Something Wicked This Way Comes Read online

  One of those rocks came close to the bank and Niall stepped over to it in one easy stride. My legs weren’t quite as long, but I jumped after him and let him steady me as I landed. The stone was warm and rough underfoot, coated in soft, slippery moss. The breeze sighed through the heather, and the only noise was the soft hum of insects below us. We could have been adrift in some warm summer ocean.

  Niall nudged me on when I stopped to stare, and a moment later I saw why. The rock split on the other side, one bulge rolling up to cast a shadow on a lower, flatter expanse that barely rose above the rustling bushes. Niall passed me the bag of sandwiches and spread out the blanket he had taken from the van across that patch of shade. “Here. Best picnic spot for miles.”

  I sat down, leaned back against the warm mossy stone, and couldn’t help relaxing. All I could see was flowers and the distant rise of the hills.

  And Niall, smiling down at me.

  “Picnic spot, my arse,” I said to him. “This is your make-out spot, isn’t it?”

  Chapter Twenty

  HE GRINNED at me, completely unabashed. “Works for picnics too.”

  I laughed and accepted the sandwich he passed me. He settled down beside me, close enough that our thighs and shoulders brushed. “And how long have you been, er, picnicking up here?”

  “Actual picnics, since I was eight or so. In the other sense….” He smiled, slow and reminiscent. “I invited a school friend to stay with me the summer I was sixteen. We spent a lot of time up here. Birdwatching, you know.”

  I snorted and took a bite of my sandwich. It was good—strong cheese and a thick slice of ham between crusty bread. “Right.”

  “Didn’t see much in the way of tits, mind. Not that time.” He smirked at me over his sandwich. “Good display of cocks, though.”

  I choked over the next bite, and he thumped me on the back cheerfully and passed me a can of lemonade.

  Once I had my breath back, I commented as dryly as I could, “Romance for the ages, was it?”

  “For the summer, at least. Of course, he pretended not to know me in September.”

  I sighed. “I’ve had a few like that too.”

  “Aye? Who was your first, then?”

  I knocked my shoulder against his, laughing at the memory. “Sneaking into the monthly gay night at the uni when I was in sixth form—lots of student union discos with some bloke grinding on your ass and your hand down someone else’s jeans.” I laughed. “Not exactly your al fresco extravaganza.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I had fun at uni.” Another reminiscent grin flowered across his face. “I was such a slut my first year—boys, girls, boys and girls. Good times. Then I met Terri—my ex-wife—and that was that. Smitten. My friends thought it was hilarious.”

  “I never fell for someone like that,” I said sadly. “A few weeks here, a few months there. No one ever stuck around.”

  “More fool them.”

  A warm shudder ran through me. That was nice. Very nice indeed. I shrugged to hide my embarrassment and said, “Too much baggage. I’m hard work.”

  “Most worthwhile things are.”

  My face went hot from more than the sun. I sat up and said archly, “Ooh, flattery. A man might think you were trying to recreate past glories out here.”

  He smiled, warm and lazy. “When you’ve finished your lunch. No rush.”

  “Sure of yourself, aren’t you?” But I couldn’t help smiling at him. I felt warm under his regard. It settled pleasantly in my belly, just enough to make my skin prickle.

  He pulled me back down against his shoulder, ran his hand down my chest and across my thigh, and murmured, “Eat your lunch, Leon.”

  I did, and he finished his too, stopping occasionally to point out landmarks. He swore we were looking towards Blacklynefoot, but I could see no sign of it.

  He cracked his own lemonade open and pointed out a crack in the moor. “There’s the stream running down to the border. Back in the day, the old reivers—and the moss-troopers who came after them—would have used that route to cross the moor. This old fort was a mustering point for the Scots when they hit south. They’d have come creeping up here at dusk to wait for the cover of darkness.”

  I thought of the horses I had heard in the night and shivered. Pushing the thought away, I grumbled, “Haven’t you finished that yet?”

  He took a deliberately slow sip of his drink and continued, “They knew patience was a virtue, unlike someone I could name. Once they were ready, they’d move slowly down under the cover of the heather.” The hand still resting on my thigh slid up and under my T-shirt, and he spread his fingers across my belly, warm and slow.

  “Then what would they do?” I asked, that soft heat in my belly unfolding until my whole body was on the edge of melting.

  He drained his can, set it carefully back into the bag, then turned to ease me down against the blanket. I went willingly, enjoying the anticipation in his eyes. He leaned over me, and said, completely deadpan, “And then they pillaged.”

  Before I could retort, he leaned in to kiss me.

  He tasted of lemonade, sticky-sweet, and his mouth was warm on mine. I opened to his kiss, pulling him down. His weight settled against me, and I sighed, running my hands down his back. Even in the shade, it was hot, and I could feel the dampness of his sweat through the soft cotton of his shirt. Our lips pressed together, tongues tangling in a lazy kiss that sent tides of slow heat rippling through me. Niall made a pleased, happy sound and shifted slightly, lifting his body so he could press his hips hard against mine, and I followed his mouth up, reluctant to let him go.

  “Oh yeah,” he rumbled delightedly and lifted me up, turning us so, after a moment of tangled limbs and laughter, I was on top, my legs spread across his hips as he grinned at me, lips red and wet and eyes bright. He slid his hands up and down my thighs, then rose enough to tug at the hem of my T-shirt.

  “Out here?” I protested.

  “No one can see for miles,” he promised. “Sheep have been fed, and they were sheared last week. Place is all ours.”

  I’d never had sex outdoors—never done anything more than a bit of snogging on Brighton beach in my twenties, feeling like a wild rebel even though it was Pride weekend and the worse response we got was a wolf whistle. A rush of excitement joined the languor in my limbs, and I peeled my T-shirt off myself, dropping it down beside the blanket.

  “Nice,” Niall said, and his hands were on me before I could catch my breath. He tugged me back against his mouth, and I went happily, my heart pounding as he stroked my back, those big hands steady and gentle against me. His kisses felt drugging, everything but the moment melting away, but I still wanted more.

  It took a bit of wrestling to get his T-shirt off too, but he eventually pulled away enough to let me. It landed half on the rock and half on the heather, but I didn’t care. He was gorgeous—broad with muscle, thick hair curling across his chest to spear down his belly. His tan faded before it reached his shoulders, but he wasn’t entirely pale—there was enough colour to him that I was sure he wandered outside shirtless when he wasn’t working.

  His cheeks pinked. “Going to sit there and stare?”

  “I’m a connoisseur,” I told him loftily, drawing a finger along one clavicle and down the centre of his chest, parting the dark curls to glimpse the soft pink skin behind. “One must take one’s time when appreciating fine art—oh!”

  He’d grown bored of my wittering and had ducked his head forward to suck a kiss against my throat.

  “Like that?” he asked, laughter blurring his tone.

  “I suppose it will—oh!”

  He’d done it again, but this time slid his hand teasingly across the front of my jeans at the same time.

  “Don’t scare the sheep,” he said, shaking his head. “No respect for the countryside, these southern folks.”

  “I’ll show you respect for the countryside, you tease,” I threatened vaguely and pushed him back down against the blanket.
He let me hold him down, though he easily had the strength to push me off if he had wanted, and I scattered kisses across his warm skin until he was squirming and gasping too.

  All around us the air was murmuring with the wind through the heather and the hum of insects. We could have been the only people left in the world, and it made me wild and daring.

  Niall lifted himself up on his elbows to stare down at me. His mouth was hanging open, his lips damp, and he seemed beyond words. He did reach for me, though, cupping my head tenderly. I smiled back.

  His phone began to beep.

  His head thunked against the blanket, and he swore hard before reaching into his pocket to switch it off.

  “Tell me that’s not…,” I said.

  He threw an arm over his eyes, breathing hard. “Fuck, bugger, fuck.”

  “Not if you’re getting dressed again,” I muttered.

  He snorted a laugh as he sat up. “If I’m going to get down to Long Sike before three, I really need to—”

  “I can be quick,” I promised, catching his eye as I deliberately wet my lips.

  “Oh Jesus,” he said and closed his eyes. I watched his lips move as he counted to ten. Then he said, his voice dripping with regret, “Some things shouldn’t be rushed.”

  I sighed.

  He opened his eyes, and his grin quirked up. “You were the one who said we should take it slow.”

  “Bastard,” I said feelingly but caught my T-shirt when he threw it at me.

  He pulled his own on and remarked, “Could be for the best. I dropped my jeans off the side of here once, and it was a pain in the arse getting them back. Literally.”

  I laughed, and he leaned in to kiss it out of my mouth, quick and sweet, before he gathered up the blanket and rubbish and we headed back to the van.

  ONCE HE dropped me back at the lodge, I found myself at a loose end. With Vainguard temporarily off-limits, I had nothing urgent to do until Niall got back that evening. I supposed I should try to treat it as an actual holiday. I drove up over the border, a little aimlessly, until I found a sign pointing me to a railway museum. It turned out to be a couple of old carriages full of memorabilia of the long-defunct Waverley Line, but it whiled away an hour, and they had a cafe where I could sit in the shade and drink tea while I read. It was a very idle way to spend an afternoon, and I had to try hard to ignore my guilt.

  It wasn’t my conscience that made it difficult to concentrate on my book, though. I kept imagining what would have happened if Niall’s alarm hadn’t interrupted us, if we had nothing else to do this afternoon but make love above the heather.

  And yet, even though the daydreams left me shifting uncomfortably in my seat, I didn’t entirely regret the interruption. I felt no rush to seduce him—no urgency beyond the irrational demand of my body. I wasn’t going to lose my chance at him. We could take our time.

  Which was madness when I had no idea how much longer I would be here. If the investigation into the orphanage went sour, I could well be called home in the next few days. Despite that, I liked the idea of going slowly. Perhaps, I thought a little wryly, it was simply the novelty of being gradually seduced. My relationships usually had to be squashed around the demands of the timetable, boarding duties and all—every date had to be planned in advance, and take account of whether I was needed to supervise breakfast the next day.

  Of course, even if I did spend the whole summer here, September would bring all that again.

  I couldn’t bring myself to care.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  IT WAS strange returning to Blacklynefoot only to stop at the end of the drive by the lodge. Vainguard lurked in the distance, and I couldn’t quite ignore it. I stopped outside my car, staring at it. It didn’t quite feel safe to turn my back on it.

  Niall came out of the forge and turned to look too. “Hard to ignore, isn’t it?”

  “How do you manage?”

  He shrugged. “You get used to it. And I’m out a lot or facing the road while I’m in the forge.”

  “Do you think a place can have a personality?” I asked. “Can a building be—I don’t know—cruel?”

  “That one could. What’s the bit from Hamlet—more things in heaven and earth, eh?”

  “Everyone forgets that Hamlet was batshit insane and conversing with skulls by that point in the play,” I pointed out.

  Niall seemed to find that funny. After a moment, he sobered and said, “I’ve seen things here, you know. Things I wouldn’t admit to if I was talking to my mates in a city pub. But this country… it’s old country, and things linger.”

  “Everywhere’s old,” I said but thought of the sound of horses in the night, of the thing that had laughed behind me in the woods. I didn’t want them to be real.

  I must have been silent too long, because Niall said, a little irritably, “Going to stare at it until it gets dark?”

  I made myself turn away. “No. Hey.”

  “Now he thinks of that,” Niall grumbled but leaned down to kiss me. I put my arms around him, enjoying the slow promise of his mouth on mine, and he winced.

  “What’s wrong?” I said, drawing back.

  “Little git of a pony with an infected hoof and a temper. Got me in the hip.”

  “You’re hurt?” I was surprised by how much that upset me.

  “Bruised. Nothing worse.” He grimaced. “Don’t fancy eating out, I’m afraid. An evening on a pub bench and I’ll be too stiff to move tomorrow.”

  “So no more trips to Shagging Rocks for a few days?” I asked and slipped my arm around his waist. “Come on. I could be persuaded to cook for the poor wounded hero of such a battle.”

  “I’m telling you, it was a mean little fucker. And the kids took its side.”

  “Yeah?”

  He leaned his head on my shoulder and confided sorrowfully. “I should have known from the name.”

  “Oh?”

  He sighed gustily. “Some idiot called him Princess Fairyblossom.”

  I laughed so hard I almost walked into the doorframe.

  He might be joking about it, but when he finally let me see the bruise, I winced in sympathy. He had found some foul-smelling lotion from somewhere, and I offered to rub it on for him—an act of courage in itself. I was fairly sure it was meant for horses, not humans. He seemed quite flustered to have someone fussing over him, which made me want to do it more.

  I banished him to the sofa while I cooked, and we talked through the open door, a mixture of his stories about his day, my questions about the local area and where else I could explore. We didn’t talk about the Armstrongs or about Becky’s.

  It was easy, surprisingly so. We both skirted around dangerous topics at times, but every time we did, our eyes would meet in acknowledgement. Niall clearly enjoyed having company, but he didn’t demand my constant attention. I usually craved solitude after too long in any one conversation, but that didn’t seem to be kicking in here. Maybe it was because I was spending so much time alone during the day. Maybe it was just Niall.

  We ate quickly and retreated to the sofa to put a film on. I curled up on Niall’s good side, and he put his arm around me with a contented sigh. It wasn’t the wild sexual encounter I’d been daydreaming about all afternoon, but it was nice, especially when he turned to kiss me.

  We didn’t see much of the film.

  “This is why I was so distracted this afternoon,” Niall grumbled happily.

  I pinched his ribs lightly. “Oy. I am not taking the blame for Fairyblossom.”

  All the kissing had clearly made him magnanimous because he said, “Ah, well. Wasn’t really his fault either. I’d have gone for the farrier’s nuts too if I had to live with a name like that.”

  “Well, I’m glad he missed,” I said, trying and failing to sound grave.

  “Funny for you,” he muttered.

  “Not in the least. I had plans for this evening too.” I couldn’t quite hold my laughter back. He was so disgruntled it was charming. I wriggle
d up and kissed his cheek.

  He turned his head and caught my mouth instead. It was a long, easy kiss, our mouths catching against each other with each huff of breath and sliding apart whenever one of us smiled. I closed my eyes, losing track of everything but the warm thrill of that kiss running through me.

  When we finally parted, his eyes were wide and dark, and he was breathing hard. I was in much the same state, every part of me humming with the need for more.

  He brushed his thumb across my lip, and I kissed it quickly. He had rough hands—hard-working hands—but every time he touched me, he was so gentle I was craving their touch everywhere. I said, surprised when my voice shook a little, “We could work around the bruises.”

  “We could,” he agreed, gaze hot.

  I narrowed my eyes. Even through the haze of lust, I was suspicious of that tone.

  He leaned in, lips brushing the rim of my ear, and breathed, “But I want to be completely fit before I fuck you through the mattress.”

  I shivered, my breath shaking out of me.

  He laughed, low and smug, and slid his hand down my back, steadying me. I tried my best to fake calmness, stroked him again, and reminded him, “There’s more to sex than fucking.”

  He caught my hand, pulling it up and kissing my fingers. “True. But a gentleman waits.”

  “Oh, you bastard,” I said, not without a certain amount of admiration. “I can’t tell if you’re being old-fashioned or you just like torturing me.”

  He smirked. “Maybe I like the anticipation.”

  “Maybe I don’t,” I said, trying to reassert some control. “Maybe, if you’re not going to help, I should see to myself.”

  My sexual encounters had all been at one end of the scale or the other—a quick shag with a stranger or staid, quiet sex within an occasional longer relationship. I’d never played with someone like this—never enjoyed tussling for control.

  His voice went breathless. “Well, you could—”

  I rode over him, leaning in to speak right against his mouth. “I could do it right here while you sit there and stew in your own precious anticipation.”