Page 13 of The Highland Fling

I’ve no idea how to respond to that suggestion. I want to touch Aidan as little as possible, but would it make things easier for him if I did? Aidan doesn’t wait for me to decide but starts walking, so I keep my hands to myself.

Even so, I’m pressed up against his damp T-shirt, and his sweat engulfs my sensitive nose. It’s not an unpleasant smell; it doesn’t set me off. No, Aidan Stewart is a player who’s perfected the art of wooing women, and somehow even his sweat smells good. And—

A memory flashes into my head. He was sweaty that night in the hotel—from the dancing, and from the intensity of what passed between us. I’d kept on my dress, him, his kilt. After eighteen months without sex, the encounter had overwhelmed me and set all my senses ablaze. Although well used to hook-ups, Aidan had been caught up in the passion of the act too. We were only away for a few minutes, and yet we’d both come, and hard. In fact, it was the sensation of him losing himself inside me that had tipped me over the edge.

Now that I’m back in his arms, a warmth spreads from my core at the recollection. I can almost taste the sweaty saltiness of his lips on my mouth again. And damn, the way he’s holding me snug against his firm pecs is enough to make me want to—

Grace, get a grip!

I shake these thoughts away. They’re not helpful. The only emotions I should be feeling right now are mortification that I’m being carried by Aidan Stewart and . . . concern that I may be pregnant with his baby.

No, hang on, I don’t want to think about that either.

“Are you sure you should be doing this?” I say, trying to focus on something, anything, else. “Didn’t you break your wrist a few months back?”

The very first time I met Aidan—on my first visit to Bannock, before the engagement party—his arm was in a cast.

“All healed now,” he assures me brightly. He doesn’t even sound out of breath. How can he so effortlessly march through a forest with me in his arms?

As if to prove how easy he finds it, he strikes up a conversation, telling me how his and Ally’s business is doing and then asking me to share the “long story” that brought me to Bannock today.

I don’t understand how he can chat away with me in such a relaxed manner, and I’m not just meaning because of the physical strain he’s under. Doesn’t he find it awkward that we were intimate and now we’ve been thrown together like this? Apparently not. Maybe it’s different for him, being so used to one-night stands.

Whatever the reason, he’s his usual charming self, and this gets to me.

“You can stop trying so hard!” I snap, my tone uncharacteristically harsh. “You’ve already slept with me, and as everyone knows, you’ve got a ‘one-and-done policy’, so this isn’t going to lead to anything.”

I want to put him in his place, but he chuckles.

“I can’t help it. You can’t turn this charisma off!”

I groan. “You know what? Put me down. Just . . . leave me here.”

“Oh, and you’ll wait for the next jogger to come along and rescue you?”

“Exactly.”

“Right . . . except this isn’t some London park with a daily footfall of thousands and thousands of people. This is the Highlands. No one else may come this way again today. You’re lucky I did.”

“Even so, I’m asking you to put me down, so if you could just—”

“You’re funny, Grace,” Aidan says with a cheerful grin. “I like that. But I’m not leaving you alone in a forest with an injured ankle.”

Indignant, I swat at his chest. “I told you to put me down!”

“Och, wheesht, lass! I’d appreciate it if you didn’t wriggle quite so much. I’m taking you to Bannock, and that’s that.”

We reach the town without Aidan needing to stop for a single break. His arms must be killing him, but he doesn’t complain. He marches along the pavement in a determined fashion.

The day is wearing on, but it’s still light, and although Bannock is quiet, there are some people about. Unsurprisingly, a woman being carried like a bride attracts attention.

An old man hails Aidan from the other side of the road and asks if everything is okay. Aidan assures him things are under control. Soon after, a passing car slows, and the driver—a kindly woman—winds down her window and checks if there’s anything she can do to help. Like the man, she addresses Aidan by name, which boggles my mind. I suppose that’s the nature of small-town life: everyone knows everyone. Aidan thanks her for her concern but tells her we’re good. What he doesn’t realise is, far from being good, I’m dying—of embarrassment.

“My car is just a little further,” he says to me, approaching the bridge. “I’m parked outside my maw’s, and she’s opposite the Bannock Hotel. As a kid, it was great: I could leave my front door, nip across the road, and be in Ally’s place in just a few seconds. I practically grew up in the hotel.”

This entire time, he’s chatted away to me like it’s perfectly ordinary I’m in his arms. I just don’t get him.

“Aidan, thanks for getting me to Bannock, but we’re not going to your car, and you are not driving me to the hospital. I’m sure it’s nothing. I probably just need to rest.”