Chapter 38 Robert
Robert
If all Rhiannon wants to do tonight is drink tea, I admit, I’ll be disappointed. I’ve thought about getting her out of that dress all fucking night. But she seems flighty, unsure, like she’s being pulled in opposite directions.
“Upstairs, first door on the left. Towels are in the hot press, which is the first door on the right. If you need clean clothes, my tracksuit bottoms and t-shirts are in the chest of drawers next to my bed.”
The part of my brain that should be focusing on submitting the feature about women in sport keeps whispering I should be at my desk, not here.
Pete’s probably already circling like a vulture, waiting for me to slip up.
But I can’t think straight when she’s in my kitchen dripping rainwater and looking like the best bad decision I’ve ever made.
She looks at me like she’s surprised I’m not chasing her up the stairs.
“I’ll get changed down here.” I gesture to the pile of clean, folded laundry on my kitchen table. “And I’ll stick the kettle on. You hungry?”
She cants her head. “I might be snackish.”
I fight a grin. If there’s something I’ve learned about Rhiannon Morrigan in the last month, it’s that she’s always down for a feed. She’s a good grubber.
“I’ll see what I can rustle up.”
She pauses.
“What’s up?”
“I was thinking, we should take a quick drowned-rat selfie for the socials. People will eat that up.” She’s not wrong.
I point at myself. “I look pretty bedraggled.”
She rolls her eyes. “Like I’m much better.
” She gives me an elbow as she turns to stand next to me.
We’ve got selfies down to a fine art. I know which side of her to stand on, which part of the phone to look at so I’m actually looking at the camera and don’t look disturbed, and where to poke her side to make her smile my favorite smile.
It’s over in a second, and when she steps away, her absence rolls through my body, and my arms twitch, aching to pull her back to me.
The woman is under my skin, in my blood.
I know she’s here of her own choice but wanting to sleep with someone isn’t the same as wanting a real relationship with them.
She can’t get laid while we’re together, so maybe she’s simply here to scratch the same itch I helped her scratch a few weeks ago. I’m not sure that’s enough for me, I’m not sure I can be so close to her sunshine and not drink in her warmth.
Can I sleep with her tonight and go back to following the rules tomorrow?
My chest tightens. That familiar flutter in my ribs, the one that usually shows up when I miss a deadline or fuck up a quote.
I’ve been pretending it’s nothing—caffeine, nerves, whatever—but it’s not.
It’s the start of the spiral. The one that ends with me sitting in the dark, not answering calls, not eating, telling myself I’ve ruined everything. Again.
I push it down, focusing on the beautiful woman in front of me. Am I willing to find out if we can go back to normal tomorrow?
As though she’s thinking the same thing, she pauses, her eyes lingering eagerly on my face. She nods again, fights with her shoes until they clatter onto the tiled floor and takes my stairs two at a time.
After I get changed into some clean, comfortable, and most importantly dry clothes, I stick the kettle on.
My laptop’s still open on the counter from earlier like a beacon.
Notes, quotes, the so-close-to-finished new draft staring back at me through the blank screen like an accusation.
It’s easier to focus on cheese and crackers than the email from Pete asking if it’s go time.
I haven’t replied. I don’t know how.
Not when the story’s her. Not when I already crossed that ethical line. Not when my boss is so close to drop-kicking me out the door. I can’t pretend it needs tweaking for much longer.
As I potter about the kitchen, I’m struck with a sense of satisfaction about the details I know about Rhiannon.
She likes strong tea with a dash of milk and one sugar. She likes mature cheese, extra mature is too strong, and medium is too weak. And her favorite crackers are garlic and rosemary from the local supermarket. She also hates olives.
I catalogue people for a living—quotes, habits, contradictions—but with Rhiannon, it stopped being research weeks ago. It’s obsession now, the kind that keeps me from sleeping, from writing, from functioning like a normal human.
By the time she gets back downstairs, I’m on the sofa cradling a cuppa, my prosthesis is propped against the end of the coffee table, and a feast fit for my rugby queen is laid out in front of me.
“It’s not egg and onion sandwiches and Tayto, but it’ll do in a pinch.” I wink at her as she puts together a plate from the offerings, picks up her cup of tea and settles next to me on the settee.
“It’s perfect, thank you.”
One thing I love about Rhiannon is that she’s never self-conscious about eating. She shovels every meal into her mouth like it might be her last, and there’s no airs and graces as she does.
By the time she’s finished with her plate, there are cracker crumbs all over the front of my rugby t-shirt she’s wearing.
My dick twitches at the acknowledgement that she’s wrapped in something I own.
I can’t argue that it looks good on her, really good.
So good that I want her to never take it off.
Except I do want her to take it off because her tits are under there, and I want to do things to them as well.
I shift my weight on the sofa. It’s not my leg making me uncomfortable, but the growing chubby between my legs. It’s uncontrollable at the best of times, the nature of the male telegraph-pole beast. It just pops up at inconvenient times demanding attention, but more so around her.
My dick doesn’t care that there’s a whole page of rules saying I can’t touch her, or flirt with her, or be with her.
My dick doesn’t care that our relationship is fake.
My dick is like a pre-programmed guided missile. Its course? Rhiannon Morrigan’s G-spot. Not even military or divine intervention can stop it.
The only thing that can stop me fucking her tonight is if she doesn’t consent.
But I really, really hope she does.
“Are you okay?” she asks. “You’re quiet. If you’re tired, I don’t mind finishing my tea and heading to the guest room?” If I’m not imagining it, there’s a hopeful tinge to her voice that makes my cock light up like the fucking Larne town Christmas tree.
I shake my head and pat my lap.
She stares at my legs, then jerks her head up.
The furrowed brow and scowly lips are quite cute.
She shakes her head. I pat my lap again.
“If you don’t want to sit on my knee, that’s one thing.
If you’re afraid of hurting me, that’s against my leg rules, remember?
I know what I can take, and I need you to trust me when I say as much. ”
She nibbles her lip. She moves to sit sidesaddle on my knee, but she’s sitting precariously balanced on the edge of my good leg.
I huff out a sigh, grab her hips, and position her a little more evenly spread. “Much better.”
She giggles, taking me by surprise.
When I query her with my eyes, she links her hands behind my head. “You’re cute when you’re grumpy.”
I brush my nose against hers. “Jinx. I was just thinking that you’re kind of cute when you get that furrowed brow when you’re concentrating on something.” I place a kiss between her eyebrows where I’m referring to.
“I don’t think you can call professional rugby players cute, Robert.”
I love how she says my name, unhurried, like she enjoys how it tastes in her mouth or sounds when it falls from her lips just like I do. She never shortens it to Rob, or Bob, or Robbie, she just lets me take up space.
She’s staring at my lips like she wants to kiss them or bite them. Jesus. I’d totally let her bite me.
“I feel like it’s my responsibility to tell you that this is a bad idea.” There. I’ve done my due diligence, even though there’s no mistaking my intent. My rock-hard cock is pressing against her toned ass.
I swallow. “I want it, but it’s against the rules. We can’t even blame alcohol. We can’t pretend we don’t know who we are. And this whole thing’s what got us into this mess to begin with.”
She sucks in a sharp breath, wincing at my words. Her body freezes.
“I didn’t mean it like that.” I grunt, wanting to kick myself for putting my foot in it.
Her head turns, and for a moment, I think I’ve lost her. I cup her soft face in my hand and move her until I can see into her eyes. The vulnerability waiting for me in them splits my rib cage in two.
“I’m sorry I said that.” I sweep my nose against hers again.
She seems to like it, and it’s growing on me as an affectionate gesture as well.
“I didn’t mean it the way it came out. And for what it’s worth, I like this mess we got into.
” I shrug. It’s as close as either of us have come to admitting catching feelings.
She traces my face with her fingers, drawing a sigh from my chest and making my eyes flutter closed. Her featherlight touch is becoming more than normal; it’s like an addictive substance I can’t help but want more of it.
She presses her lips to mine, but I don’t move.
My muscles are tense, poised like a taut spring, but I’m not presuming. I’m not demanding. I’m letting her take things every bit as slowly as she needs to.
She doesn’t use her tongue. She just holds her mouth to mine, and her body softens. “It is a bad idea,” she murmurs against my lips. “Totally against the rules… But I still want it.”
It’s moments like this where I envy people with all of their limbs. In every romance movie, right now, the hero would stand up, curl the heroine’s legs around his waist, and carry her off to bed.
But I can’t do that without first reconnecting my prosthesis. So sexy.
As if she can read my mind, she stands. “Are you comfortable here? Or do you want to go upstairs?”
I’m half afraid to mull her question over for fear she’ll change her mind, but if she does, then it wasn’t enthusiastic consent to begin with.
And all I want from this beautiful woman is enthusiasm, in her consent, in how she kisses me, in her orgasms, and in hopefully what will be a real relationship.
Do I want our second time to be here on the couch? Not really, but I’m comfy and can’t be arsed moving. Though if I don’t, we’ll have to move when I’m even more exhausted.
“Let’s go upstairs.”
She smiles, that warm, soft, knowing smile.
Nods, and reaches for my crutches, not my prosthesis.
I can’t help but return her warmth. It’s as though she’s read my body language and anticipated that I don’t want to put my prosthesis back on after the long night at the castle.
And I might love her a little for it. For other things, too.
When we’re upstairs, she lets me lead the way into my bedroom, holding back for me to enter first. The little considerations she makes aren’t lost on me, and it makes me even more furious at her father for being such a condescending prick. He has no idea the amazing woman he has for a daughter.
Before meeting her, the article I started drafting would’ve written itself—angry op-ed about nepotism, the Morrigan name, her father’s chokehold on women’s rugby. Easy clickbait. But now it feels wrong on a cellular level. Pete and my boss pushing at the ball confirmed it’s not right.
Every time I open the document, or even think about it, all I see is her face, the way she defended her teammates, the quiet strength she hides behind sarcasm. I’ve turned all of that into a story for people to chew on.
The fissure inside my chest is widening. My loyalty to the publication, to my job, my career is crumbling.
Getting the story out has never been this hard. And the story’s there, almost begging to be written and I… I can’t.
Rhiannon is so loyal she’d never let me publish it, even if she admitted to agreeing with what I’ve written. And for the first time in my life, someone is more important than the story. I’m not sure what to do with it to be honest. Is this what normal people feel like?
By the time I get to the bed, my thigh aches.
I might need to rain check on the whole sleeping with her thing.
It seems I overdid it on the dance floor.
I’d say I have no regrets—I loved having her pressed against my body, head tipped back, wide smile on her face—but I really want to be inside her. So, I kind of do have regrets.
As if she senses my hesitation, she presses her palm to my back as I lean on my crutches. “You okay?”
It’s tempting to say I’m fine, tempting to push through, push past, and do it anyway.
If it wasn’t something that impacted her, I’d do just that.
Emma smacks me for it all the time. But I want things to be just right for Rhiannon, to give her everything she deserves and more.
And right now, I’m not sure I can. So, I plop my ass on the edge of the bed, shake my head, and tell her the truth. “I’m exhausted.”
Not just from the day or the dance floor, I’ve been sleeping less lately. Coffee and deadlines are a toxic mix, but it’s easier than facing the silence when I close the laptop.
Everything is exhausting, especially pretending I can juggle a job that eats people alive and a woman who makes me want to live. The two things don’t coexist. They never have. But maybe this time, I wish they could.