“Wow. Great. I’m so flattered.”
I laughed. “Get over here.” I turned her around to face me. I let out a breath. Her skin was still glowing and for Christ’s sake, she was almost too gorgeous to handle. “I don’t always know what goes on in that crazy head of yours, but I don’t ever want you to forget that you’re my best friend and the best person I know. I couldn’t live without you. And when I say that I mean you, exactly the way you are.”
My words had her shy but she didn’t break her stare from me. She raked her perfect bottom lip between her teeth and gave a little nod. “Likewise,” she murmured. It was a short reply but all I wanted. We liked to say it because more often than not, our feelings mirrored exactly and there were only so many words with which to phrase us, so when one of us actually got it right, the other stole it and said “likewise.” I didn’t like one-word replies from other girls but with Lake, it was more than fine. She hung her hands on my shoulders as I wrapped the blanket tighter around us. “You’ll always love me?”
“Yes.”
Her eyes clouded over. I could see the thoughts brewing in her head and I knew she was thinking about all the things that had happened in the past year. She thought about it enough that I recognized how she looked when she did it. She looked down as she took in a deep breath. Her eyes were on me when she let it out. “Am I worth it to you, Callum?”
I brushed her gorgeous hair back when the wind tried to take it. I kissed her on the lips. “You are. You are and you always will be.”
Chapter Eighteen
Callum
We celebrated Lake’s twenty-seventh birthday on Thursday, the night before I left with Oz for Scotland.
I was fast to get ready because Isabel warned me that she planned on kicking me out of my own apartment by early evening. Something about it being important for them to get ready together. I had no idea what she meant but I knew better than to argue with one of them let alone two, so I showered quickly.
As quick as it was, the hot water and steam still had my blood rushing and my brain running, as usual, and it was in there that I realized it. That while Lake had given me something, it was far from everything. I had let her tears cloud my vision for a bit but the reality was that I knew why she left but jack about where she went. How she came back.
Isabel was doing Lake’s hair when I left. Lake, in a white silk robe, was smiling down the hall at me and I gave her something similar back. The shitty thoughts were fighting their way to the front of my brain but I refused to indulge them on Lake’s birthday, so I left to meet Oz at The Pike for a drink before dinner.
To my surprise, Ana from the Times was there. She was already smiling at me by the time I noticed her sitting next to Oz at the bar. It was a full house and as usual, mostly regulars and businessmen from the area. Several that I recognized crowded around Ana at the bar. They weren’t the ones who hit on the waitresses but tonight, they were hitting Ana and her tight, nude dress with dated pick-up lines they must’ve used before getting married however many decades ago. I laughed when I approached because I could tell she’d done herself up on purpose tonight and I couldn’t deny that she looked like a bombshell. Her hair was different and the charm on her necklace dipped right between her pushed up cleavage. It wasn’t a work outfit for sure.
“Didn’t expect to see you here,” I said, letting her pull me in for a hello kiss on the cheek. Always hated those but I let hers go.
“No? I’ve only been emailing nonstop with my only assignment for you.”
I squinted for a second. “Shit, right.” I had seen and opened her email but never got to reading it like I told myself I would.
“Unlike you to forget,” she remarked, narrowing her eyes. “I’ve never seen you anything but on point.”
“I’ve had some distractions,” I smirked at the thought of the specific one that had kept me from Ana’s emails. I had opened it after waking up to the sound of my shower running. Lake and my sex the night before had gotten her sufficiently hot and dirty but I’d refused to let her shower after. I pinned her to the bed as she laughed and struggled to get away, moaning that she felt sweaty and sticky. I watched her cheeks flush and her tits shake under me as she shrieked and tried to wrestle free. Obviously sprung a second hard-on after that, which we put to good use. She was out like a light after round two. I wasn’t surprised that she’d woken up and made a beeline for the shower. By the time I got to Ana’s email, she was coming out of it and without a towel because the cleaning staff hadn’t been in for a week. She held her tits together, covering her nipples with one hand and shielding down below with the other. “I don’t understand the point,” I laughed. She said it was just habit. “That’s ridiculous. Stop.”
“No. Where are the clean towels?”
“I’m not even sure I have any.”
“You don’t have clean towels? Don’t you take like, three showers a day?”
Generally two. “I haven’t had cleaning come in because you wanted just us two in the house.”
She giggled. “True. I’m sorry then. Will you forgive me and find me a towel? My hair is long and wet and you don’t have a blow dryer because you suck.” Her soaking hair dripped nonstop onto her soft skin, running fine streams down her gorgeous tits and dripping water from her hard nipples to her thighs. Even if I had the towels, there was no way in hell I’d give up that mindblowing sight. “Seriously, Callum. I need one or I’m going to be wet forever.”
“My cock doesn’t object.”
She snorted. “What, am I just going to walk around naked and wet all day?”
“Yes. I dare you.”
“Yeah?” She grinned, obliged and then proceeded to make it just about the best morning of my life.
We went about our usual routine but Lake did her part naked. The shy, blushing, lip-biting phase of the game was amazing – especially the part where she ran down the stairs holding her bouncing tits – but there was something insanely hot about watching her get used to it, walking around the house, making breakfast and reaching for plates in high cabinets without one thread of clothing on. I checked emails and made calls for work but never went more than a couple minutes without looking at Lake, watching and grinning like the world’s dirtiest fucking pervert as she walked around naked with increasing comfort.
I was in the midst of an important call with my operations manager in Dufftown when Lake came into my office with the planner I’d left in the kitchen. She handed it to me and I forgot to mouth thank you as my eyes raked over her body from head to toe. She smirked, gave me those eyes that said she’d just thought of dirty little idea, and then took that time to tease me as I spoke on the phone, getting on her knees, taking out my hard dick and giving two wet, torturously quick strokes before popping up and daintily waving goodbye.
Whatever my guy was saying on the other end was as good as gibberish to me.