He smiled. “It's about time you did something with your safety in mind. You can also give your friend my full name: Artair Grant McFarlane. And you are?”
“Luna.” That was all I was willing to tell him at this point.
I typed him into my contacts and added his phone number when he gave it to me, which I tried right away. The call went through, and he answered it.
“Do I have your permission to take you on a date and show you around my home?” He spoke on the phone, but his gaze held mine.
“Home?”
“Aye, Scotland.”
How did we get from a ride and dinner to him becoming my personal tour guide? If I agreed, I'd also be “agreeing to more,” he'd said. Is this the more—the spanking and whatever else came with it?
Take a chance, Luna,my inner voice coaxed,have the adventure of your life with a strapping Scottish man.
“Yes, Artair, you have my permission, for now. If dinner and the ride aren't up to snuff, then the deal is off.”
He smiled, not seeming the least bit put off by my conditions. Slinging my relinquished pack on his back, he shifted his own bag in his other hand and held his free hand out to me. I almost cried with relief at how warm his grasp was and instinctively moved in close to his body. Heat radiated from himas he escorted me to the parking lot. I felt safe for the first time since entering the Vancouver airport and beginning this journey.
Chapter Two
Artair
Returning from a parliamentary meeting in London usually offered me time for introspection—time to ponder and turn over all the legalese discussed and find a way to navigate a path through that best honored the Scottish people, our land, our heritage.
However, that wasn't the case this trip. Instead, I found myself consumed by watching a young woman waiting to get on the same plane as me, or at least I assumed so, based on her frequent head-turning toward the screen that showed our takeoff time and any changes.
Our flight had already been delayed twice, making me groan that I'd chosen business class over my personal jet, but as it wasan all-expenses-paid trip, I couldn't charge the Crown for my personal fuel, as there was a limit to what they'd pay for.
After she turned her head, the young woman would go back to looking at her phone for maybe thirty seconds before wiggling in her seat and looking once again at the screen.
She appeared like a typical American, but on longer perusal, her looks reflected a Scottish or perhaps Irish ancestry. Her pale, delicate skin and gorgeous, piercing blue eyes were accentuated by the rich auburn-brown color of her hair, which hung in heavy waves down just past the middle of her back. She was a real looker.
She hadn't stood up yet, but from the flare of her hips in her tight jeans, her arse promised to be full and firm. That was my favorite body part on any woman, but on her, with so many other assets, it would be hard to choose only one.
The screen had changed several minutes ago, but contrary to her persistent scanning of the board, she didn't move, staring off into space. She was looking, but not seeing, and was in danger of missing her flight. I waited as long as I could and was about to approach her when she blinked several times and jumped to her feet. She swung an enormous pack that a woman as tiny as she should never have to carry. As she did, something tore, and tiny beads bounced as they dropped to the floor, scattering in too many directions to be retrieved, had she had the time.
Huffing, she finished tossing on her pack halfway and almost ran toward the departure stand. As tall as I was, close to 6'7”, I was at her back in just a few strides. I smiled at the gate agent. The young woman in front of me froze and attempted to turn. Her pack slipped, throwing her off balance, and she would have fallen had I not reached out and steadied her.
I took her pack, making note of the name on a luggage tag hanging from the strap, and carried it down the bridge to our flight, shooing Luna in front of me as this particular boardingbridge was very narrow, and for a large man carrying two bags, there was no room beside me for her to walk. It worked out for me, offering a perfect view of her ass, and I was right, it was sexy as hell. The way she swayed her hips made her plump arse wiggle and jiggle. I wanted to reach out and grip her buttocks in my hands.
Down boy.This wasn't the time to be unprofessional!
Even through a curtain that separated us, I could feel every nerve in her body vibrating in overdrive. I didn't like that she was so stressed out; no one should be, and there was such a vulnerability about her that it seemed criminal for her not to be encased in bubble wrap for the rest of her life.
In my line of work as a criminal lawyer, the boundaries were very clear between good and bad behavior. My job was to be able to read people, and, in that environment, it was a fairly simple task. Politics was an entirely other game and not one I was hugely fond of, but I hoped my service would make a difference.
Our family name had fallen since our ancestor, Lord Darnley, who married Mary Queen of Scots, caught syphilis and died. Although some believed he was murdered, there was certainly enough evidence to say that murder was attempted at least twice in his short span as king consort.
The Lennoxes fell out of favor with the powers that be in both England and Scotland at that time and remained that way for a few hundred years, despite my family's attempt to fill in the gap.
Had things gone differently for Lord Darnley, perhaps our bloody history could have been avoided. It wasn't until my grandfather that our family began to move back to its ancestral seat and finally rebuild our branch of the royal Lennoxes.
You could tell Luna was not made for the harshness the world had become, where battles were no longer fought among men on a field of glory, but in the streets, in the political realms,with corporations, and the highest bidder. Indeed, the way the world was going, where was the line between good and bad, right and wrong? Just because the state said something was so, didn't mean that justice was winning.
These heavy thoughts often weighed on me, and Luna was the freshest person I'd met in too long a time. She couldn't lie if her life depended on it, and her entire life's experience, which I gathered to be approximately twenty-one years, she wore on her sleeve. Her innocence called to every instinct I had to protect her, so I found myself saying things that surprised even me. For a man well-rehearsed in dialogue and controlling the conversation, her raw responses surprised me.
I wasn't the only one who'd noticed. There was a plethora of not-so-nice men who would love to gaslight this woman for their personal gain. The thought of her being taken advantage of had rage boiling up inside me. Protecting her for as long as she was in Scotland became my new mission. During the flight home, there was plenty of time to consider how I wanted to move forward with her. Yes, her safety was a primary concern, but desire certainly played its part as well. I wanted her, and I wouldn't hold that back, but with me, she could relax, be her authentic self, and enjoy whatever this was—a vacation? Or perhaps she came to Scotland seeking answers like many progenies of Scottish descent had over the years.
