Not wanting to pry, I kept the fact that I knew he was some kind of shifter to myself, following behind Bram as he led us off the beaten path that trailed down the side of the hill not far from the tour.
Up ahead was a line of trees thick and dark, easily intimidating my next few steps. I was about to ask him if we were going to have to go through the creepy forest, when Bram pointed to a break in the tree line as it stepped down with the hill. He beckoned for me. "Just through here."
I could already smell the faint whiff of chimney smoke, and when Bram took my hand in his much larger one pulling me along with him, I felt the shock run through me. It reminded me of the way my mom described having her flashes of intuition, as she called them. But I wasn't the clairvoyant.
Everything in me that felt jumbled and ready to jump at the first sign of danger suddenly calmed down as we stepped into a clearing where the most out of place building I had ever seen before, stood out against the hillside it was perched upon.
Now, when you think of Scotland, you think of the cottages, the old worldly feel of a time that had long since passed. This? This was something entirely different.
I gazed up at the modern looking home with windows circling the round building nearly all the way, a tiny pipe jutting out of the roof with a slow trail of smoke curling out. The house was seemingly shoved into the hillside itself. It was as though I was standing in front of one of those fancy designer homes you can find in California, overlooking some large body of water dotted with about a dozen yachts.
"What?" Bram's voice caught me off guard, rough and quizzical.
I cleared my throat, not wanting to seem so easily impressed for some weird reason. "Is this place yours?"
He looked at the house for a moment and back at me. "Does that surprise you?"
It was hard not to snort, because of course it did. This house was the very last thing I expected to see out in the middle of nowhere. I may have been stereotyping him, but a huge, strapping man like Bram looked just as out of place next to the house as the house looked next to the woods. "A little. I mean, it's really nice. Definitely my taste…I just didn't think…"
Bram kept walking until we stood at the bottom of the stone steps leading up to the front of the house, his hand grasping the wooden railing tightly. "Come along. It's starting to get colder out."
Even with his surly brow raised at me, Bram obviously was concerned enough for my safety. Maybe that should have alarmed me, given that no one gives a damn about anyone's safety back home, but it didn't. In fact, it highly encouraged the feelings that were lurking underneath to simmer to the top, my cheeks flushing as I imagined those same hands tightly grabbing my waist…
Once we were inside, the drastic change in temperature nearly suffocated me, the heat from inside set on full blast. "Your house is pretty toasty for someone who likes to go walking around in the cold at night," I choked out, struggling to untangle my two scarves from around my neck.
Thinking I would get at least a little chuckle out of him, I was disappointed to see that Bram completely ignored me and walked past the lavishly decorated open living room, and around the corner of the glass fireplace.
I sighed and found one of the comfier couches to lounge in, the cold already leaving my body as the heat surrounded me.
Between the impeccably clean house and the crotchety attitude, I had to wonder about him and whatever led him here. It was clear that Bram himself was some kind of supernatural creature, I could practically feel the otherness rolling off of him in waves, so maybe that had something to do with it?
The house would've easily cost over a million dollars in upstate New York, if not more. What did he do for a living that had him so set for life? I don't know why, but another lustful imagining popped into the forefront of my mind, this time with Bram sitting on the edge of the black couch with a sly smile on his face, shirtless and holding a glass of wine. Speaking soft, beautiful words of Gaelic in some older woman's ear.
I could physically see him as something sexy like an escort, but his personality alone would have women running for the hills if he was to be their date. The wild in his gray eyes meant he wasn't fit for high society…no, he was definitely more of a hands-on kind of guy. Which was sort of perfect for someone like me.
No, you will not sit here and undress him with your eyes! This is a temporary thing, and in fact the very thing you've been trying to get away from! Even the high-pitched voice in my brain wasn't trying very hard to convince me. I was trying to get away from men in general, because nothing was a bigger turn-off than actually hearing what they thought about you before and after sex.
I tried to shut up the other, smaller voice inside that gently reminded me that this wouldn't be a problem with Bram and that I had indeed gone exactly seven months and three weeks without having sex. In theory, it all seemed to fit together perfectly.
I shook my head so close to speaking aloud to myself that I jolted forward with my eyes bulging wide when Bram re-entered the room holding two glasses of what was either a healthy dose of Vodka, or ice water.
As if he was reading my mind, my mouth started to water. Probably because of the heat. Also probably because Bram was now wearing a tight white t-shirt and gray sweatpants that were slung low enough that I could just barely make out the defined 'V' of his pelvic bone.…
I tried desperately not to stare right at his crotch, but it was sort of hard… Or at least it was difficult not to…
"Water?" he asked, the lilt in his accent tickling in my chest. I always wondered why women got so hung up on the way men spoke from different parts of the world, but now I knew why. But even more so with Bram, because his accent was clearly more formal than some of the other people I'd chatted with or heard in town.
The more I noticed about him, the more I was dying to know about him.
"Yes, thank you." I accepted the glass thankfully, the cool condensation of it helping to keep my blushing from extremes.
"So I don't suppose you would like to tell me a little bit about yourself, I mean, since we’re here and all. It's still pretty early. At least it feels that way to me, anyway," I asked, finishi
ng my water in two easy gulps before setting it down. Man, this brings a whole new definition to the word 'thirsty.'
Bram sat down a little closer than I figured he would, leaning forward and taking a swig from his own glass. "There's not much to know. But if you insist. Ah let's see here…I've lived here in Bridge of Orchy for most of my life, at least from the time I was old enough to live on my own. I used to do construction work when I was younger, but now I mainly work from home. I'm not a huge fan of…well, people."
"I sort of guessed that," I said, immediately stopping my mouth as Bram shot me a dirty look. "Sorry, go on." I thought about how odd it was for him to use the term ‘when I was younger,’ since clearly he couldn’t be past his late twenties, but I listened, waiting.