Waiting for Rain (27 page)

“We have a saying in Japan, Mr. Prentiss-san. ‘To die is easy. To live is hard.’ I think you have seen a lot of hard living. Both Mr. Miyamoto-san and I heard what those policemen were saying about you and your past when I took everyone in to make their statements. I think Mr. Miyamoto-san is right. You are a good, brave man.”

She leaned forward and kissed my cheek gently, then left in a waft of perfume and a slight sway of chiffon blouse. I collapsed into my chair, finding tears trickling down my cheeks. It had all been a little surreal, and it looked like past events were catching up with me. I got up, closed and locked the door, then gave way to a bout of heartfelt crying. I hadn’t done that since I was a boy.

L
ATER
THAT
night, I was in my room, in my boxers, lying down on the bed, trying to concentrate on watching
Thursday Round Up
, a news program on the telly. My mind kept wandering. Rain had finished everything he needed to do in the Canterbury Bar earlier than expected, and it was now officially completed. He’d been at the site of his new job today and had a dinner meeting tonight with the man who wanted the library built in Leicester. Tomorrow there would be no reason for him to come by the hotel. He and Lucas were taking a couple of days off before their next job out of town and Lucas was taking Tammy away for the weekend—leaving tomorrow. There was a quiet knock at the door. Frowning, I glanced at my watch. It was close to 11:00 p.m., and I wasn’t expecting anyone. I pulled on a pair of jeans and opened the door. The first thing I saw was a huge bunch of yellow roses and a bottle of champagne. A pair of blue eyes gazed at me over the top of the flowers. My stomach lurched, and I smiled—more like a stupid, sloppy grin—as Rain stepped into the room.

“Flowers for me?” He nodded as I closed the door behind him. Taking the flowers, I smelled them appreciatively. He looked a little embarrassed.

“Actually, they were my mother’s idea,” he murmured, “When I told her about you being hurt, she told me to go out and buy flowers for you. She said even a man appreciated a bunch of roses. She said she’d call you to see if you actually got them, and she would too,” he said darkly. “So, never let it be said I don’t bring my boyfriend flowers. I’m also taking time out from my pole dance and stripping practice, so you should feel privileged.”

He kissed me, a long, lingering smooch that had me hard in seconds. “And the champagne is for me to pour all over you and lick off.” He caressed my cheek teasingly. “I know it will make a mess, Mr. Neat and Clean, but you’ll just have to manage with it.”

I chuckled, an overwhelming sense of happiness flooding through my body just with him being here. “Thank your mother for me next time you speak to her.” I felt a warm feeling that someone across the other side of the world had thought about me. “I think I can manage one night of stickiness if it means I get to feel your tongue doing magic things to my body.”

God, I am so bloody horny now at that thought.

“I didn’t think I’d see you tonight,” I remarked, trying to find something to put the flowers in. No one had ever bought me flowers before, so I had nothing “vaselike.” I gave a smile of triumph when I managed to find an old glass spaghetti canister that was being used to store various odds and sods and which I thought might do. I tipped everything out into my “man drawer,” the one in my dresser that held all manner of crap, and filled the canister with water from the bathroom. Rain watched as I set about arranging the stems in the makeshift vase. He had a smirk on his face.

“Wow, flower arranging too? You’ll make some man a great husband one day.”

I whacked him across the back of the head with one of the stems, and he sidestepped as he laughed. “I finished my dinner date, and I needed my Toby fix. I haven’t seen you all day. Tomorrow I’m back at this job in Leicester.”

I looked at him in surprise. “I thought you only started the job on Monday and you had tomorrow off?”

He shrugged. “The job is turning out to be a little bigger than we thought. I’ve still got a bit of scoping to do. So, I said I’d get there tomorrow morning and make a start.”

I finished the floral arrangement. It was no Ikebana, but it would have to do. I set the vase down on the dining table that had so recently seen a lot of action.

Rain chuckled. “I might have to move those later,” he murmured suggestively.

I shook my head firmly. “Not tonight, old bean. You slam me down on that table like you did last time, and you’ll end up with my puke all over you.”

“Way to go, Toby,” he muttered with a grimace. “That certainly gets the romance going. And after I bought you flowers too.”

“Bringing a man flowers does not guarantee that you’ll get lucky,” I said mock primly. He laughed softly and moved over to my “man drawer,” rummaging for the corkscrew. “So, what do I do about this champagne, then?” he asked silkily. “Do we drink it the traditional way, or do I lick it off you?”

Mr. Cocky perked up in my trousers, and Rain grinned slyly. The bottle opened with a pop, and he laid it on the table, wandering over to me, a look of definite intent in his eyes. Holding my breath, I waited to see what he had planned. As he reached out, his mobile went off, the Joker tone and its ominous chuckle reverberating in the room. He stilled, looking down at his jeans pocket. I watched him. He seemed a little jumpy.

“It’s a little late for a text, isn’t it?” I murmured.

“It could be Joe, the library man. He said he’d confirm what time we’re meeting tomorrow.” He took his phone out, turning away. I slid my jeans off my hips, and threw them into the corner. I picked up the champagne, selected two glasses from the cupboard, put them on my side table, then got onto the bed to wait for him. Rain flicked through his phone, his face darkening at whatever was in the message. He typed something, then slipped the phone back into his pocket.

“That looked like bad news,” I said, watching his face. Something seemed off.

He shook his head. “No, it’s all good. It was Joe. I’m to meet him at ten. So, I don’t need to be up too early in the morning.” He grinned, still looking unsettled. “So, you can keep me awake all night if you like.”

Rain looked at me lying on the bed. He eye-fucked me all the way from my face down to my toes, a look of sheer lust that went straight to my groin. He took his shirt off as I watched, then tossed it onto one of the beanbags. Slowly, he undid his trousers, slipping them and his underwear off to fall in a heap on the floor.

“God, you are so bloody sexy,” I whispered, watching him move over to the bed, ready to do battle with the adversary that was my body. “I think tonight we might even manage to fuck properly.”

He grinned as he knelt beside me. “I’d suggest you get those off, then.” He gestured to my wet-fronted boxers. “Then we can get busy with this champagne.” He smiled evilly as I slipped off my underwear and pushed it onto the floor. “I think maybe it might be time for those ties we spoke about to come out and play?”

I swallowed, remembering how he wanted to tie me up and blindfold me. I was certainly up for all of that. Mr. Cocky agreed, and Rain stood up and made his way to the dresser. But first he fiddled with his iPhone, attaching it to the dock in my room. Luckily we both had the same taste in mobiles. He smiled in satisfaction as the strains of our song, “Smoke and Mirrors,” the same one we’d played when we were making love on the haystack, played through the speakers. He grinned at me.

“I love this bloody song. I am so going to screw you all night to this tune.”

I gulped. That was definitely something to look forward to.

He opened the drawer, and I stared at the taut cheeks of his backside and the strong line of his spine as he rummaged around. Then he turned with a sly smile, and the sight of him looking so delectably decadent made my head swim. Of course, it could also have been the three ties he held up, in varying colors and widths. His eyebrows rose suggestively.

“These should do,” he murmured huskily. “Green for your lovely eyes and black and red for your wrists.”

The thought of being tied to the metal headboard, unable to see and simply feeling whatever Rain decided to do to me, made my heart palpitate and my breathing quicken. He saw the look on my face as he ambled over to me.

“Not getting cold feet, are you?” he whispered as he trailed the ties across my stomach and brushed my cock with them.

“Uh-uh.” My voice was husky. “Do your worst, Rain.”

He grinned, straddling me, and I smelled his heady scent of arousal and saw his blue eyes darken as he considered what he was about to do. Gently, he pushed one wrist up onto the metal frame and wrapped the tie around it, not too tight but taut enough that it wouldn’t come loose too soon. He then did the same with the other one. Then he sat back and regarded his handiwork with a look like a tiger about to devour its prey. I felt completely vulnerable and hoped like hell I wasn’t going to hyperventilate with all the emotion flooding my body. He leaned forward, swiping his tongue across my lips teasingly, once, then twice, and I groaned. I was immobilized by one hundred and sixty pounds of man sitting on my legs.

“You are a world-class bloody bastard,” I muttered. He smiled smugly.

“I know. But you love it.” He got up and went to fetch the vase of flowers I’d arranged so artfully earlier. I watched him in puzzlement as he set them down on the bedside table.

“What are those for?” I asked, dreading the answer. Who knew what went on in Rain’s mind? Perhaps he had visions of sticking a rose up my backside. I hoped fervently, if that was his plan, he made sure there were no thorns. He waggled his finger in my face.

“Toby, you can take that look of abject fear off your face. I’m honestly not that bloody kinky, you idiot. Although it could give a whole new meaning to having a rose in my mouth.” He snorted in laughter as I scowled. “No, I just wanted you to see that bringing flowers to a man
does
guarantee you getting lucky. At least this man.” He waved at me. “He’s a complete bloody pushover.”

He leaned over, placing the last thick tie over my eyes, and the world went dark green. I swallowed at being so suddenly plunged into the world of the blind. He tied it behind my head, and I heard his sigh of satisfaction as he climbed onto the bed, with me in all my nude glory, lying trussed up and unseeing.

“You look so fucking hot,” he whispered in my ear as his tongue darted in, causing me to shudder. “I am so going to make love to you all night.”

Chapter 16

Rain

A
SHIVER
coursed through Toby’s body at my last words. To be honest, I was turning myself on so much by what I was doing to him that if we didn’t get this show on the road soon, there’d be no bloody point. I was ready to explode, the sight of Toby’s muscled, wiry body, laid out for me like a smorgasbord of sheer sexual fantasy enough to send anyone crazy with lust.

But I needed to be gentle with him. I could see the dark, yellowing bruising on his back and the healing but still garish stitching holding him together. He was still so pale too, despite his constantly telling me he was feeling fine. I wanted him badly, but I also wanted to show him I cared, that he could trust me. Although thinking of the text I’d got earlier made me feel guilty. But there was time enough to think of that later. I didn’t want to deal with that right now. I wanted to make love to the man stretched out in front of me.

Sometimes our lovemaking was pure animal sex, brought on by the mutual desire we had for each other. Sometimes it was simply a release, a quick blowjob or a wank before we got up in the morning, guaranteed to release the pressure. But most times it was slow and languorous, a blending of two bodies and minds that wanted to pleasure each other and simply enjoy the feeling of skin and sweat and bodily fluids. This was one of those times.

I poured champagne all over Toby’s body, letting it trickle into his belly button then lapping it up. I licked his nipples, teasing them until they were hard like pebbles. His smooth chest was my canvas, and I painted pictures on his body with my tongue, champagne trails that were sweet and sweaty at the same time. I drank from his heated skin, pouring the golden liquid into my mouth, then kissing him as he drank like a greedy bird being fed by its mother. I trickled tantalizing trails of liquid down his chest to his groin, then licked it all up slowly. The fact he couldn’t see what I was going to do next made us both breathless, him with anticipation, me with the knowledge I could do with him what I wanted.

Toby moaned, gasped, and shuddered as I tormented him, his skin puckering with goose bumps. I was so turned on myself I wasn’t sure how much longer I could hold out. My dick was raring to bury itself inside the man lying trembling under the assault of my tongue, lips, and fingers. He tugged and pulled at his bindings, and I smiled in satisfaction at the frustration he must be feeling, not being able to reach out and touch me. His body was being played like a guitar, and he could do nothing about it.

Both of our bodies were sticky with champagne and body fluids. Toby’s soft moans as I tormented him were an aphrodisiac in themselves.

“Enjoying yourself, Rain?” he gasped as my mouth trailed its way down over his hips, teasingly licking the tip of him, then biting his skin, small nips that made his body arch upward from the bed. I nodded as my lips found his balls and sucked them into my mouth gently, and then I rolled my tongue around the soft sacs that tasted so Toby. Musk, sex, heat, and sweat.

“Uh-huh,” I said, my mouth full of him. I lifted my mouth from his soft and tender scrotum and licked the underside of his cock as he heaved a shuddering sigh. “I’m having a lot of fun. How about you?”

“Fuck me,” he gasped as his hips reared upward. “Rain, please….”

His entreaty fell on deaf ears as I continued my games, torturing him until he was nothing but a panting, moaning mess. I moved up his body and took his mouth in a kiss. He bit me, his teeth seizing my bottom lip, drawing blood. I growled at the sting, and he laughed softly, a deep, throaty sound that made my groin burn even hotter. I had to restrain myself from plunging inside him. I still wanted to tease him some more.