Highland Secrets (English Edition) (3 page)

My heart was beating extremely rapidly as I opened the door and now heard the quiet sound of voices from below. I ignored the feeling of fear in my stomach, took a deep breath and stepped out into the hallway. A giggling woman in a very short green dress and with blonde hair down to her waist came running up the stairs. She turned around and screamed at the top of her voice to a man in a white shirt, dark suit jacket and kilt who was following behind her and grinning under his mask. They ran past me in a hurry without even noticing I was there. The woman disappeared into the bathroom, closed the door in the face of the man and he was left standing in front of the door giving a huge sigh.

I laughed quietly to myself because I found the whole scene so romantic. Maybe they were a couple. I then turned around and went down the stairs in my silver strap sandals. The sound of even more giggling made its way upstairs. Two men in kilts were stood at the bottom of the stairs and were chatting among themselves. One of them looked up at me. He spent a little longer looking at my body than he did at my face, but I didn’t hold it against him. The mask hid everything that was important. When I walked past the men, I averted my
face which was starting to go red. I didn’t want to show already that I wasn’t half as confident as I was letting on.

I followed the other voices and stepped into a large
hall which almost felt like the ballroom of a palace or the “hall” in a castle where the soldiers from centuries ago used to sit and enjoy the pleasures of wine, women and song. About fifty masked people were standing in groups and chatting, dancing or flirting. Nobody looked over at me, so I was able to look at them in peace. Almost all the women were thin and were significantly less round than I was. If I’d have had an issue with my body, then the self-confidence I had borrowed would have been long gone. However, as I was still of the opinion that curves are what makes a woman appear feminine, I didn’t let the thin girls bother me. The men were a motley crew. They were thin and lanky, fat or muscular and broad-shouldered. Some of them were wearing kilts and others had suit trousers or jeans on.

I remained standing in the doorway and played the game “who is the host?” by myself. I ruled out the
women because from reading the professor’s letter I knew that he had a son. I also ruled out the men with grey hair. A man in dark jeans caught my eye who really filled out his trousers perfectly. He stood with his broad back to me and was holding a tray with glasses on in his hand. As I didn’t see anybody else except Alfred, who was serving people, I assumed that he must be the son of the professor. I watched him for a while. He was flirting loudly with a number of different women who were like loved up female chicks flocking around a male chick.

You could fall in love with him at first sight. When he turned around and looked towards the door, a smile appeared on his face that would
made any woman weak at the knees. And those bright royal blue eyes that looked out at me from the mask … I hadn’t seen such beautiful eyes in my entire life. They were like bright ice on a winter lake or like one of those huskys and were therefore in such stark contrast to his black hair that took my breath away and my heart skipped a beat as this man looked at me. One of his chicks tapped him on the shoulder and demanded his attention again.

I tore myself away
from him only to become aware at just the right time that the twin of this man was walking towards me. He had the same smile that made me feel weak at the knees and nervous and those striking eyes were looking right at me. The only way of telling the difference between the two of them was the kilt in the green and blue colors of the MacLeods which this man was wearing. For a split second, I wished that he was also wearing tight jeans so that I could see him flexing his thigh muscles while he approached me.

“I saw you looking at my cousin”, he said with a broad grin on his face and he exposed his straight white teeth
.

As far I could tell despite wearing the mask, he was not attractive in the traditional sense, but those full lips, incredible eyes and broad shoulders made him
intriguing. You know the feeling when you see a man and think that he is not beautiful in the true sense of the word, but he has something about him that makes him look like sex on legs. Was it to do with the mask or the dark 5 o’clock shadow on his cheeks? At any rate, this was the case with this extremely masculine example of a man. You looked at him and you couldn’t help but feel desire. And I wasn’t somebody who developed these feelings just by having a man stand in front of me.

Who could resist that unusual
eye color? You just had to look at them. This was the case with this man’s other features too. He had a straight, slender nose, that 5 o’clock shadow that the women of this world crave and refer to as designer stubble, the chiseled lower jaw line and the broad chin which firmed up just now. I lifted my head to this sparkling diamond and happened to notice the knowing grin on his face.

His look and the way
in which his eyes wandered over my curves gave me butterflies in my stomach. My grandmother used to claim that this feeling makes even the most intelligent women lose the ability to think clearly. And yes, I wasn’t able to think properly because I only became aware that I was clearly staring at this beautiful man when he coughed audibly. Hadn’t he said something that annoyed me?

“I wasn’t staring at him, I was just looking
at the groups of people”, I said in a sharp tone defending myself. I was maybe a bit too sharp as I only succeeded in drawing a loud laugh from the Scot which drew the attention of everybody in the room.

“You’re English”
, he said finally in his deep voice. I suppressed the urge to stroke my arms as this voice felt like silk on my skin. It sent a tingling sensation down my spine and I knew I had to suppress the desire to lick my bottom lip with great relish.

When I noticed that I was almost drool
ing over him, I became aware that my face was already heating up. I immediately went on the defensive and gave the guy a dirty look. I only hoped that my eyes were sparkling enough for him to see it. It certainly wasn’t easy to look angry with a mask on your face.

“And I’m not the only one here”
, I replied abruptly. It irritated me a little that he might not like English women. Although I couldn’t say why that should interest me. Any why had I turned into a slobbering mess just because a man had looked at me? Was it the mask, the ball, the new surroundings? Men didn’t usually leave me cold for no apparent reason. I had learnt to not to let them register with me, but this man here seemed to have made my barriers I put up vanish into thin air.

“No, but the only one with those hips.” His
eyes were again gliding over my body and the expression in his eyes made me forget my anger. Instead he aroused a desire in me that I didn’t think I should feel for a stranger. But his scanning glance made me feel as if he was actually touching me. When he looked up at me again, his iris had darkened and he looked at me with open sexual desire. “That’s not something to be scoffed at.”

I swallowed and was unable to suppress the
revealing red color in my cheeks. However, the thought that this attraction was mutual made me feel at ease again. How could you stay angry at a man when he makes that kind of statement? It would be quite simple for a woman who didn’t want to feel this type of attraction. I didn’t want to feel like that. I didn’t want a stranger to provoke this kind of reaction in my body just by giving me a smile. And he really did trigger some kind of reaction in my body.

Now he wasn’t saying a word and I found this silence very disconcerting. I clasped my hands in front of my lap because I didn’t know what else to do with them. My last party was … Actually I can’t remember when I went to my last party.

I looked behind him. Everybody was laughing, dancing and talking to each other and I wished that our conversation didn’t just involve him and me. Just one or two more people and then his concentration would not only be focused on myself.

“And you’re from Scotland”
, I said stating the obvious just for something to say. When I looked up at him, I was just about able to register that he had been staring at my breasts. My breasts had gained his attention by the nipples unintentionally coming together which hadn’t gone unnoticed as the thin material of the dress and the even thinner silk fabric of my bra triggered this reaction from him.

He
raised an eyebrow knowingly and the fire in his eyes made the heat that had accumulated in my stomach move down between my legs. I became irritated and frowned. I had never felt like this before. It must have been because of the mask. You had to admit there was something erotic about these things. There was no other way to explain how my body was behaving without me doing anything and doing things that it had never done before. The whole room seemed to be sexually charged. It really wasn’t anything to do with me or with him.

The Scot
clicked his fingers without taking his eyes off of me for a second. Alfred then immediately came running with a tray full of glasses and gave me a quick nod before he went past Mr. Sexy Kilt and stopped halfway in front of him. The butler must have recognized me, which shouldn’t have been too difficult. Apart from me, there was only one other woman in the room with copper-colored hair. I took a glass of sparkling wine and immediately ordered myself another Martini with ice to play down the heat that was flowing through me since this kilt wearer had discovered me.

“
Now that we have cleared up that you’re English and I’m Scottish, what is your name?”, he asked inquisitively and took a large sip of a golden brown liquid which I guessed was whiskey.

“Linda”
, I said concisely and eluded his gaze.

“Adam”
, he answered and held out his hand to me. I reluctantly took it. It was warm and strong. And touching it went through me and gave me butterflies. He didn’t let go of my hand, but held it tight while laughing and pulled me closer. He then moved towards me and pushed me back against the door frame. His gaze penetrated into mine and I had to swallow heavily which he commented on with a coarse laugh.

“
No need to worry, but even if I do like this body, we are standing in Alfred’s way.”

In spite of my
pulse being greatly accelerated, I managed to discover Alfred who moved a serving trolley past us and looked at me in such a way that sent a shiver down my spine.

Adam
took a step back again, but that didn’t do anything to change the heat that had engulfed my body. “So you’re Linda from England. Where do you come from exactly?”, he asked. I assumed he wanted to start some sort of conversation between us that wasn’t conducted by our bodies alone.

“London”
, I said with a hoarse voice. I drank my glass of sparkling wine in one go. And when Alfred passed us by again, I reached for the glass that he held out towards me. The ice in the glass made a faint clattering sound and I took a really large sip. The delicious Martini went down my esophagus and it felt like an ice cold glass of water on a very hot summer’s day.

“
London, aha. And what do you do there?”

How should I answer that question? I didn’t want to sound
too boring. It was already embarrassing enough that I wasn’t one of those women who could talk freely and casually with any man. “So what are you doing here besides going to masked balls?”

“Whiskey.”

“Whiskey?”, I said amazed broaching the subject again.

“
Yes we just have a small distillery, but our whiskey is very much in demand.” He held his glass against my lips. “Have a taste!” he demanded. And I did, even if I didn’t know what a good whiskey tasted like. I didn’t even know what a bad whiskey tasted like. Maybe I would never find out, because all I felt was the burning sensation in my throat which spread to my stomach. I coughed and he patted me on the back laughing. “It’s not everybody’s cup of tea.”

I washed down the
sharp, smoky taste with Martini and I didn’t notice that I was staring at his naked knee that appeared from under his kilt with a sigh.

Adam
gave me a lascivious grin when I looked up again. Maybe I was still red in the face from the whiskey.

“Just don’t go getting any ideas
”, I scolded. I was slightly tipsy from the sparking wine and Martini as I didn’t usually drink. If all you did was work, there was little time left over for events where you would have a drink. And I hadn’t had much to eat in the last few hours either. “The Martini made me sigh.”

“Of course it did”
, he said and he had an even broader grin on his face.

I squinted my eyes in anger because I was certain –

or maybe I had talked myself into it – that the Martini had caused me to sigh. He stood in front of me and his broad chest was shaking with laughter. He then moved closer to me, lowered his lips to my ear and he brought with him the aroma of spicy aftershave and whiskey. “You make me sigh just as much which is why we probably won’t be able to hold a normal adult conversation anymore this evening.”

Was that a clear proposal he had just made? My body appeared to think so: as if upon command, my stomach was in knots. The despair I felt about it made me angry
at my body and not just at my body.

“You don’t make me sigh at all.”