“Gotcha.”
I shivered as his hot breath fanned my ear and neck.
“I wasn’t hiding,” I said, lifting my chin. “I was just . . . I was just—”
“Ye were just what? Lookin’ behind the bathroom door for someone else?”
I blew out a big puff of air as frustration gripped me.
“Fine,” I grunted. “You caught me; I was hiding.”
My body turned to face his, and when he nudged under my chin with his finger, encouraging me to look up at him, my stomach burst into a mess of butterflies. I was a tall girl, taller than every girl I went to school with. I stood five foot ten inches, but Elliot’s massive six foot five inches dwarfed me and made me feel tiny, feminine.
I loved that feeling.
Elliot McKenna, I thought to myself. Where do I begin with him?
Elliot had moved to my home town just over seven months ago, in the middle of the school year. His father had opened a new Irish pub in town called McKenna’s. Moving to a different country would be daunting, hectic and maybe even a little scary to most people, but not Elliot. He was two months shy of eighteen when I met him, and once he became close friends with a classmate of mine, AJ, we became close too, but in an entirely different way.
Elliot was the first boy that I had ever taken an instant fancy too. The moment I saw him, I felt an attraction . . . and so did every other senior girl in school. He was gloriously tall, had a mop of thick, dark hair, eyes the colour of the ocean, and a dimple in his right cheek when he smiled. He was gorgeous, and to top it off, he had an accent. An Irish one to be exact. He was a Dubliner. I didn’t believe he even thought I was a member of the female gender until he kissed me on the night of his eighteenth birthday when we celebrated with him.
That kiss brought us closer; it brought us to now.
“Why were ye hidin’ from me, green eyes?”
I swallowed as my palms became slick with sweat. “’Cause I’m nervous.”
“About what?”
He was speaking to me, but his ocean blues were on my mouth and so was his thumb, brushing over my lower lip. It was terribly distracting and for a moment or two all I could think about was encircling his neck with my arms, reaching up and crushing my mouth against his. I resisted that urge because it went against what I’d planned to say to Elliot McKenna.
I was breaking up with him . . . and I couldn’t kiss him and do that at the same time, or at least I was fairly sure I couldn’t. I wasn’t entirely certain about the rules when it came to breaking up with a boy who technically was never your boyfriend to begin with. It was new ground that I was covering, so everything was unknown.
It was a complicated mess on a good day but I was certain of one thing: in the span of the few short months that we had been casually dating, I had fallen in love with Elliot, and I didn’t want to be strung along and hurt beyond repair, so I had to cut him loose even though I didn’t want to. I had to, in order to protect myself.
I had always known that I was soft-hearted and more emotional than most people. I took things personally whether I wanted to or not. I grew attached to those I cared about very easily, and that was why Elliot, as a person, terrified me so much. I loved him. I loved him so completely that it scared me. He was someone who could break me without even trying.
We were both young and maybe it was foolish, but I could see a future with Elliot. One where I was in a stable relationship that would give me the security I needed in order to relax and enjoy my life. I desperately wanted that. I didn’t want to mess around and spend my early years jumping from guy to guy and have the future be unknown to me. I knew what I wanted and what I wanted was to be Elliot’s one and only, the woman he gave his last name to.
I had never thought it was truly possible to find the person I hoped to spend my life with so young, but I believed I had found my future in Elliot . . . and it killed me that he didn’t appear to have that kind of faith in me. If he did, he would have already asked me to be his girlfriend.
“I have to tell you something,” I said with a firm nod as I straightened my spine. “It’s important so you have to listen to me – Elliot!”
His laughter burst free as I slapped away the hand that slithered down my back and squeezed my behind.
“I love how ye say me name, sasanach.” He chuckled. “All prim and proper.”
With flaming cheeks, I thumped his chest.
“Don’t be touching the merchandise, paddy.”
“Am I not allowed to touch what belongs to me?”
A flood of pulsing heat spread from my stomach to between my thighs. My hands moved to Elliot’s growing biceps, where I gripped on to him for dear life as I pressed my legs together. I was a simple girl who didn’t need a whole lot said, or done, to feel ready to climb Elliot like a tree. It was the virgin in me, and the fact that I’d read one too many Highlander historical romance books that made me weak when a man got deliciously possessive.
Damn those Scotsmen and their bloody kilts.
“No,” I squeaked in response. “No, you’re not allowed to touch me ’cause I don’t belong to
