I didn’t have the energy to lift my head.
And even if I did, there was nowhere I’d rather be.
Twenty-Three
Stella
The windscreen wipers were working overtime to clear some sort of path in front of us. The roads were ridiculously narrow around here, but it didn’t seem to faze Beck, who was at the wheel of the Land Rover he’d rented.
“You think we should turn around?” I asked as I gripped the papers I was carrying.
Beck shot me a look, then patted my leg, his hand staying a little too long on my thigh for it to be a friendly reassurance. Up until last night I’d doubted things between us—unable to understand what was real and fake. But last night was real and I had the bruises, the bitemarks, and the near-constant buzz under my skin from being with Beck that proved it.
“It’s fine. Just rain. I can slow down if you’re nervous.” I didn’t know if it was the words or the tone, but I believed him when he said it was fine. Still, he lifted his foot off the accelerator a little and we slowed without me having to ask. At every opportunity, he showed me that he thought about my feelings, my desires, my needs. Being with him was a revelation. “It’s meant to clear in a couple of hours, so the journey back should be easier. At least we’re not going to Inverness. A helicopter would be more difficult in this visibility.”
There was no way I would have gotten into a helicopter in this weather, but thankfully there was a shop in a village about twelve miles away that would have most of the stuff we needed.
Not that buying things was going to help. What I really wanted was to get to the bottom of what was driving Beck. He was smart. He’d had money long enough to know how these things worked—it didn’t matter what world you came from, people did deals with people they liked and trusted, yet Beck was doing his best to not fit in.
“We have a trip to Fort William next,” I said, looking at the detailed itinerary we’d been given when we arrived. “That should be relatively easy to dress for. We have that hike—we need to deal with that. And then the shooting. It’s too late to get you a dinner jacket—”
“I’ve brought a perfectly nice dinner jacket.”
This guy had a thing for Tom Ford, and who could blame him? He looked spectacular in everything he wore, but old money went to Saville Row. And they could tell the difference.
“Just because I don’t have a tailor that my family has been using for four generations doesn’t mean my dinner jacket isn’t a perfect fit.”
“You need to stop focusing on how things should be and just figure out how they are so you can get what you want.”
His knuckles whitened on the steering wheel.
“Why are you so determined to stand out from everyone around you?” I said, sliding my hand onto his leg. Beck’s comments about people with money still weren’t making sense to me, and I was determined to get to the bottom of it. I wanted to know him better. I wanted to understand exactly what made him tick. I’d thought I’d known Matt and it turned out I’d been living with a stranger all these years. I wasn’t going to settle for what Beck told me. I wanted to dig deeper. Not least because we were sharing a bed.
Last night had been . . . unexpected. It was impossible to deny that Beck was attractive. But he wasn’t my type—well, physically, he was everyone’s type, but Beck was so . . . brash wasn’t the word. But he had a confidence about him that Matt had been missing. Matt was confident on the outside and comfortable in the world of public school and old money, but he didn’t have the core of steel Beck did.
He also didn’t have the penis Beck did.
But it wasn’t just Beck’s dick that had made last night so memorable. It was the way he’d made me feel. Like it was me, rather than sex, that he wanted. I couldn’t ever remember feeling like that with Matt. Being with Beck was . . . liberating. It allowed me to stop focusing on where I was and what had happened, and I’d been forced into the present. But it wasn’t as if Beck was going to be part of my future. As much as Beck and I were enjoying each other’s company, as much as I’d been convinced that things between us were real, we were both in Scotland—together—for a reason. And it wasn’t to start a serious relationship.
The corners of Beck’s mouth twitched as he fought a grin as he faced the blurred road in front of us. I wasn’t sure if it was what I’d said, my hand, or whether he was thinking about last night, too.
Beck cleared his throat, caught my wrist and placed my hand on his thigh. “The hike won’t be difficult,” he said. “We’re not going up Ben Nevis. We don’t need poles and shit. I’ve brought some gray hikin
g trousers.”
I’d bet they were brand new. And I’d bet his arse looked fantastic in them. “Yeah we can probably solve that with a nail brush and some scissors.”
“I have no idea what that means, but I know you’re not cutting up those trousers. I went up Scarfell Pike in them last year. There’s nothing wrong with them.”
That sounded promising. At least they wouldn’t still have their label on and crease marks on the legs from the packaging. That was the thing with old money—nothing was new. Nothing looked as if you’d just spent money on it. But Beck knew this. He wanted to stand out. But why?
“You went up Scarfell?” I liked the idea of Beck out in the wilds, his hair a little tousled, a smear of mud across his perfect jaw. I’d witnessed Beck a little sweaty and it looked good on him.
“Yeah, some charity thing that Dexter was doing.”
“So you sacrificed your pristine, expensive gym for the outdoors? I thought you left that behind when you got your Duke of Edinburgh?”
The road veered to the right and some signs of life came into view. “Looks like where we’re headed,” he said, nodding at the buildings up ahead. “And I have no problem getting outdoors. Never have, never will. I might live in the city—”