Hot Dirty Love (Copperline #5) (28 page)

But I sensed a sudden wave of support. Looking behind me, I saw Brannon and Sophie with Gracie, Denny and Felicity with Eoghan, Cody and Ilsa with Max, and Drew and Raven (who had sorta taken on her own pear shape at this point).

“What are you guys doing here?”

“Thought you might need a little backup,” Drew shrugged.

“We did,” Denny agreed with a grin, “though it looks like that right bastard fecked off pretty well on his own.”

“What did he say?” Rain’s mom asked quietly.

“Was that English?” her dad wondered aloud.

I just raised my eyebrow at Denny in implication. I figured I probably shouldn’t say it just now. Instead, I turned back to Rain who had regained a little of the color in her cheeks. She looked a touch flushed now, actually. I opened my mouth and said the first thing that came to my mind.

“I went and saw my mom.”

Why the fuck I started out with that, I had no clue, but it wasn’t like I could undo it. It was out there… flailing around like a little turtle on its back trying to flip over.

Yet Rain stepped away from her parents and towards me. “Seriously?” she whispered through tearful eyes. She was shaking visibly. She knew what a big deal that was for me.

“No shit,” I said, gazing down at my hands. “We had a long talk. We’re hardly Cody’s family—”

“What the fuck?” Cody laughed in mock indignation.

“No-no wood,” Eoghan chastised him.

“—but it’s something,” I continued on, strengthened by Rain’s tremulous smile. “My, um… my youngest brother is on the verge of graduating from high school, if he graduates. He’s a bit of a wild one, so that’s a little questionable. My sister is in her second year of college. She plays the bass.”

“Oh my God,” she whispered, bringing her fingertips up to her lips.

“I know, right?”

“Well,” she said softly with a sad smile, “they are related.”

“Yeah,” I shrugged, “they are.”

Rain’s parents kind of watched our floundering conversation, looking somehow uncomfortable and bewildered and delighted all at once. Her dad not so much delighted as kinda pissed, but sorta like he didn’t know if that was how he should feel or not. As did the Mofos and pretty much everyone else standing there scratching their asses trying to figure out just exactly what the fuck was going on.

“Can I talk to you alone for a minute?” I finally asked. I needed to get her away from the audience. I didn’t want everyone to see me go all fuckin’ mushy.

She nodded and I gestured towards the front door, following her outside and along the exterior of the building until we had reached a quiet area out on the grass. The light breeze brushed her hair off to the side, exposing the back of her neck again. I pushed the dirty thoughts down deep inside. I needed to be serious.

But when I opened my mouth to talk, I almost couldn’t get the words out.

“I have a job for you.”

Okay
, so again, not really what I should have started with. I figured that wasn’t what she was really expecting to hear either when she narrowed her gaze in puzzlement, so I continued before it all went to hell.

“Glenn told me that you got an offer from BP, but I want you to come to JR Associates.”

She cocked her head. “To where?”

“It’s a new engineering firm in need of an environmental consultant. You’d be perfect.”

“So,” she carefully began, “you want me to come work for you. Instead of fucking my professor, I’d be fucking my boss.”

“That’s not entirely accurate.”

“You don’t want to fuck me.” It wasn’t a question. More like wary hesitation. Clear confusion. Not distrustful, but also not convinced.

“No,” I corrected her firmly, “I
definitely
want to fuck you.
Definitely
. And really, really bad. It’s the other part that’s not accurate.”

“So you don’t want me to work for you? I am so confused.”

“It’s not a job
for
me,” I took a step closer, emboldened when she didn’t move away. If anything, she leaned into my presence. “It’s a job
with
me. You wouldn’t be my employee. You’d be my partner. My… associate.”

“Why?” she whispered.

“Because I love you.”

My voice had gone rough with emotion. I may have already said something along these lines to her folks, but this was the shit I hadn’t wanted to do in front of an audience. This was only for her.

It stopped her cold in her tracks. She opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out. Her gaze fixed on mine and I saw a tiny tremble wrack through her body. Her eyes welled up, luminous and a rich coffee color in the midday sun.

“That’s something I haven’t said to anyone, Rain—
anyone
—since I was a little kid. Not since I yelled it to my mother as she walked out the door.”

She swallowed hard, but other than that, didn’t move. Barely breathed. She looked just a little pale again, a bit faint. Blood rushed to my dick.

Focus, motherfucker.

“I didn’t leave you,” I began, starting to become a little concerned that she wasn’t saying anything back.

“I know.” Her whisper washed over me. “I figured that out pretty quickly after you tried to tell me to fuck off, Justin.” Remorse socked me in the chest again as she paused, appearing somewhat hesitant. “But how do you even know you like me out of bed?”

“Rain, I saw you every day for months. In class, out of class. In bed, out of bed. Up against walls, in the shower.”

“Those last two are kinda like bed. Just because we are really awesome at fucking… that’s not love.”

I took another step, close enough to touch her. Close enough to feel the warmth radiating from her body. Close enough that the opulent scent of her perfume tantalized my senses.

But I didn’t make true contact. Not yet.

“You’re right. That’s not love.”

Her eyes closed tightly at my admission, and I continued in a low voice.

“Love happened every day in class. Every time you’d try not to smile at something I’d say. Every time you stood up to that dickweed Brian. Love was you understanding me. What I missed. What was lacking. How everything had suddenly stopped working and how you made it right again.” I finally lifted my thumb to brush along the wet trail on her cheek, catching the tear that had spilled over. She made the tiniest of movements, arching towards my caress and my skin tingled where we finally touched. “I didn’t think I could love,” I said in a scratchy voice. “I knew without a doubt I didn’t deserve it.”

Her lashes lifted and the deep brown of her eyes had gone soft, full of sweet emotion. “That’s not true. You
do
deserve it.”

“You’re about the only one who’s ever thought that,” I said. “Aside from the guys, I’ve never really given two shits about anyone in my life. Quite honestly, I kinda suck at it, so I can be a real dick sometimes. I sure as fuck don’t deserve another shot,” I drew in a fortifying breath. “But, Rain, I’d do damn near anything to have you back with me.”

For a minute, I didn’t say anything, and neither did she. We just kind of looked at each other, waiting for…
something
.

“Okay,” she finally whispered back.

I exhaled, deep with relief and let her one little word wash through me, freeing a rush of emotion that hurt and healed all at once. Tangling the fingers of both hands in her newly short hair, I kissed her. Hard and rough with all the intensity I felt at that moment.

“I’m really glad you agreed,” I whispered. “Especially since your name is part of the company name.”

“What?” she, pulling back to smile up at me curiously.

I reached into my pocket to fish out one of the business cards I’d had done up and handed it to her.

She looked down at it, studying the lettering across the bottom of the card, then back up at me with wide eyes.

“JR Associates… Justin Dorsey,” she whispered, “and Rain Hartmann. You kinda went out on a limb there putting my name on it and all.”

“I ordered a shit ton of them, too. Enough to last us a good year or two. It would really suck if they were wrong.”

“JR Associates is your company?” she asked.

“It’s our company.”

Rain looked back down at the card for a long moment, then kinda laughed and sniffed all at once.

“Did you, um… did you pick that phone number?” She looked up at me, pointed at the six-nine-six-nine on the card.

I just shrugged. After all, she totally already knew the answer.

She stepped closer and wrapped her arms around my waist, laying her head against my chest. “I’ve really missed you.” Her voice was so quiet I could barely hear it, but I totally felt it.

“Back atcha,” I replied, holding her close against my heart. “But tell me, how fucked up is it that I have a total stiffy after watching you faint dead away?”

Smooth, Justin. So smooth.

Rain choked back a throaty giggle. “Maybe a little bit,” she shrugged, “but how fucked up is it that I’m soaking wet after coming to in your arms.”

“Fuck, I love you,” I groaned. “It’s like you were made for me.”

She laughed again and lifted her lips to mine.

God, I missed that laugh.

Even if I turned it into a moan by kissing her long and hard once again.

There’s an old saying… the bigger they are, the harder they fall.

I’ve gotta agree because I was a massive manwhore, and I fell like a motherfucker and never looked back. Once in a rare while, I would wonder how it all came to be. I would wonder if I was worthy of her. But all it would take was my name on her lips. The touch of her fingertips on my skin. Her late night whisper that she loved me.

Even just the thought of her smile.

And all my doubt evaporated.

I remained the last unmarried Mofo for a while longer. Things were just so good. Why fuck with a good thing?

Just like everything else with her, though, that changed in a perfectly dirty way.

It started at a Mofo barbecue at Drew and Raven’s house. My buddies with their families and me with Rain in every sense of the word. She was sitting in the yard swing next to Raven and holding baby girl Massey who was just under a year old. I stood on the porch overlooking the backyard, watching Rain carefully and reverently cradle little Violet, tucking the blanket around her to ward off the evening chill that had settled in the mountainous valley. Drew came up beside me, a total mushed up look on his face.

“It’s amazing,” he said.

That was it. Nothing else. No long flowery spiel about the joys of fatherhood. Nothing to try to convince me to follow in his footsteps.

But the tone in his voice, the wonder and the emotion as he gazed down at his wife and child, caused a knot to form in my throat. A burst of the past mixed with the future. I thought back to when I held Rain close to my heart after Brannon’s kid was born and saw my future flash through my subconscious. So beautiful. Sex and love and life.