Page 13

One month later

Amy

I wake up with a nose full of man.

Warm, musky, clean man, with soap and skin and that specific scent that only Hamish has, like cedar and Scottish sex. Not quite locker room musk, and not quite heady vanilla mixed with cloves. It's impossible to pinpoint, but my nose presses against his bare skin and loves it.

I nuzzle deeper into the curve of his neck, my arm across his bare chest, his arm around my back, one giant hand flat against my shoulder like he’s protecting me from something.

Probably his mother.

“I think your leg is trying to stab me,” I mumble against his chest, shifting slightly. Something cold and plastic and very medical jabs me in the hip.

He chuckles, voice still scratchy with sleep. “Aye, sorry, love. Brace doesn’t come wi’ a cuddle-friendly option.”

That’s the problem with waking up tangled around your injured fiancé. The titanium rods and Velcro straps currently keeping his knee from turning into a game of orthopedic Jenga aren’t exactly ergonomic.

One month ago, he tore his ACL and meniscus on the pitch.

Surgery was needed after repeat imaging showed the tears were bad enough that they had to be repaired.

Two days later, he was here on my beige couch, leg up, knee wrapped, swearing at the Bruins game in three languages.

Hamish refuses the painkillers, instead popping ibuprofen like it's candy, but now that the worst is over, all we can do is let time and hard work do what it needs to do.

Heal his damn knee.

Right before the injury, I moved into this second-floor apartment in the North End—a one-bedroom slice of exposed-brick heaven that cost more than a three-bedroom house in Worcester but is not far from the best hospitals in the city.

It has beamed ceilings, wide pine floors, a kitchen the size of a closet, and a bathroom with a shower that Hamish nearly died in the first week, trying to keep one leg dry.

Who knew it would become a makeshift rehab facility?

My place is small but mine. The walls are painted in soothing shades of cream and tan.

The sofa is a splurge from Crate & Barrel because I'm thirty-two now and want something other than a thrift shop find. The bookshelves are half work crap—PR textbooks, leadership memoirs, branded packaging samples—and half mysteries, romantasy, and cookbooks featuring desserts made with dates. There’s a Peloton in the corner that I actually use, and in the kitchen is a shelf now devoted entirely to British teas.

The fridge is currently filled with Greek yogurt, bone broth, too many cucumbers, and a package of wild salmon I keep forgetting to cook and need to toss out soon. Hamish has contributed a huge jar of Nutella, one mystery-meat pie, and a six-pack of Irn-Bru that he insists is a vegetable.

“This is nice,” Hamish murmurs, brushing his lips across my hairline. “Wakin’ up here.”

“You said that yesterday.”

“Aye. Meant it yesterday, too.”

Since his return, he’s been in the hands of the best. Dr. Jelshi has been monitoring his recovery with all the intensity of a bomb technician.

Dr. Carlo’s doing his general care and has finally threatened enough people with being thrown into the Charles River if they interrupt Hamish's appointments that those go smoothly now.

His physical therapist, Brandi, is so terrifyingly competent that I saw an orthopedic resident cry in her presence.

Chief resident.

We’re a short Uber ride from the rehab center. And MGH. And urgent care, which we discovered the hard way after Hamish decided he could “just pop down the stairs real quick” without crutches.

Oh, yeah, he popped all right. And not in the fun, sexy way.

That set his recovery back by a few weeks. Hamish is stubborn if nothing else, but I've never seen the man reform so quickly as when Dr. Carlo scolded him.

I like her very much.

The last four weeks have been a nightmarish roller coaster but it feels like we're finally settling in. It's un settling in other ways, though, because the man who can't sit still is forced to be immobilized, and I can tell he's crawling out of his own skin.

“I think you like Boston more when you’re not being hunted by our mothers," I tell him as a yawn overtakes me, the oxygen waking muscles, making me stretch.

He snorts. “I like it fine. Especially the bit where I get ta sleep wi’ ye every night.”

I kiss his chest.

He tilts my chin up and kisses me back, a slow, lazy, deep kiss that promises more. A lot more. A more we've both been waiting for.

For Hamish, a month without sex is like two months in the desert without water. I can give an outstanding blow job to a guy in a brace like the one he's wearing, and his mouth can work wonders on me, but sex itself has been a study in frustration.

Every single time we try, he's in so much pain that I stop, even when he tells me not to. Why would I want to inflict pain on him when pleasure is the goal?

But a month's a month and we both have needs, and he keeps insisting.

I shift, my knee brushing his good one, and he pulls me tighter, his hand sliding down my back. Desire roars up in me, heat growing between my legs, my skin softening under his touch. He's so warm, so powerful, so… everything.

"I want ye, Amy. All I've given ye for the last few weeks is ma mouth."

"Which is phenomenal."

"Aye. I love having ye over ma face. Yer thighs mute out the world and make yer bonnie pussy the center o' ma universe."

"Hah."

His hand slips down, cupping my ass. "Ye think I'm jokin'? What more could a man want? His woman's pink lips in his mouth, tastin' her juices, wi' nae care but to give her what she needs?"

Then—

Bzz

My phone buzzes once on the nightstand.

Then twice.

Hamish’s phone immediately follows. Then mine again.

We groan in sync. Our mothers are an Ice Bucket Challenge for libidos.

“Ten bucks says it’s your mum,” I mutter.

Hamish reaches with his free arm and grabs both phones, squinting.

“Nope. Yours first.”

I swipe and read:

Mom: I found a wedding planner in Swampscott who only does organic weddings. Locally sourced roses and gluten-free centerpieces!

Then:

She says St. Margaret’s Chapel doesn’t offer vegan catering, which means Fiona will just have to suck it. You have a lot of vegan guests.

"Hamish, do we have a lot of vegan guests coming?"

"Mebbe Luis is vegan," he muses, eyes on his own phone. "Why?"

Mom: Also, do we have to let Fiona do a bagpipe solo?

Hamish reads his messages and winces.

Fiona: Been thinking about kilts. No cats in kilts. Marie's a bampot. And that Chuffy dog will NOT be in the wedding party.

Fiona: Also—bringing my own officiant. He's free on Thursdays and can perform the ceremony in Latin or Klingon.

Hamish tosses both phones face down.

“We should’ve eloped,” I sigh, flopping back against the pillow.

“We still can,” he offers, grinning. “Mum would chase us doon wi’ a dirk, but it’d be worth it.”

I glance at his brace.

“Maybe once you can run again.”

He reaches for me, pulling me back into his arms. “Or we just stay in bed forever and let them wear each other oot.”

“And never check our phones again?”

He kisses the top of my head. “Now that’s a marriage plan I can get behind.” Then his mouth finds mine and I'm lost in him, time fading into the distance, our phones buzzing but I don't care.

Actually, I do care.

Fumbling for the devices, one after the other I power them off, then return to his mouth.

"Climb on, hen," Hamish murmurs, eyes glittering. "Yer headboard’s perfect for this. Solid wood, great grip. Like it was made for holdin’ onto while ye lose yerself on ma face.”

That’s how I know I’m in trouble.

Because he’s smirking. I’ve been holding back for a month–caring for him, feeding him, icing his knee, pretending I don’t fantasize about exactly this, every single night.

My hands curl around the top of the headboard, just as he described. I stare down at him, sprawled on my bed in all his bare, six-foot-plus glory, one leg strapped into the immobilizing brace that’s been the third wheel in our relationship since the day his knee shredded.

This moment is surreal. Intimate. Raw .

We’re finally doing this.

Not because it’s been long enough or the doctor cleared it or the timing makes sense.

But because I need to feel him again, feel us again. I want him in me, even if I have to be on him, even if it takes some super-bendy twist of my own joints to make it happen. Twister Sex can work.

I hover over his face, breath shaky. Suspending my naked body over the man's face is an exercise in vulnerability.

Hamish is the most open person I've ever met, without boundaries when it comes to sex.

We've done it now on planes, in locker rooms, in cars and vans, and once, in the luggage compartment of a tour bus (they really need to make duffel bags softer to get pounded on).

All that and yet, when I move to straddle his face on the pillow, it feels selfish.

"Ye've got that look again."

"The one where I stare down at your face and have three chins?"

"The one where ye want it, but at the same time, ye look like yer lowerin' yerself onto a landmine."

“I still can’t believe you’re offering this with a knee brace on.”

“Aye. Consider it a public service. Ye get off, I stay still, the neighbors get a free concert. Everybody wins.”

I laugh. Nervous. Excited. Floating somewhere between Am I really doing this? and How fast can I make him groan?

Then he grips my thighs.

And pulls me lower.

The first lick is slow. Deliberate. A swipe of heat that makes me gasp, thighs already trembling.

I clutch the headboard tighter, knuckles white.

“Oh, my God,” I whisper.

“Nae, just me, pet,” he murmurs. “God’s got better things ta do, but he’s delegated yer pleasure ta me.”

He devours me like he’s been waiting a thousand years. Every flick of his tongue is reverent. Every moan against my skin, a prayer.