Total pages in book: 118
Estimated words: 120838 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 604(@200wpm)___ 483(@250wpm)___ 403(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 120838 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 604(@200wpm)___ 483(@250wpm)___ 403(@300wpm)
“I think I could struggle through it.”
He kissed me.
Then he went down on me.
He refused my offer to reciprocate and instead went to find Christine to tell her we were eating dinner in bed.
And that was what we did, watching telly and cuddling.
I fell asleep during Mad Max: Fury Road (one could say that movie was not for me, though Tom Hardy wasn’t hard on the eyes).
And when I slept, tucked close in Dair’s arms, I slept like a baby.
Chapter 23
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.