Under His Kilt (5 page)

He pulled out of her mouth, shuddered again and had to clasp a hand around the tip of his dick because it felt like he’d come again. She sighed and met his gaze, skin flushing deeper when she did. Ian had to shut the image away because he was one arm twitch from flipping her on her stomach and fucking her into oblivion. Yes, pound into her because his dick was still rock hard.

He hadn’t felt that way since he had his first taste of pussy as a teen. He could go for hours then. So, he kept his eyes closed, hand encircling the head of his cock until the urge felt less volatile. She wanted raw, animal sex, but that didn’t mean he should act barbaric just to see if she loved it.

When he finally could look at her and not pounce, she wore a seductive smile. “You brought the ice and was trying for seduction,” she said. “I had to balance the scales.”

His fingers were still tangled in her hair. He extricated himself from the position. “I’d apologize, but fuck if I’m not grateful for the solution.”

“Blame all the degrees on my wall. Made me smart.”

He fell beside her on the bed and tried to slow his racing heart, but she shifted and straddled him. “What’s next?”

“Jesus,” he cursed. “I was trying to give you a rest for a bit.”

She laughed. “Maybe later. I’m feeling insatiable.”

He grinned. “Told you to eat before.”

She leaned forward, hair tickling his jawline, and she nipped his ear. “Just did.”

Ian groaned, flipped Jocelyn onto her back, scrambled for a condom and stopped fighting the urge to fuck her into oblivion.

When they were done, she thanked him and left his apartment. At least, she didn’t creep out while he slept. For that much he was grateful…and bothered by that asinine emotion. Something to worry about later, because as soon as he laid back in bed after showing her out, he dropped off into a sex-induced coma.

CHAPTER FIVE

Jocelyn watched Ian take up the mannequin’s leg with precision and fix the stockings. It took delicate touches to adjust the silk in just the right way for the time period. Usually, creepy work to see the dead eyes and even deader limbs, but under his tutelage, the work felt erotic somehow. All Jocelyn could see and practically feel was his hands working up her calf, one hand gripped around her thigh.

Maybe the eroticism had more to do with the dressing than undressing. Posing the display exactly as he imagined. He’d done that to her more than a few times over the past week. Face against the headboard, back curved, one leg up while the other was pointed in another direction. He was practically giving lessons from the Kama Sutra playbook.

And no matter how satisfied she felt afterward, Jocelyn wanted more, which was why she always left before she asked, probably begged, to stay for a little while longer until there was no more need.

“Bastarnt things,” Ian muttered.

He had three more mannequins to go. The cursing would continue for a while and only worsen. And get more Scottish.

She smiled at him. “You can wait for Marcus to come and help you do that.”

“I’ve no manicure to worry about. I won’t be waiting on an intern to do what I can do. What
we
can do.”

She gripped the clipboard and sighed. She couldn’t wipe the way he looked right before he came out of her mind—lids low, face flushed and jaw clenched. Or the way he looked right before he growled and did something totally caveman to her. Or the fact every night that week, when she looked in his refrigerator, there was fresh food. Jocelyn was doing her best not to get caught up in the stuff outside of the bed but it was damn hard not to. He was the expert, but she sure as shit couldn’t ask him how to go about these things. And all of her friends had settled down and had never really done this. Not even her sister, Kimberly, who had found a nice guy and married a few years back.

There had to be a way to test the waters in order to find out how to keep fanciful longings and dumb needs under wraps. He’d made it clear it would never be more than fucking. At the time, Jocelyn hadn’t thought she could want more from him. Then again, she’d believed the kind of man who’d go for this sort of fling was heartless, cold, lacking, aloof…so far from Ian who bought fresh food just for her.

She blew out a breath and then her mind caught on a thought. Taking in the mannequin and the time period they were setting up, the idea picked up speed. “How did men during this time get their jollies off without ending up married?”

He flicked a glance her way. “Carousing?”

“Hmm.”

He lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “Paid for it. Picked up communicable diseases along the way while they dined on the common sins of man. Many people saw it as God’s way to punish them. I’m sure there’s plenty of undocumented ways they got around that. Rich men had mistresses. If he paid for her to be his, then he wouldn’t have to worry about what he was bringing home after lying with her.”

Sounded about right. “And the fact men have always been possessive.”

His brows lifted as though conceding to her argument. “My point is humans have always found a way to have sex.” He chuffed and stood, looking at his handiwork. “There you go, you troublesome lass. Had less of a headache taking off a bra for the first time. More of a reward, though.”

Jocelyn laughed at the unexpected insight. “Really?”

He glanced her way and chuckled. “Aye. Now we can do the dress. The stays should be easier with the both of us cinching ’er. The interns did a fair job repainting.”

Not done with the questions, she stepped lightly around the issue. “America always seemed like the dirtier, more rebellious cousin, but it could be my patriotism showing.”

“Where’d you think they learned it from? Ach. Have you ever met a truly European woman? All the Puritans trekked West and left all the fun on the East.”

“That’s horrible,” she said, but knew it, technically and historically, to be true.

The things still harped on and debated here had long since been settled in more modern countries. Maybe that’s how he was able to do what he did to her, in and out of bed, and not feel a stirring of more. She didn’t feel the sudden urge to marry him, but, the lines between sex and emotion felt blurred. At the end of the month, after the champagne lost all flavor from the grand opening of the exhibition, she’d miss the sex…and him.

Dammit.

“You’re puzzling. What is it?”

The lie sprang to her lips with ease. “Professional curiosity. Egypt’s my area of expertise. Pretty much all of the inspiration for the world’s literature. How they handled sex usually ended in someone being murdered. Sometimes hordes of people.”

Tenderly, he pulled the replica dress out of the box and draped it over the model. The silk laces fluttered down and he gestured to her. “Adjust the front and I’ll do the stays.”

Having done this for too many different countries, for too many years, Jocelyn helped him over-dress a woman. A fake woman, but the intent was the same. Cover her up so the man wouldn’t lose his mind. Nothing attractive could be seen or else the beast that slept within the man would be unleashed. Bottle up everything that made her wonderful and human and woman.

They never talked about what they did in bed while at work, but the frustration bubbling right under the surface refused to settle down. While her fingers adjusted the bust line, her mind raced. Ian had never made a question off limits. He’d never judged her. He actively fed her curiosity.

“Ask.” He tugged the stays and without direction, she straightened out the material in the front. “Ask whatever question that has you looking like a vein might pop right out of your neck.”

Jocelyn opened and closed her mouth, and then lost her nerve. “Why is it that men historically have always been able to enjoy sex without consequences?”

“Without consequences? Makes the whole process sound like drudgery. The better question is why should there be any? We humans enjoy it. Is it hurting anyone when you have it? Are both or all parties consenting? If so, then who gives a shite?”

Here she was starting to wrap what they were experiencing in pretty bows and flowers because it was spectacular. It had to be much more than chemistry. She wasn’t foolish to think sex couldn’t simply be sex, but it was naïve to think what they had was more than that.

Save face. She had to. “Never thought of it that way, but you’d think with all that was at stake, it’d be dangerous to throw caution to the wind.”

“Just goes back to my premise: Humans enjoy sex. Like it even more when it has a sense of danger to it. Even married couples try to find that spark. Again and again.”

That comment threw her. She took him in. “You know married couples?”

“Plenty of family experiencing dry rot in the brain.” Ian smiled.

If anyone else had used the same tone, Jocelyn would have said it sounded like longing. But it was Ian. A man with rules about sex that discouraged emotional entanglements on the other person’s part, never his, because sex was only sex. For him there was nothing confusing about liking the person outside the bedroom.

It all ran together in her mind and ramped up the frustration until Jocelyn reminded herself of sinful, decadent desserts. Ian fed her sweet tooth. He wasn’t chicken fried steak and potatoes topped with sour cream—warm, filling and just right. No point in wanting the latter, she already had indulged on that kind of man most of her adult life.

So…“Is that your intellectual thesis?” She tried to joke with him, but wasn’t sure if she pulled it off.

“Aye. Hitching yourself to one person for the rest of your life and having wee babes that look cute and gurgle. Pretty much all that babes are good for. Seems to be the only explanation is madness.”

“Maybe they are. Maybe they aren’t.” She shrugged. “I can’t judge.”

“How nice of you.” He didn’t say it in a condescending manner but as a fact. “Unfortunately, they would be judge and jury on our lives.” He grunted with feigned disgust. “Look at how sad they are. Single. Lonely. Having nothing but sex, sex, sex with no meaning to their life other than a good night’s rest. Mind you, they haven’t slept in eons and can’t quite remember what it’s like anyway.”

He said it in the driest of tones. She couldn’t help but laugh and the frustration lessened even more. “I have nothing against what makes other people happy.”

He looked at her as though the answer was obvious. “’Cause you’re nice.”

“And you’re not?”

He made a face. “Sixty percent of the time. The rest I’m a dobber.”

He often called himself a dick. She wasn’t seeing him in a kinder light because of great sex. He didn’t have some deep well of emotion just lying around for her to discover, but he wasn’t cruel. She knew and had experienced first-hand. Ian was far from being a dick, but she could tell by his expression he believed it.

“You’re mocking siblings,” she guessed and sidestepped the minefield.

He shook his head. “Some friends who traded in their traveling clothes for tweed jackets.”

“You’re the last hold out. No wonder you don’t have kind words for them. Holidays they team up against you and try to hook you up with their friend or the person they came across in the grocery store who seemed so nice. A virtual stranger if that’s what it takes.”

He tightened the stays as he looked at her. A pensive expression darkened his face. “Worse for you, I’m guessing.”

“Nothing more depressing than seeing a woman alone. Especially when everyone else is hooked up.” She tried to hide it but bitterness leaked through her tone anyway.

He finished the tying, and she slapped at the dress to straighten out all of the extra folds. When she looked up, Ian’s good humor had vanished. Her lungs constricted and her heart fluttered. Not in fear but of what she feared of feeling for him—way more than lust.

“
He
was a bastard.” No warmth in his voice, nothing sexual, just hard words spoken.

She kept the tremble out of her voice by sheer will. “Who?”

“Whoever broke your heart.”

She jerked her shoulder and let out a quiet breath. “What makes you think I didn’t break his?”

He concentrated on the stays. “When it’s right and good both hearts usually end up broken when the relationship is over, but since I know you and not him, he’s the bastard in my book.”

She ducked her head and pretended to fix the bottom of the dress over the legs.

He stilled above her. “Did I go and make you cry?”

“No,” she said softly, which was the truth. She just felt exposed. With nothing left to pretend to do, Jocelyn straightened to meet his gaze.

Except he was paying attention to the way the ties fell over the mannequin’s bustle. It gave her the courage to ask, “So, who’s your bastard?”

Humor glinted in his gaze when he finally looked at her. “If I told you, you’d feel sorry for me instead of understanding I was a lucky bastard. I got to love my Sadie.”

Ian stopped what he was doing and pulled out his wallet. Taking out a picture, he offered it to her.

Wary, because she knew that glint, Jocelyn took it, looked and guffawed. “You’re a jackass.”

She slammed the picture of a
dog
into his chest. And from the belly up pose of the picture, a male dog at that.

He didn’t even crack a smile. “Never underestimate the love a man has for his best friend. When I decided to travel around the world, I had to take him to the pound. No one wanted something between a Great Dane and German Shepherd.”

“Sadie looks like he ate small children as a snack.” She crossed her arms and eyed him. He put the picture back into his wallet and the wallet back into his pocket. “So, that makes you lucky, how?”

“I knew without a doubt he loved me.” His tone was light but none of that emotion showed in his eyes. “And like I said, that makes me one lucky bastard.”

She hadn’t told Ian who
he
was. Ian wouldn’t spill that heartache either. Maybe it had nothing to do with crossing some line between what they were because even if this wasn’t just sex, Jocelyn didn’t want to talk about Reese. He left her for a woman who was ready to settle down right that moment instead of in a few years. Apparently, what she believed they had wasn’t all that spectacular if he didn’t love her enough to wait. Or even, the life they would have had didn’t make her ache in a way that waiting seemed insane.