Gleefully, I shed the first dress, instantly feeling ten pounds lighter. “Okay,” I said, shaking myself out, allowing a breeze to work its way under the fabric. “First question. Do you like dogs?”
I’d never had one myself, although I’d always wanted one. I didn’t trust anyone that said no to that question.
“Aye, there are few animals that I doona like.”
“Good answer.” I kicked off my tennis shoes, sending them sailing across the room. “Second question. When you’re holding a child and they decide to use your sleeve…” I paused thinking on his normal attire, “okay, let’s pretend that you’re usually wearing a shirt. Anyhow, a child decides to use your sleeve as a nose tissue, are you quick to anger and disgust?”
He laughed loudly, emphasizing the tight muscles in his stomach. “Why would I get angry, lass, when I use me shirt for just the same purpose?”
I let loose one uncomfortable chuckle, praying that he joked. I didn’t ponder the thought long, slipping happily out of the second dress. “Question number three. What was your father like?”
In my opinion, this was perhaps the most important question. Men often turned into their dads, just like women did their mothers. If my parents had birthed boys, I had no doubt they would have turned into mini-me, terrifying versions of my father, just as Jeffrey had become the most admirable of men like his own.
“Ah. I doona believe we have spoken of this before. The father that raised me was a kind, honest, decent man, but he was no me father by birth.”
“Oh.” Another reason, perhaps, that Eoghanan had taken so graciously to my strange relationship with Jeffrey. He too had grown up with another man standing in the stead of his real father. “So, did you know your real father?”
He clucked his tongue at me and pointed to my still overly-dressed body. “That was another question, was it no? I think ye must remove something else before I answer.”
I grasped at the opportunity and shed the last remaining dress, standing before him in my jeans and t-shirt. “Gladly. Now answer.”
“No, I doona know who me real father was. Me mother worked for the McMillans and when she became pregnant, they protected her. After she died giving birth to me, they took me in and raised me as their son.”
I pointed to his red, curly mane, which was already starting to grow rather unruly, despite the recent cut it had received. “I should have realized, with the red hair and all. You look nothing like Baodan.” He nodded but said nothing so I removed my socks in preparation for the next question. “Okay, would you rather be hot or cold?”
“Cold.”
Fair enough. I removed my shirt. “Next question. What’s your biggest pet peeve?”
His brows pinched in again. “I doona know what a ‘peeve’ is, lass.”
“What’s the one thing that drives you crazy? That you can’t stand?”
“Ah. The sound of rain.”
My hands flew up in surprise and my voice came out all high and pitchy. “What? Who doesn’t like the sound of rain?”
“Me, lass. The sound of rain makes me think of water, and I doona like to swim. That and it always makes me need to relieve meself something dreadful.”
“That is so weird. Sorry, but that’s one strike.”
“What do ye mean, by strike?”
I was really going to have to cool it with the modern references. “It’s a sports thing. If you get three strikes, you’re out.”
He lifted off of his hand suddenly and swung himself so that he sat up on the edge of the bed. “Out, lass? Are ye giving me some sort of test? Ye do know that ye’ve already agreed to marry me, aye?”
“Yeah, but two more strikes, and I’m gonna have to back out.”
“’Tis no an option, Grace. Just remove your bottoms and ask yer next question.”
I winked at him. “Okay, I think this is my last question, actually. Then maybe you can just remove everything else. That sound okay?”
His eyes were locked on my bra and the cleavage it produced between my breasts. I assumed he didn’t mind me handing over the task to him.
“Okay, what do you think the word ‘girlfriend’ means?”
“’Tis a strange question, lass. Doona ye think the name itself tells its meaning. It refers to lassies who are me friends.”
My finger went up like a corrective school teacher. “Wrong. I know that’s not a word used here, so it’s okay, but let’s just clear that up right now. Your girlfriend is what I was to you right before I became your fiancé. The first time you used that word in front of me, I thought you were gleefully admitting to sleeping with your brother’s wife.”
His lusty, half-closed eyes, suddenly opened to the size of saucers. “Ach, I dinna ever mean that.”
“Yeah, I know. Now come here.”
He stood and moved over to me, reaching around to the clasp of my bra as he reached me. I leaned up to kiss his neck, trailing kisses up to his ear so that I could whisper into it.
“I have one last question. Bottom or top?”
Chapter 36