Page 43 of Falling for Raine

“Nothing at all. I’m hungry.” He smacked my ass and jumped out of bed. “Come along, Ray-n.”

I stared after him for a beat, confused by the abrupt change in conversation and the way he pronounced my name. He called me Ray-n and not Raine, as if it were a two-syllable word.Huh.

I followed him to the bathroom, a dozen questions on the tip of my tongue. But between the dazzling opulent marble bathroom, complete with fluffy Egyptian towels and fancy fixtures, and the Adonis checking the water temperature in the walk-in shower, I forgot every single one of them.

My heart did a funny flip in my chest when he held a hand out and invited me in. He washed my hair and my body, standing under the spray while he pressed kisses on my shoulders and rubbed soothing fingers over my crease. It wasn’t long till we were tangled in each other’s arms, water sluicing over our fused lips.

He flicked his thumbs over my nipples, bit my chin, and licked a trail along my neck and slowly sank to the tiled floor. I widened my eyes in surprise, but if ever there was a moment to go with the flow, this was it. I sifted my fingers through his hair and let go of my worries, rocking my hips as he sucked me like a pro. I wasn’t going to last, and I didn’t have the willpower to try.

I was completely under Graham’s spell. He might have been on his knees, but there was no mistaking it—he was the one in control. Completely.

A niggling voice in my head warned me to be on guard and to not blindly trust the bear at my feet.

No worries. I could be careful. Not that it was an issue—Graham was nothing like Damian. He was single and refreshingly honest. He didn’t want a relationship; he wanted sex. I sensed no danger here and God knew, I wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice, so yes, please.

That was my last cognitive thought before I came down his throat.

He swallowed every drop, swiped his hand over his mouth, then had the audacity to grin up at me and hum, “Good boy.”

I shouldn’t have liked that, but I did. And I probably shouldn’t have joined him on the shower floor and thrust my tongue into his mouth, but I did.

Less than a handful of hours into this new “arrangement” and I was already losing my cool.

Yep. I was fucked.

11

RAINE

Research was my jam. I loved puzzles and riddles—add a little history and I was in heaven. Graham had hooked me at “King Arthur’s birthplace” and “five-hundred-year-old estate.”

My mother claimed I was one of those uber curious kids who asked “Why?” twenty times after my initial question was answered.Why is the sky blue if it’s dark in space? Because sunlight is reflected from the Earth’s atmosphere. Why?I couldn’t help it. Call it nosy, call it intrusive, but inquiring minds wanted to know.

Mom had finally pushed her laptop my way and shown me how to navigate Google and Wikipedia. The rest was history. My nosy self could spend hours looking up facts and memorizing obscure info. Not much of a party trick as a teen, but I hadn’t exactly been turning down invites in those days, so I’d had a lot of time on my hands to devote to my investigative hobby.

I’d put my skills to use in college when I landed a TA position in the history department at San Francisco State. I’d mostly graded papers and answered emails, but occasionally, I’d been assigned meaty tasks like researching the origins of Norse gods.

I tripped into rabbit holes easily and lost time like a vampire exploring the habits and cultures of ancient civilizations. Or stalking stars of my favorite new streaming series for dubiously pertinent information like age, height, birthplace, siblings, dating history. You know, trivia shit. If I ever got the nerve to apply, I would kill it as aJeopardycontestant.

I might not have been qualified to manage an executive diary, but I was definitely capable of shaking out hidden secrets of a Cornish estate for a super-hunky British bear…who also happened to be my new lover.

Okay, so I need a moment to gush. I was currently having the best sex of my life and loving every minute of the ride. Pun intended. That was what this felt like, by the way—a roller coaster zipping along wobbly tracks into the stratosphere. What went up had to come down, so I knew I was in for an eventual rude awakening, but who cared? I was too dazzled by him and this sudden turn in my life to worry about a bad ending.

Then again, while this sexual firestorm between us would certainly fizzle out and fade, itwasn’tgoing to end badly. In fact, the best part of this sex-a-thon-slash-research-arrangement was that we’d agreed from the start to transparent honesty. I had zero expectations of Graham, and he probably had less than zero of me.

Perfect.

He’d deposited a large sum of dough into my bank account, given me a Google link to the property in question, and instructed me to look for anything of significance that might shed light on why this particular asset had been hidden from the initial ledger. Graham reiterated that this mini investigation wasn’t a covert operation. It was due diligence, and I was the agent in charge.

A historical James Bond, if you will. Pretty cool, eh?

The thing was…there wasn’t much to add to the generic Google entry. Deverley Manor was built by Sir James Deverley, a nobleman and a trader, who along with other landowners, had sought Henry VIII’s help in defending Cornwall. Apparently, the area had been a tumultuous hotbed of unrest with constant attack from Spain, France, and pirates at the time.

I found a few reports that Henry VIII had traveled with Anne Boleyn to Cornwall and dropped anchor in the Percuil River near Falmouth. That was pretty far south of Deverley by olden-day standards, where horses and ships were the main modes of transportation. There was nothing to suggest that the king met with Sir Deverley on his own, but he must have struck an advantageous deal because his holdings grew and flourished during the reigns of King Henry VIII and Queen Elizabeth I.

In fact, Deverley survived the Elizabethan, Georgian, and Victorian eras. That was four hundred years of prosperity, owned by one family. But in the late nineteenth century, the estate was abandoned and left in disrepair until General Cooperton—of Mint and Cooperton—purchased it to use as a summer house. The title was transferred to the Montgomery Trust in 2003.

And that was it. Other than a few crappy pics of an ivy-choked stone building online, there was nothing else. I dug through ancestry sites and even visited The British Library, but I didn’t find anything significant to add.