Page 54 of Finding the One (River Rain #7)

Door Number Two

Blake

A knock on the door (kind of) woke me.

Dair slipping away from my body made me open my eyes.

Still bleary and half-asleep, I watched him walk in his pajama pants to the door (he usually slept nude, but he put them on so we could be comfy watching telly and his junk wasn’t right there, taunting me because he wouldn’t let me have it).

He opened the door, and I saw Christine was outside.

“I’m sorry to disturb,” she said. “But Hale Wheeler is here.”

I blinked and pushed up to a hand.

“Hale?” I asked.

“Aye,” Dair said to Christine like he was expecting this visit from Hale. “I’ll talk to him.”

Christine nodded to Dair, cast a glance at me still in bed, her face got all happy, and she bopped away.

Dair went to his duffel, pawed through it and came out with a T-shirt.

“Did you know Hale was coming?” I asked.

“How’s your back?” he asked in return through the shirt he was pulling on.

I did a bitty twist to check it, and no pain.

“All good,” I told him.

“Stay resting anyway,” he ordered. “It can seem better, and then ye stress it, and you’re back to where ye started or worse.”

He said this while walking to the door.

“Dair,” I called. “Dair!” I said sharply when he didn’t stop.

He turned at the door.

“This is being loved the right way, lassie,” he said mysteriously, then he was out the door.

Therefore, I was out of bed.

Okay.

Ow.

I froze, but it was just a little twinge, and then it was gone. Really not bad, but he was right. I should take it easy.

But I could still walk, and I did so to walk out of the room, down the hall and the stairs. I just did it slowly.

I made a guess, and headed in that direction, and I knew my guess was correct when I heard men’s voices coming from the lounge.

“I’ll be seeing her,” Hale was saying.

“Aye. I’ll let her know you’re coming up and then ye can go up,” Dair replied as I hit the room. “But she hurt her back so she’ll be resting.”

They were standing in the center of the room, and I could almost see Hale, but most of what I saw was Dair’s back.

“And I’ll be speaking to her alone so I can ascertain her state,” Hale declared in a hard voice.

“My state?” I asked.

Dair turned and both men’s attention came to me.

I smiled and moved forward. “Hey, Hale.”

I made it to him and gave him a hug, but when we broke, I moved to Dair who slid his arm around my shoulders as I did the same around his waist.

Hale watched all of this with rapt attention and a weird hint of animosity.

“Are you good?” he asked me.

“Fabulous,” I replied. “More so with this surprise visit. What are you doing here?”

He stared at me, then looked to Dair, and back to me, he said, “I was attending some meetings in Cardiff.”

“You should have said. It’s just over the bridge. I could have come to you.”

Hale again stared at me, then Dair, then again to me. “I think I missed something.”

“What?” I asked.

Dair gave me a squeeze so I looked up at him. “What you are missing is that the richest man in the world got wind I’d hurt ye, so he dropped everything and hauled arse here to see to you.”

“I…”

Oh my God.

Seriously?

I turned to Hale. “Is that what’s happening?”

“More that Alex, who was worried about some conversation you two had, shared that with Chloe. Chloe called me and told me to get my ass over here to look in on you since I was the closest of us all,” Hale replied.

“But even if Chloe wasn’t being her usual bossy, once I heard you two had split, I’d have come anyway. ”

It felt like my heart had grown so big, my chest would explode.

And bizarrely, that wasn’t a bad feeling.

“So, aye, lass,” Dair piped up. “Tell me again how ye dinnae ken how to love.”

“Excuse me?” Hale asked.

God, Dair was impossible .

I waved my hand in front of me. “Nothing. Just some stuff I’m sorting through.”

“Helena did a number on her,” Dair piped up again, this time to Hale. “Blake didnae think she knew how to love. She thought you all were here for the funeral for Alex.”

Hale looked incredulous and a little hurt.

“Even me?” he asked.

His reaction made me pull from Dair’s arm before I smacked it.

“You don’t have to be all honest all the time,” I complained.

“I’m trying to prove a point,” he retorted.

“Well… duh ,” I shot back.

Dair burst out laughing.

I screwed my face up in a poisonous look aimed at him which only made him laugh harder.

I gave up on Dair and turned to Hale.

“Not you. I knew you were here for me,” I assured.

The animosity fled, and Hale’s lips twitched. “I take it you two made up.”

Two could play the honesty game.

“He tackled me in the woods and hurt my back.”

“Aye, I did,” Dair copped to it right away, and if my ears weren’t deceiving me, he did it proudly. “She was running through thick fog. She’d already tripped once and wrenched her back. Any second, she was going to run into a tree.”

“I was hardly going to run into a tree,” I disputed.

“Did ye have that first clue where you were heading?” he asked.

“Away from you,” I answered.

“And undoubtedly eventually into a tree. Or a heart attack. Ye were breathing so hard when I tackled you, ye were wheezing.”

I was one thousand percent wheezing.

I settled into silence and a glare.

“Well,” Hale broke into our bickering, “since everything seems all right, and I’m here, you want to go out and get some lunch?”

Lunch?

“What time is it?” I asked.

“Ten thirty,” both men answered me.

Ten thirty!

I hadn’t slept that late in years.

“It’ll take her an hour and a half to get ready,” Dair told Hale.

“That’s why I suggested lunch and not brunch,” Hale told Dair.

“If ye can hang for fifteen, I can take a quick shower and we can catch up while Blake does her hair and picks an outfit,” Dair said.

“Works for me,” Hale replied.

“I am standing right here, you know,” I pointed out.

“Go on up.” Dair jerked his chin upward. “Start the onerous selection process for your outfit. But go slow and take it easy. I’ll bring some ibuprofen and coffee up.”

“It was just a twinge this morning,” I informed him.

“You’re getting ready to go to lunch. Then going to lunch. And coming right back to the heating pad,” Dair bossed me.

“I—”

“As entertaining as this is,” Hale cut in and looked at me, “it does take you an age to get ready. And that’s no judge. Elsa’s the same way. The results are always worth it. From both of you. But if you don’t get started, we won’t have lunch until three thirty.”

Suddenly, I realized I was starved.

“I’ll go on up,” I said and headed that way.

“Lass,” Dair called.

I turned to him.

He pointed a long finger to his gorgeous lips.

I released a harassed breath and stomped to him, got up on my toes, and kissed those gorgeous lips that were now smiling.

I then headed back out saying, “I won’t be long.”

“Right,” both men replied in dual tones of disbelieving.

Whatever.

I walked up the stairs trying to decide on what sweater I’d wear.

But forcing its way into that decision-making process, the knowledge hit me that Hale was, indeed, the richest man in the world.

And maybe the busiest.

And he was here.

Because he heard I was hurting.

And because he loved me.

He also heard that from Chloe, who heard stuff from Alex, and they were both worried about me.

Because they loved me.

I had two choices on how to react to this tardily dawning apprehension.

Bawl my eyes out.

Or smile and get on with it.

I chose door number two.

And not incidentally, a few minutes later, I chose the perfect sweater.

In the end, it took me two hours to get ready, because, in order to stop everyone I loved who loved me in return from worrying about me, I did a group text to tell them Dair and I made up.

This meant doing hair and makeup while fielding a variety of calls.

But considering my excuse, neither man I loved (who loved me in return) minded.

“Aye, lass,” Dair encouraged gruffly.

He was on his knees, his head bent, his hands to the headboard, his legs spread, and at his command, I was reaching through his glorious thighs and stroking his cock.

Yes, at his command.

Like I was his good girl.

Though, I totally was.

I mean, just the command put me there, but how he was right now?

Yum .

“Fuck, that little twist ye do,” he grunted, beginning to pump into my hand.

I’d done the twist while stroking his cock by accident close to our beginning, but I added it to the festivities when I heard the noise he made when I did it.

I was thoroughly enjoying this, so much that…

Dang it.

I needed him to fuck me.

“Dair,” I breathed.

He heard it, I knew it, when I lost hold because he turned, tossed me onto my belly, kneed my legs apart, settled between them, and slammed inside me.

My head flew back, that felt so damned good.

“Honey,” I panted as he thrust into me, fucking me into the bed.

His arm snaked under me, and he drove his thick dick home before he got up to his knees, taking me with him, and kept hold of me with an arm around my hips as his finger on his other hand went to my clit. He started working me there too as he resumed driving inside.

“Oh God,” I moaned, powerless to do anything but feel all the good he was giving me and fist my hands in the sheets, this being one part of many why this was so good. “Dair!” I cried out as my orgasm scoured through me.

His thrusts went faster and harder as I climaxed around his cock, whimpering into the bedclothes and trembling in his hold.

And even as I drifted down, my body jerking as I kept taking his cock, I got off on it. The sound of his grunts. Our flesh slapping together. His dick filling me, stretching me.

He went even faster before he slowed, groaned, and through his glides, he came inside me.

I got off on that too.

It was Friday.

We were in Dublin.

He had a match to call tomorrow.

And suffice it to say, considering Dair made me take frequent breaks with the heating pad, my back was all better.