He laughed softly so as not to wake Rain and wandered into the living room where she’d have less chance of hearing him if she was awake. “Her name is Rain Alexander. She owns her own clothing company. She’s amazing, she makes me laugh, and she’s absolutely stunning. I met her at work a few weeks ago. And she’s a wee bit shy about getting serious with me because she’s been hurt in the past so I’m taking it slow, which means it’ll be a while yet before you meet her. But as soon as she’s ready I’ll bring her around for dinner.”
“You sound happy,” his mum said, and he heard the tenderness in her voice. “I’m glad for you, son.”
“Aye, I know. Me too.”
“Well I’ll let you go. Tell Rain I said hi!”
He chuckled. “I will do. I love you, Mum.”
“I love you too.”
He hung up and turned around, surprised to find Rain leaning against the doorway wearing nothing but his shirt, and it was all buttoned up wrong so he could see plenty of skin. Unbelievably, after all their antics the night before, he wanted her again.
She gave him a small smile. “That was sweet.”
“What was?”
“You telling your mum you loved her like that.”
“I said it because it’s true and it makes her happy to hear it.”
“Oh.” She shivered in exaggeration and pouted her lips comically. “You’re making me want you again.”
He laughed. “Are you mocking me?”
Rain gave a light laugh and shook her head. “In all honesty, no. I think you’re charming, Craig Lanaghan.”
He felt her words sink into his chest and clutch on hard. “Mum says hi.”
She blinked in surprise. “You told her about me?”
“Of course.”
Not seeming to know what to do with that, Rain looked anywhere but at him. “Do you fancy some tea or something?”
“I fancy taking you back to bed.”
Her gaze flew to meet his. “That’s all we’ve done . . .”
He read the anxiety in her expression and decided if he didn’t want her thinking all he was after was a good fuck, he needed to start treating her like he was serious. “Right now we’re going back to bed. Tomorrow is my night off . . . we’ll go on a real date again.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Is that a promise?”
He strode toward her, no longer able to be in the same room with her and not touch her. He hauled her into his arms, crushing her to him. She came into him happily, wrapping her arms around his shoulders as he said, “A promise I intend to keep.”
Rain
There were a number of moments over the last few weeks where I stopped and asked myself, “How on earth did I let this happen?”
“This” being my relationship with Craig. Because that’s what it was spiraling into. An actual relationship. Just like he’d said he wanted. And just when I’d start to remember all the other important things in my life, Craig would turn up on my doorstep, making everything but him disappear around me.
“You have an annoying habit of distracting me,” I’d said to him last night while we lied in bed after making love.
Last night was a Wednesday, it was a week since he’d ravished me against my hallway wall, and jt was one of his nights off work. He spent most of the day and the whole night with me.
“Good,” Craig had replied, rolling me onto my back to have his wicked way with me. Again. Not that I was complaining. I’d gotten more orgasms out of this one man than my four boyfriends before him put together.
I wasn’t sure if the distraction of him was good or not. What I did know was that when I was with him I felt free in a way I hadn’t felt. Ever.
That was profoundly terrifying because as well as the sensational sex, no man had ever made me feel so valued.
I stood in my doorway that morning, a mug of coffee in one hand and a tea in the other and I stared at him as he slept in my bed on his stomach. He really was goddamn handsome. The kind of goddamn handsome that still kicked up butterflies in my belly when I looked at him.
“You’re staring,” he muttered, which made me jump, hot tea spilling down my left hand.
I hissed in a breath and Craig’s eyes flew open.
“You alright?” He pushed up from the mattress, apparently fully awake.
I nodded, scowling at him as I wandered over to hand him his coffee. “Do you make a habit of pretending to be asleep?”
Taking my cup of tea out of my hand and putting both his coffee and it on the bedside table, Craig took my injured hand in his and said, “Do you make it a habit of watching me sleep?” He kissed the hot skin and looked up at me. “I think you’ll live.”
I tried not to add that sweet gesture to the growing tally of things I was beginning to adore about him. “No thanks to you,” I teased, brushing his rumpled hair off his face.
Craig grabbed me around the waist, hauling me down onto the bed with him. I let out a squeal at the abrupt movement and giggled as my head hit the pillow. He braced himself over me and stared down into my face, something like wonder in his expression.
“What?” I said, bemused.
“I will never, ever tire of looking at you,” he replied, his words mirroring my earlier thoughts about him.
“You are such a sweet talker.” I brushed it off.
I really believed that Craig liked me and was enjoying the monogamy. At the moment. But tomorrow? Who knew? There was a part of me that believed he was going to wake up one day and realize how absolutely bored he was with the idea of just one woman.