Highland Secrets (English Edition) (7 page)

Yes, I thought. Adam might be dangerous for me. He was different to anything in my life up until now. He was
dangerous. Just as dangerous as the man who had taken my virginity, Aidan Lance, my sixth grade teacher. The man who hurt me more than any other person in this world.

I wasn’t even able to deny to myself that I found Adam attractive in spite of or because of the small scar that
separated his eyebrow. How should I go about hiding it from him? He lured me in like the darkness attracts light. And I wasn’t the darkness in this scenario.

He still couldn’t win. Even if things were suddenly happening to me that were new and made me confused. The risk of being burnt by his fire was too great.
If I got too close to him, then I would get hurt again. I couldn’t invest any feelings in this. If I did, I would fall apart again. Aidan Lance had taught me that I was not allowed to have feelings. The consequence of this was endless suffering and pain and a broken heart.

“Has my
mere presence made you go red?”

Interrupted from my thoughts, I flinched and I froze again immediately as Adam started to bend forward over my shoulder from behind and stroke the bare flesh on my upper arm with his fingers. I shivered.

“Strictly speaking, I was trying to get away from your oversized ego.”

“Were you?
”, he whispered and blew his warm breath into the crook of my neck.

H
e was really trying to win this competition. I backed off and turned towards him. “Unfortunately your ego has followed me.” Adam laughed, walked around the bench and sat down next to me. His upper arm was touching mine and the heat that he gave off looked like it was going to burn a hole in my jeans. I was certain that he touched me on purpose. But cowering away from him now, would just confirm to him that I was fully aware of this intentional body contact.

“It’s nice here”, he said casually making an effort. “It
was even nicer just now. But you can’t have everything.” I put emphasis on the last sentence in the hope that he would hear the double entendre.

“Sometimes you can get even more”
, he said and confirmed to me he had understood that I wanted to tell him that he couldn’t have me.

“But too much
sugar can give you stomach pains” I replied and smirked at him.

Adam nodded because he knew I meant that some people were too sure
of themselves and have still got their fingers burned by a woman. You can’t go searching for love. At some point, Adam would also meet a women who he would fall for and who he would not be able to get out of his head.

“
Stomach pains. I don’t think my body even knows what they are.”

I looked right into his eyes which required a lot of courage on my part, but the next thing I did made my pulse
race in excitement and my voice more hoarse, which in this case wasn’t bad at all. I put my hand on his upper thigh, smiled faintly and said: “Are you certain about that? On that note, I stood up and went not without noticing his amazed facial expression and the desire that flashed in his eyes.

I strode towards the light in the windows of the house in a slow and controlled fashion. He
should not notice how weak at the knees I was. I liked this competition between us, but it caused a funny feeling in every cell of my body. And I shuddered when I thought about how badly hurt I was with Aidan.

Maybe it was good that I went a little bit further in
confronting Adam, even if that was completely against my nature.

When I closed the terrace door behind me, I rushed up to my room. I had to get away from Adam, as what he
triggered in me was something that Aidan had never brought out in me to this extent. And that’s what was making me panic right now. The fact that I felt even more attracted to him than I did to the man who had left a huge gaping hole in my heart.

I considered Adam to be confusion, attraction and arousal all in one. It felt as if I was standing under electricity just when he looked at me. I had never felt so physically attracted to a man. And something told me that he was just as attracted to me. I rushed up the stairs to the top floor, ran to my room and
leaned against the bedroom door in relief. My heart was beating rapidly against my ribs, but my body started to relax at that moment because I had closed the door behind me and locked Adam out.

I took a number of
deep breaths and frowned. Who had closed the window in my room? Didn’t I open it when I picked up my work suitcase? Maybe one of the employees had closed it to keep insects out of the room. I moved away from the door and went over to my desk to check my cell phone. My cell phone was no longer in one of the drawers of the fall front desk, but instead it was on the desk top. My notepads were also no longer distributed untidily. They were in a neat pile on top of each other. I frowned morosely. I considered my disorder to have a system.

A knock at the door distracted me and I hoped that it
wasn’t Adam. “Yes?” My stomach fluttered with nerves when the door opened and calmed down immediately when Alfred entered the room.

“Do you need anything else,
Ms?”

“No thanks”, I said
, then I hesitated. “Was somebody in my room? My papers were mixed up.”

Alfred’s eyes
widened for a moment that went by almost unnoticed. “Molly, my wife might have cleaned up a bit. Cleaning the rooms is one of her tasks. If you don’t want it cleaned, I will tell her to leave your room out.”

“No, it’s fine”
, I said embarrassed. I should have thought of that of course. “I was just confused, that’s all. But now I know.”

Alfred
gave a satisfied nod. “So if you don’t need anything else …”

“No, everything is great.”

Alfred said goodbye with a smile and left.

As I
was about to remove the bedspread from my bed, I stared for a moment. There was a pair of champagne-colored lace panties on top of my flowery duvet. It looked as though it had only just been washed. And it wasn’t mine. I shook my head in bewilderment and then thought that it probably belonged to one of Adam’s play things. Perhaps Molly had assumed it was mine in error. I put it down on my bedside cabinet and decided to give it back to Molly in the morning.

It took a while for me to finally fall asleep. But then I was overcome with tiredness and the day’s events and those of last night
pulled me into a confused dream. Initially, I was observing myself watching Adam with the two blond women while they completely lost themselves in their passion.

Adam then appeared behind me and, while we were watching him and the young blondes, he pressed himse
lf up against my back. His lips caressed my neck and his fingers stroked the sensitive skin of my underarms. His warm breath brushed across my cheek and his body radiated heat that warmed up my back. The tingling feeling that his touching triggered in me turned into an extended pulling sensation between my legs.

I lay my head on his sh
oulder and gave in to his caresses. As his hands embraced my breasts and his thums rubbed over my hard nipples, I gave out a moan. I wanted him to undress me – I was still wearing the dress from the party – so that I could feel his naked skin. The moaning of one of the women in bed got mixed up with my own. It was Kathrin who was turning from the thrusting movements of her friend’s tongue.

My legs were shaking in excitement. I was like putty in his
hands which were slowly making their way under my dress. I was overcome with desire as he lay his hands on my mons pubis. At that moment, he pressed hard against my back just as Adam penetrated Mel on the bed.

This somehow caused my
mind to awaken and I tried to pull myself away from him. But he was holding me tight in his arms and pressed me against his broad chest. “I’ve won this game”, he whispered huskily into my ear.

I turned over, thrashed about and hit out around me
and then I woke up and gleaming sun light beamed into my room. Sweaty and dressed in silk panties that had become far too damp, I emerged from underneath my duvet which I had become entangled up in. I needed to take a good long shower to remove the heated side effects of this dream. Molly must have realized her error because the lace panties were no longer on my bedside table when I came out of the bathroom to get them.

“Did you sleep well?” asked Molly and gave me a non-committed smile. She gave me a quick glance and focused aga
in on the breakfast. This morning we were alone in the kitchen.

»Is Adam already out and about again?
”, I asked curiously.

“He always looks after the distillery first thing in the morning. You should ask him to show you sometime.”

My stomach contracted in disappointment, but I ignored this feeling and convinced myself that it was actually better that I didn’t have to see him. “Maybe I’ll do that”, I said and took a bread roll from the basket.

“The cheese is from a farmer in the local area, you should definitely try it.”

I did and it was really very tasty, full-flavored and nuttier than the sorts of cheese you find in the supermarket. “That was really good”, I explained satisfied to Molly, who was wiping her hands on her apron that was tied around her hips. However, this statement didn’t raise a real smile from the rotund woman, whose hair was going grey, either.

I guessed she was in her late fifties. Her face was plump and therefore
displayed barely any wrinkles, but there was something gentle and motherly about it. She was no beauty, but perhaps she would have looked better with a different haircut than the frizzy short perm she had in her dark brown hair. This haircut had taken her back to the eighties. Back to a time when she was still young. She was still likeable despite seeming moody and terse. But if strange young girls were constantly wandering in and out, I would also probably not be in the best of moods.

I really wanted to talk to her. I didn’t have anyone else here
who I could have a conversation with. So I tried to ignore her dismissive behavior and get her to say a few words.

“Is there anything else here except for the distillery?”

She continued cleaning the vegetables and hummed. “Most tourists come here to visit Dunvegan Castle. The harbor festival at the weekend might +also be interesting. We have a few really good restaurants too.”

After I had finished breakfast, I unfortunately had to get on with my work. I didn’t think I would become friends with Molly during my stay.
She seemed to shut herself off a lot. Her husband however was friendlier and more open. When I saw him, he was always smiling, he would made a joke about the English or suggested that we go for a beer at a pub. However, he was a little bit cautious and avoided his wife finding out that he was flirting with me.

“You should make him look more serious. The friendly face doesn’t really match how he really was. To be precise
, he was an unfriendly, old man.” Adam had just entered the room and sat down behind the desk.

“
I only knew him as a very nice and courteous person”, I replied and avoided looking at Adam, but my pulse had started to speed up when he arrived and I had to make a real effort not to imagine his hands on my breasts. “It was probably your fault that he was unfriendly to you.”

“Then we knew two different people.”

Now, I actually turned around and looked at Adam with raised eyebrows. He looked serious and fierce and was rummaging through a stack of papers. “I can’t imagine that to be honest. He was friendly to all his students.” Adam’s behavior towards his father made me angry. I felt as if I had to defend him.

He looked up at me amazed. Maybe it baffled him why I was defending the professor so vehemently. “Perhaps his students were exactly how he wanted me to be.”

“That may well be it”, I said snapping. “The professor was a man who treated women with consideration and respect.”

The bitter laugh that Adam let out alarmed me
. “I doubt that this man ever considered anybody else. If my mother was still alive, she could tell you a few nice anecdotes.”

I frowned and looked at the painting of the woman on the park bench. “I don’t believe that. You can see in every individual brushstroke how much he loved your mother.”

“Yes, maybe he did, but in his own way. He was always introverted and traveled a lot. I was often left alone with my mother as a child. That only changed when she was ill. But even then, he wasn’t able to set aside his frosty demeanor.” Adam pursed his lips together and a deep pain appeared in his eyes. He then started to focus on his work again. There was no evidence of the happy, attractive Adam today. This Adam scared me. He seemed unapproachable, angry and aggressive. And his impressive 1.85 meter height along with his broad shoulders emphasized this impression even further.

I turned back towards the painting, but as long as Adam was in the room, I felt a shiver down my
spine which you feel when you think that somebody is watching you. The tension I felt only disappeared when Adam left without saying another word.

“So Alfred said you were making good progress with the painting?” Molly gave a proper smile for the first time. Not one of those artificial smiles, but a real one.

I nodded and asked myself where this change in mood came from. Because Adam was not there, I joined Molly and Alfred in the kitchen. Molly had cooked an extremely tasty vegetable soup with fresh herbs.

“Did Adam tell you why he granted his father’s last wish? Why he let you live here?”, she enquired and looked at me attentively. Her spoonful of soup hovered for a moment in front of her mouth before she guided it between her thin lips.

I had also asked myself that already. He wasn’t forced to fulfil his father’s wish. “I only know that the professor
wanted him to live with a woman under one roof for a long time. He probably believed that if Adam spent more time with me, it would make him develop an emotional bond with a woman that was based on more than just one-off sex”, I analyzed contemplatively.

“If he hadn’t of consented to it, the di
stillery would have gone to the community.” Alfred laughed. “The old man had well and truly had enough of how his son was living his life. So he decided to hit him where it hurt most and that was with his distillery.”

“But just because I’m living here doesn’t mean that anything will change in Adam’s attitude to
steady relationships”, I said bewildered. I didn’t understand what the professor thought I could do to change the situation. Adam would never even show a little bit of interest in me. He clearly fancied a different type of woman. The way he was with me today showed that he had long since dismissed our little bet. And that could only mean that I didn’t stimulate him sexually.

“
Not at all, but his father hoped that he would see from you that not all women are like his ex-wife.”

“Ex-wife?” I pricked
up my ears in amazement.

“Yes, she cheated on him. The poor guy has not been able to get over it ever since”, mumbled Alfred contemplatively. “She only married him because of his money. And one day he came home, at the time he was still living with his wife down in the
village, and caught her in the act. It broke his heart. Since then, he hasn’t let another woman get close to him. He goes to bed with them just to prove to himself that all women are like that and will go to bed with the first person who might have money.”

“And the
fickle female tourists who came and went from here only confirmed his theory”, added Molly and she frowned morosely.

That’s why he has the one-off sex rule. If he allowed it to happen a second time, he o
r one of his bed bunnies might start to develop feelings. He was scared of being hurt again. That was the reason for his behavior. And as long as he didn’t allow a woman to get close to him, he would never find out that he was wrong. He wouldn’t know that there were women who could really love him, I thought sadly. Then at least we had something in common. The fear of being hurt. At least I was able to understand him better now. “He must have loved her a lot if he was so badly affected by what happened.”

“Yes, they knew each other from an early age. She was always the love of his life. That’s why it affected him particularly badly
that she betrayed his trust in that way.” Alfred sighed. He also seemed to be affected by how Adam suffered. “She squandered virtually all of his money and when nothing was left, she went to bed with the next man.”

Did Molly just give him a scornful glance or was I mistaken? “The marriage lasted just two years, but duri
ng this period she almost drove him to ruin. Afterwards, he dedicated his time to the distillery. He worked day and night. The distillery was on the verge of bankruptcy, but Adam built it from the ground up again. He is very devoted to it.”

It encouraged me to hear that and my
sympathy for him increased a little. He had probably switched off any emotions he had. That’s why he seemed so uncommunicative and cold sometimes and then a deep pain would appear in his eyes again. Adam had suffered a lot. First of all, his wife cheated on him and then the death of his mother and shortly after that the death of his father. Even if he convinced himself that he hated his father, it wasn’t true. Maybe it was these losses that we had both suffered that drew me to him? I suddenly saw him in a different light. He was no longer the man who just wanted to play games with women for his own pleasure. He was affected by losses and disappointments and unrequited love just like I was and any trust he had in the opposite sex had been broken.

“The professor had a good feeling about you. You are definitely different to the other young chicks that come and go from her
e. You are not as superficial, but I doubt that will make any difference. He will just not pay any attention to you.”

I raised my eyebrows morosely. “That’s how it should be. I am only here to complete my work on the paintings and nothing more. Professor MacLeod w
as wrong. I am not interested and I will not let myself be paired up.”

Molly
smiled in amazement. “You are aware of your responsibilities, I like that. But please take a break this afternoon. There are guided tours of the distillery. Alfred can take you. You shouldn’t
spend the whole day at home.”