Destination Connelly (17 page)

Ouch
. I deserve that but fuck if it doesn’t sting anyway.

“Remember what I said about sex, princess?”

Twining our fingers together I shift my hips, positioning myself at her entrance and push. Inch by agonizing inch, I sink inside her scorching heat.

Holy shit, she feels good
.
She feels like mine
.

Eleven years, erased.

When I’m buried balls deep I pull out just as slowly, watching her mouth go slack. God almighty, I am never going to last.

“Yes,” she pants, tilting her pelvis so I can go deeper. I do on a loud curse, gritting my teeth against the need to chase my own orgasm, which is just within reach already. Her tight pussy is squeezing me like nothing I remember feeling.

“This is not that. And everything I want from you, you’ve always had of mine. My heart, my spirit, my very fucking soul has always belonged to you, Nora.”

Her beautiful emeralds mist and she whispers my name on a broken sob.

The only woman whose eyes I’ve looked into when I’m taking her is Nora. Connecting with another person on that level when you’re having sex turns it into something far more than physical. It’s intimate, affectionate, flaying. You’re putting yourself into the most vulnerable position possible. Pouring the entire contents of my heart out while Nora’s gaze never strays from mine, I’ve never felt more exposed than I do right now.

“You were made for me, Nora. Every part. Your mouth was shaped for mine. Your curves fit my hands flawlessly. Your pussy cradles my cock like it was molded just for me. Made for me to fill you perfectly. Own you completely. You belong to me in every way. You always have.”

I never stop moving or talking. I need to keep her grounded with me at the same time I drive us higher and higher, our sweat-covered bodies straining to get closer. My hips thrust at a steady pace and we fall into a familiar rhythm, a seductive age-old dance, but it’s one I’ve only ever danced with her.

Kissing her deeply, I run my nose along hers, my voice hoarse with emotion when I tell her, “This is not sex, princess. This is love.”

She clamps down around me. Hard. “Shit.” I breathe through the need to just slam into her taking what I need, wanting to give her everything instead. I snake my hand between our undulating bodies and rub circles around her clit.

Bowing her back, she moans, “Connelly, I’m going to come.”

“Fuck yes. Give it to me. I need to feel you come around my cock again.”

I’ve been balancing on orgasm’s sweet edge since I slipped inside my rightful mate, but when I feel Nora’s legs quiver and her walls clench tight around my thick length, it takes everything I have to fight it off so I can just watch her unravel beneath me.

With her eyes clenched shut and her mouth open in a silent “O,” she lets go, convulsing in my arms, squeezing my fingers and my cock so tight they both hurt. I watch bliss wash over every feature of her exquisite beauty until finally I can’t hold back any longer.

Letting my forehead fall to hers, all muscles go taut as the last of her climax rips mine from deep within me. It comes from a place so far inside, I’ve never felt anything like its dreamlike release.

After we catch our breaths and I stop twitching, I roll to the side so I don’t crush her. Pulling her into me, I clutch her tight, sighing when her arms go around my waist as she snuggles close.

I feel so fucking good.

Light.

Free.

Content.

Hooking a finger under her chin, I tilt it so I can look into her soul when I tell her with words everything I just told her with my body.

“I love you, Nora. I have never stopped.”

Moisture turns her eyes to crystal. Then my heart soars when she tells me what I’ve longed to hear for weeks. Hell, who am I kidding? I’ve longed to hear it for years.

“Neither have I.”

N
ora

S
itting
in my car outside the Marcor Heliport, I am freaking the fuck out.

Full meltdown has initiated as I hear the walls of my carefully constructed life crack, the small fissures creating weaknesses in my already shaky foundation. The structure is creaking and wailing and will soon disintegrate down around me, leaving rubble and ash and memories where my life once stood.

I’ve made a lot of mistakes, but last night had to be the topper, the pinnacle of all my fuck-ups. I believed every single word Connelly spoke as I let him make love to me. I believed them and I let them lull me into imagining there would be—
could be
—an us after I shatter him with the truth. I fed into my own lies and I hate myself for it, now more than ever.

Last night, I lost total control. On the short elevator ride and walk to Connelly’s office, I had a stern talk with myself. I was steadfast, resolute in my armor, my shields locked tight. Determined to keep things between us professional.

But the second I knocked on his door, I knew I’d made a huge mistake. I’d overestimated my ability to resist his magnetic pull. There is no way I can avoid my heart’s true desire when I’m around Connelly. As I stood there while he perused my body like he had every right to, like he owned me, I decided I was going to confess. Purge all the wrongs rotting my insides and hope for forgiveness. Pray he would understand.

When I saw the dinner he’d pulled together in such short order, however, I was dumbfounded. It was considerate and sweet and utterly romantic, even if he didn’t mean it to be. It came from the selfless, vulnerable boy I always remembered instead of the ultra smug, I’ll-stop-at-nothing-to-get-what-I-want man that I now know and I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t ruin the moment. I couldn’t take all the effort and thought he’d put into the night and trample it like it meant nothing.

Because it meant everything.

Then, when he held me in his arms, let me tell him about my mother, and he listened—
really
listened—I heard genuine regret that he wasn’t there when I needed him, I chucked the white flag high in the air, consequences be damned. For a few precious hours, I put all the hurt, the guilt, the remorse aside and took what I desperately needed: what Connelly
wanted
me to have and what I wanted to give him in return.

Love.

Devotion.

A good memory to erase the bad ones in the past and those yet to come.

But lying in his arms after he’d lavished indescribable pleasures on me, all of it came rushing back like a tsunami against my will anyway, the burden so encumbering, so suffocating to carry alone that I almost caved right then and there in the safety of his arms. But once again, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t crush the hope my selfish actions had just given him. Had given
me
.

“
A
re you cold
?” he asks rubbing his hands rapidly up and down my arm, genuine concern for my well-being lacing his tone.

“No.” His body heat burns me up from the outside while my betrayal scorches my innards. My entire being is on fire. I feel as if I’ve been thrown directly into the pits of hell, the agony debilitating.

“Come home with me.”

“I can’t, Connelly.” I feel absolutely sick, dinner rolling around in my traitorous stomach, trying to push its way back out. I’m paralyzed beneath the weight of my deceit and lies. Unable to move. Hardly able to breathe.

“I’m not letting you run, Nora. Not this time.”

“I’m not running. I…don’t you think we’re moving too fast?” Shit…I need more time to figure this out. I just found him again; I selfishly don’t want to give this up already, but my time is now out. I have no choice.

“As far as I’m concerned, we’re not moving fast enough. I’ve wasted enough time without you. I’m not wasting a second more.”

Still naked, he rolls on top of me, desire stirring anew in my belly at the feel of his raw masculine perfection pressed against my bare flesh from head to toe. Pinning me with his open and exposed stare, he asks, “You love me, yes? Please tell me you love me, Nora.”

Cupping his face, I confess softly, “Since before I even met you.” No hesitation, no qualms, no lies. It’s the truest thing I’ve said to him in weeks.

His brilliant, victorious, megawatt smile simultaneously lights me up and shreds me to ribbons.

“But there’s so much about each other we don’t even know anymore,” I whisper more to myself than to him. My secrets swirl like deadly poison in my belly, a boiling mixture of regret and guilt. My eyes prick with reminders of my deception.

“Then we’ll learn. I love you and nothing will change that, Nora. Nothing.”

As he presses his lips to mine once more, I think,
you’re wrong
. God help me because I don’t know how our love will be able to survive the resentment and hate he’ll feel for me once he knows.

A
knock
on my window makes me squeal and jump, dragging me back to the darkness of my deceit in the light of a new day. I look up to see Connelly’s face outlined through the fog of the driver’s side glass. I’ve been sitting here so long the entire inside of the car is now coated with obscurity. I wish I could stay encased in it forever. But I can’t. My days of anonymity were always on a countdown clock to annihilation.

Taking a deep breath, I open the door, cold rain pouring inside the car.

“What are you doing, princess?”

Planning to run.

“Waiting for you,” I lie.

Fact is, I was contemplating running…coming up with any plausible excuse not to spend more uninterrupted time with Connelly. I need some space to get my emotions back on lockdown and my thoughts in order and that will never happen by spending nearly twenty-four solid hours alone with him.

He holds out a steady hand. I pull back like it’s a viper ready to strike.

While last night sits hard in the pit of my stomach, the reason I’m on panic’s razor-sharp blade right now has little to do with that and everything to do with the fact that the dinner meeting with Kinnick Investments is in Memphis, not Chicago. And since it’s a nine-hour drive to Memphis and I didn’t know until last night when Connelly walked me to my car that we were meeting at the Chez Phillippe, the renowned French restaurant located inside the historic Peabody Hotel, I couldn’t very well drive. I have no idea why I thought we’d be meeting in Chicago. My only excuse is that every time I’m around Connelly, my brains get scrambled. I become a blazing hot mess.

“Come on. I’m getting soaked,” he says, wiggling his hand for me take it. I set my palm in his, mine slightly shaking, and join him under his huge golf-sized umbrella, burrowing closer to shield myself from the chilly sideways downpour. He starts us toward the hangar when I stop, water pelting me, drenching my business suit.

I’m barely holding my shit together. I cannot get on that plane. I cannot.

“My bag.” I gesture toward my practical Ford Focus, stalling for time.

With an arm around my waist, he hauls me back under his protection, kissing me hard and quick on the lips. “Ham will get it,” he says, moving us forward across the wet concrete until we’re in the safety of the large, cavernous hangar. Well…safe from the rain anyway.

Connelly briefly lets me go to fold the dripping umbrella and instructs someone who looks like he could bench three of me to get my bag. I almost turn and run when he places his warm hand at the base of my spine, right above the curve of my ass, pushing me toward the stairs that could take me to my death.

With each step I take toward the small white jet that has GRASCO emblazoned across the fuselage in crisp, navy-blue letters, my vision fades, my stomach violently churns. It becomes harder and harder to suck air through my restricted airway.

“Nora, what’s the matter? You’re shaking like a leaf.”

When he told me about dinner in Memphis, I didn’t tell Connelly I couldn’t do it. I didn’t tell him I’m now illogically petrified of something I once loved to do. I didn’t tell him of my father’s death. I was a complete emotional wreck from our lovemaking. By the time we’d reached my car, I was barely holding my tears inside as he kissed me goodnight and held me in his arms, telling me again how much he loved me.

“Nothing,” I choke, forcing my feet up the six narrow metal steps.

I keep reminding myself it’s just a little over an hour in the air. One hour there today, one hour back tomorrow. Two hours of my life. Statistics show only one in over twenty-nine million dies in a single airplane crash, I tell myself. And if we do crash, I have a 24 percent chance of survival. I convince myself this is far safer than driving nine hours on the road with a bunch of idiots distracted by texting and crying kids.

When we step inside, the smell of new leather hits my nostrils and I freeze. Unwelcome thoughts pummel me from all sides.

I wonder if this was what my father experienced just before his demise. Did he ogle over the fancy interior of a small, private jet? Did he sink into the soft-as-silk leather seats and gaze out the small round portholes wishing he’d done things differently as life passed him by while he spent it cooped up in a lab? And as the plane went down, did he regret not being there for me, my daughter, my mother?

“Nora, baby, what’s wrong?” Connelly gently coaxes in my ear, rubbing his hands up and down my freezing cold limbs. I lean into his comfort, needing his strength.

“I don’t really like small planes.”

I like life.

“I thought you loved to fly?”

“I used to,” I mumble. Trying to be strong, I force my body to one of the plush, buttery-colored leather chairs. When I take a seat, my fingers fumble with the belt and then his are there, pushing mine away so he can buckle me in tight. When he’s done, I keep my watery eyes on my lap. He grabs hold of both hands.

“Nora, look at me. Sweetheart, please,” he cajoles after I hesitate.

When our eyes connect, I immediately feel safe and loved and cherished. “First, this is a Gulfstream five fifty, one of the best and safest private jets money can buy. I have a pilot and a copilot, and between them, they have over one hundred and fifteen years of experience flying in both the military and the private sector and over twenty thousand hours of flying time. That may not sound like a lot, but it can take pilots their entire careers to reach those milestones, if ever. Phil and Ham know what they’re doing. You’re safe. I promise.”

“You can’t promise that.”

“I can promise this. I’ve only just found you again so I’m not going to let anything, even the Messiah Himself, take you away from me just yet.”

“Connelly,” I breathe. I love this man so very much. I have no idea what I’m going to do when his eyes are full of contempt instead of love.

“It’s okay, princess. I’m here. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

The way he says those words with such conviction, such
sympathy
…

“You know,” I whisper.

He nods slowly, squeezing my hands. “I just found out this morning.”

“How?”

“Google’s a pretty powerful tool.”

Yes. I suppose when a renowned researcher and three of his colleagues meet their fiery deaths where pilot error was to blame, it would make the news. I don’t know. I didn’t watch TV for weeks after that. I didn’t pick up a paper. I didn’t look at the World Wide Web.

I grieved.

I pitied myself for all I’d lost. And not just my father. I relived every loss, every mistake, every choice. Every time I felt I was pulling my life together, fate dealt me yet another cruel blow. I felt defeated, doomed. It was wrong. I knew it then and I know it now, but the only way I could survive my seemingly never-ending string of pain and suffering was to turn inside myself and shut everyone else out.

“Ah.” I take a deep breath, blowing it out slowly. Connelly waits patiently, his gaze full of affection. I treasure it then tuck it away. I know my expiration on it is rapidly approaching. “I was going to tell you. I just…I…”

I didn’t know how without completely breaking.

“I know. I’m sorry, Nora. I’m so fucking sorry you had to go through all of this shit alone. I should have been there.”

His sincerity slays me. The hurt he feels because I hurt cuts me so deep I feel the unintentional sharpness of his words slice my heart like jagged glass. It’s excruciating.

I decide in that very moment that I’m going to get through this trip, this meeting, these next twenty-four hours with Connelly and then I’ll come clean. I’ll tell him everything. I owe him that much, even if it means I’ll lose everything in the process.

“Sir, we’re ready to take off. You’ll need to take your seat now,” a deep, masculine voice calls from behind me.

“Thanks, Ham.” He looks back at me. “You okay?”

“It’s still raining.” The torrential downpour has lightened up, but it’s still coming down pretty hard. The wind still howls angrily as if it knows my devastating secrets.

“They wouldn’t take off if it wasn’t safe. I don’t have a death wish, either.”

“We’ll climb quickly, ma’am, and be above the storm in just a few short minutes. It will be smooth sailing to Memphis after that.”

Clutching Connelly’s fingers tightly, I nod, not realizing the guy named Ham is still standing behind us.

“Need my hands back, babe. Gotta buckle up. You can have them right back, promise.” Panic must be written all over my face because he leans up to kiss me. It’s slow and sweet and when he teases my seam open, his tongue touching mine, it immediately floods my core with want. And it also does its intended trick. I let go of his hands to frame his face instead, wanting to deepen our connection.

With his lips stuck to mine, I feel him shift and move, but I don’t let go, my body straining to stay fused with his. I hear the sound of his seatbelt latch. Then he does as promised. His hands are back, covering mine.

Breaking our lip-lock, he pants, “We need to stop or I’m going to take you in the lavatory and fuck your brains out the minute we reach cruising altitude.”