Page 48 of Highland Games
Fiona strode up to him, taking Liam out of his arms. ‘Isn’t she beautiful?’
Rory gave Zoe a perfunctory glance up and down, then shrugged his shoulders.
Fiona walked back to Zoe, shaking her head. ‘Well, I think you look incredible. Now, what do you want the shots to be?’
Zoe stood silent, lost in thought. She knew she looked nice in the dress. It would have suited just about anyone. When she’d entered the hall, she noticed Rory’s eyes widening, his lips parting, and his cheeks burning. Even now, she could see a muscle twitching in his jaw and his hands balling into fists at his sides.
Had his behaviour simply been his attempt to keep her at arm’s length? She thought of Sam’s advice to leap on him. Easier said than done with Fiona and Liam around, but what she could do instead was a bit of scientific investigating. Playing the role of the happy couple would give her the perfect opportunity to find out what he really thought of her.
She turned to Fiona. ‘The castle is the perfect place for weddings, so I want to get a few shots that look like they could be from a real wedding. I want to keep them mid length and close up so we don’t get our shoes in. I saw a fantastic location upstairs so I thought we could start there.’
She picked up her camera and sashayed off across the hall without waiting for a reply, deliberately undulating her hips. She was going to find out the truth from Rory’s body even if his mouth remained closed. They made their way up the main staircase, and Zoe opened the door to the grandest of bedrooms. In the centre was a huge four-poster bed, the mattress so far off the ground it was at the height of her hips. The window was a three-sided alcove, a wooden window seat running along the sides. It was intimate, a place for private conversations and leisurely kisses.
‘Okay,’ said Zoe. ‘We’ll begin by the window. We need to make sure you can’t see our left hands as we don’t have any rings on.’
‘You can take mine,’ said Fiona. ‘If I can get them off that is.’ She put Liam in the middle of the four-poster bed, twisted them off and passed them to Zoe who put them on.
‘Oh, they’re beautiful, Fi! What do you think, Rory?’
He shrugged. ‘Can we get on with this so I can go back to work?’
‘Yes of course,’ said Zoe sweetly. ‘Now if you could sit there.’ She indicated the window seat and he sat down stiffly. ‘Now I’m going to sit on your lap.’ She turned her bottom towards him.
He stood back up immediately, bumping into her and sending her tripping forward into Fiona. ‘No,’ he said, his face red. ‘We need to stand.’
Zoe kept composed and noncommittal. ‘Okay, that’s fine, you stay there, let me just readjust my dress.’ Facing him, she reached down inside the front of the gown and lifted her breasts a little higher. ‘That’s better,’ she sighed.
She glanced up to see Rory staring at the front of her gown, his mouth open. He looked in agony. Zoe gave her camera to Fiona, delirious with excitement, and turned back to face him. ‘I’ve been chatting to Fi about what I want,’ she said casually. ‘I’ve put the camera on automatic, so instead of setting up each shot, we’ll just get into various poses and she’ll snap away. Okay?’
Rory nodded, fixing on a point an inch above her head. Zoe chewed her bottom lip. Rory swallowed.
‘Okay, so you stand there,’ she said. She brought herself up to him, her right hand resting on his heart, her left tucked around his waist. ‘If you could put your arms around me and look at me that would be perfect,’ she said cheerfully.
He slowly brought his arms around her as if she were the finest porcelain, and looked down into her eyes.
The rest of the world dropped away.
Zoe felt the heat from his chest under her palm, the thudding of his heartbeat. The muscles of his back tensed underneath her fingers. She breathed in the scent of woodsmoke, soap, and aroused male. She lost herself in the blackness of his dilated pupils, the irises a nebula of silver light and blue fire. Her lips parted and she licked them.
He tensed and she shifted closer, pressing herself along the length of him. There was something big, long and hard underneath his kilt, digging into her tummy. Oh my god, it hadn’t been a Maglite that day she’d pushed him off the ladder. It had been him. He hadn’t been in pain, he’d been aroused.
By her.
Rory’s cheeks were flushed, his breathing unsteady. She angled her body to his, his lips tantalisingly close. His grip tightened. He slowly brought his mouth down towards hers.
Holy crap. She wasn’t imagining what was under his kilt or his feelings for her. This incredible man was about to kiss her.
‘Keep it up! This is amazing, you guys. It looks like you’re about to kiss,’ yelled Fiona in excitement.
Rory dropped Zoe as if she was on fire and stepped away. Zoe stumbled and reached out to the window for support. There was a deafening silence, broken only by the sudden, terrifying sound of a red-faced Liam unleashing an apoocalypse into his nappy.
‘Shit, Liam, no!’ yelled Fiona, thrusting the camera at Zoe, scooping him off the bed and lifting him into the air to check for leakage.
‘Sorry! If I could control him I would. Give me five minutes, back in a bit.’ Fiona ran out of the room, Liam in her arms, and slammed the door behind her.
Zoe was left alone with a one hundred per cent aroused Rory and a four-poster bed.
Time to leap.
