Under His Kilt

  Table of Contents

  Copyright Page

  Blurb

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Bio

  Special Thanks

  Other Titles by Melissa Blue

  Excerpt from Everything He Dreamed

  Copyright Page

  Under His Kilt by Melissa Blue

  Copyright 2013

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Cover Art by Melissa Blue

  Self-Published Edition 2013

  Blurb

  Jocelyn Pearson is determined to spend her last month as a twenty-something doing everything she’s too busy or scared to try. Her imagination runs wild and then fixates on Ian Baird. He’ll be working at the Langston Museum for a short stint as a consulting curator. He’s Scottish. He believes sex is fun to be had. He’s the perfect choice for a fling. She only has to get him break his rule about sleeping with co-workers. Seducing a man was on her bucket list…

  Ian is no one’s fool and knows exactly what Jocelyn wants—him. If she didn’t work for the Langston Museum, he’d be more than happy to oblige any and every fantasy she desired, but she’s the curator. She’s sweet, inexperienced and well liked by everyone including the museum owner and director. Ian can’t risk losing such an important contact for his consulting business. Not even when everything within in him craves a taste of her.

  When Jocelyn sets her sights on him, there’s no way Ian can deny her. They agree their affair will end in thirty days. No emotions, no entanglements, just sex. The closer the end date looms, they start to question if it’s possible to walk away. They’ll either have to come to terms of what they’ve become or stick to their original agreement.

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Not one kilt anywhere?” Flabbergasted by this notion, Jocelyn Pearson stared at Ian Baird. Her sort of boss stood across the museum’s expansive storage basement. She tried to wrap her mind around the busted myth and couldn’t.

  “When I think of Scotland,” she continued, “I imagine men wear kilts like men in America wear jeans. Casual. No muss. No fuss.”

  Her ramble teased a smile out of Ian and put another crack in his impenetrable fa¸ade. She held her breath for a three count and let it out slowly to contain the primitive surge of attraction. A month and still that simple facial tick made her want to launch herself at him.

  Big wooden crates filled the dark room below the small museum. The crates separated them, but didn’t seem like much of an obstacle when all she wanted was to close the distance.

  “I’m not saying you can’t find one.” The sensuous curve of his lips could have tempted a saint. “It’s just not everyday wear. Before you ask, we also wear boxers when we do.”

  His words implied he’d worn a kilt.

  Oh, God.

  Ian in a kilt…drool. Her skin tightened and flushed beneath her soft cotton dress shirt. She’d never seen him out of his uniform of a slate gray slacks, dark suit jacket, white dress shirt and black tie. The expensive silk clung to thick, sculpted muscles, but she couldn’t help but picture him in a Cameron Clan plaid. Absolutely commando—no matter what he said—just waiting for the right breeze to lift up the material and expose just a bit more of him.

  She balled her hands. Her fingertips itched to trace the seam of his mouth. “Next you’re going to tell me there’s no Santa or Easter Bunny.”

  His blue-gray irises darkened and his nostrils flared. “Aye. Your parents lied. Those fuckers don’t exist.” He spoke low, husky with just a hint of a Scottish burr.

  Her high heels rasped over the concrete floor as she shifted another step from him. “Good, because I planned to be naughty this year.”

  Tension rippled through his frame. No doubt with the coil of muscles that made up his sleek physique he could have vaulted over the row of crates if he wanted to. “You? Naughty? Aye, right.”

  She liked that they’d built up a rapport, and because they had, Jocelyn grinned at his perplexed expression from her announcement. “Aye. Naughty. Me.”

  He grunted out a soft tut. “Not like ‘oy.’ You’re not hurting. Just say ‘I’ like I went to the shop.”

  She tried again. Her effort to infuse a false burr coaxed out his low rumble of laughter. “Good, Lass.”

  His accent only thickened the few times she’d seen him frustrated. So she smiled at his teasing. His brow lifted but he flipped through the inventory list. That action reminded her why they were there. Her job involved ensuring he was satisfied with every last detail—from receiving the shipment to the display in the small Californian museum.

  The responsibilities included having the right security, lighting and placement for the priceless objects when the Langston Museum had its unveiling in four weeks. Ian, the head of the traveling exhibit, had to ensure everything displayed was authentic, in one piece and stayed that way until shipped to the next destination. That made him her boss, of sorts, as liaison to the Langston and his pet project.

  He inspired the kind of fantasies that she wished… Fixing her mind back on work, Jocelyn dropped the subject. The shipment had come in late and it would be a long work night, not one filled with what ifs.

  “Naughty?” he asked, circling back to a topic she assumed he’d left alone.

  Caught off guard, she blurted out, “Um, I’m twenty-nine.”

  His gaze lifted from the paperwork, and he waited silently for her to explain the tangent. She added, “I’ll be thirty on the day of the opening.”

  She blew out a breath and tried to explain her current insanity. “There’s a lot I haven’t done and I plan to do it this year. Consider it my mid-life crisis. I’m thinking of all the things I should have experienced by now, and looking down the barrel of thirty, I damn well plan to do them.”

  He made a soft sound. “Like?”

  “Drink the worm in the tequila bottle,” she said.

  “Why?” he asked, sounding confused.

  She’d spent the previous ten years getting the right degrees, the right internships, jobs and contacts. She didn’t have a moment to take a step back and live. Every single one of those moments had been spent getting her here.

  Maybe in a year or two she’d get a chance to travel but she couldn’t wait another moment to…let loose for a little while. She felt brittle and old already. All she needed were pearls, a cardigan sweater and a knitting circle of friends.

  But, Ian hadn’t asked for all that. “What did you do on your 21st birthday?”

  His head tilted back and a glint shone in his gaze. “Don’t remember most of it.”

  “Exactly,” she said with barely contained excitement. “Plan to do the same kind of celebrating for my thirtieth.”

  “It’s not so bad,” he muttered.

  She frowned. “Excuse me?”

  “Turning thirty isn’t so bad.”

  He didn’t look that much older than her, but she inspected him for any real tells of age. Laugh lines grooved along the skin around his mouth. Lush black strands curled around the collar of his suit jacket. Not a gray hair to speak of. He coul
dn’t be that much older, but she couldn’t tell at a glance. He had a poise that made him seem mature, earthy.

  She pursed her lips. “Still, I’m planning to ring it in with a bang.”

  His gaze met hers for another tense moment. The hairs at the nape of her neck rose and her breathing deepened. His hand tightened on the clipboard, but he made a noncommittal noise and focused on the list again.

  Jocelyn blinked. No, she hadn’t imagined that moment, but she ignored the tension pregnant with possibility. Nothing should or would break through the invisible and unspoken boundary they’d drawn up weeks ago. A boundary that wavered with just a heated glance.

  Finally, he handed her the clipboard. “All there?” she asked.

  “Nothing out of place. Let’s work our way from the back to the front.” Ian picked up the crowbar from a table covered with other tools without losing stride.

  He stopped at the first lot taken off the truck, put down the crowbar and began to loosen his tie and jacket. He flipped up the sleeves of his shirt and rolled them up his forearms. Yup, bronzed skin. Miles worth of golden skin tanned, not from any Scottish sun but from his travels around the world. Sinew. Sexy. Yup, she had to grip the clipboard and hope that would be enough to rein in the urge to jump him.

  “What’s first on your list?” he asked.

  Find a lover. Preferably someone with a Scottish accent. “I’ve never had a drunken Karaoke night,” she said without a hitch in her voice.

  “The key is getting as wrecked as possible. Otherwise, it’s not half as fun.” With expertise and precision, he pried off the nailed-down lid. “Read it off.”

  She told him what should be in there; he nodded and put the top back on. “And then?” She looked down at the clipboard and he tutted. “Your list,” he said.

  Have my lover do everything I couldn’t think to ask for. “Skydiving.”

  “Exhilarating,” he said.

  They followed the same process of him opening the lid and having her read off the clipboard. He had some opinion to give on everything else on her personal list. So much so, Jocelyn wondered how he’d react if she blurted out, “have sex with you,” but then her palms dampened more. That would be insane, impulsive, passionate…everything she’d never been.

  Chuck it all. Blurt it out. She considered the words, bit her lip for a second and then asked, “What haven’t you done?”

  And then he smiled again—the one that made her panties wet and had her one step away from throwing herself at him.

  “A gentleman never tells.”

  Oh. Oh. She had to know. And it wasn’t her imagination that could see he wanted to tell her what a gentleman should never repeat.

  *****

  “Uh—um.” Jocelyn cleared her throat and the soft sound feathered over Ian’s senses. “You always answer my questions.”

  “I do,” he agreed but didn’t elaborate. The storage room held a chill. Her nipples beaded against the starched-white shirt. He blew out the breath he’d been holding.

  “Why stop now?”

  Because he’d been listening for it, Ian heard the unfettered passion in her voice and that right there was why—self-preservation. “Some things you don’t share with a lady.” He paused and then smiled. “Unless you’re about to do those same things to her.”

  Her skin, a shade of the darkest honey he’d ever seen, flushed. She bit down on her lip and broke the gaze. “That’s fair.”

  And that’s why he hadn’t touched her. She was innocent in all the ways he’d ruin. But, Joce…had a way about her. Sharp and a little stubborn. That keen gaze was on him now, drinking in his every movement. The past few weeks it had grown harder to ignore the unquenchable desire he saw there. Younger, dumber and having been raised in a bachelor pad, Ian wouldn’t have cared. He’d have made it his mission to see how much it took to sate her. He’d since learned fucking coworkers always ended badly.

  Ian leveled a look at her and reconsidered his rule. Thick ebony strands were twisted into a bun. The upswept hairdo only highlighted her almond-shaped eyes, dark chocolate irises and long lashes. She leaned forward checking the packaging tags. Smooth, delectable skin peeked out.

  She looked prim in the pin-striped dress suit. Her tits high and tight. Unbelievably curvaceous hips made his fingers twitch. He wanted to sink his nails into them. She barely came up to his chin, but the cut of the skirt and high heels made her legs seem to go on forever. Prim and corruptible.

  Always put together neatly, polite and personable…he was tempted to witness her stripped bare in a literal and figurative sense. He’d never fucked at work, but Ian thought about doing it now. The unruly consideration started a delicious pull on his balls that only feminine caresses and tender tugs could ease.

  Her hands tightened on the clipboard and she brought it closer to her chest. Maybe she could see all that in his gaze. No matter how much he wanted to see her head thrown back, hair gripped in his fist and arse arched high, he couldn’t. Not with her. She wasn’t sweet but close enough to make things difficult.

  “Next item?” he asked and ignored the tug.

  She told him, her voice breathless, but he ignored the change in tone too.

  “Technically,” she said, “It wouldn’t be kissing and telling if you haven’t done it yet.”

  He laughed. “There’s not much I haven’t.”

  She tried to hide her chagrin by looking down, but he’d seen it. “Uh, public place seems too easy for you. What else?”

  “Sex swing. Airplane.” He gauged her reaction.

  Her head snapped up. She swallowed. “Airplane. Bathroom’s too small.”

  Fuck. “Noted,” he said.

  He lowered his gaze and worked up and down the room, letting her call off the lots. He didn’t ask any more personal questions about what she hadn’t done yet, especially in the bedroom. That way he wouldn’t think about all the ways he’d like to do them with her.

  It took them another hour to finish so by the time they entered the break room, they were the only ones left at work outside of security. The large room was well lit even with the cafes and bistros closed. They stood closer to the industrial-sized glass refrigerator, sink and microwave than to the central area with all the tables. In the quiet, with her, the moment felt strangely intimate.

  “Thinking I’m going to call it a night, get up early tomorrow and finish the rest.” She eased them into a conversation. “Then have a normal weekend.”

  She rested against the counter and blew into the hot coffee. The way her plump lips pursed shot straight to his dick. He sipped his drink silently, trying not to envision those same lips wrapped around the tip of his cock, wet and eagerly suckling him.

  But he couldn’t abide the uncomfortable silence, not with her. Joce would find some way to question him about something else if he left it. “When do you plan to start the insanity?”

  “After work tomorrow.”

  He chuckled at the straight-forward admission. Finishing off the coffee, he put the cup in the sink. She’d closed her eyes, let her head fall back, exposing the beautiful curve of her neck.

  He stilled, tried to breathe through the urge to taste her skin. “Heading out for drunken karaoke?”

  Her eyes shot open and her gaze whipped to him, but then she smiled and it was one hundred percent mischievous. “No.” She shook her head, the smile fading. “I probably shouldn’t tell you this.”

  He wanted to see the smile cross her face again. “Then maybe you absolutely should.”

  She laughed, shook her head. “Can’t believe I’m going to say this…” She sighed. “I’m going to pick up a guy in a bar. Never done that.”

  His gut clenched. Another man would do all the things he’d been imagining. She’d let him, because there were things she’d never done. Ian set his cup in the sink, keeping his hands to himself. “Shouldn’t take you long, but I’d be careful if I were you.”

  “Careful? That’s the whole point. I’ve lived my life pr
etty risk-free. I’m not saying I’m going to lose my mind, but I’m tired of doing the safe thing, the right thing. I want fun, reckless and maybe a little stupid. Break the rules I’ve made for myself.”

  He grappled onto his skewed moral code as her tongue glided over her bottom lip, lapping up every drop of warm liquid that clung to the flesh.

  He flexed his fingers. “We’d be barbarians without rules.”

  Her brows furrowed. “Didn’t take you for a rule follower.”

  “I have my own,” he said.

  Her teeth grazed nervously over her bottom lip. He couldn’t remember which rule kept him from reaching forward, or why it was important in the first place.

  “I’m curious but I don’t want to pry,” she said.

  So polite. Only a twisted son of a bitch would want to change that about her, to push just to see how she’d react. He had to say something to knock that unquenchable desire from her gaze. “What you’re looking for, Sweetheart, you can’t find in a bar hook-up.”

  “And what is it I’m looking for, Ian?”

  “To be fucked senseless and not have a shred of guilt over it.” He’d expected shock, a flush, anything other than the smile that started in the corner of her mouth and lit up her eyes.

  “Yeah. Pretty much that.”

  The brazen confession made him laugh, made his cock rock hard. “All this time with you and I thought you were innocent.”

  “Nah.” She shrugged. “Lost that sophomore year in high school.”

  Without thought he edged closer to her. Shit. He couldn’t exactly wish her good luck, but he had to end this exchange before he changed his mind. He had no claim on her and shouldn’t want one. He pushed off the counter. “Happy hunting. In the morning then?”

  “You’ll be here?” There was no mistaking the anticipation in her tone.

  Ian smiled when he should have discouraged the emotion with a grave frown. “Aye.”

  He escaped with his dick still safely, smartly, in his trousers. He’d call it a win.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Jocelyn spent most of her morning trying to talk herself out of adding a new item to her list of things to do before thirty—sex with Ian. The idea plagued her most of the night when they’d worked together, in the break room and in her bed as she tried to sleep. And now, early afternoon, she’d given up the useless litany of reasons why she shouldn’t, how she wasn’t the kind of woman who’d ask for sex. Women who had sex with Ian probably didn’t ever ask politely for a roll in the sheets.