Page 61 of Saving the Rain (Crimson Ridge #4)

M y eyelids struggle to crack open when I stretch and roll over—to dare a peek at the place beside me where I know I’ll be met with the sight of tattooed skin and a wild mop of dark hair.

Raine looks younger when he sleeps. Those years of being gruff and unapproachable and downright surly all vanish when he drops into a slumber. Something I don’t always know that he’s able to do peacefully, considering his past.

But as I blink the fog away, expecting to make out the shape of him lying on his stomach with an arm tucked beneath his pillow, I jolt awake. Normally it would be a murky gray light in here. Usually the bedroom is all shadows and a grainy sort of haze with how early it is.

“Fuck. We gotta get up,” I groan, slapping an arm in the direction of my phone on the bedside table.

Crap. The alarm didn’t go off, and if there’s one thing I know about this property, it’s that the days your morning doesn’t start on time, are usually the ones when problems snowball.

Those days where everything that can go wrong, will go wrong.

It’s the cattle ranch equivalent of Murphy’s Law.

I fucking hate it.

Though, try as I might to flounder around and find my phone, strong arms snake around my stomach. I’m hauled back against Raine’s broad chest, and as hard as I squirm, he’s entirely uninterested in letting me go.

“Seriously. What’s the time?” I rub my eyes and halfheartedly try to shove his hand away, which is now splayed across my abs. Despite all the ways I know I need to haul ass this morning, my stomach caves, and god... he’s just so warm. So inviting. So damn delicious to wake up next to.

I really, really fucking like waking up with him right there.

There are a lot of things I’ve come to discover that I like about having him to myself like this—all day and all night—but the clock is ticking on this brief escape we’ve managed to buy ourselves, the ticket we’ve managed to steal where we can just enjoy being together and the rest of the world gets put on pause.

It’s as if nothing exists beyond the entrance to Devil’s Peak Ranch, and we’ve been able to remain hidden in this perfect bubble. One that is liable to burst the moment Raine has to leave.

I don’t want to think about it.

Letting out a frustrated sigh, I push at his hold on me, trying and failing to dislodge him from wrapping me tighter, nuzzling into my shoulder.

Goddamn him, because if there is one move that guarantees I become all kinds of slutty and yearn for him without restraint, it’s when he kisses my neck. “We have to go.”

“Not a chance.” His morning voice is rumbly and gritty with sleep, right at my ear.

He ignores my efforts, continuing to pin my back against his torso, and something about the way he’s keeping me here because he wants to—as if he doesn’t give a single fuck about anything beyond the need to touch me—well, that turns my world on its head as we lie here tangled in bedsheets and the complexities of our connection to one another.

“Who would have thought I’d be the Boy Scout today.” I let out another little huffing noise. “But... as much as I wish mornings could be lazy... you know as well as I do that concept doesn’t exist around here.”

“Already done.” As he lays another sweep of spine-tingling kisses up the side of my throat, I feel the hard length of him grind against me from behind. “I got up and dealt with the stock early. The horses are fine, too.”

I go still, heart pounding against my ribcage. “What? You would do that? Why?” He would go to that sort of effort without telling me?

“You looked too dreamy. Fast asleep and twitching.” He runs his nose along the side of my jaw, then nips at my earlobe. “Too much like a sweet little thing I selfishly wanted to enjoy.”

“I feel bad.” Clearly not bad enough, because my dick is flinching and filling rapidly with the way Raine keeps working me with wet glides of his mouth over my ear and that temptation of his erection pressing into me.

“Figured you needed to sleep.” He shrugs it off, which is so typical for him. I’ve come to realize that Raine will always downplay the things he does. This man is so quick to shoulder the load for others, and he’ll gladly do it all without anyone being any the wiser.

“So what, we get to have a cute morning and I get to be little spoon, huh?” I tease him, letting my body relax fully against his now.

“Something like that.” There’s a wickedness in his tone. An edge of raw sensuality coloring his words that immediately has me grinning like a lunatic. To the point I have to keep my face turned into the pillow in a valiant effort to disguise just how giddy he makes me.

I notice both of our phones, sitting beside each other on the bedside table.

It’s certainly not where I left mine last night.

Which puts Raine at the scene of the crime, being the cause of my missing alarm this morning.

I grunt and stretch to catch them with my fingertips, reaching for both devices at the same time.

One look at my screen confirms that, yes, he’d turned off the alarm.

My heartbeat starts fluttering away in a pitter-patter—feeling all sorts of upended that he went to all that trouble to let me stay sleeping.

I can only imagine what he must have looked like, creeping around in the dark so as not to disturb me.

That’s when my attention drifts to his phone. It’s an older model. Complete with scuffs and scrapes and a cracked screen. The thing looks like it's seen a hard life .

“This brick still works?” I wiggle it so that he’ll be able to see it in my hand. “Kinda looks like something that belongs to a fifty-year-old.”

He grunts a muffled curse while biting my neck.

“C’mon then. Let me see what cobwebs you’ve got all up in here. Is there a steam-powered engine we need to start up in order to get it going? A landline extension we need to plug it into?”

“Always such a smartass,” he grumbles and drags my hand holding the phone closer to his face so that it unlocks, then pushes it back my way.

I’m left gnawing on my lip, ever so curious about what Raine might have on his phone.

But at the same time, if his social media is anything to go by, it’s probably nothing but mundane, work-related stuff.

Screenshots of horse feed brands and shit like that.

I'm almost bursting out loud with laughter when I see that his camera roll is exactly that. An assortment of boring things he’s obviously had to take care of around the ranch and send to Beau, like photos of a broken fence and, sure enough, a pallet of horse feed.

Swiping out of his camera roll, I swerve past the icon for his Instagram. As much as I’m a little bit anxious as to whether there are other cowboys and cowgirls dropping into his inbox, that’s the kind of territory that is certainly none of my business.

So I go into our text thread, and see the icon with just a K for my name on display.

“You don’t have a photo for my contact in your phone.” I pretend to pout.

Behind me, I feel him shrug. “What do you want it to be?”

My stomach swoops as I think about it for a brief moment. Then decide to unapologetically be the guy he’s currently got his arms wrapped around. I’m the one he’s in bed with. I’m who he’s pre-planning ways to enjoy spending a cute little morning sleep-in alongside.

So I rearrange Raine’s hand on the comforter, fussing with it until it shows off the sexy tattoo of the vintage rose covering the back of his hand.

All those veins sticking out in the gorgeous way they do.

I slip my palm beneath his, thread our fingers, and take a photo of us—just our hands with fingers interlocked .

“There.” I nibble on my lip and show him the image on-screen. “Better?”

Raine lifts the phone from my grasp, and the next moment, there’s a soft thud when he tosses it aside to hit the carpet. He doesn’t say a word but pulls me closer.

That hand, splayed wide across my front, moves down to cover my hip, and he drags me tight against his cock. I feel every inch of him like a steel bar as he shows me exactly how this is gonna go from here.

I’m shuddering with anticipation, without a single word needed.

Every part of me hums to life, and my blood quickens as his other hand explores ravenously.

His strong fingers slide around to the front of my throat, and his beard scrapes the sensitive patch of skin above my pulse point as he resumes kissing up and down the slope of my neck.

All I can do is tilt my head and open that invitation to him. I want him to take everything. Take every part of me.

His lips brush over the shell of my ear as he whispers in a dark, gritty voice. “I fucking need you.”

My reply is a soft, greedy sound. A barely there whimper. I’m so goddamn done for, every time without fail, and my dick smears precum against my stomach as he rearranges himself at my back. A click of a cap is followed by that cool gel coating his firm touch.

It’s bliss. Heaven. The most idyllic of moments being wrapped up in him.

He fucks me from behind, reaching around and stroking me in slow, punishing twists of his hand to match the timing of his thrusts.

He absolutely owns me until I’m on edge and panting before pushing me to roll onto my front.

I’m face down, sobbing into the pillow as he torments me with deep, languid rolls of his hips.

My aching cock is squashed between my stomach and the bed while he rides me, slapping our bodies together.

Each time I think I’m done for, that I’m one second from bursting, he eases back. All while whispering filth and praise, and mixing it all together in a way I can’t get enough of.

It’s not until he flips me onto my back and dives into me with my ankles locked around his hips—not until our mouths are fused together in an unhurried kiss that he guides my hand to stroke my dick while our bodies rock together .

Moaned curses unleash, along with the rawest noises of pleasure, straight into Raine’s mouth as I come.

It feels like it goes on and on as my cock empties itself all over our stomachs, and the slide of our bodies is so damn hot.

I’ve gone blank. Washed away. A fluffy cloud.

Hoping like hell I didn’t just tell him I’ve fallen in love with him as his climax hits and he spills deep inside me.

It’s so exhilarating, so gorgeous to watch his face contort that I feel my cock jerk and release a little more.

And I realize—as I stroke his face and pull him closer to wrap my arms around the back of his neck so we can kiss more intimately in that glowing comedown—that I do love him.

It’s a painful, awful thing to finally admit.

To fall in love for the first time, with Raine, of all people, is probably the stupidest thing I could ever do.

Yet, here I am. In a place where I’ve never been before, and I just have to hope beyond all hope that he maybe feels a fraction of what I’m feeling.

I know he tells me things like he’s not letting me go... that I’m his.

But the nagging voice in the back of my head says beware . He’ll wake up one day and see all those broken pieces and decide I’m not worth the effort.

“ Hey .” With a soft hum, he looks down at me.

Still fully sheathed, branding me in the way that I’m obsessed with.

I can’t get enough of these moments when he lingers and lets me have that closeness, that connection afterward.

“Where’d you go?” His fingers brush across my cheeks and up to push my hair off my damp forehead.

“I’m right here.” I swallow and blink up at him, taking in all his handsomeness.

“You’re thinking awfully hard.” He gives a tiny thrust of his hips. “Too hard for someone with my cock still filling them.” A faint hint of a smile tugs on the corners of his mouth, and I press my fingers there, as if I can seal it permanently in place or steal it to hide away in my memories.

“Just... I guess this is it... the part where it feels too good to be true.” I wet my lips and smile back a little shyly. Not wanting to say the whole truth of it .

But Raine is who he is. It’s like he can see straight through me and always knows there’s something more that I’m not saying.

“Let’s shower, get some food into you, and then I’m gonna go down to Crimson Ridge to do a supply run.” He feathers a kiss over my lips before slowly drawing back, gazing down at me with soulful, calming eyes. “I’m right here with you in this. All of it. Don’t forget that.”