Page 78 of Scotch on the Rocks

Those gloves saw more action than I was willing to admit.

I usually detested room changeovers, but today I craved the physical work. Turning the music on my headphones up a level, I beat my fist into the pillow again, the image flicking between Callum and Alistair’s too handsome faces.

Alistair was back in Kinleith.

It felt as though he’d crossed an invisible boundary line, spinning all my carefully crafted calm out of control. The control that Callum had been chipping away at for weeks now, if I was being honest.

I should have expected it – Ihadexpected from the moment Heather had informed me of their father’s diagnosis. Alistair would never stay away when he had an ill family member. I’d spent weeks looking over my shoulder every time I set foot in the village. And when he hadn’t shown, I’d started to relax.

My own damn fault.

I punched the pillow again, taking pleasure in that resultingthwackthat reverberated against my hand.

I wasn’t certain what had affected me more. Seeing Alistair for the first time since he shattered my heart or his brief head tilt when he’d spotted Callum and I together. I recognised that head tilt. I called it his equation-solving head tilt, when I knew his mind was racing over every possible outcome until he found the most likely. Would he ever guess that his big brother had eaten me out so carnally, I’d thought I might die from the painfully sweet bliss of it?

I hadn’t felt this kind of panic since the night Alexander had died and my emotions raged so forcefully, they’d felt too much for my body to contain. Then Alistair had ended things, and I’d just shut it all off. I returned to Skye permanently like a dutiful daughter should and had been going through the motions ever since.

Until last night, a voice taunted.And that night in Glasgow.

I hated to admit it, but Callum was right. Some instinct in him justknewwhat I needed, what got me off. It couldn’t be a coincidence that the two single times I’d felt anything other than a hollow rage in the last six years, Callum Macabe had a direct line of contact to my clit. I didn’t believe in coincidences.And that was a problem because despite this morning, despite the fact I couldn’t stand him half the time – I wanted to feel that rush again. I already knew how good it would be. Only now it was my turn to give him pleasure, and I wanted him out of control and slack-jawed for meas I did so.

I was sliding the pillow into a fresh case when a hand landed my shoulder.

“Shit—” I tore out my earbuds. “Heather, you scared the crap out of me!” She was the last person I expected to see.

“I’m sorry.” Her expression turned sheepish. “Hank said you’d be up here. He looked about ready to go to war.”

I let the pillow fall, sinking down onto the mattress. “Hank did?” He’d given me a once-over when I’d raced through the back door like a bat out of hell, tears crusting my eyes together. I didn’t stop to think if he’d put two and two together. “You saw Alistair?” I asked, understanding dawning.

A sympathetic smile twisted her pretty features. “No. Callum told me. He said you were waiting in line at Brown’s when he showed up and that you might need someone to talk to.”

Damn if that wasn’t a little sweet. It made me feel nauseous. “He shouldn’t have bothered you, I’m fine.” I flopped onto my back, lying diagonally across the bed. If she was here to yell at me again, she could go right ahead. I didn’t have the energy to argue.

After a quiet moment, her weight settled beside mine. “This mattress is comfy.”

“Thanks. I updated them to memory foam last year.”

We lay like that for a few minutes, watching the interspersed cloud cover lighten and darken the room before she said, “Want to know who you remind me of?”

“Morticia Addams?” I asked hopefully.

She snorted. “Yes– but no. You remind me of Malcolm.”

Horrified, I tilted my head to look at her. “Your brother Malcolm?”

“Don’t look like that, Mal is amazing.”

I agreed but, “Mal is …soft. Sickeningly sweet sometimes, I’m none of those things.”Shit. Did other people think that?

She laughed at my description of her brother. “He is all of those things, but for so long he didn’t know how to show it. He kept all his emotions buried inside and everyone who loved him at arm’s length.”

“You think that’s what I’m doing?”

Her face twisted, blonde hair like a halo around her head. “Will you be mad if I say yes?”

I bit my lip. “I wouldn’t be mad. But I would tell you that you’re searching for a problem that isn’t there.” Keeping my emotions to myself didn’t make me repressed. I just preferred to handle my shit alone, like I always had.

I glanced again to discover her already watching me, Macabe eyes roving gently over my face as though, after twenty-five years of friendship, she was seeing me for the first time and was disappointed in what she found. “All right, June.” She faced the ceiling. I thought she was about to leave until— “I’m sorry.”

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