“Aye, though I was never particularly fond of them, or good at them,” Arran says with a slight wince. “My family mostly enjoyed playing dice, cards, and draughts.”
“I’m not sure what those games entail, but they sound fun. What did you like?” I ask, poking his chest.
Arran looks down and smiles at the familiar gesture, enveloping my hand with his. “Mostly anything outdoors. We used to have these festivals that we would practice for almost year-round. I did log toss, stone put, hammer throw, and tug-of-war with my strongest friends.”
“Oh, muscle stuff,” I purr, stepping closer into his space. “I wouldn’t mind watching you do some of that.”
“Yeah? You want to see me throw some heavy things around and prove my virility to you, lass?” Arran asks. He presses my hand to his chest in a silent order before snaking his arm around my waist.
I lift one shoulder in shrug. “If you’re offering.”
“And what do I get as my prize?”
“My adoration.” It’s not a lie, but it’s not the full truth either.
If I had to watch Arran do all of those things, forme, I might offer him far more than my body on a platter. It wouldn’t be something as ridiculous as actually giving him my heart, but it will get fucking close to it.
“Seems like a fair trade,” Arran says before softly brushing his lips against my temple.
He pulls me tighter to him and bends even lower to caress my lips with the gentlest, most patient kiss I’ve ever had in my life. Arran takes his time exploring my mouth, keeping the pace slow and steady, humming in satisfaction when I don’t battle him for dominance.
I let Arran lead, let him guide me where he wants while I turn to putty in his very capable hands, my knees getting weaker and weaker with every minute that passes.
I reach onto my tiptoes and wrap my arms around Arran’s neck as the kiss keeps going and going, completely surrendering to the vampire holding me in his safe embrace.
Eventually, Arran slows us down until our lips barely touch, our heaving breaths shared as we come down from whatever that just was.
“Wow. Okay.” My response was meant to sound cheeky, but it comes out a little too breathily, too affected by the random swarm of butterflies fluttering wildly in my stomach.
This is getting dangerous. We need to fuck very soon before these little touches develop into actual romantic feelings.
Arran leads me through his wing of the castle, opening a door at the end of the corridor that I haven’t seen before.
I stick my head in to find a spiral staircase, curving up, up, up, until I feel dizzy from simply looking at it.
“We going up there?”
Arran runs a hand across his short hair, looking adorably shy. “My favorite view of the island is from the top of this turret. I want to show you how…niceeverything looks from up there. But if you’re not comfortable with heights then we don’t have to go up.”
“Show me. Please.” Even if I was scared of heights, it wouldn’t keep me from sharing this with Arran.
Arran holds our clasped hands to his chest, and grabs a lantern with his free hand. “There’s no safety railing here, so please don’t let go. I’ll keep you safe.”
“I know you will.”
Together, we start climbing.
The first flight or so isn’t too bad, but soon I’m huffing and puffing, and in desperate need of a break. We pause next to a narrow window in the curved stone wall, the sliver of moonlight shining through illuminating Arran’s features in an unfairly attractive way.
Needing to fill the silence with conversation so the evidence of the unfit state of my lungs doesn’t scare Arran off, I wheeze out, “It must’ve been very hard after you became a vampire, to not be able to enjoy all the outdoor activities anymore. Like your log throwing, and hammer toss.”
Arran steps down another stair until we’re closer to eye level. “Log toss and hammer throw?” he corrects lightly. “It was hard at first. Everything was hard back then. Though, I’ve adjusted to working with the light of the moon and stars over the last few centuries. The enhanced eyesight also helps.” Arran adds, “I introduced some of the Starry Hill lads to log tossing a while ago. They seemed to enjoy it almost as much as I did. Ren in particular was quite good with his accuracy.”
“Do you do it regularly?” I ask, feeling hopeful about incorporating this new information into my project.
Arran shakes his head. “No. It was the plan, but I guess life got busy and they’ve forgotten. Or maybe they weren’t that interested.”
I narrow my eyes, not at him, but at the other guys for inadvertently disappointing Arran when he shared such a special part of his culture with them. “I’m sure that’s not the case, but I’ll ask around.”
