Dog breath.
I flinch, fully coming awake just in time to see a long pink tongue slide over my face, leaving a trail of drool behind.
“Oy, Lionel,” Lachlan mumbles, throwing his arm out and pulling the dog away from my face and back in between us. “Have some manners.”
I slowly sit up, running my hand over my cheek and wiping the dog drool off of me. I look down at Lachlan who’s holding Lionel in a hug and grinning sheepishly up at me.
“Sorry about that,” he says. “He likes to wake you up with kisses.”
I raise my brow, totally fucking charmed by the sight of Lachlan and his tattoos and muscles, holding the sweetest, drooling dog against him, nestled in the white sheets. “I’m not complaining, but I would rather you wake me up with kisses instead.”
He grins at me, looking absolutely adorable, a lock of bed-mussed hair flopping over his forehead. “That can be arranged.”
I already arranged it last night. Though somehow I was able to make it through the day and most of the evening, when we turned in at eleven o’clock after taking Emily and Lionel for their last walk around the quaint neighborhood, I was absolutely exhausted. Despite that, I woke up at three a.m., wide-eyed and ready to go. It probably hadn’t been such a good idea to take that nap, but I don’t regret the sex it led to after. And, of course, when it’s the middle of the night and you have a Scottish sex god in bed with you, you wake him up with a blow job.
Thankfully Lionel wasn’t in bed with us at the time. He must have snuck in when we were both sated and passed out.
Emily barks from the other room, and that steals Lionel’s full attention. His ears perk up and his forehead wrinkles in the exact same way that his master’s often does, and he jumps off the bed, burning it into the living room.
“You can never sleep in with dogs,” Lachlan says, his voice still sleepy in that very sexy way of his. “Which was fine until you came into the picture. Now I think lying in bed with you in the mornings is the best part of the day.”
“Can’t argue with that,” I say softly. I take the opportunity to lie back down, pulling the soft covers over me and settling into my favorite spot, the nook between his arm and his side. I place my fingers on his broad chest, trailing them over his tattoos. I feel like I’ll forever be marveling at what a perfect specimen of a man he is. Every second that ticks past, I’m looking at him differently. Deeper. And now that I’m here, with him in his home, I don’t think there’s any hope for me.
Yesterday, when I woke up from my jetlagged nap and found him crawling on top of me with that look in his eyes that wasn’t just about lust but something more profound, more real, what followed went beyond any fuck I’ve had before. It was raw and I was ravaged. I could feel his urgency with every touch of his hands, feel his heart beating like a wild beast. There was breathtaking honesty in the way he stared at me, as if I were gold dust, precious and able to blow away at a moment’s notice.
We made love. There was no other word for it, and while it used to make me cringe and laugh when other people used that term so casually, so cheesily, I finally got it. I understood it. It was lust and passion and burning desire for each other’s bodies, for the pleasure, but it was also feverish want for the person inside.
I didn’t just want Lachlan’s muscles, his lips, his endless skills beneath the sheets. I wanted him, every part of him. The dark bits that were hidden away and only hinted at by tattoos. I desired all of him, like a dying man desires one more breath.
I’d wanted to bring Lachlan to his knees, and while I could feel him yearning and yielding to me, I was going to my knees first. I had no idea how I was going to pick myself up in three weeks. No idea at all.
“What are you thinking about?” he whispers into the top of my head, his fingers playing with my hair.