Fight or Flight

I discreetly swiped at it with my tongue and then pulled away, grinning at the hot look he gave me. “I think you were the one who did the distracting this time.”

He nodded and then gestured to the aisle. “I think you might need tae use the facilities, no?”

My belly flipped. “Now?”

“Aye,” Caleb practically growled. “Now.”

And that was how, on trembling legs, I got up out of my seat, readying myself to join the mile high club. I felt his hand caress my ass as I squeezed by him and I shivered, unable to fully comprehend the reality of what I was planning to do because all I really cared about was getting him inside me.

It felt like I hadn’t had him inside me in years.

And I never thought I’d get to love him like this again.

I pushed the curtain aside, giving the flight attendant a weak smile, before I let myself into the bathroom with shaky fingers. I locked it. And waited.

Less than a minute passed before I heard a knock. “It’s me.”

Lust tugged deep in my belly as I unlocked it and stumbled back in the tiny space to let Caleb in. We were crammed together, our bodies touching, as he locked the door behind us.

“I keep forgetting how tall you are,” I whispered, my head tilted back to look up at him.

His answer was to lift me up and my legs automatically wound around his hips, my skirt bunching up around my waist as he propped me on the edge of the small countertop.

“Only you,” he suddenly whispered.

I looked into his eyes, questioning the hoarse, painful quality in his voice.

He rested his forehead against mine, holding me tight. “You have the power tae hurt me. Only you.”

Understanding caused a rush of emotion within me, tears stinging my nose. “When you hurt, Caleb, I hurt.” My voice broke as I promised, “I’ll never hurt you.”

“I love you,” Caleb choked out abruptly, the words coarse and dragging, as if they cost him his soul to say it.

Relief, bliss, and sweet, painful connection made me smile in sympathy. “It’ll get easier.”

“Tae say it?”

“No.” I placed my hand over his heart. “To feel it.”

His answer to that was a kiss so hungry and deep I miraculously forgot where I was. I forgot everything but the need to be with him.

Epilogue

THREE WEEKS LATER

A nod’s as guid as a wink tae a blind horse.”

Lying facing Caleb in bed, I felt my lips twitch in amusement. “I have no idea.”

We were playing the “let Ava guess what Scottish words and sayings mean” game and I was having no such luck in guessing correctly so far.

“It means, ‘Explain yourself more clearly.’ ”

“Yeah, I was never getting that. What?” I shoved him playfully. “You’re making stuff up now.”

Caleb grinned and shook his head as much as he could since it was propped up by his hand, elbow bent to his pillow. “Another?”

“Yes. I am going to get one eventually.”

“Is the cat deid?”

“Is the cat dead?” I translated.

“Aye. But it’s a saying.”

Bewildered and wondering if he really was just making phrases up now, I announced, “How the hell am I supposed to know what that means?”

He chuckled. “You would say it to someone to mean, ‘Your trousers or your hem is too short.’ ”

“You’re lying.”

“Am not.”

“Why would you ask if ‘the cat is deid’ for that?”

“If your hemline is too short it’s like a flag flying at half mast.”

Understanding dawned and I felt a snicker rise in my throat. “Like when someone dies.”

“Exactly.”

I threw my head back in laughter, tears of mirth drenching my eyes, and I heard Caleb’s soft, husky laughter join mine. “Okay, that’s funny.” I giggled. “Completely bonkers, but funny.”

“We’ve got tons of sayings like that.”

“And you all grow up saying them?”

“Nah.” He shook his head. “Most of them are from generations past. I only know them because my gran still says them.”

I thought of the last three weeks of bliss together and how although Caleb hadn’t repeated that he loved me; he showed it in his every action. At his brother’s art show in Chicago, he barely let me out of his sight, and Jamie looked genuinely pleased to see us together. Since arriving back home in Boston, we hadn’t spent a night without each other. The bathroom cabinet in my place was overflowing because of the toiletries Caleb kept there, and I had my own products littering the bathroom in his apartment. Although we were both busy with work, Caleb wanted us to come home to each other at the end of the day and I was not complaining. Not a bit.

In fact, we felt so much like a couple, I wondered if he would introduce me to his gran and the rest of his family during one of their Skype calls. I was nervous about their reaction to me after Jamie’s presumption that I was just like Caleb’s deplorable ex.

Sweeping the thought from my mind to concentrate on my guy, I smiled and leaned closer to him. It was a Saturday morning, we both had nothing to do but laze around with each other, and so far it was tremendous. “Tell me another one. One I might actually guess this time.”

“Whit’s fur ye’ll no go by ye,” he answered, reaching out a hand to draw his finger in a soft caress from the top of my shoulder down my outer arm.

I translated its literal meaning in my head and melted into his touch, realizing this wasn’t just another saying for me to guess, but one with significance for us. “What’s for you will not go by you.”

“Meaning?”

I thought of a similar saying here. “What’s meant to happen will happen.”

Caleb nodded, our gazes locked, and I felt a little breathless at the shine of love in his eyes. “See, you guessed one correctly.”

“We were meant to meet at O’Hare,” I whispered, feeling emotional because although I’d thought it at the time, I hadn’t dwelled on the fact that we had kept weirdly bumping into each other everywhere. “Meant to sit next to each other on that plane. It wasn’t just coincidence. You knowing Patrice, staying with her, her being my client, my friend, and then us meeting in Canterbury just when I was contemplating ending things. It was all meant to be.”

He pushed up off the pillow and moved over me, pressing me gently down on my back to brace himself above me. I opened my legs, caressing the back of his calf with my foot and feeling more than a spark of lust ignite through my body. “You really think that?”

“I never believed in fate until you,” I answered honestly.

Caleb studied me thoughtfully, seeming to drink in every facet of my face. “I dinnae know if I believe it was fate.”

I frowned. “No?”

“Maybe the flights, aye, and I suppose it was quite the coincidence about Patrice. But when she said your name, I could have just ignored that she knew you and went about my business. I didn’t. I pursued you. From that point on we’ve been in charge of this, Ava. When one of us stopped fighting, the other didn’t. And I know you think you fought harder than me for us, and I’m not saying that isn’t true—although you know I plan tae make that up tae you from now on—but even if my mind battled against wanting you, it didn’t always win.”

“I know that,” I said. I did. Otherwise we wouldn’t be lying in bed together.

“No.” Caleb shook his head. “I’m talking about when I left for Scotland. When I got offered the job in Boston. I talked it over with my family tae see how they’d feel about it. I knew they weren’t too keen on me leaving, but they wanted me tae do what was best for my career. And it was best for my career … but it wasn’t the only reason I accepted the job.”

My breath caught as I began to understand his meaning.

He nodded and gave me a rueful, boyish smile at odds with his ruggedness. “I couldn’t even admit it tae myself at the time … but I was addicted tae you, wee yin. And you swayed my decision tae get on that plane and come back here.”