Page 109 of Some Like It Scot
Soul-deep.
Like, grow-old-together deep.
My palm went to my stomach. “I’d much rather stay here all cozied up inside your cottage.” Had I just said that out loud? And rushed ahead, “But I have to get back to Craighill.”
He studied me, his expression softening for an instant, and then he nodded. “Lachlan, will you run to the barn and turn off my machines, lad?”
“Aye” came the boy’s quick reply, and he dashed between me and Graeme out the door.
Graeme shook out a T-shirt on the back of the couch and looked over at me. “I’ll drive ye.” And as if it were the most natural thing to do after making such a statement, he pulled his wet T-shirt over his head.
After the tangle of emotions I’d experienced over the last twenty-four hours, adding such a sight to my psyche didn’t bode well. Because I may have survived falling off a ledge and nearly drowning in a loch, but glimpsing Graeme MacKerrow’s fine torso nearly slayed me on the spot.
Now, some gals may possess the ability to ignore an excellent male physique of refined muscles, tan skin, and well-placed traces of chest hair—I was clearly not one of those ladies. In fact, my eyeballs must have been so glued to his mighty-fine torso that his frown deepened to such a degree that his brows created a little V in the middle.
I cleared my throat and looked away.
For a second.
“Whoa, um... I think you need to... um... put all of that away.”
The V tightened the teeniest bit. “You can’t expect me to drive you to the house when I’m nearly as soaked to the skin as you were.”
“I... I, well, of course not. But you can’t go showing off all”—I waved a palm toward his well-sculpted (not that I was looking) self—“thatin public. Have you no pity for people’s eyes... or brains?”
Or walk with God.
The V completely disappeared from his forehead, replaced by something almost as dangerous as the perfect pectorals. A slow and steady smile curved from one corner of his lips to the other, lighting his eyes in a way that sent my pulse into a mad dash for the finish line. A red warning light went off in the back of my mind.
He looked around the room, which was as empty as my airway at the moment.
“Public?”
And he took a step toward me.
Have mercy. I was a goner.
“I mean... you are...” I swallowed the help-me-Jesus lump in my throat as my attention dropped back to his chest. “Thoseare dangerous and probably distracting for... people.”
His hooded look ratcheted up my heartbeat into a sure-fire gallop. “Dangerous, are they?”
My stomach dropped to the octave level of his voice.
I should probably retreat. Dash back into the rain.
Seek the assistance of a passing adult.
But my traitorous feet refused to do anything but take another step back.
He slipped the dry shirt over his head as he drew another step closer.
And my back hit the wall.
I was living proof that a human could survive internal combustionof the emotions. I’d experienced almost all of them within just a few seconds.
And survived.
But with the heat scorching my skin, I wasn’t sure for how long.
