Dating A Saint (27 page)

Sandy walked over and offered her hand to Lauren, who took it.

“My brother rarely tells me no. Maybe I can talk Jim into keeping you,” she teased, liking the beautiful woman now in Jim’s life.

The teasing comment got a genuine laugh out of Lauren. Cassandra might be delusional, but evidently the woman was sharp enough to get one over on Jim when it suited her. He probably didn’t even know.

“You’d do that for me?” Lauren joked back. “Talk Jim into keeping me?”

Sandy nodded. “With pleasure—I’m tired of worrying about Jim being all alone.”

Lauren dropped her hand and put an arm around Sandy’s shoulder. “Well, you can stop worrying now. Jim has me to help him.”

And that was all the validation she needed to be one hundred percent guilt free herself, Lauren decided. If Jim’s wife wanted her in his life, then to hell with what everyone else said about their relationship.

“Would you like to see our flower gardens after lunch?” Sandy asked, tucking her hair behind her ear. “Nothing is in bloom yet, but you can see where we spend most of our time.”

“Love to,” Lauren replied. “What kind of plants do you have in your gardens?”

“Pink ones, blue ones, white ones, and green ones,” Sandy said on a giggle. “You’ll have to ask Sam. I can never remember their names.”

Lauren laughed, snorted, and ended up giggling herself.

When they rounded the corner, both of them were still giggling over the plants. Jim looked ready to bolt and run. Lauren walked up and put a comforting hand on his back, rubbing the tension away.

“Took you long enough,” Jim said, irritation in his tone. “Ouch!” He had to rub his arm where Sandy had smacked him again.

“You’re never going to keep your girlfriend if talk so mean to her all the time,” Sandy warned him.

Over her head, Jim saw Hector and Sam look away as they tried not to laugh.

“Sorry,” Jim said to Sandy, who just held up a finger to point at Lauren, who hid a laughing face against his sleeve.

“I’m sorry,” Jim said to Lauren as she lifting her laughing gaze to him. “Take all the time you need in the bathroom.”

“Now I know who to tell when I’m mad at you,” Lauren said, half teasing, half telling him with her eyes everything was okay.

Jim snuck a small look at Sandy’s crossed arms but now smiling face. He reached out and lifted Lauren’s chin with a finger to hold her gaze to his.

“I suppose you’re going to be expecting a full apology before we leave town,” Jim said, enjoying the blush creeping up her neck.

“No,” Lauren said, all but choking on the word, embarrassed Jim would sexually tease her in front of this crowd, even if they didn’t understand the innuendo. “I’m willing to wait until you make me mad again. I’m sure we’ll fight about something on the way back to Virginia.”

“No doubt,” Jim snorted, already planning to give her an apology she wouldn’t be forgetting any time soon. God only knew, he had never forgotten the one she gave him in the shower.

They ate lunch, met Cassandra’s parents, took a tour of the facility, and stayed later than they intended looking at flower gardens that weren’t in bloom.

On the way back, Jim pulled into the motel parking lot and pulled a protesting Lauren into the room he’d procured in about five minutes. If Jim’s look of evil hadn’t clued the proprietor in on what was going on, Lauren’s blushing would have revealed the whole story anyway.

“I have never rented a motel room just for sex in my life,” Lauren told him.

“Consider it one more contribution of mine to making you notorious. It’s the best forty bucks I’ve spent in a long time,” Jim said, his voice husky with laughter.

“Forty bucks? Oh God. Don’t ever tell my mother we had sex in a forty-dollar motel room,” Lauren begged. Jim’s hands were running over her, finding their way under her shirt to cup her breasts. “If my mother finds out, she’ll tell the world what a horrible and easy woman I am. Oh God, that feels so good.”

She was laughing while Jim stripped the clothes from her body, laughing as he pleasured her with hands, teeth, and tongue, before delving inside her body to pleasure himself.

“I love you, Lauren. Please help me find a way to keep you in my life,” Jim begged, releasing himself inside her, pressing her into the double bed that barely fit them.

As he settled against her at last, she stroked his broad shoulders, relishing his weight resting on her. “I’ve always believed when a person acts with good intentions, things just tend to naturally work out right. Neither of us intends any harm to Sandy or Sam. Now you don’t just have Hector to help you. I’ll help you too. We’ll figure it all out somehow.”

Jim put his arms under and around her, lifting her as tightly into his arms as he could.

“Well, I intended to divorce Cassandra and marry you,” Jim confessed, his heart too open not to tell her the whole truth. “I couldn’t find a way to do it and still legally be able to take care of Sandy and Sam. I’m never going to stop looking for a way, but my attorney couldn’t find a judge even willing to hear the case.”

Lauren stopped stroking to wrap her arms as tightly as she could around him. What a good man she had picked. She was so grateful Regina had pushed her, that Alexa had told her the truth about men. She wasn’t going to wish for the world when she had been given so much.

“Thank you for wanting that kind of future for us. You are the best man in the whole world, James Gallagher. I’d marry you in a flat minute, but if that’s not possible—I’d still rather live in sin with you than marry anyone else. Next week I’ll look into selling my house.”

Lauren felt Jim’s face tucking against her neck, felt his tears on her shoulder. Digging deep into her new notorious self, she found what she was looking for to salvage the moment for both of them. There would be plenty of time for tears in the life they were signing on to have with each other.

“Sweet intentions aside,” she said, putting resignation in her tone. “You have no choice but to keep me now anyway. I’m completely debauched. Once people find out I’m sleeping with a married man, no one else will have me. Well, maybe my ex-husband, but he’s certainly no prize. No decent man will want to date me again.”

“Debauched? Does anyone use that word anymore? Well, it’s good to know my evil plan is working,” Jim whispered in her ear. “I guess I don’t have to keep you tied to me with great sex after all—since no one else will want you.”

“Oh, I don’t think it works like that,” Lauren said wisely. “I was talking about dating, not sex. I’m in an exclusive club with several other notorious women. I have on good authority that a woman only gets more desirable after she confesses her sins. If you don’t keep me happy in bed, I’m asking Alexa for a list of men.”

“Only if you plan on visiting me in prison. I’d have to kill any man who put his hands on you now,” Jim said, biting her neck and pressing his weight on her, around her. “I’d beat my chest and scream
my woman
at the top of my lungs when they came around, but I’m still afraid of you.”

“It was only one little temper tantrum,” Lauren mocked. “Hard to believe a big guy like you is afraid of a woman like me.”

“I limped for
days
,” Jim declared laughing, rising up to stare down into her face as she laughed.

“Then you better keep me happy and not make me mad very often,” Lauren said easily. “And for the record, I do expect a full apology later for making me blush today.”

Jim was laughing as he rolled them over where he could run his hands over the back of her naked body, which he did until she sighed and laid her head down on his shoulder.

“Are we going home or staying here tonight?” he asked, truly not caring so long as he was inside Lauren.

“Let’s go home,” Lauren said with a grin. “I want to see the proprietor’s face when we check out. It will make a great story for Alexa and Regina.”

“Do you tell each other
everything
?” Jim asked, hoping it wasn’t true.

“Yes. This motel deal will definitely prompt a bragging contest, and finally I have the best story to share. I am completely sick of hearing how good Casey and Ben are in bed,” Lauren said.

“Shit,” Jim said. “Have you said anything about me yet? I haven’t even shown you my good stuff.” He was bluffing, but he knew where he could learn anything he needed to know. He had purchased a full set of Regina’s books but never read them—never had a reason to until now.

“Casey taught himself the Kama Sutra so he could use it on Alexa. Can you top that?” Lauren asked on a laugh, having more fun teasing Jim about sex than she thought possible with a man.

“Kama Sutra, huh? I agree that’s going to be hard to top. What’s Kaiser’s deal?” Jim asked.

“I can’t tell you,” Lauren said laughing. “It’s too much information.”

Jim tickled her until they came apart in ways he hadn’t intended. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to do that. Tell me about Kaiser. I need to know what I’m up against competing in the notorious women club’s sexual hall of fame.”

Lauren burst out laughing and rolled off him to the other side of the tiny bed. “I’ve heard he’s for advanced women only. Regina said I would have to be with you for years before I could even consider spending one night with an advanced guy like Ben.”

Jim stared at the ceiling. He conceded Kaiser did have a big pair of balls about taking on things, but hell—where did he get his know-how? Ben was married to the same woman for twenty-five years. Did a man get all that with one woman? His short time with Cassandra hadn’t brought him much new experience. Lauren was turning out to be his biggest learning curve.

“Do you think she was serious?” Jim asked, very subdued as he wondered if Regina had such a poor opinion of his sexuality. He had dated Alexa and had indulged in few hot thoughts about Regina. It had never occurred to him women compared notes so much.

Much to his chagrin, Jim’s sincere question only sent Lauren rolling from side to side and pounding the bed. “No. I don’t think Regina was being serious. She was teasing me for bragging about how good you were. I bet Ben never gives her multiple orgasms. If he does, she would have told us by now.”

“Really?” Jim asked, rolling to his side to consider the laughing woman he was in love with and wanted to please in every way.

Lauren held up a hand and crooked her pinky finger at him. “Pinky swear,” she said. “Regina would have told me. The woman fears nothing and talks about everything. Trust me.”

Jim hooked his pinky with hers. “I’m only going to get better with more practice.”

Lauren pulled him to her by their linked fingers, until he was hovering over her. “I rarely got to have one orgasm with Jared. I preferred my toys to him. You are more awesome than I could ever have imagined. I love your size, your weight, the
insistence
of you pressing into me like you have to or you’ll die. You really are the most perfect man I could wish for, and I’m very glad I waited for you.”

The growl of ownership was instinctual, but it brought a flush to Lauren’s face.

“Come home with me,” Jim demanded, thumbing her nipple to life and getting a moan from her. “I prefer to practice in my own bed where there is room for people our size.”

“Fine by me. I still can’t believe you got me naked in a forty dollar motel room,” Lauren said on a snort. “Your king bed and high thread count sheets sound like luxury right now.”

“Yeah, but I’m going to smile every time I drive by here on the way to see Sandy and Sam,” Jim told her. “It was worth every penny to me.”

Lauren rolled off the bed and to her feet, making Jim grin more. “I’m starved. You?” she asked.

“Can you wait a couple hours? There’s this great Italian place near my house. We’ll have dinner there, and take the cannoli home for later,” Jim said, smiling as Lauren sorted through her underwear and clothes strewn across the floor of the room.

“Is that wicked look you have about me or the cannoli?” she asked, straightening.

“Both. Give me the ride home to think about it,” Jim said. “I can be very creative under the right circumstances with the right woman.”

Lauren stepped into her underwear, fastened her bra, and pulled the tee shirt over her head. “I’ll use the ride home to think about creating the right circumstances. I’m already the right woman.”

“You’re the most perfect woman in world,” Jim said, meaning it more than he would be able to convince her of in a single night.

“And then when I thought I couldn’t stand another second of what he was doing to me, Jim made me scream. I’m telling you I shook the walls with my vocal chords,” Lauren said, digging into her pasta as she finished her story, savoring every bite. “I had no idea great sex could make food taste so good.”

Regina watched Lauren eating, torn between disbelief and exasperation. She only wished it had been because Jim somehow used cannoli to make Lauren scream. It would have been fun to extract Jim’s sex secrets from her. Unfortunately, it was Lauren who had the big secret, because Regina suspected the woman was very pregnant even if she was still in total denial about it.

“So where was the cannoli when you screamed?” Alexa asked, leaning forward and watching Lauren tear through food like she hadn’t eaten in weeks. She held back her laughter, but could not stifle her grin.

Lauren stopped eating and lowered the remaining breadstick down to rest on her plate.

“I can’t tell you,” she said, her face flushing. “Jim made me promise. If I tell you, he won’t do it again. I can’t risk that.”

Alexa burst out laughing. “You’re bluffing,” she taunted.

“Make fun all you want,” Lauren said, picking up her breadstick again. “It was the most amazing thing ever, and I’m not telling.”

“Lauren,” Regina began, choosing her words carefully. “How are you feeling, honey? Did you ever get your little medical issue checked out?”

Lauren ate the last bite of pasta and popped the last bite of bread into her mouth. “What medical issue?”

Regina crossed her arms, tilted her head to one side, and waited for Lauren to get a clue.

“Oh God,” Lauren said, putting her face in her hand. “I totally forgot.”