When I walk into the living room after changing my shirt, Calli is gazing out the windows into the backyard, where Misty and Mandy are having a bloody good time. They leap up on their hind legs to battle like grizzly bears, without the bloodshed. The puppies slap their front paws on each other's shoulders too.
Calli notices me and smiles. Her attention shifts from my face down to my chest and the dark-blue T-shirt I'm wearing. It has a lion logo on it and the phrase "Scotland the Brave" emblazoned on the fabric.
"Cool shirt," she says. "I can almost hear the bagpipes. Or is that your phone ringing?"
"Not my phone, you cheeky lass." I veer around the sofa and plop onto the cushion beside hers. "Catriona gave me this shirt. She says American women love this sort of thing." I pluck the shirt with my thumb and forefinger. "I think she might be pulling a Lachlan joke on me. What do you think?"
"I wouldn't say it's on a par with 'every night is kilt night,' but she might be pulling your leg. I like it, though. You look good in blue."
She likes me in blue? Calli likes me, full stop. I swivel my upper body toward her, laying an arm across the sofa behind her. "You look good in anything, but I loved the green dresses you wore at the club and the wedding."
"Tara picked them. She insists green is my signature color, mostly because of my eyes."
"Your beautiful, luminous emerald eyes." I lean in closer, gazing into her green irises from a few inches away. "They are mesmerizing."
She swallows hard enough I can see it. "You don't talk like any other guys I've met. They said things like 'you look fine' or maybe they'd tell me I had nice eyes. Nobody's ever called me mesmerizing before."
"They were eejits."
"Can't tell if I agree or not, since I have no idea what an eejit is."
"An idiot." I slant in closer, and my mouth grazes the corner of hers as I drag my lips across her cheek to her ear. "Any man who describes your eyes as nice is blind and stupid. You are stunning, Calli."
"Thank y—" Her words die away when I nibble on her earlobe, then coil my tongue around it. "Unh."
I love every odd noise she makes.
Shoving my hands under her erse, I lift her up and onto my lap, seating her sideways across my thighs. "I like you speechless. You make the sexiest little noises."
Calli moans when I grasp her erse in one hand. "Can't think when your mouth is—mm."
I paint damp kisses along her jaw, down her throat. She turns her head to the side, granting me full access, and I take advantage of the opening to drag my tongue over her throat and nip at her flesh. She flattens her palms on my chest. When I raise my head, leveling my gaze on her, she skates her hands in circles on my chest.
"Do you know," she says, "I've never seen you shirtless. Fantasized about it, but—"
I pick her up and drop her back onto the adjacent cushion with her calves draped across my lap. In one swift motion, I whip my shirt off over my head, tossing it onto the coffee table. It slumps onto a pile of travel magazines.
Spreading my arms over the sofa's back, I give her a satisfied smile. "There. Problem solved."
Calli straightens and rakes her gaze over my torso while skimming her tongue over her bottom lip repeatedly. Her attention wanders down my abs to my waistband. She bites her lower lip, her eyes squinted like she's struggling against the impulse to unhook the metal button on my jeans, ease the zipper down, and swallow me whole.
She drops her gaze even lower, to the bulge of myslat. I'm not hard, not yet, but she seems impressed by the size of my cock. Honestly, no lass has ever gawped at my body this way. I love that Calli, the not-innocent virgin, is the first to admire myslatwith such intense hunger.
I sweep a finger over her lips. "You're drooling."
"Am not." She pats her lips like she's checking for drool, then gives my chest a half-hearted slap. "You're hot, but I can control my lust."
"The way you controlled it this morning? When I had my hand inside your panties and you were screaming my name."
Is it strange that I'm proud of myself for remembering American women call them panties and not knickers?
She lays her hands flat on my chest, like she's reveling in the feel of my body. "I didn't have sex with you. That's control."
"But it was a sexual encounter." I settle a hand on her knee, gliding it between her thighs. She seems unaware that she's parting her lips for me while I skate my hand up to her groin. "I made you come for me."
"I'm aware of that."
"Only one more little step—"