Page 24 of Loched in Love

“She wanted a date with just the two of you, Lachlan,” I deadpan, waiting for him to catch up.

His jaw drops and his brows come together as he realizes her intentions, and his eyes grow wide. “You have to know I’d never mean to agree to anything like that. I’ll ever only date you. I swear it Elena, you must believe me.”

Scales begin to surface across his arms, and I rush into action to stop their advancement on the rest of his body. If anyone sees, or god forbid catches him scaling out on camera, we’re done for. Thankfully, the moment I make contact, the scales dissipate entirely.

“Shhh, it’s okay.” My heartbeat thunders in my ears at his confession. I stand there in front of the restrooms, unsure of what to do as he panics and latches onto my arm.

“Please, don’t leave,” he says.

Suddenly, my feet leave the ground and I’m engulfed in thick brawny arms with the smell of cucumber melon in my nose as he hugs me to him.

“You can’t leave now that I’ve just gotten you. I swear I won’t ever speak to anyone again, just don’t leave me,” he breathes into my ear.

Heart breaking when he begins to shake lightly in my arms, I feel strong hands cup at the back of my head like I’m inexplicably cherished by him as he rubs lightly, as if soothing me will soothe him too. He takes a deep breath, and I can see him struggle to stay centered.

“I’m not going anywhere,” I say. Unsure of what else there is to say as onlookers began to turn their attention our way.

He squeezes me to him and presses a chaste kiss to my forehead in response, relaxing visibly.

“Excuse me?” calls out an unfamiliar voice.

“Pardon us,” Lachlan says.

I tense in his hold as he twirls us around, and my gaze clashes with an obviously disgruntled woman’s and realize we’re blocking her and her curious children from the bathroom. Each one gives him strange looks as they pass, but Lachlan’s arms only seem to tighten when I try to move away.

He lets out a whimper that says he doesn’t want to let me go when I wiggle, and I can’t help it.

I fall a tiny little bit in love.

Chapter 8

ELENA PIERSON

“Okay, but I can’t believe you’re not going to eat something,” I mutter.

We’ve been standing in the boarding line for a bit, but according to the time, they should be scanning tickets any second now.

I glance down at the frappe coffee I’ve practically inhaled in the last twenty minutes and frown into my cup. Turning to toss it and my leftover burger wrapper into the trash bin before we load onto the plane, I glance up at the red-haired giant beside me.

After he made me promise I’d not leave and calmed down enough to let me go, we made our way to the restaurant and coffee shop to get some sustainable food.

The champagne and peanuts I managed to eat on Frank’s plane weren’t enough to keep my stomach happy any longer, and I assume Lachlan needed to eat too, but so far he’s been stubborn. “Have you eaten since you got up this morning?”

“It’s been more than three hundred years since I’ve eaten the food of my homeland. Whitley’s cooking fattened me right up in the last few weeks, but bless her, she can’t make neeps and tatties to save her hide, which is alright. I don’t need to eat the way you do, and we’ll be in Scotland soon enough. I’ll eat when I get hungry,” he replies with a shrug of his shoulders and looks out over my head.

My jaw unhinges just as the first group number is called, and the first-class passengers start making their way to the kiosk lady to scan our tickets.

“What?”

He doesn’t need to eat?

I stand there like an idiot until a throat clears at my back and discover I’m holding up the line, before muttering a hasty sorry over my shoulder to scurry and reach his side. “What do you mean three hundred years? How long were you in the moat?” I whisper screech.

We can circle back to what way he eats for food later, but he’s been locked in the moat longer than America has been a country?

“A very long time,” he says, giving me another wink.

I glance up, marveling at how at ease he seems wearing a ridiculous smile while holding our luggage. I blink realizing he’s not been around this many people in years, and he’s likely never seen a building like this with glass walls, or any of it.