Among the Heather (The Highlands, #2)

He lay naked at my side, his arms sprawled above his head as his breathing finally relaxed too.

As soon as the man had closed the door on us, he practically ripped off my clothes and vice versa. We didn’t say a word. We just attacked each other with our bodies and commenced a round of epic sex that proved last night was not an anomaly.

North + Aria = hot sex.

“I’m taking you fucking me into tomorrow as an agreement for a casual sex arrangement?”

I didn’t have to look at him to know he was smiling. I could hear it in his response. “Caught that, did you?”

I giggled with postcoital bliss and suddenly, North rolled onto his side, drawing my gaze. At his cheeky grin and penetrating stare, I asked, “What?”

“I’ve never heard you laugh like that. It’s fucking cute.”

I rolled my eyes. “We both know there’s nothing cute about me.”

“That’s where you’re wrong.” He moved over me, pushing between my thighs as he bent his head to trail kisses down my chest. I arched into his kiss, feeling my body light up again. So quickly. So needy.

Definitely addicted.

“You are many things,” he murmured between kisses, “including cute.”

“Oh?” I grinned at the ceiling and then gasped when he playfully bit my nipple. Meeting his cocky gaze, I spread my legs wider, inviting him to play more.

North’s eyes darkened, and his voice deepened. “You are smart, sarcastic, brusque, and intimidatingly beautiful. But they’re just the closet doors hiding all the sweet and kind and sexy inside. Oh, and cute. Don’t forget the cute.”

An ache spread across my chest. “Just sex,” I whispered, reminding him. Reminding me.

Understanding gleamed in his expression seconds before he dipped his head to take my nipple in his mouth. I whimpered, threading my fingers through his hair while he played me as well as he played his damn guitar.





After round two, I gave myself five minutes to recover. When North got up to deal with the second used condom, I hurried out of bed to dress before he returned.

I was so fast, I was already buttoning up my shirt by the time he sauntered out, completely at ease and confident in his nakedness.

He should be.

The man’s ass was the stuff of gods.

At the sight of me preparing to leave, he scowled and came to a stop, hands on his hips. “Not this again.”

I bit my lip as I eyed his hot, naked body and the semihard cock between those sculpted thighs. “It’s very difficult to take you seriously when you’re standing there looking like that.”

“Aria.”

At the warning note in his voice, I assured him, “I’m just heading out so I don’t get caught doing the walk of shame in the morning. I don’t want the staff to gossip.”

“You do know security might have seen you come to my room on the CCTV system.”

I did know that, and while it didn’t make me entirely happy, I shrugged. “The security guys are not gossips. It’s part of their job to keep their mouths shut.”

He sighed in exasperation and crossed the room to stop me as I picked up my shoes. North drew me into his arms, sliding his hands to grasp my ass. Pressed to his hot, hard body, I trembled with renewed desire. This was getting out of control. I’d never been this turned on by a guy in my life. Stroking my fingers over his smooth shoulders, I insisted, “I have to go.”

“But—”

“You could come to the beach house tomorrow, though.” The words blurted from me before I could stop them.

North raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

Well, it was out there now.

And I liked the idea of not coming home to an empty house. “Yeah. You could drop by my office tomorrow and I’ll give you a key. Hang there if you need a change of scenery. Play your guitar to your heart’s content. Maybe write a song about how good sex with me is.”

He squeezed me tighter against him, grinning like a sexy, smug bastard. “Good? I think you mean fucking phenomenal.”

Chuckling, I shrugged. “Maybe.”

North gave me a pretend scolding look. “I guess tomorrow I’ll just have to prove how phenomenal it can get. And if we’re all alone in the beach house, you can scream through your orgasms as loudly as you want.”

I raised an eyebrow as I pushed teasingly away from him. “Scream? I doubt it.”

“Oh, gorgeous, you just set a challenge I intend to win.”

Shoving my feet into my heels, I met his smoldering stare. “Well, if you lose, I win, and if you win, I win, so I’m looking forward to the trying.”

North laughed as he followed me to the door. But as I opened it, he leaned in and whispered hotly in my ear, “There’s no running away tomorrow night. You’re mine all fucking night, and I intend to keep you busy coming until dawn.”

A shiver of need so powerful rippled over me I almost slammed the door shut and jumped him. Instead, I turned to find his lips an inch from mine, his expression deadly serious.

My answer was to close the distance between our mouths and take his in a deep, slow, wet kiss that promised I was up for that challenge too.

A few minutes later, I let myself into the staff elevator, hoping I didn’t bump into anyone because I had sex hair, swollen lips, and I was pretty sure my nipples were hard enough to poke through my bra.

I felt alive.

Awake.

I felt like the girl I’d lost years ago. The one who’d been excited by her sexual awakening before those men came along and made her want to hide.

North had done what Sloane said he might. He’d guided me back to myself. I wasn’t all the way there yet, but I was inching closer.

I just had to keep in mind that this was all it was. My sexual reawakening and a bit of harmless no-strings sex for him.

It was nothing more.

More would hurt us both.





Seventeen


NORTH





Thunderous clouds above had turned the North Sea gunmetal gray as rain battered it, dancing off the water’s surface like oil hopping off a hot pan. I shivered from the safety of the Howards’ beach house porch, admiring the force of nature. Waves crashed onto the shore below, the rhythmic sound, while more aggressive than usual, soothing.

I envied Aria this home, its position, its sanctuary. But only from here. Inside, while stylish and comfortable, it didn’t feel lived in. There was no sign of what Aria’s life consisted of outside work. No hobbies I could see. I imagined her returning home here late every night to no one to hold her and listen about her day and help her decompress.

The idea was miserable, and it agitated me.

She was living half a life here, and it was a damn travesty.

Dictator’s “Moonlight” rang in my arse pocket, and I pulled out my phone to see Theo calling.

Stepping back inside, I closed the porch doors and marveled at the silence that followed. The beach house windows had to be made with special noise-reduction glass. Heat licked my chilled skin as I answered my phone and lounged down by the fire.

“Cavendish, you sneaky bastard,” I answered casually.

He drawled, amused. “What the hell have I done now?”

“You sicced Walker on me about those letters.”