

He reluctantly released her. In true ceilidh fashion, the fiddlers picked up the tempo, and the group devolved into absolute chaos, a flurry of shoulder bumps, sweaty palms, and beaming faces.

By the end of the song, Addie was on the other side of the room. She locked eyes with him and tilted her head out the door. He followed as if attached with a string.

Laughable, really, that he’d once thought he wanted to avoid this woman.

“I want to show you something,” she said when he reached her.

“Trying to get me alone?” His heart beat in time with the lively music, anticipation pulsing in his veins.

“I don’t actually want to see what’s under your kilt, Logan.”

A laugh burst from his chest, and he followed Addie into a room full of marble busts on pedestals. Lanterns hung from the ceiling, so dim they might have housed real fire.

“I found a Macrae in here earlier.”

“Look at you, connecting with your heritage.”

Her hips swayed as she wound through the room, and she tossed a dirty look over her shoulder. “Here he is.” She gestured to the grizzled bust before bending to inspect the plaque, and Logan kept his eyes resolutely off her arse.

He leaned in closer, if only to take a deep breath of her perfume, like late-summer flowers, and to have a better view of the subtle curve of her lips. “Handsome bloke.”

Addie tilted her head toward him, eyes twinkling. She picked at the inscription and the bust wobbled. As she steadied the column, she gave Logan a wide-eyed look that turned his insides to mush. She was downright addicting.

A part of his brain urged him to at least have a bit of fun before she left—no matter how irresponsible it might be. To pull her in closer. To cross his self-imposed barriers.

It was becoming impossible to resist her.

“Loch Lomond” started playing in the dance hall. “Oh, this is the one Scottish song I know.” The excitement in Addie’s voice nipped at his heart.

Against his better judgment, he started singing. Addie giggled, and he took her hand, twirling her. She came in strong for the chorus with a blundering accent and ended her spin in his arms.

Logan’s muscles tensed, his fingers tingling with the urge to sink into her hair or her hips. Preferably both. He settled for spreading his hand over her jeans at the curve of her lower back, his thumb flirting dangerously with the tie of her open-backed shirt.

He leaned into the light pressure of her fingers on his chest, and the heat from her body singed him through the cotton of his button-up.

He’d forgotten how small she was. She was always such a formidable opponent.

They moved in a tight circle, their legs brushing with each turn. They were dangerously close to a tented-tartan situation he wasn’t one hundred percent certain she’d appreciate. His mind prickled with the need for familiar ground. “What do you have to say for yourself, sabotaging my tour yesterday?”

She staged a gasp, complete with a fluttering hand to her chest. “I did no such thing.”

It took everything in him not to smile at her. Or lean down and claim her lips. “Yes, you did. The drive is so long. I want a massage. The rugs need upgrading.”

Addie smirked up at him. “It was only a little to prove a point. And only because it makes you so surly.”

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