DAIR (16 page)

I was already aware enough of his sleep patterns to know that he’d be out until morning, and so when my bedroom door opened slowly in the middle of the night, I didn’t suspect for a second that it was Cameron.
 

The sound of the door being decisively closed and locked, then the quiet shuffle of clothing being discarded was further proof.
 

My heart started pounding.
 
I didn’t
know
, but I hoped with all my heart that it was her.
 

In our time apart, I’d managed to come to terms with a great many things.
 
Missing a person desperately will do that.
 

I swallowed hard, and called out, “Iris?”
 

I heard her gasp, and from the gasp, I knew.
 

She answered by climbing into bed with me.
 

I wrapped my arms around her, and just held her for a very long time, no words needed.
 

Of course that didn’t last forever.
 
I was wide awake, with a naked body pressed to me that I’d been longing for
for years
.
 

I began to touch her, remembering each lush curve with my reverent hands.

She trembled under my touch, and it quickly turned from reverent to carnal, hungry.
     

I was trying to go slow, but she snapped first, moving to straddle me.
 
She took me inside of her, and it was every bit the heaven I remembered.

We took each other in the dark, reacquainting ourselves by feel alone.
 

I woke in the morning reaching for her.
 

Warm sunlight infiltrated through the partially drawn shades, and my fingers met warm, naked flesh.
 

I was a second away from mounting her when I heard the clanking sound of the handle on my locked door being twisted back and forth, then some little fists beating on the door.
 

Beloved green eyes met mine, still blinking away sleep.
 

“Fuck,” I mouthed.
 

I really could have used at least five more minutes alone with her, but I got over it quickly.
 

Iris got a little misty eyed when she saw the first vase of flowers and was swaying on her feet by the sixth.
 

We hadn’t even made it downstairs by then.
 

I anchored her to me, her back to my front, kissing her temple, her cheek, her ear, her jaw.
 

“Every single day that I’ve waited for you,” I told her quietly, “and missed you, I regretted that I never got to buy you flowers.
 
I plan to make up for that, every day for the rest of our lives.”

She started crying, and Cameron rushed to hug her legs, asking where her owie was.
 

“No owie, sweet pea,” she told him, patting his head.
 
“Sometimes grown-ups cry when they’re very happy, when they get something really nice, that they never expected.”
 

We went down to the kitchen.
 

Iris started getting out the ingredients for French toast.
 

“Really, Iris, is that appropriate, in front of the boy?” I teased.
 

She giggled, and I loved it.
 

It was after breakfast, Cameron was coloring at the table, and I’d cornered Iris in the living room, then pulled her onto my lap, filling my hands with her.
   

She melted against me, but her eyes were serious.
 
“On a scale of one to ten, how mad at me are you?”
 

Nothing had changed.
 
I couldn’t hold onto my anger at her for long, couldn’t even summon any up if I’d tried, and that wasn’t only the lust talking.
 
A
big
part of it was lust, but the rest was sheer, unadulterated relief.
 

I tried to explain this to her, but she wouldn’t believe me, so I told her she could make it up to me with a lot of raunchy sex.
 

“I think we might need to get a nanny,” she whispered in response.
 
“I have two years’ worth of sexual frustration that I’m planning to take out on you, way more than I can keep relegated to nap and bedtime hours.”
   

That sounded like about the best thing I’d ever heard in my life.
   

We got married at a drive-thru chapel, exactly twenty minutes after we had our marriage license squared away, because we were in an inexplicable rush, and Iris claimed she’d always wanted a tacky, quickie Vegas wedding.
 

Cameron, who was sitting in the backseat, got a real kick out of it.
 

It was perfect.
 
I wouldn’t have changed a thing.

Iris and Cameron had come home, and they’d brought my home with them.

SOME HAPPY MONTHS LATER

My mother and father were shocked but thrilled when they found out they had a grandson.
 
They had given up on that possibility years ago, which made it doubly joyful for them to be grandparents.

The circumstances that brought Cameron to them, however, they were not so thrilled about.
 

Any reminder of who the child’s mother was, or of her age, had them tight lipped and stiff, to say the least.
   

Iris seemed to enjoy getting a rise out of them, and playing it up, going into her most outrageous mood within a few minutes of being in their company.
 
It positively tickled her.
 

Motherhood and marriage hadn’t tamed that wild thing inside of her.
 

Though in all fairness, my parents tended to walk right into it.
 
Especially my mother.
 

“So you’re twenty-one now, Francis?” My mother asked her over the first course of dinner.
 

“Yes, and I go by Iris.”
 

“So
young
to be married and with a child,” my mother emphasized.
 

She was civil to Iris, but always in her tight expression, her pursed mouth, and her passive aggressive words, remained a silent but apparent disapproval.
 

I didn’t even have to ask, I knew why.
 

Not only did she think Iris was way too young for me, way too young for things to ever last, she also held my wife responsible for putting her oldest and closest friend behind bars.
 

It made for some interesting family dinners.
 

“Twenty-one?
 
Oh that’s
nothing
.
 
You’re forgetting that I was barely legal when Dair knocked me up.”
 

I had to cover my mouth to hide a laugh, then pat my dad roughly on the back when he nearly choked on his soup.
 

Iris beamed at him like he’d just made her day.
 

“Why would Daddy knock you, Mommy?” Cameron asked, looking back and forth between the adults, clearly confused.
 

“Daddies knock Mommies when they love each other very much, baby,” she told him without missing a beat.
 

“Is he going to knock you again?”
 

“Oh yeah.
 
He knocked me just before dinner, sweetie.”
 

My dad was turning an interesting shade of red, and my mother’s gasps were filling the room, one after another.
 

Cameron’s face screwed up.
 
“Does it hurt?”
 

“Naw, baby.
 
Your daddy knows just what he’s doing.
 
He’s a superb knocker.”
 

My mother stopped with the snide comments for quite some time after that round.
   

We got Cameron his first puppy for Christmas.
 
His reaction when he found out was one of the happiest moments of my life, a moment of pure, perfect joy.
 

I was unspeakably grateful to Iris for saving that little slice of bliss for me.
 

We watched him frolicking in the backyard with his brand new golden retriever puppy.

“Did you know he’d be that happy to get a dog?” I asked Iris.

She was on my lap in an oversized rocking chair, head back on my shoulder, hands resting over mine on the armrests.
 
“I had a hunch.”
 

“Well, thank you for waiting for me on that.
 
It means a lot to me.”
 

“Oh just wait.
 
You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”

I smiled and kissed her temple.
 
“Are you going to explain that, or do I need to guess?”
 

She gripped my hands harder, then dragged them over to rest on her flat belly.
 
“Know what Cameron wanted even more than a puppy?”

My heart stopped, then started pounding like a freight train.
 

I heard the smile in her voice.
 
“A little brother.”
 

It wasn’t a little brother.
 

It was a gorgeous baby girl, but Cameron didn’t mind one bit.
   

BOOKS
BY R.K. LILLEY

THE WILD SIDE SERIES

THE WILD SIDE
 

IRIS
 

DAIR
 

TYRANT - COMING SOON

THE OTHER MAN - COMING SOON

THE UP IN THE AIR SERIES

IN FLIGHT

MILE HIGH

GROUNDED

MR. BEAUTIFUL - AVAILABLE OCTOBER 15
TH
, 2014

LANA (AN UP IN THE AIR COMPANION NOVELLA)

AUTHORITY - COMING SOON

THE TRISTAN & DANIKA SERIES

BAD THINGS

ROCK BOTTOM

LOVELY TRIGGER

THE HERETIC DAUGHTERS SERIES

BREATHING FIRE

CROSSING FIRE - COMING SOON

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HERE’S AN EXCERPT FROM MY UPCOMING NOVEL,
 

THE OTHER MAN

THIS IS LOURDES AND HEATH’S STORY

LOURDES

I felt eyes on me all through the grocery store.
 
I had good instincts, and so when I turned and saw no one, I was surprised.
 

It was a quick run, mainly for fresh produce and meat, so I was in and out quickly, my mind on Dair.
 

He was hot.
 
Tall, with a body to die for.
 
Huge arms, a rock hard chest.
 
And the rest was just as nice, with messy brown hair and kind eyes that always made me feel like I was with an old friend.
 

Hot, successful, and almost too easy to talk to.
 
I found myself spilling my guts to him practically every time we spent any time together.

Still, we seemed destined to stay in the friend zone, and even I couldn’t have said why.

I collected my organic swiss chard, spinach, kale, tomatoes, zucchini, onions, leeks, just grabbing the usual, no specific meal in mind.
 
I was a vegetable junky, so I’d find something to do with it all, and force as much of it on my boys as I could.
 
Cooking healthy and feeding it to them was a compulsion for me at this point.
 

They were great sports about it and rarely complained.
 
They were good boys.
 

My pride and joy.
 

My divorce had been ugly, but so had my marriage, and over a year later I found myself in a strange place.
 
I loved my work, my children were grown and thriving, and I was enjoying life more than I could ever remember.
 
There wasn’t much romance in my life, but there hadn’t been much even when I’d been married, so it still felt like a clear turn for the better.
 

Perhaps I was one of those women that was just better off alone.

Certainly, I was happier.
 

I collected some fresh organic chicken, and some grass fed beef, enough for one small woman and two large men.
 
I still cooked family sized portions, as my boys often showed up for dinner.
 
I hoped that would never change.
 

They were so good to me.
 
They were as busy as I was, but always made time to check in with their mother.
 
I couldn’t have asked for more.
 

I was in the checkout line and had just finished piling my items onto the belt when I felt eyes so intently on me that I had to check again.
 

I glanced behind me and found my eyes meeting icy blue ones.
 

I quickly looked away.
 
The eye contact had been uncomfortably intense.
 

I waited a beat, then looked again, assuming the large blond man would have had his fill staring at me by then.
 

He didn’t, meeting my eyes even more brazenly the second time.
 

My eyes darted away again, but I’d had enough of a look, with my photographer’s eye, to take inventory.

Tall, blond, tan, big and muscular.
 
Gray T-shirt, dark gray jeans.
 

Hard jaw, harder eyes.
 

Smoking hot.

He could have been any age from twenty to thirty, going by his mean, unlined face.
 
The scruff on his hard jaw and his aged blue eyes made it impossible to say.