Beard tickling my face.

The smell of expensive cologne.

Heat. So much heat surrounding me.

The sound and feel of him breathing heavily into me.

Adair’s hands wrapped tight around my biceps, the heels of my feet lifted from the ground. Pulled up into his kiss.

Adair was kissing me.

His lips moved against mine with a grunt of feeling, and that noise, on top of all my other senses, caused lust to pool low and deep between my legs. I gasped at the thrilling awareness that electrified my very nerve endings. Adair took advantage and licked his tongue against mine.

Aroused beyond thinking, I reached for him, feeling his beard prickly soft on my palms. Suddenly his arms were around me, hauling me against his hard body, his kiss turning wild and voracious.

We stumbled against the kitchen counter as he wove some kind of spell over me. I forgot everything but how good his body felt pressed to mine, how exciting and intensely sexual the stroke of his tongue against mine was, eliciting an answering throbbing in my breasts and between my legs. I’d never been kissed like this. While it tasted of anger and frustration, there was a savage desperation to it that turned me the heck on.

His lips finally left mine, and they stung with the release, swollen by his fervent kisses. My eyes flew open, a sense of reality on the verge of returning—

Until I felt his tongue on my neck.

Oh God.

I arched into him as he scored a fiery trail of kisses down my neck while one of his hands pushed beneath my shirt. My back bowed, envisioning him ripping the neckline of my shirt so he could cover my breasts in kisses too. I gasped at the thought, my fingers pushing into his hair to pull him down. “Lachlan,” I panted, wanting him everywhere at once.

He tensed, freezing against the rise of my breasts.

Heart racing, I held still as that moment allowed reality to hit home.

Oh my God.

Adair exploded back from me.

There was no other word for it.

One minute he’d been sucking on my cleavage while caressing my stomach, and the next he was across the small space, standing at the trailer door, chest heaving.

Oh my God.

I’d just made out with Lachlan Adair. Like … really, really made out.

We glowered at each other like enemies on a battlefield.

“That shouldn’t have happened,” Adair bit out.

Rejection burned.

Refusing to let him see it, I lifted my chin. “You kissed me first.”

It was childish. I knew it even as I said it.

His eyes narrowed. “You didn’t exactly push me away.”

“Call it a moment of deep insanity.”

A muscle twitched in his jaw. “Visit your bloody father,” he demanded and then spun and pushed out of the trailer, seemingly taking all the air with him.

I sucked in a breath, my hand resting against my racing heart.

My skin was on fire.

Dissatisfaction was a bitter sting. The bastard aroused me to inflammatory levels within seconds, and now my body was a tightly wound coil.

“Wanker,” I bit out as I strode into the small bedroom at the back of the trailer.

Forced to take care of the tension by myself, I tried to block Adair out of my thoughts.

But I could still feel his hard kiss, his hot lips, his beard tickling my skin in a way that was surprisingly stimulating. I cried out in climax, the sound an empty echo around the small bedroom. As I tried to catch my breath, I felt strangely vulnerable.

Why him?

I didn’t even like him.

“That shouldn’t have happened.”

Then why did it?

Squeezing my eyes closed, I tried not to think about the next time I’d see him.

16

Lachlan

Ardnoch Castle and Estate ran like a well-oiled machine. The management team was beyond competent and dealt with the daily running of the place so that Lachlan had the freedom to put his energy elsewhere. Like securing famous musicians to play at the castle throughout the summer period and installing Michelin Star guest chefs for special weekend dining events.

That one bothered Arrochar’s boyfriend somewhat. Guy Lewis had been an Australian culinary star working as a sous chef in a two-hatted restaurant in Melbourne when he and Lachlan met. Lachlan offered him more money than he could refuse, and he was one of the best investments Lachlan had made for Ardnoch in recent years. The members loved the food.

However, it was always smart to shake things up a little by bringing in chefs from the world’s top fifty list to add some excitement. It pricked Guy’s pride, but Lachlan was a businessman and couldn’t afford to pander to a chef’s ego. Especially one dating his little sister. Guy worked long hours and was obsessive about food. Lachlan didn’t understand how he could possibly give Arrochar the attention and focus she deserved.

As a big brother, he was particularly protective of his youngest sibling. He constantly had to remind himself she was thirty-one years old and perfectly capable of handling her own life. But that didn’t mean he had to like any of her boyfriends.