Lingerie Wars (The Invertary books) (25 page)

"Right now, we're working on your list. So you stay there. Stay fully dressed. I'm not coming for you."

The way he said it made Kirsty hear the rest of his thought. He wasn't coming to get her—this time. But he would. She saw the way his jaw clenched and she knew he would. As much as she wanted him to, she was terrified that he would.

Lake unzipped his jeans, pushed them down his legs and stepped out of them. He flicked off his socks and Kirsty felt a new wave of panic when she looked at his Calvin Klein briefs.

"Don't worry," he said with a cheeky grin. "I don't have any scars in there."

Kirsty sat frozen in place. Her life was beyond surreal. There was a naked man in her house wanting her to touch him, and her mother was breaking into the shop over the road. The stress of it all was going to send her right to hospital. Or jail.

"So," Lake said as though he stood pretty much naked in front of women every day. "This scar I got in a knife fight in Eritrea."

Slowly, the words began to penetrate Kirsty's brain. She looked at where he was pointing, aware that he'd been waiting for her to catch up. He showed her the spot on his arm under his elbow where a faint white line cut through his tan.

"Oh," she said as his words sunk in. "Did it hurt?"

He lifted one eyebrow. Kirsty flushed.

"Stupid question, huh?"

He pointed to the hollow of his left shoulder.

"Bullet wound," he said of the puckered dot.

Kirsty tried to stay focused on where he was pointing and not let her eyes wander over the rest of him. It was all a little too much to handle.

"Where did that happen?" Her voice was strained.

He smiled knowingly.

"Training. With live ammo and the Belgians. One of their guys couldn't shoot worth a damn."

"You must have been mad."

"Yeah, you could say that."

A little smile played around his lips and she could only imagine what he'd done to the guy who shot him. He turned slightly; she could see his left side under his ribcage.

"Knife again. Hostage rescue. Things got out of hand."

The scar was large—it curved around to his back where his kidney sat. Kirsty reached her hand out, without thinking, to touch it. She stopped, her hand suspended in mid-air. Lake took it and pressed her fingers to the line. Kirsty stood and stepped towards him. Gently, she traced the line on his skin.

"Did you lose your kidney?" she said.

"No. I didn't."

The way he said it told her that he knew she'd lost hers.

Kirsty was mesmerised by the scar. He wore it so proudly and it was obvious that he didn't think it made a difference to how he looked.

"But then, you're a man," she said out loud. "This sort of thing makes you more manly. Scars don't do that to a woman."

"Well," he said with a smile, "if your scars made you more manly, I'd be seriously cheesed off."

"Smart arse."

Her fingers seemed to have a mind of their own now that they'd started touching him. They curved round his side and over his stomach, counting the ridges of muscle up to the curls of blond hair on his chest. She cleared her throat.

"No steroids?" she said teasingly.

"Never." His voice was barely a whisper, as though he was afraid he'd scare her off and she'd stop touching him. Which she might have done.

"How, then?" she said as her other hand joined the first and together they explored his stomach and chest.

Her hands worked their way towards those wide shoulders of his that drove her mad. Nothing screamed power like Lake's shoulders. It mesmerised her that he had so much strength and she had so little.

"Hard work and perseverance," he told her.

"Huh?" She'd lost focus for a moment.

"The muscles. No steroids. Just hard, hard work."

"Oh."

She felt the heat from his skin flow through her body, straight to her toes.

"More?" she said.

It took him a minute to realise that she was asking about scars.

"This one," he said as he cleared his throat.

He pointed at a faint jagged scar that went up the centre of his left thigh. Kirsty bent slightly to run a finger down the line.

"How did you get this one?"

"Ripped it open on a piece of wood with a nail in it during under water exercises. Didn't see the wood. Broke my shoulder on the same exercise. It was in Scotland. In winter. And the water was black. Couldn't see a damn thing."

She looked back up at him while her hand stayed on his thighs. His skin burned her palms.

"You must have been a really rubbish soldier to keep getting injured during training."

He grinned.

"Training is the best time to get injured, lots of hospitals and doctors nearby. You don't want to get injured on an operation. There you could be stuck with only the medic for help - if you're lucky."

Her heart pounded for him.

"Did that ever happen to you?" she said softly.

"No, but I've seen it happen. It isn't pleasant."

She trailed her hands over his hips to his waist, not wanting to take her hands off him and break the connection, even for a second.

"Is that it?" she said at last.

"Why don't you explore and find out for yourself?" His voice was a deep rumble that went through her body.

Kirsty hesitated.

"I'll keep my word," he said as though reading her mind.

He wasn't going to come and get her. Not tonight. Not unless she wanted him to. And, she had to admit, she was beginning to want him to - very much.

"Okay," she said.

She walked around him, trailing her fingers in her wake, letting them slide over hard warm muscle. Feeling him react to her touch with hitches in his breath and a slight tension in his muscles. She stood behind him and ran her palms, flat and open, up his back. Tracing the line of his spine with her thumbs before fanning out over his shoulders.

"This?" she said breathlessly.

She touched a finger to a tiny white scar on his right shoulder.

"I was pushed into a wall with a nail sticking out."

"Training?"

"Afghanistan."

Her hands were on the move again. Over his shoulders and down his arms, feeling the strength in his biceps. Her mouth was dry.

"How do you work out here, in Invertary?"

"I put some kit in the back room at the shop." She could hear his breathing. She knew it was speeding up. "Come over and spar. I'll teach you a thing or two."

He was already teaching her a thing or two, she wasn't sure she could handle much more. Her hands moved back up to his shoulders. The feel of him was making her light headed. And she wanted more. Badly. But she wasn't sure that she could return this. She wasn't sure she could be this open with him.

"Lake," she said timidly. "You promise you won't touch me?"

He made a strangling noise.

"You promise you won't make me undress?"

"I gave you my word," he said. "Therapy. Remember?"

It was obvious that he was trying to keep things light, and failing.

"But you promise," she hesitated. "No matter what I do?"

She felt every muscle on his body tighten.

"I promise," he growled.

Kirsty leaned forward and kissed the shoulder muscle that drove her wild.

He made a strangling noise as he clenched his fists.

"You're driving me crazy here, babe," he told her.

Kirsty smiled against his skin, which made him groan. She kissed her way around his shoulder until she stood in front of him.

"If I say I want to kiss, but nothing else, will that be okay?" she said as her fingers traced circles on his pecs.

"It's okay as long as you promise to resuscitate me when I die of frustration."

"It's a deal," she whispered as she stretched up to kiss him.

Lake's arms folded around her, crushing her to his chest, and Kirsty melted inside. She ran her tongue over his lips, listening to his grunt of need, and smiled against his mouth. She was in serious danger of forgetting all about her problems and giving herself to this man. Even the thought of it almost sent her over the edge. Digging her nails into those shoulders, she kissed him passionately.

And then there was a scream.

The scream worked like a bucket of ice water on Lake's head. He dropped Kirsty and was at the window in two seconds flat. He pushed back the curtain as Kirsty came up beside him.

"Oh no," she groaned.

Lake shook his head in disbelief at the sight of Kirsty's mother running out of his shop with what looked like his laptop under her arm. She was screaming like a banshee. Lake assumed that, with the black face paint and hat, she thought she was in disguise. Hot on her heels came two other women, one dragging the new cardboard cut-out of him in a tux that he'd just bought. The lights in the shop went on.

He opened the window and leaned out. The cold air reminded him that he was pretty much naked but there was no time to put clothes on. This had to be seen to be believed.

"That's Betty," Kirsty gasped before covering her mouth.

And sure enough, Betty was propelling herself through the shop with what looked like a cricket bat in her hands.

"Run for it!" screamed one of the women outside the shop.

Then he noticed that there were still people in there. A kid ran out clutching Lake's iPad. He spotted a woman in the window, again dressed in black. She held her hands up as though trying to reason with Betty. There were shouts, but he couldn't make out what was being said. Then Betty charged. The woman inside the shop screamed an ear-splitting scream and turned and ran.

Straight through his shop window.

Everything stopped still as the woman landed in a heap on the ground. Even Betty stopped. Then the woman sprang to her feet.

"Are you okay?" Kirsty's mother shouted.

"Run like hell!" shouted the woman who'd just destroyed his shop window.

She appeared to be fine. Which was more than could be said about his shop. Betty, meanwhile, was picking her way through the debris, wielding a bat that was almost as big as her.

Four women, one boy and a cardboard cut-out headed down the high street towards the loch. Lake watched them disappear into the darkness in disbelief. Then Betty spotted them.

"What the hairy hell are you doing up there?" she shouted up at them from the middle of the street.

Kirsty squealed and disappeared into the room.

"You're naked," Betty shouted indignantly.

People were beginning to gather in the street, called out of the pub by the commotion.

"I'm out here defending our business from thieves and hooligans, and you're up there having your way with Kirsty."

Kirsty shot past him to the window.

"He is not having his way with me," she told the growing crowd.

"Yeah, that's the most important part right now," Lake said.

"It is to me, Lake Benson."

"Absolutely. We wouldn't want people to get the wrong idea, would we?" he said drolly.

"No, I wouldn't," she said so primly it cheesed him off.

Lake turned back to Betty.

"I'm not having my way with her, she's having her way with me," he said loudly.

The crowd whooped and whistled. Kirsty had disappeared back inside the room, but not before smacking him first.

"I don't care who's having who," Betty shouted. "My shop is a mess! Get your backside down here and sort this. I'm calling the police."

"No! Don't!" Kirsty was back beside him.

"Give me a minute," he told Betty. "And for the record, it isn't your shop. Put the bat down, you're scaring people. What are you doing with a cricket bat anyway? You're Scottish."

"You want me to brain the thieves with a rugby ball?" Betty demanded. "Numpty," she called him before stomping back into the shop.

"What's 'numpty'?" he asked Kirsty once he'd shut the window.

"A numpty. An idiot."

She was pacing on the rug in front of the sofa. Lake retrieved his clothes.

"You want to call your mum and tell her to bring back my gear?" he said as he pulled on his jeans.

It almost made him laugh when she looked surprised that he knew who had done this.

"I don't know what you mean."

"Kirsty," he said as he shrugged into his shirt, "I know who was there. I need my computer. Call your mum."

Her green eyes were wide and pleading.

"How about we return it in the morning?"

"I don't think so."

"But we need time to..." She bit her bottom lip.

"Spit it out."

He stood with his hands on his hips, regretting that he hadn't pulled the plug on her activities earlier in the evening. It was his fault. He was having too much fun. Now he had damage control to do.