Chapter 11

11

G ennie played the first notes of the Flea Waltz . Clumsily and stiffly at first, but then muscle memory took over.

Suddenly, she sensed Nathan’s presence behind her. It rolled against her back like a wall of fire. ‘Don’t stop. Keep going.’

With slow movements, he placed himself beside her on the small bench and her heart did an honest-to-God backflip.

So. Damn. Close.

The heat of his thigh bled through her jeans. Then she caught a whiff of him, a heady blend that made her head spin.

He joined in and his fingers danced over the lower notes of the tune. Their hands moved in tandem, the simple melody filled the room. It made her pulse gallop. She’d wanted to draw him out, to crack that stoicism. But now, with him so close… All that coiled power and wary longing was tenuously held in check.

Good God, she wasn’t sure she’d survive the reality of what she’d wished for.

Gennie glimpsed at him beside her, the hard planes of his face, the dusting of silver in his temples. He had twelve years on her, but hell if those years didn’t look good on him. Mature and masculine in a way that punched her straight in the core and liquefied her thought processes into a pathetic puddle.

As the last, playful notes of the Flea Waltz faltered, Nathan’s hand covered hers, stilling her gently. ‘Let me play something for you.’ His voice was smoky like rich whisky over rocks.

Gennie recognised the melody – the opening chords of Ronan Keating’s When You Say Nothing At All .

And just like that, every last razor-edged rampart around her crumbled.

God, his hands. Gliding fluidly over the keys, the music flowed effortlessly from his fingertips.

That’s beautiful.

His hands were strong and so symmetrical. The tendons and veins shifted beneath the tanned skin with every subtle flex and stroke and… Jesus, the image of those skilled hands skimming over her own body flooded her mind in full unrepentant high-def. Gripping her hips…

She squeezed her thighs together as an ache welled up between them, and an electric current of undisguised yearning ricocheted through to her core. This man could wreck her with a single touch, she simply knew it. Could make her beg and plead and fall apart in ways she’d never even imagined.

Gennie watched him as he lost himself in the music, his eyes half closed. In that moment, he had no angles or edges or walls. No weight of the world pressing down on him. He just…existed there beside her in the music, finally and beautifully free.

So yeah, she couldn’t help but sway closer until their shoulders touched. A shockwave rippled between them at that point of contact. His piercing eyes flared wide, every tendon and sinew coiled flint-tight as he froze mid-chord.

‘Keep playing?’ Her voice was a husky whisper.

As he turned to face her, the unbridled lust burned so brightly behind those silver-flecked irises that it singed the air from her lungs like an open flame. Every rise and fall of his broad chest was quick and shallow, the rasp of his breath scoring her frenzied pulse.

Holy mother of all fucks.

She’d never gone for older guys before. But Nathan? A whole other level. There was a depth to him that sucked her in and swallowed her like a black hole. Everything about him screamed he knew exactly how to work it, like he could turn any night into a blockbuster. The curve of those hard-bitten, decadent lips… He was far beyond the confines of any standard category. A man who knew what he wanted and how to get it.

And right now…with the way his gaze delved down to the marrow of her bones? It seemed that what he wanted was…

Her?

A roar of panic tried to warn her from the back of her skull to maintain a safe distance between them. The rational part of her brain screamed at her to back off before she did something reckless. But the reckless streak that made her crave the scratch of his beard between her thighs told that rational voice to go fuck itself, but hard.

Gennie took a shaky breath, and her pulse whooshed in her ears. She was playing a dangerous game. Her eyes flicked down to his lips. His breath whispered against her mouth.

Oh yes, just surge forward and take, take, take me.

And then, with a shuddering exhale that gusted hot and rife with frustration over her parted lips, he pulled back. The absence of his touch was like a splash of icy water that shocked her back to reality.

‘Gennie…’ His voice was a jumble of rough and tender.

She blinked at him, her mind fuzzy and sluggish. It took a second for his words to register, for the regret in his eyes to penetrate the haze of want.

‘It’s late,’ he announced gruffly and stood up. ‘You should get some rest. Night.’ He left, and a concerned Sir Hubert scurried after him.

She watched him go without a word. Frustration and longing wound tight in her stomach; her entire body vibrated with pent-up desire. Every inch of her ached for his touch. Minutes stretched into an eternity as she fought to regain her composure. Every cell in her body screamed for him to come back and finish what they started. He had been here, he had almost…

Damn you, Nathan MacMillan.

Gennie wandered the upstairs corridor of Glenwood Lodge. She wasn’t ready for bed. Not with the way her skin tingled and her thoughts careened, replaying every charged moment of their conversation.

Glenwood wasn’t a castle, but it wasn’t an ordinary old house, either. A hunting lodge from the late nineteenth century, Nathan had explained. For rich people who’d come to Scotland, killed deer for fun, and then ‘pissed off back to England’. He hadn’t seemed too happy about it.

Gennie ran her fingertips along the panelled walls, the wood smooth under her touch. Oil paintings of landscapes hung at intervals. Deer, grouse, lots of birches, hills, and heather.

She tried a door at random and peeked into another guest room. Uninteresting. The next revealed a shower room with a toilet, good to know, but hardly the stuff of intrigue.

But the third door…

Gennie halted, her hand on the knob. She pushed it open. It was a small storeroom lined with shelves and stacked with dusty boxes. A sliver of light from the hallway illuminated a box in the corner, the words ‘Nathan records (gold) & awards’ scrawled across the side in black marker.

Records and awards?

Now that got her attention.

Her heart pounded in her throat as she slipped into the tiny room. A bigger closet, really. She shouldn’t snoop, but curiosity got the better of her. It always did. With nimble fingers, she lifted the cardboard lid. Inside was a stack of CDs and vinyl records nestled in their sleeves, covers faded and worn. She pulled one out of the box. And when she turned it over, her heart almost leapt out of her chest.

A young Nathan on the cover staring back at her, his face next to the title Waiting for the Weekend . He looked not even out of his teens, a cheeky glint in his eye. Unmistakably him, but softer. Less careworn. Without the edge and lines. And much younger.

Holy shit .

She pulled out another record. One Night Only (Let’s Make It Count)

A singer? She shook her head in disbelief and a laugh bubbled up in her throat. It was surreal to see this side of him. The guy she shared a house with was all gruff, a soul wrapped in grit. But this Nathan…this Nathan was the stuff of teenage fantasies, pouty lips and bedroom eyes.

Hearts must have melted, thongs must have flown in spades.

A glint of gold caught her eye, and she reached into the box. Her fingers closed around a small figurine. A Brit Award read the inscription.

I was in elementary school, and he was a fucking pop star.

A long, looming shadow fell across the dimly lit doorway, abruptly blocking out what little light was spilling into the cluttered space. Gennie froze like a kid caught raiding the cookie jar, the shiny award still clutched in her fingers like a guilty talisman.

‘Find something interesting?’ The sinister rumble of Nathan’s voice fractured the silence. Dangerously calm, like the deceptive surface of a frozen lake concealing cold, bottomless depths.

She turned to face him. His broad shoulders filled the door and shrouded the room in shadows. In the half-light, his eyes glittered like twin pools of icy blue.

‘Nathan, I…didn’t mean to intrude.’ She swallowed. ‘God, but you were a pop star.’

‘Put. It. Back.’ Each word was clipped and landed with the force of a sledgehammer.

Something stirred inside her at his tone. Instead of obeying, she lifted her chin and met that stare full-on with every ounce of bravado she could muster. ‘Or else what?’

It happened so fast, her mind didn’t even have a chance to register the burst of movement before he was suddenly everywhere. Those powerful hands slammed against the shelves on either side of her head with enough force to rattle the wood. He caged her in with zero room to retreat.

‘Or else you’ll regret it,’ he growled, his breath hot against her cheek.

Her skin prickled with an overwhelming awareness of how close he was. So near she could make out the dusting of freckles scattered across the slope of his nose. The solid wall of his broad chest heaved with each accelerated breath, the hard press of corded muscle shifted against her hip.

‘I dare you,’ she whispered, her lips only inches from touching his.

He made a noise deep in his throat. ‘Gennie…You don’t know what you’re playing with. Stop it.’

‘Who says I’m playing?’

His breath was ragged. ‘This is none of your fucking business. Stay away.’

She trailed a finger down his chest. His muscles tensed under her touch. ‘And if I don’t want to?’

His eyes burned into hers with a severity that throttled her. ‘Gennie, I’m warning you…’

She rose to her toes, and her lips brushed the shell of his ear. ‘You can’t do anything to me I don’t want, Nathan. I won’t let you.’

He shuddered, and his hands flexed against the shelves. ‘And what is it you want me to do to you, huh?’

The words detonated against her senses like seething shell splinters. Promise and threat rolled into one. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think beyond the throbs that radiated from her core in merciless waves. Liquid heat swamped her from the inside out.

‘You know what.’ The admission was little more than a plea carried on the scraps of air she managed to draw.

For a second, they teetered on the edge. His gaze dropped to her mouth, his own parting on an exhale.

Yes, yes. God, yes!

Then, abruptly, like a puppet stripped of its strings, all the pent-up tension gripping his powerful frame snapped. He jerked away. ‘No.’

The deafening finality of that single bitten-off syllable reverberated through the dimness.

‘You’re my guest. You’re a stranger. And twelve fucking years too young.’ He covered his eyes with one hand. ‘Go to bed. Forget whatever you think you saw here. And stay in your room.’

And then he was gone.