Page 7 of Scotch on the Rocks

She hummed in pleasure. I risked a glance and swore as her back arched. “I’m in charge, remember?” Her moan cut straight out my fantasies.

“You’re in charge. But unless you want a head-on collision in your near future, you’ll grant me this small mercy.” My hands white-knuckled around the wheel, fighting the need to glance again. To find the nearest side street and watch her stroke herself into oblivion. “I’ll gladly watch you pet that pussy all night if that’s what you want. Once I get you there safely.”

At the next junction, the hotel came into view. Tyres spat gravel as I careened into the car park.

“Around the back,” Juniper panted.

I parked haphazardly beneath a streetlight. Throwing myself from the car and around the bonnet with singular intent. Juniper already had the door open. I caught it,swinging it the rest of the way. Grasping her thigh and spreading it further until I could see all of her. Endless legs, drenched thighs and the prettiest pussy I’d ever bloody seen. I needed to taste her, right there on the cracked leather.

“Now, Macabe.” Eyes fluttering closed, she fell back on her elbows. “Are you going to fuck me better than he ever did?”

More turned on than I’d ever been, it took a moment for her words to register. When they did, my body responded as if to an ice plunge. Pure dread followed by a cold so bitter, it hollowed out my insides.

My lips were a fraction from her clit. Close enough to scent her.Tasteher if I dipped my tongue out.

“Fuck you better thanwho, Juniper?” Clearly I was a fucking masochist because I knew who.

“Forget it …” Her thighs tightened around my shoulders. “Just … just fuck me already.”

Don’t stop, my mind screamed at me.You both want it. You’re never going to get this chance again.

It was the tight squeeze of her eyes that had me stumbling back.If I continued, would it even be me fucking her?Or the memory of him?

Heart wrenching, my hands shook as I tugged her skirt down. “I’m sorry.”

A single beat of silence and she pushed to sit. “You’re not serious?”

I shook my head, trying to block out the burn of rejection in hers. “I can’t … we shouldn’t—”

She barked a cruel laugh. “You couldn’t even get me off before deciding to grow a conscience?”

“Fuck, harpy, I’m—”

“Don’t you dare apologise again.” She half fell from thecar, snatching up her jacket and purse. The lights in the car park just bright enough to reveal the deep red of her cheeks.

“I didn’t mean – I shouldn’t have – you don’t really want this.”

She halted but didn’t turn. “You’re suddenly an expert on what I want?”

“No. But I know it’s not this.”Not me. “And I refuse to do something I’ll regret in the morning.” The words were all wrong. I knew it the second they left my lips.

The world seemed to stop, the sound of the traffic disappeared as the moment stretched between us. Suddenly I was back on a Glasgow train platform, watching the only woman to spike my interest in years walk away from me.

Only this time she didn’t speak. There was no smirk. No witty retort. Just climbed the steps to her hotel. And then she was gone.

NOW

Five Years Later, Kinleith

1

Callum

Mal: Where the hell are you?

Mal: Heather is going to dump my mutilated corpse into the sea if she has to wait for the food any longer!

Callum: Sorry! Give me ten minutes.

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