Fight or Flight

I was so hopped up on sugar and bubbles that I followed, completely bemused.

An hour later I was still sitting at the bar with this obnoxious Scotsman I didn’t like very much, sharing my wisdom about life in general and teetering over the edge into drunk. I was perfectly aware of my surroundings, but all the snark and defensiveness had leaked out of me as my alcohol consumption increased. Suddenly, I didn’t hate Caleb. We were just different people, and just because you didn’t agree with someone on everything didn’t mean he was a bad person. Caleb had sat with me during dinner to stop other men from harassing me, which was very thoughtful, I thought.

“It was thoughtful, Caleb,” I found myself saying.

He smiled at me over the rim of his third glass of whiskey, and I felt that now familiar flutter in my stomach. God, he was handsome! “What was, babe?”

And being called “babe” by him wasn’t so bad. When Harper called me “babe,” I found it cute. I felt something a little different when Caleb called me “babe.” “Sitting with me. Acting as a barrier between me and those awful men. That was thoughtful. You can say it was you owing me, but it was still thoughtful.”

“I thought you didn’t need me tae rescue you?”

“I didn’t. I don’t. That doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate the effort.”

His lips did that twitchy thing again. “Noted.”

“I mean, it has been such a shitty week. I just … I didn’t need guys acting like their usual asshole selves and bugging me. Just because a woman dresses nice”—I gestured to myself—“doesn’t mean she’s advertising that she’s looking for a guy to take notice.”

“No, you’re right. It doesn’t. But it would be naive tae think that some men dinnae still think that it does.”

“Oh, I know that. But I refuse to let misogyny and sexism and sexually aggressive a-holes dictate what I put on my body and how I do my makeup or my hair.”

“So this is all just for you?” Caleb waved a finger over the air in front of me.

I scowled at him, momentarily forgetting I didn’t hate him anymore. “Yeah, it is! This is my ‘Screw you, Nick!’ ‘Screw you, everyone!’ Being pretty doesn’t mean being empty.”

Caleb lifted an eyebrow. “Who is Nick?”

I laughed bitterly. “Ah, the million-dollar question. Nick, Nick, Nick. Nick Kane. He doesn’t like me very much. He used to. But he stopped. He … he was married to my best friend, Gemma.” Tears glittered in my eyes before I could stop them. “She died. Childbirth. They struggled to get pregnant and then … God … she needed a C-section and there were complications. She and the baby died.” I brushed a tear away, sucking them back. “I went back to Arizona for the funeral this week and, uh … I wasn’t welcome. It was a crappy experience and, you know, burying my ex–best friend and all, my expectations were already kind of low. But, shoot … those people managed to take that experience and make it shittier than fleas on shit. That, my friend”—I leaned toward him—“is a gift.”

Either I was getting really drunk or Caleb’s expression softened. “I’m sorry tae hear that, Ava.”

“That’s the first time you’ve called me Ava instead of ‘babe.’ You’re nicer than you let on.”

He scowled instantly. “I’m not nice.”

“Okay.” I leaned away from him and drank the rest of my champagne. “You may not be nice, but I am grateful to you tonight. This is the first time I’ve relaxed all week. It feels good.”

“Ava.”

“Mmm.”

“Ava, look at me.”

I looked at him.

Oh boy, he was so attractive. I wondered what those unshaven cheeks would feel like between my thighs. “Hmm?”

And as if he read my thoughts, he leaned into me. The scent of his sexy cologne made my senses prickle and tingle. “How drunk are you?”

“How drunk are you?”

“I’m not drunk but I’m not sober.”

I nodded. “I’m that too.”

“So if I ask you tae come up tae my room, I wouldn’t be taking advantage?”

My breath faltered as I stared into those beautiful eyes of his. I tried to remember how only a few hours ago I didn’t even like this guy. But that was hard to remember when he was so yummy and Scottish and talking to me in that accent. The only conclusion I could come to was that I’d been feeling uptight and defensive earlier. Now … not so much.

And I hadn’t had sex in a really long time.

Like a really, really, really long time.

Suddenly there was a tall Viking with a hot accent asking me up to his room and I was not really sure I wanted to say no to that.

The tingle that was growing in intensity between my legs and the tightness in my breasts also seemed kind of unsure that they wanted to say no.

“You don’t even like me. You said you wanted me to hate you so I wouldn’t want to sleep with you.”

His lips curled up at the corners. “I dinnae need tae like you tae want tae have sex with you.” He leaned in, making my breath falter. “And aye, I was going tae ignore the urge but it seems you keep getting thrown in my way. And just because you dinnae like me either, babe, doesn’t mean you dinnae want tae have sex with me tae.”

In that moment, I thought he was wrong. Not about the wanting to sleep with him part, but the liking him part. He didn’t seem so bad. And I wanted him. That in itself was unusual enough to make up my mind. “I could come up to your room.”

“Just sex, Ava.”

“Oh, I don’t do relationships,” I assured him honestly, staring at his beautiful mouth. “They just rip you open and eat your carcass and then leave it there for some other animal to finish you off. If you’re smart, you heal and you get your ass up out of those woods and make sure no animal gets the chance to rip you back open. But I’m amenable to having wild animal sex with you.” I reached up and ran my fingers over the prickle of thick stubble on his face and whispered, “Will it tickle my thighs?”

Caleb’s eyes flashed and I swear I heard him growl, before he slapped a lot of cash down on the bar and got up off the stool. Then my hand was in his, helping me off the stool, his fingers tightening around mine as he marched us through the bar and down the lobby toward the elevator.

Oh my God. I was really doing this. I couldn’t blame the alcohol, because the world wasn’t spinning or anything and I felt totally aware of what I was doing.

And very turned on.

My gaze drifted upward from Caleb’s black boots, to his black jeans, to the white shirt that attempted and failed to make him look civilized. Finally I settled on his strong profile. The proud, straight nose. The bristles of his blond stubble that did nothing to hide the sharp angles of his cut jawline. His full lower lip was so sensual it made me want to nibble on it.

Feeling my intense gaze, he looked at me and I found myself falling into those eyes. I’d never seen eyes like them. They were like wolf eyes. He looked like he was going to eat me up, and I sucked in a breath.

I couldn’t remember the last time a guy had looked at me with such sexual voraciousness that I welcomed. More than welcomed. I wanted him to wreck me in the bedroom—give me so many orgasms that it made up for the years of abstinence.

“You’re going to be as good at this as you look, aren’t you?”

His answer was a devastatingly arrogant grin as he pulled me none too gently into the elevator and pushed me up against the wall as the doors closed. He pressed his long, hard body against mine. “Never fear, babe. I’m about tae ruin you.”

The elevator dinged and quite abruptly he hauled me out and down the hall. I vaguely noted we were staying on the same floor, but Caleb marched me in the opposite direction from my room.

He let go of my hand to let us into his room and I found myself standing in the middle of a suite identical to mine.

The first thing he did was grab a remote control to lower the blinds over the window facing the runway. Then Caleb turned to me and studied me carefully for a moment. “Still sober?”