Waiting for Rain (13 page)

“Jesus, Sheba,” I panted, both from arousal and from fright. “You gave me a bloody heart attack.”

Sheba stood there, watching both of us with a doggy grin, her tail wagging furiously. Toby moved over to her, and she sat down and wagged the tail even harder.

“Hey, girl.” He crouched down beside her, a look of sheer pleasure on his face as he scratched her behind the ears. “Your dad takes good care of you, doesn’t he? You’re a beauty.”

I wasn’t normally one for calling the human owner mom or dad, but coming from Toby it didn’t sound too bad. “Have you ever had a dog or a cat?” I asked, bearing in mind he was a foster kid.

His face darkened. “No. I never stayed in one place long enough. And obviously the hotel isn’t the place to have a pet of any sort.” His voice hardened, and I wondered what memory had triggered the sudden pain in his eyes. “I don’t like cats. But dogs—they’re okay.”

He stood up and looked at me. “Just as well she interrupted us. The dinner’s getting cold. Let’s eat.”

We sat down at the small homemade dining-room table, set to one side of the rather large open-plan lounge. I’d made the full suite, including the four chairs, a few months ago. It was just oak, but I’d really enjoyed creating something that had such a practical use in my own home.

Toby looked at me with a wary expression. “Can I ask you something?”

I nodded as I took a mouthful of food. “Sure. Fire away.”

“What happened with you and your ex? Why did you break up?”

I stopped chewing and regarded him. His expression was anxious, as if he wasn’t sure whether I wanted to talk about it. I didn’t like telling people my sorry story, as it reminded me of the past. But Toby wasn’t just people, and I guessed he needed to know. I took a deep breath.

“Tommy and I were together for two years. He was a croupier in London. One day he came home and told me he was bored with his job and he’d taken a position as a croupier in Monte Carlo. I imagine by default he was bored with me too. He said he wasn’t sure how long he was going to be out there, so he wanted a stay of absence as long as he needed.” I gave a short laugh. “I told him if he went, he went. I wasn’t hanging about for him. It was more of a threat to try and bring him to his senses, but he took it as a get out and said ‘Fine.’ So off he went. It’s now been eight months.” My voice went quiet. “He called me six months ago and said he definitely wasn’t coming back, that he found life out there so much more fun than here. He told me he missed me, but he wasn’t coming home.”

Toby scowled. “The bastard. How could he do that to you?”

I shrugged. “Tommy always was very self-absorbed.” I grinned at a memory. “My parents were always very supportive of me being gay. They loved Tommy too, and it made them mad when he left me. My father threatened to break his legs with the stout stick he uses as a walking stick if he ever saw him again.” I chuckled. “My dad’s a big man and not one to suffer fools gladly. And in his opinion, leaving his youngest son for the tables of Monte Carlo classified Tommy as a fool.”

The thought of seeing my father laying into Tommy with his “knobkerrie,” as it was called in SA, always made me feel better.

Toby smiled wistfully. “Your dad sounds great, looking out for you like that. Your whole family sounds perfect.”

I grunted. They weren’t perfect, but I was very lucky to have them. Toby picked up his carton and peered inside it, as if looking for gold. He gave a soft grunt of satisfaction as he plucked another breaded prawn out of the bottom and popped it in his mouth. “Tommy leaving must have been really difficult for you. How did you cope?”

I wasn’t going to tell Toby that I’d been planning on asking Tommy to marry me just before he’d announced his bombshell. I still had the rings in my closet. I also wasn’t going to tell my current lover how I’d fallen apart and sunk into a spiral of self-pity.

“It hurt. Lucas convinced me to come down here and start over, because everything in London reminded me of Tommy. I had a business there, similar to what I do now. I sold it and started one up here. It’s not as profitable, but it gives me and Lucas a living. It helps that I love woodworking, and I have a talent for it. I might even try my hand at sculpting sometime.” I finished my carton of food and pushed it to one side.

Toby looked at me with a slight smile. “Lucas is a really good bloke. He sounds as if he’s been a good friend to you.”

I nodded. “He’s a free soul, is our Lucas. He likes nothing better than going back to Devon for his surfing, and he still has to find the right woman.” I grinned. “I think he might have done that in Tammy, though. They certainly seem to be getting on well.”

Toby chuckled. “He’ll need all the luck he can get with Tam. She’s quite a handful.” He scowled. “Better Lucas than that current boyfriend of hers. He’s a prick.” He finished his food and sat back, patting his stomach, apparently satiated. I thought the time had come to ask him a little about his past.

“So why did you break up with your last boyfriend—Trevor, was it?”

He nodded. “Trev and I had only been together about six weeks. We met at a hotel management seminar in Leicester. It started off okay, and then he started getting too—” He hesitated. “—too possessive. He wanted to know where I’d been every minute, who I was talking to, what I was doing when he wasn’t with me. I don’t do that sort of attention very well. No one bloody owns me.” I heard the fierce determination in his voice.

“So he just left?” I was surprised. “He doesn’t sound like the kind of man who would give up easily.”

Toby’s face darkened. “Not quite. One night we had a huge fight, and he hit me. Right across the bloody room.”

My mouth dropped open at the thought of someone doing that to the man sitting in front of me.

“The bastard!” I exclaimed. “What did you do?”

He fidgeted for a while, and I waited.

“He didn’t think I’d fight back, but I did.” His voice held a grim satisfaction. “I’ve had enough in my life of being pushed around. So I smacked him one across the head and kicked him in the groin. Then I sat on top of him and told in no uncertain terms if he tried to hit me again I’d bloody kill him. When he could finally speak, because his nuts were probably pushed back into his stomach, he got aggressive, but he left me alone and I left.” He shrugged dismissively. “You fight back with a bully, they generally tend to leave you alone after that.
He
did anyway. He’s gone back to Leicester now.”

I felt quite in awe of my feisty little git. “Wow. You are so turning me on with that story. Not that I needed much, anyway, to do that where you’re concerned.”

He grinned at me. “Really? Me beating the shit out of people makes you horny? I’ll have to remember that.” He looked at me with a glint in his eye. “So, what did you do to relieve the pressure before we met? Have you had any relationships with anyone here in the town? I have to confess I haven’t found it a very varied menu to choose from.”

I chuckled. “I know what you mean. The ones who are gay are either too old or spoken for, and the ones who are gay but won’t admit it yet are just far too much work.”

Toby laughed. “I had the idea of trying to convince them which side their bread was buttered, but honestly? I don’t have the energy. There would be too much angst to deal with.”

The thought of Toby seducing a wannabe gay man and pulling him over to the dark side made my cock twitch. I shook my head. “I agree. That would get far too complicated.”

“And you don’t do complicated, do you?” said Toby, his voice quiet. I kept silent, and he sighed and moved on.

“I’ve had plenty of opportunities with guests at the hotel to have a casual encounter, but Simon would kill me. The one thing he definitely would renounce me for would be having sex with one of his patrons. The old phrase ‘don’t soil your own doorstep’ is a big thing with him.” He glanced at me. “Present company excepted, of course. You don’t count, as you’re an external tradesman.” He laughed loudly, obviously remembering our first encounter and the unfortunate hired help comment.

“Glad to hear it,” I said in amusement. He stopped his laughing and continued.

“I’ve found a few of them extremely tempting, though. I could have fucked them senseless in the laundry room or, even better, the library.” My groin heated up at the words coming out of his beautiful mouth, and he grinned. “I’ve always had a fantasy about screwing someone over a leather desk or couch. Maybe we should try it sometime.” His seductive tone went straight to my cock, and I shifted in my chair.

“The last guest that made me an offer was a Frenchman. His name was Julien, and he was pretty hot. Slim, dark, and very sexy. He offered to suck me, then let me fuck him senseless. I was very tempted, I have to say.”

Toby’s voice was musing, but there was an overtone of pure mischief in it. If he carried on like this, I’d be sweeping everything off the table and giving him one right there.

In fact…. I stood up, making no effort to hide the bulge in my trousers, and moved round the table toward him. He watched me approach, his eyes sultry. He knew damn well what he was doing to me. As I reached out to pull him to his feet, his phone rang. He glanced at it, and I expected him to ignore it given what I thought we’d been about to do. But he frowned and picked it up.

“It’s Simon. I need to take this.” He answered his phone as he stood up and walked over to the open doorway. The signal in the house was pretty bad, and out in the open was definitely better. He moved outside, and I watched him go. I felt a little put out that he’d chosen Simon over me and my raging hard-on. I still wasn’t sure about the dynamic between the two of them. Simon certainly had the hots for Toby, but I wasn’t sure what Toby felt in return.

I cleaned up the empty cartons and got everything tidy, and just as I was taking the rubbish bag out of the overflowing bin, Toby walked back in. He looked tense. I tied a knot in the black bag, putting it to one side to take out to the rubbish bin later.

“Everything all right at the hotel?” I asked him.

He nodded. “Yes. Simon just wanted to check some arrangements with me for a party we have coming in tomorrow morning that are pretty high maintenance. It’s a local writers’ circle group, and they tend to be rather a demanding bunch. Bloody creative types.” He scowled. “He just needed to make sure I’d done everything.”

He frowned, then sat down again, rubbing his fingers along the grain of the table, lost in thought.

I had to ask. “Toby, you seem off. What’s up? Is Simon coming on too strong?”

He looked up at me in horror. “God, no. Why would you think that?”

I sighed. “Because the man’s crazy about you.”

He looked uncomfortable. “You’ve said that before. I suppose there might be something in it….” His voice trailed off.

I looked at him in exasperation. “You just don’t want to see it, do you? I know the two of you are friends and he’s your boss, but it’s true.”

We sat there in silence for a minute. The earlier sexual tension had abated a little, but definitely not altogether. I still wanted to sweep the table free of everything on it, which at the moment was a salt and pepper pot, and throw him down onto it. But I saw Toby wanted to say something. Finally, I looked at him in exasperation. “Toby, spill it. You’re dying to say something, but you just don’t seem to be able to get it out. What’s up?”

He looked at me, and I was scared at the expression in his beautiful green eyes. They were wary and apprehensive. My stomach churned.

He stared down at the table. “Simon’s leaving the hotel. He’s leaving me in charge and going to Spain to live for a while, on a new project.”

My immediate reaction was selfish. I was relieved that any potential contender for Toby’s affections was now out of the running. I toyed with the salt pot as I spoke. “Does that upset you that he’s leaving? I think it’s a great compliment that he thinks you can run the place on your own.”

Toby sat back and took a shuddering sigh. “When he told me earlier, it sort of caused a reaction I don’t think I should have had.”

My heart sank even deeper into my stomach. “What kind of reaction?” I tried to keep it casual, but I was wondering where this was going.

“As if he meant more to me than just being my boss and my friend.” His voice was quiet.

I swallowed. “You mean feelings for him as a—” I couldn’t get the words out. “—lover, a partner?”

He nodded. His fingers picked up the pepper pot, and he turned it around and around as he sat there, staring at the table. “I got a little excited too, the one time he came into my room and we got a bit too close.” My eyes widened, and he hastened to qualify his statement. “I think it was because I was just really horny, and he was there, and, well, it just happened. It had never happened before, and it hasn’t happened again.” He grinned slightly. “I have you for that now.”

“Oh.” I didn’t know what else to say. “I didn’t think you had feelings for him.” I heard the acid in my tone.

He shook his head. “Rain, I was pretty surprised myself. I’ve never felt that way about him before. But when he told me he was leaving me, something happened.” He swallowed. “I got a bit needy, and he latched onto it, but I didn’t want to pursue anything until I’d had a chance to process it. Then you and I had one of our sessions in the shed.” He shrugged those elegant shoulders. “I knew then that I was just being stupid about it. I can’t have the feelings I have for you and feel like that about him. I think it’s just the fact he’s been such a good friend, and I care for him, and I’ll miss him, but—” He sighed. “—I wanted you to know about it. I don’t want anything between us.”

I stood up and paced around the room as he watched, his eyes worried. The fact he’d admitted to having “feelings” for me both scared and delighted me. I wasn’t sure which emotion was the more prevalent. So, like the complete bastard I was when I was unsure, I went on the attack. “So you confess you have feelings for me
and
another man, and I’m supposed to accept that? Take you to bed and fuck you even though you might ‘like’ someone else? Well, that’s a great start, isn’t it?” The fury in my voice even surprised me.
Toby is mine alone.