As they approached Ardknocken, mist hovered over the hills, white wisps drifting across the black sky and tangling around the top of Ardknocken House. It seemed to be the season for mists. Louise watched it for a while, disturbed by the inevitable memory of her first meeting with Thierry.
She frowned, and they both began to speak at once.
“Why were you…?” she began.
“How could you…?” Thierry asked at the same time.
They broke off.
“You first,” Thierry said. “I can wait.”
Louise shrugged in quick apology. “I just wondered what took you into the hills when the mist was so thick. It’s not generally a good idea.”
Thierry shrugged. “I like mist. Since I was a child. I like to lose myself in it, as if it’s another world. I used to make up stories that happened in this other world. I was going to ask how is it you saw so well in such impenetrable fog? It was opaque, but you knew exactly where to go and where not to.”
Louise, still mulling over this new aspect to his personality, answered in a distracted way, “Familiarity, I suppose. I just remember the way. Or at least my feet do.”
“But why did you go out in it in the first place? Up there”—he lifted one finger from the wheel in the direction of the big house and the hills behind—“isn’t exactly en route to anywhere else. And you weren’t dressed for hill walking.”
They’d come to the fork in the road. Left led into the heart of the village and the B&B. Right went uphill to the big house.
“It was an impulse,” Louise said, then suddenly leaned forward and twisted the wheel to the right. The car swerved up the right fork.
Thierry straightened it without looking at her. “Thank God we don’t live on a main road. I couldn’t face many five-car pile-ups. Where are we going?”
Louise sat back with an embarrassed laugh. “I don’t know. Sorry. That was another impulse. I just had the idea we could walk a little way in this mist. I’d like to hear your stories, and I can make sure we’re safe.” She glanced at his face. “Or you could just drop me here.”
Steadily, he drove past the gates of Ardknocken House and the two cottages beyond until the road fizzled into dirt track.
He stopped the car and turned with quiet deliberation to face her. “Aren’t you afraid to go into the mist with me again?”
Heat seeped into her face. “I’m not offering a fuck. If that’s what you want, you should have asked in Oban.”
He released his seat belt, opened the car door without looking at either. “I’ll try to remember.”
So will I.
Thierry didn’t appear to bear a grudge for her sudden spurt of ill nature. As she got out of the car and joined him, he took her hand with perfect ease and began to walk towards the hill.
After a few steps, he paused. “You’re wearing sandals,” he remembered.
She drew him on. “We won’t need to go far. The mist is coming down to meet us.”
It was, almost swooping down the hill until the first tendrils curled around Thierry’s hair. Louise walked faster. Thierry smiled in a distant way, as if in recognition.
“Do you suppose it’s always the same mist?” Louise said on impulse. “The same moisture that forms and fades and reforms into the next one? Perhaps I’ve been walking through exactly the same mist all my life. The same as my great-grandparents saw, and their great-grandparents…” She stretched one hand out in front of her, catching at the elusive tendrils that swirled around her fingers and couldn’t be caught. “It feels old, doesn’t it? Like the hills themselves. As if it’s always been here and always will be…”
She dropped her arm with a half laugh of embarrassment. “All right, that’s enough of my imagination. Now for yours. Tell me a story.”
He did.
* * * * *
It was easy to lose himself in the secret mist-enclosed world, to tell some of the stories within stories that had been driving him over the last few days. He barely had to think about them as he talked, which was fortunate, for most of his mind, and all of his body, seemed to be taken up with the woman beside him. Her beauty shone bright and silver as the mist gathered, swirling between them, tugging at his heart and his loins. Electricity sparked from her palm to his as her fingers curled more tightly. Heat from her body invaded his from every tiny touch; her unique scent of citrus and spring flowers flooded his senses.
At least the mist might hide the bulge in his pants, he thought ruefully, although he had no chance of concealing the quickening of his breath for very long. Her every movement, so close to him, touching, was exquisite torture. He had to keep reminding himself of his reasons for leaving Oban, when she’d been ready to stay, and of her words before they got out of the car. Neither made sense any longer, but they were all that kept him from crushing her in his arms, flinging her on the ground and fucking her to distraction. Just like before.
Worse, her shoulder pressed into his with increasing strength, her breath came in short, erratic bursts, as if she felt it too, this overwhelming, soul-searing lust…
God knew, he was only human. With a groan he hoped she didn’t hear, he spun them around. “Back,” he uttered.
Her fingers were trembling, but she didn’t object, merely nudged him back onto the path and kept walking.
She cleared her throat. “You should write it down.”
He couldn’t think what she meant, for the lust addling his brain.
“Your story,” she said breathlessly. “You should write it.”
“I am. Sort of. I have a plan.” If he could only remember what it was. Right now, plans for getting her naked and all the things he would do to her when he succeeded were all that filled his head.
“What plan?”
“I’ll tell you if it works. Where in hell are we, Louise?”
“Coming down toward the big house.”
“How do you know?”
“I just do.” He could almost hear the frown in her voice. “You’re right, though. It is a bit weird. I’m never wrong.”
“No, you’re not,” he agreed as the house loomed out of the partially thinning mist. He could make out the dark shapes of the outhouses in the yard. Just. But as if the mist was following them, by the time they entered the yard area, nothing very much was visible at all. Louise guided him away from Rab’s workshop and onward, and he finally recognized the ground in front of his caravan.
Louise gave a little shiver that vibrated through his whole body. Finally, he snapped, pushing her against the cold metal of the caravan, dragging his fingers free of hers so he could hold her waist between both hands instead. Greedily, he stroked upwards, under her arms, over the sides of her breasts, letting his thumbs tease her maddeningly hard nipples on the way past, before he brought them downward again, sliding over her waist to her hips, which he dragged against his, pinning them hard between his raging erection and the caravan wall.
Their breaths came in tangled pants, their breath mingling like tendrils of mist.
“It doesn’t matter, does it?” she gasped. “What your guys think? What my family or the village imagines? In the mist, there is only you and me, and what we want.”
“And what is that?” he managed, his voice as laboured as his breath.
“You. I want you.” She seized his face between her hands, struggling to stand on tiptoe to reach him. He needed no further invitation, merely fell on her open mouth as he dragged her along towards the door and pushed it open.
He all but carried her inside, snapped on the light as he kicked the door shut. He had her coat off and her top up over her head before he realized she’d gone straight for the fastening of his trousers. Her impatience drove him on. Her bra unclipped and slowly falling, he shoved at her skirt and knickers while his eyes devoured her breasts.
“Oh Christ,” he muttered in anguished appreciation. He lifted her out of the rest of her clothes and stumbled to the bed, falling there with her while he kicked off his trousers. Her trembling hands tugged his shirt upwards, and he tore it off impatiently. His main, overwhelming need was to be inside her. He had to force himself to slow even a little, to find out if she was ready for him. But as his cock slid wetly among her folds, he groaned with something very like relief and drove inside her.
Her cry mingled with his, and at last, in the bliss of her sheathing body, he could make himself pause for breath.
“All right?” he managed.
“More than that!” she said fervently, her hands stroking his face. Slowly, she lifted her head from the pillow and kissed his mouth, her hips undulating beneath him, drawing him deeper, arching into him, seducing, taking. “Much, much more…”
“Then I have permission to fuck you all night?”
Her hips slammed upwards into his, which he held still only with fast-dissolving force. “If you can stand the pace,” she taunted.
“Let’s see who can stand what,” he said, catching her hands and pinning them to the pillow while he latched his mouth to one quivering nipple.
His body screamed as he teased her, arousing her with his hands and lips, with everything except actual fucking, to the shaking verge of orgasm and holding her there as she whimpered and pleaded for release, trying to buck beneath him, furiously commanding him to do it.
“Do what?” he asked huskily, pushing his tongue into her mouth while he pulled achingly at one nipple with his fingertips.
“Fuck me,” she said between her teeth, when his tongue released her. “Hard.”
“Oh, trust me, I will.”
If it hadn’t been the sexiest thing he’d ever experienced, he’d have lost control long before he did, for his body was at least as desperate as hers for completion. But this was a delicious new game that he knew, somehow, would make her all the readier for the ultimate pleasure, and make him all the more potent.
Unsure where the thought came from, he concentrated on what he could see and touch, and held on with increasingly ragged control. His curious fingers found a new pleasure point just above her anus and played there for a little. Perhaps it was her surprised gasps or involuntary writhing that distracted him, but his orgasm suddenly threatened without permission.
Groaning, he reared back and plunged into her. Control snapped, giving way only to irrepressible desire and the massive tide of pleasure roaring over him. It was as if the thick, white mist had entered the caravan walls, filling his head as he drove into Louise again and again. She clung to him, straining, writhing, her beautiful elfin face shrouded in the mist of his own lust. Just for an instant, he imagined a different face, a different beauty. If he hadn’t been so far gone, he might have been thrown enough to pause, but he couldn’t stop now, and in any case, one blink brought back the face he wanted to see, so lovely in passion.
Her voice rose up with his, eager and grateful and curiously beautiful in his ears as he hammered her to orgasm. It seemed to burst upon them both with such fury that he couldn’t stop thrusting as it took him, kept pushing into her over and over. And when she fell into another orgasm from the first, fresh arousal tore through him with the desire to make her keep coming and coming for him. Still hard, he drew up her knee, adjusting his position, and fucked her with slow, powerful, intensely sensual strokes that reached deep inside her. It felt as if she sheathed all of him, consumed him as he did her.
When her third climax broke, he came again with her, and for a while, they just lay there, boneless, tangled in a big, sweaty mess with the quilt and the half-torn-off sheet.
“Bloody hell,” she croaked, when at last her mouth could form words. “I’d ask you where you learned to do that, but I suspect I don’t want to know.”
He smiled sleepily into her breast, gave it a lazy lick. “Imagination.”
She opened one sceptical eye. “And yet the French have the reputation of being great womanizers.”
“I may be French, but I’m a computer geek. We don’t get out much in any country.”
“I think you got out enough,” she observed, flopping her arms around him.
He eased out of her so he could lie on his stomach without squashing her. With lethargic fingers, he stroked her hair, her cheek.
“We should have stayed in Oban,” she said ruefully. “I doubt that was very discreet.”
“Most of the guys are away,” Thierry said. “They go off on a bender most Friday nights. Glenn and Izzy are in the house, but I doubt anyone else is,”
She turned her head to see him better, kissed his caressing finger. “What changed your mind?”
He drew in his breath, wondering the same thing. “I don’t know. I suppose the temptation just became too much. You’re the loveliest, sexiest creature I’ve ever encountered, and I’ve no idea why you even look at me.”
She blinked. “I’ve never seen myself quite like that! ‘Boring old Louise’ fits better.”
“No, it doesn’t. You’re a beautiful, sensual little elf, put here to distract and tempt the unwary. Or even the wary.”
She touched his lips, a little shy, a little rueful. “You make me feel like that.”
“That’s because you are,” he said, sucking her finger into his mouth. Her eyes widened, and he couldn’t resist sliding down her delectable body. “Look, I’ll show you.”
“Again?” she breathed as he kissed his way down her belly to her inner thighs and the heat between.
“I promised you all night,” he said, unable to believe his luck that he could have that privilege, and took her clitoris between his teeth.
“Oh God,” she whispered.
* * * * *
It might not have been all night, but they came pretty close. At some point after her first orgasm of the night and his, the urgent need to come together had morphed into sheer joy in being together. At least for her, and judging by his constant attentions, for him too. She certainly couldn’t doubt the pleasure he’d found in her, and as she fell asleep in his arms at last, she knew only pride that she’d given him that.
She woke to sunlight and a child’s voice close by, a child she knew. Jack Ross, Izzy’s son. He must be playing in the yard—with the dog, judging by the panting and the barking she could hear. Louise smiled. Not yet ready to think beyond the general gladness and total sexual fulfilment that reached all the way down to her toes, she let the happy sounds mix with her own wellbeing.
A warm male was wrapped around her, spooned into her back with one arm lying heavily over her body. She was holding the hand at the end of that arm. When she opened her eyes, she spent a long time gazing at it. Long-fingered and capable—and, boy, did it know its way around a woman’s body. Louise felt dazed all over again as the stages of last night’s sexual marathon flashed through her mind. She wanted to turn and look at him, at his face, almost as if without that, none of what she remembered would be real. Though his arm, his body were solid enough, his breathing deep and even.
This was nice. She could get used to waking like this, even in a messy caravan.
Shit, what’s the time? Though there were no guests in the B&B, she still had to get her parents up and make last-minute preparations for the three fishing guests arriving today.
Reluctantly, she released his hand, eased out from under his arm and slid onto the floor, where she crawled over her discarded clothes to get to her bag and her phone. Just after eight thirty. Could have been worse. Aidan had told her not to hurry back, that he and Chrissy would stay the night and be there for their parents in the morning. But still, she’d been doing it for so long it went against the grain to leave it to someone else, even her brother.
Hastily, she gathered together her clothes and climbed into them. The man on the bed didn’t move. She was almost afraid to look at him now, as if one glimpse would be enough to keep her here instead of where she needed to be.
So she moved instead to the window and peeped behind the crumpled curtain. Thierry had said most of the guys were away on a bender, but even if she managed to escape from here unseen, she had to walk down the hill into the village wearing the same clothes as last night. The cat would be out of the bag in no time.
Slowly, unable not to any longer, she turned her head and looked at the sleeping man on the bed. Thierry, her lover. A complicated man she didn’t yet fully understand. He’d broken the law for his sister’s life, gone to prison to make a point. And yet he’d still got one over on the insurance company. Gazing at him as he slept like a baby didn’t bring her any revelations, though it brought a half-pleasant, half-aching lump to her throat.
His tangled hair fell forward over his thin, dark face, shadowing the hollow cheeks. Long, thick, black lashes that most women would envy curved against his skin. He almost looked like a sleeping child. Apart from the sinful mouth. And the hint of stubble.
The ache spread from her throat to her chest and stomach. She’d liked being with him last night. Not just the mind- and body-blowing sex, but talking to him, walking with him in the mist, being with him. A man of quick intelligence and limitless imagination, judging by the story he’d told her last night. He intrigued her. A lot. She wanted to know more, much more…and, of course, there was that mind- and body-blowing sex.
Shit, it was too soon to let this loose. Gossip could spoil their relationship before she did, and in any case, if the village knew…when this ended, or even if it went no farther than last night—well it would be like Dave all over again, only worse. She hated pity, the patronizing sympathy, whether real or faked in order to gain a bit more juicy information. It would be bad enough that Aidan and Chrissy knew. And Izzy.
Hmm. Izzy…
Saturday morning, with Jack and Rover playing outside. What would Izzy be doing? Louise took a last, long look at Thierry. Probably much the same as what Louise wanted to be doing. Instead, she turned away, took out her phone and quickly texted Izzy.
“You’re dressed.” The deep, sleepy voice from the bed slid over her senses like warm silk.
Hastily, Louise hit Send and turned to face Thierry. He’d propped his head up on his hand, his dark eyes softened by sleep as they gazed up at her. The drooping quilt revealed enough manly chest, shoulder and bicep to set her already erratic pulse racing. He shouldn’t be allowed to smile like that.
She swallowed. “Yes, I’ve got to go, let Aidan escape. Busy day.”
“Of course.” The thick, black lashes came down, hiding however he felt about that.
Shit. She wouldn’t let this become an embarrassing morning after the one-night stand that shouldn’t have happened. She needed to get out before the suspicion became incontrovertible reality.
She gave him a bright smile and a wink. “You’ve got my number. See you!”
She dropped the phone in her bag and stepped over fallen clothes, books and computer bits to the door. She’d closed her fingers around the handle before she registered the sudden movement and Thierry’s hand closed over hers.
Stark-naked, he brushed against her. And, God, he was gorgeous.
“Come back,” he said seriously, and her smile was no longer an effort.
“If you like,” she managed.
“I like. Last night was wonderful. All of it.” His free hand reached up and cupped her cheek. He bent and kissed her upturned mouth.
“I thought so,” she whispered honestly. Both arms came around her then as he kissed her again. His naked erection pushed against her stomach. She ran her fingers through his hair, holding him as she kissed him back.
In her bag, her phone pinged. They both ignored it.
“I’ve got to go,” Louise said again, breathlessly and a lot more happily than the first time. Releasing him with inevitable reluctance as his arms fell away from her, she grabbed her phone instead. “Izzy,” she explained. “Our secret get-out-of-gossip card.”
She stood on tiptoe to give him a last, quick kiss, then slipped out of the caravan.
The cold morning air blasted her back to reality. Though there was no sign now of last night’s mist, the sky was unrelievedly grey. As she walked quickly away from the caravan, Jack and Rover came bounding towards her. Beyond them, Izzy was emerging from the back door of the house, struggling into her jacket. She carried a shoulder bag and the dog’s lead.
“Thanks for this,” Louise murmured to Izzy as they walked down the drive behind Jack and Rover. “A family outing is just the cover I need.”
“Well, you’ve clearly spent the night with us,” Izzy agreed. “I gather all went well with Thierry?”
Louise gave her a quick, half-sheepish smile that made Izzy laugh.
“Why didn’t you stay in Oban?” Izzy asked.
“I don’t know. He didn’t seem to want to. It wasn’t right, then, for some reason. Then, when we came home, we went for a walk and suddenly it was right.”
“Then you’re seeing him again?”
“I think so. I hope so.”
Izzy nudged her in friendly approval. “I like Thierry. And I think he’s always been a good man.”
“I think so too. In spite of everything. Like Glenn.”
“Not quite like Glenn,” Izzy said cautiously. “Glenn must always have been good at heart, but I think he had to learn to be good in practice.”
She didn’t usually talk about Glenn’s past, or even refer to it, so Louise was intrigued to hear more. When it didn’t come, she said instead, “Talking of Glenn, sorry if I dragged you away from a romantic morning.”
To her surprise, Izzy blushed. “No, no, he needs to sleep since he’ll be up most of tonight with his fishermen. I’m happy to go into the village to buy breakfast and chaperone you. Should we go to the tea room?”
“I’d love to, but I’d better get home, let Aidan and Chrissy escape. He’s going back to Glasgow tomorrow, so they’ll want some time at the cottage.”
“Fair enough.” Izzy increased her pace and raised her voice. “Jack! Catch Rover before he gets out the gate!”
* * * * *
Aidan and Chrissy proved to be surprisingly diplomatic, making no mention of her all-night absence. Of course, they’d already brazened out the village gossip and so understood to some degree at least. But, right now, she couldn’t imagine anyone could possibly comprehend her amazing night with Thierry.
Aidan did pause at the living room door as Chrissy said goodbye to his parents.
“Learn anything?” he asked her.
“There was more money,” Louise said, “but he says he doesn’t have it, doesn’t know where it is. He doesn’t seem remotely bothered that anyone might trace it to him.”
“Because it isn’t with him?” Aidan said slowly, frowning.
Louise said earnestly, “I really don’t think it is. I don’t think he’d do anything to endanger the project or the guys at the big house.”
“Then what did he do with it? Why did he take it in the first place?”
“For his sister. It was all for his sister.”
This didn’t appear to be news to Aidan. “No, we’ve accounted for all her bills. He paid them off the first money, and gave the rest back. But London and Scottish are sure he’s responsible for a second money drain, and you’re saying he’s admitted to it.”
“Talk to him, Aidan,” she pleaded. “He’s not a bad man. He’s not a villain.”
Aidan’s lips twisted into a smile. “You’re empathizing. The curse of undercover work.”
It might have been a double entendre. She didn’t find out, since Chrissy hauled him out of the room. She didn’t even care. Her head was full of Thierry.
The mild ache between her legs was a constant reminder of their wild night together, which she took with her as she moved through the mundane tasks of normal life.
She found herself singing as she worked and showered and changed. When the fishermen arrived, she found them charming, and they pronounced their accommodation very nice.
“I’ll leave you to it, then,” she said brightly. “The beach and the harbour are just around the corner—there’s a tea room down at the beach, and a couple of shops in the village High Street. I believe Dougie’s going to take you up to the big house about six? Until then, let me know if you need anything.”
They murmured their thanks from their respective bedroom doors. Two of them vanished within. The third and youngest of the three, Stewart Lane, lingered a moment longer.
“I’m a bit surprised,” he said, “to see such co-operation between the village and Ardknocken House. I thought there would be more ill feeling in the village.”
“Well, there was a bit of a hate campaign in the local media when it first began,” Louise said easily. “And we were certainly all a bit wary at first, but they kept themselves to themselves until we began to accept them. They’re just people like us who’ve paid for their mistakes. And no one objects to the extra business they bring to the village.”
It had become her standard reply to curious outsiders, although, in fact, the residents of the big house were very far from general acceptance. Most people tolerated their presence, at best, although a few were pleasantly surprised, especially those who’d had their cars fixed by Dougie, or who’d bought jewellery or carved ornaments on craft days. And of course the evening workshops were helping too.
“Then you know them quite well?” her guest pursued.
“Well enough to assure you you’ll be well looked after, and won’t get your pocket picked during dinner.”
He smiled easily. “That would be bad for business.”
“Ruinous,” Louise said cheerfully. The doorbell rang. “Excuse me! Just give a shout if you need anything.”
She ran downstairs to the front door and opened it to find George Harris on the doorstep in full uniform.
“Hello, Louise, got a few minutes?”
“Sure.” Thinking it was something to do with Nicole’s complaint—Aidan must have persuaded her to go ahead with it after all—she invited the policeman inside, led him into the living room and left him with her parents while she made tea.
“It’s about Ronald Main,” he said as she handed him the mug. He’d taken off his hat, laid it on the arm of his chair. “I believe he’s been staying in your flat?”
“Yes, that’s right.” Louise gave her parents a cup each and turned back to face George. “What about him?”
George gave an apologetic grimace. “Afraid he’s dead.”