Under Loch and Key

by Lana Ferguson

I quit my job, flew across the ocean, practically uprooted my entire life just to come here, and now that I’m here…I’m not sure if I can do it.

My entire life, I have been told to fear this woman, the one I didn’t know existed until just now—but she certainly doesn’t look like the end of the world as I know it.

Her smile changes her already pretty face to something breathtaking—straight white teeth with the two front ones just slightly longer than the rest and somehow making her smile all the more endearing.

Simp

We do not lust after assholes, damnit.

Fuck. That’s not fair. He shouldn’t be allowed to look like he does and have dimples when he’s such a dick.

“But Nessie has always been a girl!” “I did try to hint at the falsity of that, you remember,” I remind her. “Outside of Loch Land.” “Yeah, but I just thought you were being a dick.” “No, I was trying to tell you that Nessie has a dick.”

She looks excited, damn her. Why does she look so bloody excited? Can’t she be properly terrified of me? I’m a monster, for fuck’s sake. Not a fucking puppy.

I hate how fucking lovely she looks when she’s being a pain in my arse.

“Are you purposely trying to infuriate me?” I shake my head. “No, I’m trying to caffeinate you. You’ll need it.”

I swear the man must have some super-monster strength even when he’s in human form, because the guy moves like the fucking Terminator.

I can make out her pulse fluttering at her throat, and her pink tongue swipes across her lower lip, and her eyes—those eyes are utterly bewitching—and I do the last thing I should, most likely. I crash my mouth against hers.

The surprise that courses through me lasts all of three seconds. Three fucking seconds of What the hell? before my body catches up to the situation and has a team meeting with my brain to decide that, yes, we are absolutely on board with Lachlan kissing us senseless.

“It’s not for you to decide,” he tells me softly. “It’s not a risk I’m willing to let you take.”

I really fucking want her—but because she’s already suffered so much. She’s lost so much. I can’t in good conscience risk being another thing she loses.

She smells like something soft and sweet, her shampoo maybe—but she tastes like honey and sunshine and every good memory I’ve ever had, however few. How can I possibly push her away when she’s the first thing I’ve allowed myself to hope for in years?

“My da used to say s’better to have loved and lost than to have not loved at all,”

I think that look in her eyes makes me fall for her, just a bit.

“It is what it is.”

“Don’t be daft, love,” I soothe. “You bring me a peace I’ve not had in a long while.”

Every time I touch Keyanna, it feels right—like she’s made for me. Like she’s mine.

wish there was time to taste you. I love the way you come on my tongue. Maybe tomorrow I’ll wrap your legs around my shoulders and have your cunt for every meal, aye?”

“Is this not enough for you, princess?” I tease. “You need more than my fingers, aye?”

“Yeah?” I push deeper, stirring my hips. “You like fucking a monster, Key?” “It’s you,” she hums prettily, slanting her mouth over mine. “It’s just you.”

“This what you need?”

“You want me to fuck you like a beast?”

“That’s it, love,” I coo. “Look at you. You’re so good. Taking everything. You look so bloody good stuffed full of my cock like this.”

“Come for me,” I tell her, my voice too rough, too wrong, but falling from my lips as if it’s someone else’s. “I want you to come on this cock, Keyanna. Want you to come full of a monster.”

I curl my body, molding myself to her as I nuzzle just below her ear. I can feel her fingers sliding over my shoulders, up into my hair to card through the strands, and I think to myself that at this moment I feel more right than I ever have. Keyanna has insisted over and over that everything will be okay, that we’ll beat this—but I’m realizing that it’s only with her in my arms that I can almost believe it.

I think I might more than like it, I don’t say. Because as impossible as it may be, as improbable even—I might be a bit more than falling for Keyanna MacKay, the woman who should be my enemy but just…isn’t. The only one who makes me feel like maybe, just maybe…things might actually turn out all right.

Because in a world where it feels like I’ve never had much of anything…it suddenly feels like I have everything to lose.

I refuse to entertain the possibility that I might lose him after just finding him. He has too much life to live. We have too much life to live. Or at least, I hope that’s the case.

I think about a future where I might live a normal life, where I might make her mine, really mine, ring and all—one where we might have weans of our own. Ones he’ll never meet. It’s bloody heartbreaking, is what it is. But I suppose I should be used to that feeling.

Curse or no curse, I know that there is no future together that is based on dishonesty.

I think I know now that behind me lies my past, but ahead…there might still be a future.

“Spread your legs,” I rasp. “Show me what’s mine.”

tell myself that after this pity party of mine, I’ll pick myself back up. After this, I’ll somehow manage to tighten my grip on my own determination.

Something about her just grounds me in a way nothing ever has.

We aren’t the victims in this story. We’re the bloody villains.

You are not who you are because of where you come from; you are who you are because of where you choose to go.”

I won’t let him fall apart. I’m ready and willing to hold him together, to make sure he doesn’t break.

Doesn’t he see that? Doesn’t he see that this connection between us feels like something more than just random chance?

I hate that after all my yearning to protect her, I still ended up being the cause for more pain.

even with her telling me that she needs space, there’s nothing I want less with her.

I know deep down that he didn’t mean to hurt me, but that doesn’t change the fact that he did.

I wince. Clearly this is a case of daddy issues that might get me killed.

“What if I can’t?’ I whisper. “What if I can’t save you? What if I fail?” “It doesn’t matter,” he hums, kissing me again gently. “How can you say that?” “Because,” he tells me. “It won’t change how much I love you.”

Lachlan is absolutely right. It’s not just a story. It’s ours.