Page 16 of Scotch & Shortbread

11

Even If You Begged

Damnitalltohell.He strode up beside her and caught a secure arm around her waist hiking her to him. He helped her through the revolving glass doors. Fortunately, it was late, and only the concierge was about. But he immediately looked up at them from the front desk alarm written all over his pinched face.

“It’s fine,” Alex reassured him giving him a look indicating that he should not get involved. “She’s no’ feeling well. I’m just going to help her to her room.” The balding spindly concierge looked uncertain but thankfully just nodded.

“Where’s yer room, Ms. West?”

“Sergeant Mackenzie.” She looked up at him, her drunkenness more apparent in the light of the inn. As if trying to concentrate, her pretty arched brows snapped together. “I have an idea.” Her words were subtly slurred.

Lord help him, he did not want to hear her inebriated idea, he could only imagine. Alex adjusted his grip on her as she was fairly dead weight leaning against him now.

“Just tell me yer room number,” he ordered, hoping to God the stubborn lass would just acquiesce for once.

She pouted coyly at his gruffness. “I will tell you my room number if…” She stretched out the word “if,” and Alex dreaded what was on the other side of it.

“You carry me,” she said delightedly albeit drunkenly. She promptly rolled her ankle failing to balance on her high heels any longer, but he tightened his grip on her so she wouldn’t stumble. The concierge was watching them intently, and Alex was regretting his decisions tonight. This all could have been avoided if he hadn’t gone to The Purple Deer in the first place. But he almost shuddered to think if he hadn’t been there when those arseholes surrounded her. Christ, this woman was going to drive him mad.

“Fine,” he agreed, deciding it was the quickest way to get this over with. “What’s the room number?”

“It’s just down the hall, 108,” she said grinning up at him like she’d just won a hand at a poker.

Alex unceremoniously dipped down and deftly looped an arm around her thighs while nudging his shoulder under her ribs and standing back up to his full height. She squealed in response, but then thankfully quickly relaxed and fell limp, accepting her fate. She was likely too intoxicated to fight him now, thank God. Alex could only imagine the reaction of the nervous concierge. He could practically feel the feeble man’s eyes burrowing into his back.

Noting her skirt had hiked up, with the strictest work mode manner he could muster, he snatched at the hem and yanked it back down over her well-rounded behind. He stalked down the hallway, trying his best to ignore her mumbling about how she didn’t mean for him to carry her like Santa's sack of toys or some such thing.

They got to her door, and he placed her down as fast as he’d picked her up. “Where’s yer card key?” His tone was terse.

“In my pocket,” she replied, playfully making no attempt to retrieve it as she threw him flirty bedroom eyes.

“Which pocket?” Alex was exhausted and struggling with the fact that Quinn West’s drunk girl attempts at flirting with him were somehow penetrating through his expert-level lass immunity. Alex’s teeth were practically grinding with the tension woven through his clenched jaw.

Lifting her hands in an “I don’t know” gesture tugged on Alex’s last nerve. Rightly or wrongly, he reached for both coat pockets to feel for the card. Thankfully, he found it quickly. Tapping it on the keypad, he opened the door, and with remarkable dexterity the lass sauntered away from him into the room, peeling off her high heels and jacket, and, lord help him, she casually yanked her blouse up over her head discarding it on the floor as she went.

Alex felt a trickle of sweat slide down his back as he stood at the door. He needed to leave. Now. Scanning the room from the door, looking for anything that would be of concern, he finally said gruffly, “Ye’ll be okay then?”

“Mm-hmm,” she murmured, not even glancing back at him as she walked into the bathroom. “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out, Sergeant Mackenzie,” she threw him one last jab.

Seriously? That’s what he gets for helping her? The lass was a bloody handful, and Alex had to bite his tongue to hold back a retort. Nothing would please him more than to sprint out of her room before he wrung her pretty little neck, but instead, he waited and then heard what sounded like water and teeth brushing coming from the open-door bathroom.

Satisfied that she wasn’t at risk of accidentally drowning in the tub or falling and smacking her head on a nightstand, he was about to take his cue and leave when she poked her head around the corner with a crinkle between her brows.

“You’re still here? I may be a little tipsy, but I’m not going to sleep with you if that’s what you're thinking,” she said as if it were the most ludicrous idea in the world.

Alex would have laughed at her outrageous comment, but he was too stunned. His cocky gaze narrowed on her. “I dinnae sleep with drunk women, and trust me, little lass, I wouldnae sleep with ye even if ye begged.”

The last thing he heard was her incredulous scoff as he turned and strode out of her room, savouring the finality of the door slamming behind him.

The concierge’s eyes nervously watched as Alex came out from the hallway into the main lobby. “All good, she’ll be fine.” He tried to sound professional despite the fact the jittery man just witnessed Alex hauling the woman over his shoulder to her room.

Alex peeled out of the parking lot eager to put some much-needed distance between himself and that pain in the arse woman. Christ, what a night.

12

The Morning After the Night Before

WhenQuinnawokeinthe morning with a splitting headache, she immediately looked over and felt relieved to see Meg and Belle safe in the other bed. Last night was fuzzy in her mind, and once her head hit the pillow, she’d slept like the dead. Quinn lay there in the quiet of the morning trying to piece together the events of the night. Ugh, she cringed as the memories trickled back to her. Trying to push them and her pounding headache from her mind, she drifted back to sleep.

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