KiltedForPleasure (5 page)

“Someone told me recently there are always strings attached when dealing with a Baird.”

He wished he could like her less for throwing his words back at him. Callan inhaled and let his attention wander away from her intense stare. The sky had darkened and that promised a harder rain than a drizzle. Normally, he’d have welcomed it, but not when the soft sunlight almost turned her eyes amber.

This entire situation would be better if he could just
not
like her. “I’d break your heart before I’d ask you to give your everything to me. Your work is your everything. That much is obvious. The truth is, I don’t want to want you.”

Surprised lifted her brows for a second. She jerked her hands from her pockets and motioned between them. “I’ve noticed you keep getting closer despite that.”

He blanked his expression. “I don’t want you to wonder about size.”

She glanced down and scoffed. “About four inches between us. After all your big talk, I expected to find out why Scottish men wear kilts. Can’t fit it all in pants, can they?”

Amazed that she could make him blush, all he could do was shake his head. “You are a Scot at heart. You dirty-mouthed lass.”

“Bollocks.” Her dimple deepened.

Instinct propelled his movements, just bypassed his brain and signaled his body. He grabbed her and dragged her up against him, to his mouth.
Claim her
. Even before he’d known the true taste of grief—bitter and unyielding, unending—he’d never wanted to make a woman his, but Victoria…

Callan wanted to taste what made her different, let it sink into his bones and make a home. He wanted to lay claim to that part of her and do with it what he willed. He teetered on the edge of taking her on his uncle’s porch. Kissing her was giving in to the need that rushed through his veins.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and sank into his embrace with a moan. At her submission, Callan lost what was left of his common sense. He turned, pushed her against the door and let the need take over. He cupped one full cheek of her arse and pressed her against his cock.
There
. She could feel every inch. He almost smiled at her gasp, but he was too busy laying claim to her mouth until she opened for him, and then he drank in the taste of her sweet, mysterious and addictive bouquet.

She kissed him back in the same frenzied way his heart pounded. Hunger pitted in his gut and the only thing that would sate it was her naked in his bed. Her coming on his dick. Victoria wet and warm and bare.

He grazed his teeth over her full bottom lip and was rewarded with a half moan, half curse. Sweet Mary. He ached to have her right there against the door but a laugh built in his sternum. He nipped the corner of her mouth and lavished her with soft sucks on her tongue just to hear her curse again. Cute as a fucking pixie but with a mouth of a Scot. Aye. He wanted to lay claim.

Grinding his cock into that warm and likely wet space between her legs, he pounded in the point he wanted to make. He hadn’t had four inches since before puberty hit. “I like the way you moan, Burke.”

“You growl,” she accused but sounded aroused.

Callan let loose the laugh because he couldn’t fight it anymore. He released her and she slid down him. A hiss whispered between his lips as her stomach brushed along his dick.

“That mouth of yours is going to get you into trouble, lass.”

She licked her swollen lips. “I’m still not sleeping with you.”

“You will,” he promised.

“No.” She pressed her shoulders into the door and glared at him with defiance. “If I’m sleeping with you, how is my integrity not being called into question? I have to vet your work. I have to make sure you don’t turn a $3,000 antique into a $20 table.”

It would have been easy to deny the truth of her words. Unfortunately he saw her point. He’d met many in his field who screwed up more than they fixed. His craft was just that, a craft. With her past she couldn’t blindly trust him. Didn’t stop irritation from taking hold, but he understood.

He also refused to ignore the truth. “You’ll be in my bed. Mark my words.”

“Saying I’ll never be in your bed would be a challenge to you. You’d go after me with a mindless intent just to spite me. So I’ll just say I don’t need to be there.”

Anything else she could have said would have been exactly that, a challenge, but those words undercut him. He dropped his hands away from her lush form and gave her the room she quietly demanded. He played the part of Neanderthal but wasn’t actually one.

But he couldn’t leave it at that. He’d opened his mouth to tell her exactly the choices she had and what she was missing, when the door opened. He grabbed her to make sure she wouldn’t fall. Douglass Baird scowled at him and then noticed the company.

“Finally,” Douglass boomed. “If I wanted to be celibate, I’d have become a priest.”

Callan shook his head. “Too many nuns to corrupt. Douglass, this is Victoria. She’s to be your…caregiver for the next two months.” He added but knew the warning would go unheeded, “Behave.”

Douglass grinned, his blue-gray eyes lighted. “What a pleasure to meet you, lassie.”

The older man took her offered hand and kissed the knuckles. Victoria’s eyes widened in shock at the brazen act.

Auch. So it began.

CHAPTER SIX

At first Victoria thought the Baird was putting on the incorrigible Scot act to snow the tourist. His words whipped by with an accent so thick she couldn’t cut it with a chainsaw. The Baird even called Callan “laddie.”

After thirty minutes, she realized he was every inch
the Scot
. He was the kind they sat in front of a castle to weave tall tales of Highlanders fighting against the English with nothing more than a dirk and a kilt.

And wasn’t she a pretty Yank.

The old man was a problem. More silver than gray, his hair fell in soft waves around the crown of his head. The neatly trimmed beard only accented his full lips. Ian inherited those beautiful gray-blue irises from his father, and Tristan had gotten his charm. And currently Baird was doing his damndest to use that charm to talk his way out of cleaning.

She swallowed back a sigh and scrubbed a stubborn spot on the kitchen floor. Yeah. She welcomed the shift in focus. Her mind wanted to replay the stupid mistake on the stoop. A stupid mistake her hormones had happily participated in.

Who knew a man whose lips curled so easily in anger could make her melt?

She gave the mysterious brown spot another good scrub before sharing the frustration. “You know, Callan called you elderly.”

He was older but like a well-aged Scotch. He’d be eighty and still be a silver-fox. And all hands.

“I know what my boys say about me. Let’s dance.” He avoided the still wet part of the floor and ploughed toward her. “You don’t look like you do that often.”

She didn’t but that wasn’t the point. She was in neck deep. Callan grumbled something inappropriate as he cleaned the old ashes in the hearth. His forearms had streaks of soot mixed into the fine hairs. She sighed again since this wasn’t the Baird’s first attempt at a distraction. The flat, as they had insisted it be called, flowed from one room to another. Even though she stood in the kitchen, Victoria could see the front door in one direction and his bedroom in the other.

A song played in the background. A sad beat that you’d slow dance to. The music fit the frayed furniture. Well, what she could see of it. Newspapers, take-out boxes and other assortment of clutter covered most of the space in the large flat. It had apparently taken the man two weeks to collect all this junk. She had hoped they wouldn’t be here all day and that Callan had only exaggerated the time needed. Nope. She glanced around again. He’d underestimated the work.

Not to mention the Baird.

There was a reason why a maid or nurse wouldn’t work. He’d sexually harass them and not feel an inch sorry for it. And to be honest, maybe the woman wouldn’t be so adverse to his seduction—a problem in and of itself. That all came down to no one sane or weak-willed would volunteer to corral the Baird.

She pressed the end of the mop handle to his chest. “Stay right there. I warned you, old man. Touch me and I’ll pop you. And I still just might. I’ve seen the inside of your refrigerator and that’s next on my list.” She reached for the rag he’d tossed aside and threw it at him. “Help Callan. The pictures on the mantle need to be dusted.”

He caught the rag with a huff. “None of the others made me clean.”

“And none of the others are here.” She gave him an extra poke. “Go help and let me do my work. If you behave, I’ll make you something delicious. Your freezer and pantry are loaded.”

“You know—”

“Baird, some things are best left unsaid.” Callan didn’t turn as he spoke.

The Baird gave his nephew a leveled look and then nodded. “Aye, I see.” He turned to grin at her. “So it’s not me you’re after, but Jacob.”

She chose to avoid that trap. “He likes to be called Callan.”

Douglass laughed. “My apologies. His mum called him Jacob.”

Another trap and she couldn’t avoid it because curiosity got the better of her. “His mum?”

Callan sighed as the Baird grabbed a picture off the mantle. Douglass wiped the coating of dust off the glass before handing it to her. The woman looked very young. She had a pert nose, wide blue eyes and a warm smile. Freckles decorated her heart-shaped face. His mother had a sparkle in her eye like she’d be the kind of mom who’d bake cookies in the middle of the night and start pillow fights. Her own mother had that same sparkle. So she could only imagine the grief Callan must feel.

Victoria stole a glance at Callan. His expression had turned to stone as he scrubbed harder than necessary on the grate.

“From what I hear labor is pretty tough,” she said, her throat a little raw now. “By rights you get to call your kid whatever name you want.”

The mischievous light in Douglass’ eyes dimmed. “Giving birth doesn’t make you a mother.”

She’d stepped into a minefield. It was obvious these men didn’t have many female influences in their life. “No. It doesn’t, but it says a lot that you still have your sister-in-law’s picture on your mantle.” She hesitated. “You called them your boys. Tell me about them.”

“Is he yours?” Douglass asked.

The point-blank question made heat rise to her cheeks. “No. I’m just nosy.”

“Awright,” the Baird said. “So what was that kiss on my stoop?”

Callan looked on with interest. “Aye. What was that?”

He’d seen that? Not surprising the man was a peeper. “You’re not behaving.” She lifted a brow.

They both sighed, but Douglass said, “You had to bring a feisty one. She won’t let me flirt with her or touch her. And she’s making me clean.”

Victoria pointed out, “Which I’ve noticed you’re not actually doing.”

Callan’s warm laughter filled the flat as he straightened from the hearth. He gave his uncle a pat on the back when he passed him. “And that’s why I brought her.”

The Baird replied too low for her to decipher its meaning. Sounded vulgar though. But the man started to dust the rest of the pictures and tell her about his boys. Amazing what she could glean from the stories. Tavin was Callan’s father who, unbelievably, was more of a cad than Douglass. The Baird men loved women. Tavin was also an absent father.

And the more the Baird talked, the more Callan relaxed and added a few details of his own. This wasn’t a man who stood on the moors brooding about whatever lot in life he’d been handed—a shitty one. Although his mother had fought it for years, she eventually lost the fight against kidney failure. He’d seen it all. Victoria couldn’t imagine being in her teens and watching her mother die. Good or bad, mothers were supposed to be invincible.

They talked and Victoria maneuvered both men to do most of the cleaning. Oh, she dusted whatever the Baird missed and vacuumed, but after seeing the bathroom and the bedroom there was no way she’d touch either—even with gloves on.

She kept them company, asking a million questions that they took turns answering. Turns out the Baird owned a pub, the one he lived over. The man needed a caregiver as much as Victoria needed a hole in her head.

It was well past lunch by the time they finished. Since a little more than half the food in the refrigerator looked like a science project, she’d thawed a roast. The Baird sat back with a pint he’d brought up from his pub.

Callan hovered behind her as she tried to chop carrots and not her fingers. The air had a chemical tinge to it but she could still pick out his scent. The kitchen simply wasn’t big enough. She had to find a way to get him to sit down. Though it was the lesser evil, because then he’d watch her with that hungry gaze of his.

“Baird, do you know how to cook?” she directed the question at Douglass in hopes that’d help her not focus on Callan.

He had leaned against the sink and the hairs on her neck stood. She was so aware of the distance between them and was struggling to forget what his mouth felt like slanted over hers or the way his cock prodded her stomach.

The Baird took a generous sip from his large glass. “I can poach an egg, fry a sausage and burn some toast.”

Unbelievable
. She shook her head. “Which I’m sure you eat every morning. Let me show you how to chop an onion.”

Douglass’ gaze swept to his nephew, his brows pulling down into a frown. “I know what you’ve been doing all day, and I let you. It’s hard to argue with you when you pull out that dimple. It feels cruel to say no.” Exhaustion deepened the lines around his mouth. “But I’m not as young as I use to be. Teach Callan.”

Should have seen that one coming, but she had pushed the man as far as he would go today. Victoria sighed and turned to Callan. He’d raised his brow, the challenge thick in the air.

“Don’t look so smug,” she said. “I’ve seen you in yellow gloves.” She handed him the knife. “Show me what you can do.”

A smirk just wasn’t cocky enough to describe his smile. “Auch. I can chop an onion just fine. Who do you think has fed him all these months?”

He approached the chopping board and stood with his feet spread in a fighter stance and chopped big, ugly portions. Douglass laughed, hard. “That’s my laddie.”