Lachlan (Dangerous Doms 5)

I want to kiss her so badly I can’t breathe. I can already taste her, so sweet and seductive, she’d pull me under, never to resurface again.

They’d kill me. Nolan first, but Cormac and Keenan would help him finish me off. That is, if Sheena didn’t murder me with her own bare hands before they got to me.

“You’re lying to me, lass,” I whisper in her ear. Her hair tickles my nose and brushes my hand, warm and intimate. I’m washed in the scent of warm vanilla. “You know I expect you to tell me the truth.”

And I do. I’ve told myself I’m like her older brother, stepping in to take care of her when necessary. I’ve made her report to me, insisted on her safety, and I won’t allow her to lie.

But Jesus, I’m no brother to her.

She doesn’t respond, but places her hand on my wrist. Maybe she meant to stop me, but she doesn’t push me away.

“What if I am?” she whispers.

I close my eyes against the rush of heat in my chest, at her flirty suggestion.

“Lying?”

“Aye.”

“You know better than to lie to me.”

A girl who lies ought to be taught a lesson.

The thought of punishing her makes a low hum of need coil in my belly, and I’ve barely even touched her. I’ve subdued my own desires, to master, dominate, and control. But I know what I want from Fiona. I know that she’d fight submitting to me, but I’d show her how good it could be.

She shivers, but this time I don’t think it’s from cold.

She tips her face up. I stare at the fullness of her lips. I bend down, and time stills. Her eyes close. Her lips part.

And like a coward, I brush my lips across her cheeks.

For long seconds she doesn’t breathe, before she pulls away. Moonlight glints on gold at her neck. The locket. She’s wearing the locket I got her, that I agonized over buying for her, afraid she’d read something into an intimate gift like jewelry. In the end, I felt it the right thing to do, though.

“Take me home, Lachlan.”

There’s a sadness in her voice that breaks my heart, a plaintive plea to take her away from what we can’t have. To bring her home to safety.

I give myself one last second of closeness. My forehead on hers. Our breaths mingled with salty air. A hum of unrequited longing between us.

“Let’s get you home,” I agree, unable to mask the resignation in my tone.

I pull away from her, and she shivers. Swallowing hard, I swear she looks as if she’s going to cry again.

“Don’t cry, lass,” I try to encourage. “Please don’t.”

I take my hoodie from the pile of clothes and drape it over her. She swims in it, like a child playing dress-up. I’m torn between thinking she’s adorable and feeling like a prick for even wanting someone so young. She looks down bashfully and sticks her arms through the sleeves.

“Thank you,” she says with a laugh. Thank God she can laugh still.

“You’re freezing your arse off. Can hardly bring you home to Sheena and Nolan all frozen.”

“Suppose not. Aren’t you going to freeze?”

Not going to happen. My lust-filled blood pounds through my veins, boiling with need and longing.

“Hardly,” is my only response.

Tonight, I told Keenan I wasn’t going to Boston. I made the decision to stay right here where she is, though I don’t fucking know why if I can’t have her. I should trust my brothers to give her the protection she truly needs.

It’s freed me, though. I didn’t tell him why, and a part of me wondered if he knew without me saying, for he agreed readily and said he’d assign me duties this morning. It’s partly why I came for a late-night swim, to clear my brain and school my thoughts. When I’m submerged in the depths of the frigid water, I can’t think of things I shouldn’t.

“Have fun at the club tonight?” she asks. For some reason there’s an edge of hardness in her tone when she asks me, though she actually winces.

Bloody hell. It was her.

“What do you mean?” I ask. “At the club? So help me, Fiona, if you tell me you’ve been to the Craic—” That quickly, she’s renewed my desire to punish her. More than once I’ve clenched my fingers when my palm itched to spank her good and hard.

She wraps my hoodie around her like a blanket and snaps her eyes to mine. “And what if I have? Hmm? You’ve no control over me, Lachlan. You can’t tell me what to do.” She pauses, and her next sentence is weighty, laced with meaning. “Especially now that I’m an adult.”

Is that hopeful challenge in her eyes?

I stop and reach for her hand, making her stop. “Were you at the Craic tonight?”