But she’d made no mention of anything past Sunday. Nor had she asked him any probing personal questions. The conversation had been determinedly light and shallow. Just the way he liked it.
She rummaged in his antique dresser and pulled out one of his shirts, a cashmere sweater and a pair of socks. ‘If I’m to cook dinner, I think it’s only fair you cook breakfast.’
Damn, she had him there.
‘And as you didn’t let me bring any clothes, I’m wearing yours,’ she announced. ‘I want to go exploring.’
‘What for? It’ll be freezing outside,’ he said, but the stubborn tilt of her chin made him chuckle. ‘Once we’ve eaten, I say we go back to bed,’ he added, enjoying goading her. Another first.
‘You would,’ she said, the stern expression somewhat belied by the arousal darkening her gaze as it glided over his naked chest. ‘You’re completely insatiable.’
‘I didn’t hear you complaining last night when you were begging me to suck your...’
‘Stop,’ she said, the fiery blush highlighting her freckles and making the tentpole in his lap hit ninety degrees. What was it about that combination of innocence and awareness that made her so damn adorable?
Initiating her into the joys of sex had been the most erotic experience of his entire life. Go figure?
‘No way am I letting you give me another orgasm,’ she declared, ‘until I’ve been properly fed and you’ve given me a tour of this magnificent estate in the snow.’
‘We’ll see about that,’ he said, throwing back the quilt to reveal the erection and then leaping out of the bed naked.
She shrieked and shot out of the room, and into the bathroom. He was laughing so hard, he failed to catch her.
But as he heard the lock click, he smiled. Good thing he was a goal-orientated guy... And he’d discovered all her most easily exploited erogenous zones in the last twenty-four hours. Because it meant her chances of making good on her threat were zero.
He’d feed her, and let her cook him a turkey supper later, but no way did they have time for her to see the whole estate. It was five hundred acres and he had much better—and warmer—things for them to be doing. Plus they still had a ton of rooms to christen and they were running out of time.
But as he pulled on some sweatpants—leaving his chest bare because he knew it was his secret weapon—then padded into the open-plan kitchen to rustle up some pancake batter, it occurred to him he had never smiled this much on Thanksgiving, especially since his father’s death.
He watched the snow fall in desultory flakes covering the forest and the boathouse by the lake in a blanket of white. Perhaps he should consider keeping Eleanor MacGregor around for longer than three days? Because Christmas was one of his least favourite seasons too—thanks to all the bitter memories from his childhood. And Eleanor was turning out to be one hell of a distraction.
‘I see beech and fir and pine and that must be aspen over there. You have so many different species here.’ Eleanor’s breath purred around her pink cheeks in white puffs as she gazed at the forest surrounding the lake as if she’d discovered the rarest treasure.
‘They’re all just trees to me.’ Alex caught her round the waist, captivated all over again by her enthusiasm. Then yanked her back into his arms so he could sink his face into her hair and take in a lungful of her scent—summer flowers and his own citrus-scented shampoo. ‘Who knew you were a tree nut?’
‘I’m not.’ She laughed, the bubbly sound so beguiling it dialled down his frustration that he hadn’t managed to coax her back into bed—again—while their turkey supper cooked. ‘It’s just there are so few trees on Moira, I appreciate a good forest.’
‘Moira? Is that where you’re from?’ he asked, surprised by his curiosity about her. He didn’t usually interrogate the women he dated because it encouraged intimacy. But there was something about Eleanor that fascinated him. She dived into every new experience with an energy that was as reckless as it was captivating, and he couldn’t help wondering where it came from.
‘Yes, it’s a remote island in the Outer Hebrides off Scotland’s west coast. My parents were crofters—tenant farmers—they moved there not long after I was born. I was their only child so they were very protective of me,’ she said absently, settling into his arms with a contented sigh. ‘Oh, is that an eagle?’ she asked, pointing towards a bird of prey skimming the surface of the lake.
‘Probably,’ he said, because being a city kid he could just about distinguish a hawk from an emu. ‘How long did you live on Moira?’ he asked, intrigued now despite himself. It sounded like a secluded, sheltered childhood, very different from his own.
‘All my life, until about a month ago,’ she said absently. ‘It took me two years working in the only pub we have there to earn enough to get my flights and a temporary work visa to come here. Crofters are rubbish tippers.’
‘Wait a minute.’ He frowned, swinging her around to face him. He forced himself not to get distracted by the delicious flush on her cheeks, or the slender curves disguised by the heavy jacket she’d borrowed. ‘You came straight to New York from the middle of nowhere in Scotland?’
She nodded. ‘Yes, I hitchhiked down to Glasgow then caught the first plane to New York.’
His frown deepened, as did the strange tug in his abdomen. Was that astonishment, or guilt?
She’d come to America, alone and innocent with no experience whatsoever about life in a big city, let alone a heaving metropolis like New York, and thrown herself into the experience with about as much caution as an NFL line-backer. And then he’d pounced on her. Taken her virginity and treated her like a whore. But she’d fought back.
Somehow the realisation only made her seem braver, and bolder, and made him feel like more of a bastard.
‘You hitchhiked?’ he said, trying not to freak out as that damn white-knight complex squeezed his ribs again.
‘Yes, it was perfectly safe. People in the Highlands look after each other,’ she said with a naiveté that would be cute, if it weren’t so damn scary.