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“Mal—” His name came out as dry as desert sand.“I don’t just needto do this movie, Iwantto do it.”
“I know.” He gave me one sharp nod and I watched him try to force the pieces of himself back together.“I shouldn’t have put all that on you… I’m sorry.”
“But how about this,” I repeated his words back to him, letting all the warmth inside my chest leak into my voice.“I leave sometimes… only when I have to. But I always,alwayscome back to you.”
His dull eyes sparked. Wariness and uncontrolled hope collided until they rolled as thunderously as the waves below him.“You were leaving,” he said finally, not accusingly.
“Yes… you read the email. I’m needed in London for three days, just enough time to do some chemistry reads. Then I’m coming straight back to you. Acting is my job, but this is my home, Mal, like you said. This place, but more importantly you. I’ve never felt so at peace, somyself, as I do here with you. I love my job, but I’m never going to let it consume my entire life again.”
He looked stunned, his fingers flexing by his sides.“You were always coming back?”
“Of course. I love you too,” I cried.“We lost so much time, Mal, I never want to be apart again.”
Within a heartbeat I was in his arms, my feet leaving the ground and curling around his waist. He held me to him, both of us crying unabashedly as he looked at me with a tenderness I never would have imagined him capable of weeks before.“Everything is going to be all right, princess. We can sell the distillery, I’ll get two jobs, I’ll do whatever it takes.”
I pressed my forehead to his, letting the blue-grey of his eyes eclipse everything else.“You might not need to. If this movie goes as planned, it will be enough to clear the rest of the debt and more.” As I spoke the words, he was already moving, manoeuvring us into his cottage with muscle memory alone and heading straight for the bathroom. We shed our clothes in record time, not even waiting for the water to heat before stepping into the shower. But when we joined together, it was with one lingering taste at a time, because we had all the time in the world.
And just as he pushed me against the fogged glass, trailing those calloused fingers around my thighs to spread me wider, I whispered,“Mal, does this mean I can have my underwear back?”
His laugh was soft. Husky.Happy.“Oh, princess, that’s never going to happen.”
EPILOGUE
April
Calm – Vistas
Istomped my feet on the porch step of the cottage, shaking snow from my boots while my key twisted silently in the lock. The warm blast of air inside was like a pair of welcoming hands. Soft light soaked around me from the small but heavily decorated Christmas tree tucked into the corner between the armchair and fireplace.
Unsurprisingly, Mal turned out to be a Grinch that refused to decorate for Christmas and I was determined to wear him down over multiple video calls from my too-hot film set in Algarve. I’d put up a portable little tree along with some inexpensive decoration in my trailer late-November, but it didn’t quite have the desired effect.
In the end, I didn’t even have to ask. Mal had video-called on what he knew had been a very gruelling day of filming, his brand-new iPhone propped up on a stack of my romance novels he’d cleared space for on his already overflowing shelves. He told me to watch as he packed a rather sad little tree full of multicoloured lights and hideously ugly baubles until the branches began to buckle under the weight. He’d even played a Christmas playlist. I’d wept, of course. I’d been gone five weeks by then and missed all three of my boys terribly.
Setting my bag down by the door, I unwound my scarf and slipped off my boots with hushed movements, desperate not to wake him as I slunk closer to the bed. Mal lay fast asleep in the tangle of navy sheets, his soft breaths mixing with the heavier snores of the dogs. Even in sleep he looked exhausted. Once it had become widely known I was the owner, or part-owner as was now the case, the distillery had started to grow steadily in business. We’d even signed a few wholesale contracts. By the summer, Kinleith Whisky would be in supermarkets around the country.
It felt a little wrong at first, using my celebrity status to gain free publicity. But as our new manager Heather very wisely pointed out, as long as I lived in the public eye, my life would be up for discussion, so we might as well get something good out of it.
Boy was the first to spot me, head jolting from the foot of the bed, tail beating furiously. I moved quickly, sinking my fingers into the mound of golden fur at the base of his neck before he could bark.“Hey, handsome. Have you been taking good care of our boys?” He licked my wrist in confirmation and I ruffled his ears, already beginning to sniffle when I spotted Dudley’s tiny body tucked beneath Malcolm’s chin.
I stood arrested, taking in the sight, my heart thunderinghome, home, homeinside my chest until I couldn’t hold back any longer. I climbed onto the bed, giving Dudley a soft stroke while my lips trailed across Mal’s forehead. He stirred sleepily, a hand curling around my waist and up my spine like it was second nature.
His hand made it all the way to my shoulder before it paused, stunned.“Princess?”
“Merry Christmas,” I whispered. Christmas was technically still three days away, but it hardly mattered.
In the shadow, I could make out his furious blinking, as though trying to be certain he wasn’t dreaming. Then he shot to sitting and yanked me into his lap, Dudley gave an undignified yowl and slunk to the foot of the bed.“What are you doing here? I’m supposed to pick you up from Glasgow Airport tomorrow.” Calloused hands clasped my cheeks, my shoulders, the ends of my curls.
“We wrapped early for the holiday. I couldn’t wait another day.” I wrapped my legs around his waist.
“You should have told me, I would have met you.”
“That would have ruined the surprise,” I said, and just like that, all the fight fled him and he dragged my lips to his. Kissing me urgently but softly. Full of love and longing.
“I missed you, princess,” he husked against my lips.“I missed you so fucking much.”
“I missed you too.” I tore at his long thermal top while he tugged down the band of my leggings, already positioning me over him.
“Need you on top,” he was saying, lifting his hips to drag his own bottoms down.“Always on top, baby.” He was in me in a heartbeat. Holding my hips, he sank back against the pillows, watching through low-lidded eyes as I rode him hard and fast, moaning his name over and over until it became intangible to my ears.“Just look at you… I can’t believe I get to see you this way. You look like a goddess.” When I came and he cried out along with me, every muscle in his beautiful body trembling from the sheer force of it, Ifeltlike a goddess.
