“Not at the moment. I only torture after lunch. You should always eat beforehand, because it really takes it out of a bloke.”
I resist the urge to laugh. It might make my head explode. “I thought you lived in the Highlands.”
“Not anymore. I sold my place there last year.”
“Why?”
Reuben bought a little cottage in the middle of nowhere when he left journalism. I remember turning up at one of his hotel rooms in one of my periodic attempts to fuck him over. I’d seen the estate agent’s details for the cottage while unashamedly snooping as he showered after we’d fucked.
“It got too busy with tourists.”
“The cottage or the area?” I say dryly.
“Both. Always people turning up to visit and have a holiday.”
“Oh dear, how terrible for you. Poorbaby.”
“I’m not a package tour company. Anyway, I moved to the Inner Hebrides, and even they’re looking too busy now.”
“You’ll end up in Antarctica in the end. Just you and a lonely penguin whinging about overcrowding.”
He taps his fingers restlessly on the wheel, and I startle when I see the split skin and bruised knuckles on his beautiful hands. “What the hell have you done to your hands?” I say, reaching for one before I can think of what I’m doing.
He looks down at them as if he’d forgotten. “Oh, Robbie fell onto my clenched fist.”
I run my finger gently around the abrasion, and he shudders slightly. I immediately drop his hand.
“What a clumsy boy he is.” Memory flares in a progression of broken images. “You dragged him off me and hit him,” I say slowly.
He clears his throat. “I did. It’s very lucky that Pip got there because I would have done a lot worse to him. I’d have fucking killed him.” There’s no hesitation in his voice. Just a deep, deadly certainty.
“Thank you,” I say hoarsely.
“You said you knew I’d come for you?” His voice is hesitant, and he’s looking anywhere but at me.
I huff. “I meant it.” I hold a hand up as he turns to me. “Pleasedon’t make a big deal about it,” I warn. “It doesn’t mean I’ve forgiven you, or that we’re okay now. I am still very cross at you.”
“When aren’t you?”
“It’s especially potent when I’ve just been kidnapped.”
“You got in the car on your own.”
“Kidnapped,” I repeat. “And you’ll pay for it.”
He laughs, the sound loud and robust, and it’s so lovely and familiar that I feel the sting of tears in my eyes. I blink them away.
“I look forward to it,” he says with relish.
“You are a very warped man.”
“I’m just very thankful that you’re still around to give me shit.” He looks assessingly at me. His eyes are very bright in the light, still twinkling from the laughter. “How are you feeling?”
I fling myself back in my seat a little dramatically. “Like death.” He flinches, and I stare at him. “What?”
“Too soon,” he says gruffly.
“What’s too soon?”
