Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 102731 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 514(@200wpm)___ 411(@250wpm)___ 342(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 102731 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 514(@200wpm)___ 411(@250wpm)___ 342(@300wpm)
I kissed her at that, but she pulled away before I could deepen it. Now I was scowling as I followed her around like a lost pup.
We’d taken the train down to Edinburgh from Inverness yesterday afternoon, and Callie and I had flirted nonstop, so much so, by the time we got into our hotel room we dumped our luggage and started going at it on the bed without fully undressing.
The only time we stopped for a break was to grab dinner in the hotel, and the rest of the evening was spent relearning all the inches of skin we’d discovered of each other this past week. It had taken me very little time to figure out all of Callie’s buttons and she mine. To be fair, mine was pretty much her saying “Let’s have sex.”
I was easy that way.
This morning, we made love, lazy, sweet, and slow. Overall, since we’d started sleeping together again, I’d felt what little distance had been left between us disappear. I hadn’t realized how much Callie needed to believe I fully trusted her, and to know she thought my physical distance meant I didn’t bothered me. I hated the idea of her ever feeling hurt. Now that she knew I was all in, too, things felt better than ever between us.
Yet, out of nowhere, since we’d walked into the museum, Callie had put up a physical wall. When I touched her, she eased away. And then there was the pulling away from my kiss.
Having no idea what I’d done to fuck up in the last fifteen minutes, I studied her, half hunger, half frustration.
July in Edinburgh was muggy, and Callie wore a white T-shirt with a rainbow cupcake and the words In My Baking Era on it. It was tucked into one of the many pairs of wee shorts she owned. The Converse on her feet might as well have been six-inch fuck-me heels for the way I reacted to her. Bracelets tangled together on her wrists as she tucked her long hair behind her ear to peer at Dolly the Sheep, the first-ever cloned mammal. She wrinkled her nose at the taxidermy and moved on, the ends of her hair brushing her lower back. Images of last night, of her hair swaying against her arse as she rode me reverse cowgirl, flashed across my vision.
Done with the distance, I marched over to her, took her by the biceps, and pulled her into a quiet corner of the gallery. “What’s going on?”
Callie blinked up at me, confused. “We’re … in the museum. Looking at stuff.”
Unamused, I scowled. “I mean, why are you keeping your distance all of a sudden and pulling away when I kiss you?”
“Eh, because if I don’t, I’m going to get arrested for shagging you in public.” She patted my chest reassuringly. “Don’t take it personally, Lew. In fact, do take it personally because every time I look at your handsome bloody face or your shoulders or arse or hands or arms …” Her gaze dropped to my arms, and I found myself struggling not to laugh as she licked her lips. “Mmm … having a bit of an impulse control problem at the moment, so please keep your distance until we’re back at the hotel. Mmmkay? Love you.” She gave me a quick kiss on the lips and then hurried off to look at Toby the Whale.
And I stood there like an idiot, grinning. “Love you too,” I murmured back.
For someone having impulse control issues, Callie certainly kept us busy doing the tourist thing all day. By the time we made it back to the hotel, we only had time to shower and change before our dinner reservation at a Michelin Star restaurant on George IV Bridge. It specialized in seafood, and Verity had said Callie could have fish as long as it wasn’t high in mercury.
The food was amazing, and Callie couldn’t stop gushing about how excited she was to eat in a Michelin Star restaurant. Her excitement level increased when I finally revealed I was taking her to see Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet. It had been her favorite play in high school, and we’d argued about it at the time because I thought it was melodramatic piffle and Romeo was a creep for perving on a girl Juliet’s age.
I saw the way Callie remembered our argument and how it ended with me kissing the anger right out of her. For the first time, the memory wasn’t tinged with melancholy. I knew by the amused, nostalgic look on Callie’s face she felt that too. We were healing from the pain of our past separation.
The museum, the dinner, the play, the sex … it was my way of attempting to be a better boyfriend this time around. To give Callie everything she desired. But it also had the added benefit of distracting her from the break-in. The police were still reviewing the CCTV footage from a couple of businesses on Castle Street, and the team Walker had pulled in from his many contacts hadn’t found any other fingerprints but Callie’s, mine, and her family’s.