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I choke out a laugh at her insistence, but it’s cut off by the guttural moan of my own orgasm. Releasing all the tension in my body, I let go, spiraling into heaven, feeling as if I’m flying through the vast horizon of endless island sky.
We lie in my bed, our bodies entwined, bare skin against bare skin save for the soft sweater she still wears. Her leg rests lazily over mine. Her lying in my arms like this, I can almost picture us together. The feel of her weight and her warmth is almost too much. I don’t ever want this to end.
She runs her fingertips up and down my arm, sending chill bumps over my skin. God. That feels amazing.
“I love this.” Reaching my wrist, she slips a finger under the band of one of the bracelets I wear, a thin strap of dark-brown braided leather made from the hide of our cattle, wrapped around several times, gathered with a silver clasp. “It’s so unique.”
“Genuine Bayne leather,” I say.
“From your own herd?”
“Aye.”
“Where are they now?”
“Sold.” I glance down, remembering the day I made the band, sitting on a hay bale, the scent of the fresh hay warming in the sun. It was a bittersweet day. “I moved them to a neighboring farm, selling them to another Bayne rancher, knowing Eamon had no interest in farming, and finding more money and joy in horse breeding for myself.”
She gives a giggle. “I can’t picture Eamon as a farmer.”
“No,” I say. “He’s very good with his hands, though. An excellent woodworker. He’s been an apprentice for years and built all the cabinets for the big house himself.”
“And the Burneses are the fishermen.”
“They are, barely, and were fully providing for their families before your people stopped them from fishing their seas.”
“We aren’t trying to stop them. We’re trying to make sure there’re fish to be had,” she says gently.
I want to give her a long lecture on how we do things around here, but her fingers travel back up my arm, those tingles back on my skin, over my shoulder, then traces a trail down the soft hairs of my chest. “What happened with Clive? Do you finally trust me enough to tell me?”
“The research facility wasn’t our target. It was just Clive. We had to get him where he was, in action, so the cops would know what he was doing when they found him.”
“And what was he doing there? All the interns said they’d never seen him at the center before.”
“That’s why he was there so late at night.” I reach down, patting her bare ass. “Late, late at night when little girls shouldn’t be walking down dark roads alone.”
“Hmm.” She wiggles her ass, wanting more pats.
I oblige, enjoying the feel of her soft skin under my hand. “There’s a gang in Glasgow. One that operates a people-tracking ring in the city. I think you call it human trafficking in the States.”
“Yeah, we do.” She gives a little shiver and I hold her closer.
“Clive was in contact with them. He was using the internet at the research center so it couldn’t be traced back to his home IP address.”
She pulls back, shock written all over her face as she stares up at me. “What?”
“I can’t share too much, but one of the Burneses found out what Clive was up to. The police would have taken ages to stop him. It’s hard to convict a man of committing a crime before he commits one. We couldn’t wait for him to strike. It would have been too late. You, Fiona, Carol Ann. Any one of you girls could have been taken. Here on the island, the men protect the women.”
“That’s terrifying! I could never imagine something like that happening in such a beautiful place.”
“The island is beautiful, but like all pretty places, it has its dark parts too.” I slide my fingertips upward, rubbing circles over her back. She snuggles closer. “So, we men have to band together to protect our people. No matter the cost.”
“Or the laws,” she says.
I nod. “Yes. We would never have let him get his ring off the ground, laws or not. The law of the land is that every single Bayne and Burnes man would have to be dead before we let that happen.”
“I get that.” She gives a little shrug. “Kind of. It’s not so easy for me, though, to not go to the police. After what happened with Lilly, I’m still convinced I made the wrong choice.”
As we lay there, I analyze her words. Our situation. Our different backgrounds.
