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I wander my fingertips across his warm skin, now skimming the rugged silhouette of a Highland landscape along his ribs. “What was it you wanted to tell me earlier?” I ask, tracing the peaks and valleys.

“Earlier?” There’s a sleepy heat to his voice.

“You came back to the bathroom when I was washing up. Looked like you had something important to say.”

“Oh.” He yawns, his chest rumbling softly beneath my cheek. “I was just going to ask if I could rip up the carpets tomorrow.”

“Didn’t we already agree on that?”

“Aye. Oh, all right, I just wanted an excuse to keep talking to you.”

Something fizzy and ridiculous bubbles up inside me, and I lift my head to look at him. “I never thought I’d say this, but I’m kind of grateful for those fusty old carpets.”

He flashes me a roguish grin then gives a wee shiver when my wandering finger grazes over his nipple ring. “You’re trouble, you know that?”

“Aye, I know. So, tell me, which piercing came first?” I circle the cool little hoop with my fingertip, deliberately brushing his nipple at the same time.

“Eyebrow. Got it when I was sixteen. Nipple at nineteen. The other one at twenty-two.”

I glance down at “the other one”, still a bit in awe of what I experienced. “Did it hurt? Getting that one done, I mean.”

“Did it hurt getting your nose done?”

He taps the little stud at my left nostril. So, naturally, I reach down and give that piercing a gentle tap back. He jolts, just the tiniest bit, like I’ve sent a current through him.

“That isn’t the same,” I say. “A nose and a cock? There’s just no comparison. I didn’t flinch when you prodded my nose. If I had a clit piercing, though . . . well, we could compare notes then.”

Robbie’s eyes darken. “The mouth on you, McIntyre. You ever stop to think what it does to a man, hearing you talk like that?”

“Oh, I know exactly what it does.” I wink.

There’s a gruff sort of scoff from deep in his chest. “To answer your earlier question, aye, it hurt. Quite a bit, actually.” He shrugs, all casual, as if getting a hole punched through your bits is no big deal. “But once it healed . . .” His lips curl into something wicked. “Let’s just say sex, which was incredible before, became something else entirely.”

The thought of him using this . . . personal upgrade on other women has a flare of possessiveness sizzling through me.

“So?” His gaze sharpens with interest, and my jealousy quickly dissipates. “What did you think?”

“I liked it,” I admit. “As in, really liked it. It heightened everything.”

Something primal flashes across Robbie’s face—male satisfaction that he’s given me a first experience. And he has. I’m deliciously sore in the best way, my body still humming with memories of him everywhere.

I nestle my head back against his chest, breathing in the warm, salty-spicy scent of his skin. For some long, blissful moments, neither of us says a word. There’s only our steady breathing and the gentle thump of his heart beneath my ear. Robbie’s fingers slide through my hair in slow, lazy strokes that make me melt even further into him. I want to stay like this all night, tangled up with him, safe and warm and far away from anything or anyone else.

But after a few more minutes of perfect, contented silence, Robbie shifts. With an almost apologetic half-smile, he gently extracts himself from under me.

“It’s getting on,” he says, sitting up and swinging his long legs over the side of the bed. He stands, and with his back to me, I get a good glimpse of the majestic stag tattoo spanning his shoulder blades. The antlers stretch wide, and the detail is exquisite. “I should go.”

I reach for his arm. “Stay for dinner. I owe you a meal for staying late to work on my flat.”

Robbie hesitates, looking over his shoulder at me then towards the door.

“Come on, it’s just pizza. Frozen, but it’ll save you cooking.”

He relents with a small nod. “All right.”

I wrap myself in a dressing gown, and Robbie asks if he can use my shower. Says he’s got some paint-free clothes he can change into afterwards. I fetch him a towel, briefly entertaining the idea of asking to join him, but I dismiss it. Whatever that was between us just now, it was . . . a lot. We probably both need a breather—ten minutes or so to regroup.

So, instead, I go in after he’s finished, and when I emerge, I feel almost like myself again. Or at least, as much as a woman can after being thoroughly ruined by Robbie MacDonald.