I’m meant to be with him.
I stop where I am and take him in like this, his wide back turned to me. I watch him, unseen. Like a ghost. And I have to pinch my fucking self, because even in his cargo pants, hiking boots, and faded black t-shirt, he’s too handsome, too wonderful, too much of a man to exist on this earth.
I’m so incredibly lucky he asked me.
He asked me.
As if he can sense me, he looks over his shoulder.
Drinks me in.
His eyes crinkle—light, soulful—and he grins at me.
It’s so beautiful.
He grins at me because now he knows, he knows, I’m his.
“I’m here,” I tell him as I slowly walk toward him, my voice barely audible.
He nods. “You’re here.”
PART TWO
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Lachlan
“Lachlan?”
Like a ray of light into a dark room, Kayla’s sweet throaty voice permeates my dreams. I slowly open my eyes, forgetting where I am for a moment. You’d think that would be nearly impossible when you’re on an airplane, but the black, sticky quality of my dreams, quickly fading from my consciousness, render me dazed.
When I nodded off, the lights in the cabin were dimmed. Now it’s bright, and light shines in through the bottom of the window cover. Daylight.
I lift my head and let out a low grunt, my neck aching from the way I was sleeping. I look beside me to see Kayla smiling softly at me.
She came. I can’t believe she came.
“Good morning,” she says, rubbing underneath her eyes. “I wanted to let you keep sleeping, but the flight attendant was making it her mission to wake you up. We’re landing in twenty minutes.”
I try and swallow, my throat so unbearably dry, and shift in my seat to face her. “You’re still here,” I say, my voice hoarse. I reach out and touch her face, her skin feeling like heaven.
She twists her head to kiss my hand, her coy eyes never leaving mine. “Of course I’m still here. Where would I go? Another seat?”
“I thought it was all a dream,” I tell her softly. “And when I woke up, I’d wake up alone.”
“Nope,” she says, and I brush the hair from her face, rubbing her silky strands between my fingers, as if I need further proof that she’s real. “It’s not a dream. It feels like it though, doesn’t it? I mean…I can’t believe this is happening.”
I nod slowly. “Did you sleep at all?”
She shakes her head. “Way, way too excited to sleep. I watched a bunch of movies. And then I watched you sleep for a bit, like a total creeper.”
I smile, finding that strangely endearing. “Well, I like it when you’re a total creeper, love. You’ll be doing a lot more of it when we land. I’m afraid I’ll rarely let you out of my sight in Edinburgh.”
“That should make my stalking much easier.”
The flight attendant comes by and tells me to put my seat up and raise the window shade in that scolding way that they all have, and it’s not long before the plane is descending. Kayla leans over me to look out the window, even though there’s nothing to see but patches of green between grey clouds. I can’t help but close my eyes, breathing her in. Even after being on a plane for thirteen hours, she smells incredible. It’s not soap, it’s not perfume, it’s just her. Something that can’t be bottled. Something that makes my blood rush to all the right places.
I shift in my seat, trying to ignore the stirrings of an erection. Kayla is so busy looking out the window that she doesn’t seem to notice. Which is good because I know she’d go out of her way to make me even stiffer. As soon as I get her in my flat though, I’m not holding back.