I shake my head. “My hotel isn’t far, and it’s a nice evening. I think I’ll walk.”
“Bonkers,” Ewan says, shaking his head.
“Alone?” Angus shoots me a hard look.
“It’s barely eleven. I walk home alone all the time at home. Are you trying to tell me Fort William is more dangerous than London?”
“I’m saying I’m not sure a woman should go home alone after dark.”
“No one’s making me! I’m choosing to. You don’t think I’m capable of a short stroll? Bloody hell, we just walked one hundred miles.”
I don’t know where this is coming from. I want him to walk me home. I want him to press me up against the hotel porch and put his hand behind my neck and pull me to him with a firm, demanding tug.
I wanthim. But I want him to want me too, not walk me out of some misguided sense of chivalry.
“We did, didn’t we?” Lila interjects.
“Hell yeah, we did,” Ewan says. “And I did it with a sprained ankle, so I think we all know who the real hero is.”
“Me, for carrying you most of the way?” asks Angus.
“You have been a most noble steed,” Ewan says.
“Cab’s here!” Lila says, as a sleek black car pull up alongside us. “In you go. Angus, Rowan, you sure you don’t want a ride?”
“No,” we both say at the same time, and then glare at each other.
“You really don’t need to walk me,” I protested again.
“I’m really going to, London,” he says, his voice firm.
“For god’s sake,” Ewan leans out of the car. “Let the man walk you, Rowan, so you can finally shag and put the rest of us out of our misery. Listening to the two of you fail to flirt has been more painful than the walking. Kiss and get it over with already.”
“We don’t—”
“I’m not trying—”
We say at the same time.
“Whatever.” Ewan ducks back inside. “Don’t forget to wear protection!”
And the car speeds off, leaving us alone.
The silence stretches, painfully. Angus is looking at me with an expression I can’t read, his face lit from one side by the moonlight. I’m struck afresh by how devastatingly handsome he is; a loose plaid shirt slung over his hiking top, his hair dishevelled and curling around his ears from the dance, his dark eyes capturing mine.
“My hotel’s that way.” I gesture, to break the quiet.
“Aye,” is all he says in reply, still with that unreadable look, his lips curved at the corners in a knowing smile. “Well, lead on.”
“Right. I will.”
I start off down the path, stopping when I realise he isn’t following.
“Well? Aren’t you going to walk me?”
“Do you want me to?”
I roll my eyes. The man is impossible. Of course I want him to. There are a million things I want him to do to me, and almost all of them require a door between us and the rest of the world. But ifhedoesn’t want to… I turn away again.
