Blake is inside my hotel room but standing with his back to the door. His arms are tightly crossed. ‘We can wait.’
I yank at his arms and put my hands on his chest. ‘I had exactly three sips of champagne. One for the band, one for Elizabeth and one for Beatrice. This is a lovely room. We’re here and the bed is here and …’ My voice wavers. ‘Please don’t make me wait.’
‘Luke suggested I’d be taking advantage of you.’ He puts his hands over mine. ‘It was offensive. Fucking offensive.’
‘You swore at him too.’ After freeing my hands, I stalk across the room and yank the cords of the curtains to shut out the lights. ‘I’m allowed to drink.’
‘You don’t drink at bars.’
‘We weren’t at a bar!’
His jaw is tight. ‘We have to get this right.’
‘Luke is protective for a reason.’
‘I want you, Prim, so fucking much.’ He rubs a hand around the back of his neck. ‘I don’t care whether you drink or not, but this first time …’ He shoves his hands in his pockets. ‘No fuck ups.’
I already love you. Stop making this worse. I point to the bed. ‘If you’re going to be … stubborn about it … we can sleep together.’
‘I said not tonight.’
‘I mean go to sleep.’
He’s with me in an instant. He growls against my neck. ‘I don’t think I can.’
I twist out of his arms and reach for the clasp at the back of my dress. ‘Can you help with this?’
Laughing a groan, he puts his hands on my shoulders. ‘No.’
‘You’re the one with the reputation. With Candice and all those other women. It’s not like I can seduce you.’
He undoes the clasp, spins me around. ‘The first time I saw you, you were leaning over a calf in the cattle yards. You had that irresistible look you get. Caring. Loving. Tender. I didn’t know what it was, but I knew that I needed it.’
‘Oh.’
‘Yes, “oh”’ His eyes narrow. ‘Right from that moment, I was fucked.’
‘I liked hearing about your grandfather.’ I wrap my arms around his neck. ‘He was hard on you though, sending you out all by yourself.’
‘It taught me a lot.’
To make Blake a vet or a doctor? It’s something I’ve thought about all week. His mother said medicine was his passion.
‘Prim?’ He pulls back, searches my face. ‘What is it?’
‘In the highlands, you learnt how to … save lives.’
‘Humans were just another species to my grandfather.’ He kisses my mouth briefly. ‘He would have liked you.’
‘A man who liked dogs more than people … wouldn’t care about fluency.’
‘I don’t care either.’
I step back, take his hands. ‘Do you need help with your cufflinks?’
He smiles. ‘Yes.’
I bend low over his cuffs, removing the cufflinks. The shield with the S sits in the palm of my hand.
‘We can sleep together, can’t we?’
‘Didn’t I just explain why—’
‘It’s a big bed. I’ll keep my distance.’
He’s wearing a T-shirt and boxers. I’m wearing a nightie. Lying on our backs side by side, we’re under the sheet but not touching. When he turns onto his side to face me, I feel the warmth of him.
‘Are you still awake?’ he asks.
‘Yes.’
‘Did you see Farquhar tonight?’
I bite my lip, release it. ‘He … was at the bar.’
‘I saw him leave. I had to shake his hand.’
‘It … wouldn’t be fair to make a scene.’
‘I wanted to punch him in the face.’
‘No!’
He finds a lock of my hair, winds it around his finger. ‘My grandfather said I should learn how to fight.’
‘Why?’
‘When I was fifteen, sixteen, I disliked living in England, but I had a hard time with boys of my age in Scotland. The way I spoke. The sports I played. The way I dressed.’
‘You would have been torn between two different lives. You didn’t know where you belonged.’ I pull him into my arms. ‘I had my sisters. You were alone.’
He kisses my throat. ‘I had Grandfather.’
‘Is that what you called him?’
‘He was a bad-tempered old bastard.’
‘He loved you as you were.’ I tighten my arms. ‘That’s why you kept going back.’
‘Your dress tonight. It was the colour of a Scottish primrose.’
‘And a jacaranda flower.’
He comes up on an elbow. ‘What’s going on with my mother?’
‘She’s depressed. Your father is frightened for her. Didn’t they communicate that?’
‘Possibly.’
I push back his hair. ‘Virginia thinks she’s lost you forever.’
‘I argue with my father. My mother and I …’ He shakes his head. ‘We’re strangers.’
‘She didn’t know how to mother you. Maybe that’s changed.’
‘It’s too late.’
‘No second chances?’
He searches my face through the shadows. ‘You’re kind, Prim. It’s part of who you are. I’m not like that.’
I put my hand against his cheek and gently kiss his mouth. ‘When you were a baby, a child, your mother delegated to people she thought were better qualified than she … was to care for you. Then suddenly you were an adolescent, a man. She didn’t know you. She didn’t know how to make things right.’
‘You think she does now?’
‘She knows how much she’s lost.’
‘You’re not only kind but forgiving.’
‘I could never forgive my father. He hurt Phoebe too much.’
‘He hurt all of you.’
‘He brought us close. It … weakened him.’
‘I saw that at the funeral.’
‘Your grandfather didn’t want your father to take the boarding school scholarship. It hardened Angus against him. Angus thought sending you to your grandfather … would make you grateful for what you had in England.’
‘It didn’t work.’
I stroke across his shoulders. ‘Your father didn’t love his own father, and he didn’t know how to love you. Your love of your grandfather … would have been another wedge between you and your father. He would have been jealous.’
Blake lifts my hand, kisses the back of it. ‘Grandfather, the stock, the dogs. You understood from the start.’
‘Your grandfather was better than any vet you’d ever known.’
‘My parents, Prim. It’s difficult.’
‘They didn’t know how to parent you. They’re trying to do better.’
He kisses my nose. ‘Have we talked enough about my family?’
‘I’m stubborn like Eeyore.’
‘You are nothing like Eeyore.’
‘Phoebe said I was more like Pooh.’
‘Pooh was an idiot.’
‘He was an optimist. I loved Pooh.’
‘Prim?’ When he nuzzles between my breasts, my toes curl with lust. ‘Can you confirm the time?’
I stroke his hair, glance at the clock on the side table. ‘Twelve thirty.’
‘Luke wanted my word on something.’
I burrow under his T-shirt, run my hands over the smooth skin of his back. ‘Something to do with me?’
He strokes down my side, a light touch, a confident one. My skin warms, my heart pounds. He mumbles against my neck, ‘You. Always.’
Up on an elbow again, he traces around the neck of my nightie. His forearm skims my breast and sets my blood on fire. Does he know that? Of course, he knows that.
‘I gave Luke my word we wouldn’t have sex tonight.’ Breath warm, he kisses a trail up my neck. He looks up. A flash of white teeth. Damp lips. Bright eyes. ‘Now it’s tomorrow.’
The fabric shade of the lamp casts a soft and gentle light. His dark hair. His pale grey T-shirt. His dusky grey boxers pushed out of shape by—
‘Prim?’ He fingers a shoulder strap of my nightie. ‘We go slow, okay?’
‘Maybe fast is better.’
He bends his head, strokes my breast, kisses my nipple. ‘I disagree.’
‘I … won’t be good at it.’
‘You, Primrose Cartwright, can only be perfect.’
I shake my head.
‘Perfect,’ he whispers, as he cups my face and kisses me long and slow and sweet. His hands, firm and assured, find all the places I need them to be. When he deepens the kiss, his tongue goes everywhere in my mouth. We’re still dressed, but my thighs tingle, my body aches.
I’ve never wanted anyone like I want him. I’ve never wanted anyone but him.
I never will.
He shifts on the bed, lies on his back and reaches for me. ‘Sit on me.’
‘What?’
He puts a hand on his abdomen. ‘Here.’
I do as he asks, my legs either side of him. I slip my hands under his T-shirt and lie them flat. I close my eyes.
‘Is this … what you mean?’
He’s breathing deeply. When I sit straighter, his erection nudges my bottom. I shuffle further back and he sucks in a breath.
‘Fuck.’
‘Shouldn’t I do that?’
‘Yes.’ Laughing a groan, his hands sweep down my sides, fingers brushing along the outsides of my thighs to my knees. ‘You, me, like this. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t want it.’
I touch the side of his face, feel the bristles. I find the pulse at his throat. ‘Even when I was in the yards with Billy and the calf?’
‘I thought I’d gone crazy.’
‘You … were with someone else.’
‘I knew in that instant I wasn’t.’
‘Did I have dirt on my face?’
He runs his finger down my cheek. ‘Here.’ He smiles a memory. He lifts himself up on his elbows, kisses my throat. ‘And here.’
When he lies down again, I stroke around his nipples. ‘I thought you were handsome.’
‘You avoided me.’
‘You were too handsome.’ I kiss his throat like he kissed mine. ‘You … stole my words.’
He captures my hand. ‘You’d burnt yourself.’ He kisses the spot. ‘Here.’
‘Billy fell and …’ I shrug. ‘I tried to hide it.’
‘You were competent, beautiful, clever, I saw all that, but …’ Releasing my hand, he pushes back my hair, watches it fall through his fingers. ‘There was something else.’
‘Tell me.’
‘You’d worked fourteen days straight. Farquhar was after you.’ His hands go to my hips. He frowns as if searching for words. ‘I didn’t want you hurt. I still don’t. I want you safe.’
‘I’m … safe with you.’
He frowns through the shadows. ‘You know what this means, don’t you?’
‘I should trust more. I should be … strong and honest like you.’
He shifts under me, then closes his eyes as if in pain. His body is warm between my legs, his skin is flushed. And this time when he raises his hand and touches my cheek, it’s not at all steady.
‘I’m not strong,’ he mutters. ‘Never with you.’
With this kiss, we talk through our bodies.
And I try to remember everything. How careful he is as he peels off my nightie and undies. How I fumble as I tug at his T-shirt and boxers. His smile as he throws everything onto the floor and rolls on a condom. How he groans as he pulls me on top of him again. He cups a breast. He brushes a nipple with his thumb. He wets it with his mouth and plays. He kisses me soft and then hard. Short and then long. He kisses where he can reach and strokes where he can’t until I’m hot and needy and frantic.
I clench my legs. ‘Please, Blake. Now.’
‘You do it.’
‘I don’t know …’
He moans encouragement as I take him inside me. Am I too slow? Too careful? His body is slick with sweat. His jaw is tense, his fists are clenched.
Finally, we’re joined together.
He kisses me tenderly. ‘Okay?’
I wriggle a little. ‘I think so.’
He closes his eyes, falls back on the pillows. ‘I hope so.’ His voice is strained.
‘Blake?’
He opens his eyes. Considerate. Tortured. ‘Primrose.’
‘Should I move now?’
He groans. ‘Please.’
Holding hands in pouring rain. Frantic burning heat. Tumbling in the sunshine. As soon as I climax, he shouts out too. Panting and moaning, I collapse against his body. Gasping for breath, he rubs my back, my bottom, my shoulders. And then, when we have our breaths, he wraps his arms around me. He settles me on his chest.
He holds me close and keeps me safe.