Destination Connelly (9 page)

So, you noticed how she deflected instead of answering the goddamned question, right?

What you didn’t see were her eyes as they darted and dilated ever so slightly or her lip as she tried—and failed—not to bite it.

What you didn’t hear was her steady voice lacking conviction as her breathing turned labored.

What you didn’t feel was the minor shift of her feet as the lie fell hard and flat by her toes. It’s nearly impossible for the body to follow along with a lie, and if you watch close enough, the signs are recognizable, even to the untrained eye. But most people don’t pay close enough attention because they are either too busy talking or thinking of the next thing they’re going to talk about instead of observing.

Nora’s never been able to pull one over on me.

Not many people can.

“No lies. No more fucking lies, Nora. Here’s a little honesty for
you
, princess.” My hand slips into her silky hair, fisting it tightly while my other starts kneading the generous flesh in my palm. I force her head back, capturing her smoky eyes with mine so she can’t look away. Her lids fall to half-mast. She’s so damn turned on, she’s panting.

I’ll take that damn award now.

“With every breath I take, I still smell you. I still taste you on my tongue. I feel your very spirit wrapped around my soul. I have
never
stopped thinking about you, Nora. I can’t get you out of my fucking head. I’ve tried. God knows I’ve tried everything I can think of to eradicate you because it’s been excruciating to have your memory taunt me when I couldn’t have you. But nothing has worked. No amount of alcohol or denial or women or success or wealth will remove your permanent brand from me. You’re singed into my brain, my bones, my goddamned DNA.”

Bending my head, I nuzzle her ear, her neck. “You were born for me, Nora. Only me. Just like I was for you.” I use her very own words from so many years ago. Ones that rattle around in my skull constantly.

I’m nibbling my way back to take her mouth when she snakes her hand between us, pushing her palm against my chest, fruitlessly trying to stop me. “Connelly, what are you—”

“Taking what’s mine,” I murmur against her wet, parted lips before she can finish. “Taking what’s
always
been mine.”

Then I don’t just kiss her. I claim her.

I lick, I taste, I possess. I conquer, drawing her soul into me. Taking it hostage.

My kiss is long and sensual and full of promises I want her to hear. To believe. To trust.

She fights me at first. Not physically, but emotionally, mentally. I can tell the instant her barriers collapse because when she starts kissing me back—
really
kissing me back—I feel it everywhere.

My mind.

My blood.

My cock.

My very fucking soul.

Her touch soothes the ache I’ve buried deep in my marrow. It’s real and heavy and burdensome and the intense relief I feel is so damn good, it’s liberating.

“Nora,” I rasp between bites of her kiss-swollen lips. Palming her face between my hands, I shift her so I can gain better access and she responds by moaning and running her hands around my waist, up my back, pulling me closer by her fingernails.

I’m basking in the feel of her lips on mine again, feeling as though I’ve finally come home. But before I know what’s happening she’s breaking free from my arms and running toward the door, disappearing before I can do a damn thing but curse, try to catch my breath, and calm my raging, angry erection.

“Go ahead, Nora,” I murmur, my voice hoarse. “Run while you can. Because this is the last fucking time you’re getting away.”

N
ora

“
N
ora
, hi. I wasn’t sure if you were coming or not,” Brad says the instant my feet hit the second-floor landing.

Neither was I.
I am now officially half an hour late, which is not the way to start off on the right foot at your new job, even if it is a social event. But I couldn’t talk my legs into walking out of my hotel room. When I finally did, I lingered at the luxurious entryway of the Renaissance for nearly ten minutes before I could make myself leave the safety and comfort of anonymity.

“What can I get you to drink?” He sets his hand at the small of my back and guides me over to the makeshift bar in the corner of the low-lit room. I haven’t forgotten the murderous look Connelly had on his face earlier today when he saw Brad’s hand in the exact same position. Taking a quick look around, I breathe a sigh of relief when I notice he hasn’t arrived yet. I don’t need another ridiculous display of male dominance in front of my new peers, especially from the owner of the company.

“Uh…” What I want is a double whiskey, neat and undiluted and strong as hell to calm my raw nerves, but instead, I say, “Just a glass of white wine is fine.”

I need to keep every single wit about me this evening. While numbing my anxiety seems like a pretty stellar idea right now, it won’t be in about an hour when the full effects of eighty-proof alcohol strip away my defenses.

And right now my defenses are just as raw and brittle as my nerves.

I stop short of the bar so Brad is forced to leave me to order my cocktail. Connelly may be late, but Murphy’s Law is a merciless beyotch sometimes. I just know if I’m standing at the bar with my back to the entrance and another man’s body part is touching mine, a scene right out of
Fight Club
may ensue.

Brad returns with my fruity drink. I take a long, deep gulp while working to keep a respectable distance between us.

“Thirsty?” Brad asks, eyeing me as if he knows what’s running through my brain.

He doesn’t. Trust me. Even I can’t catch the end of one frayed thread in my unraveled thoughts.

His touch.

His declaration.

His possession.

Your lies.

Your deception.

Your betrayal.

It’s all running on an unforgiving loop through my goddamned head, the words and thoughts and feelings blending and swirling together until they’re a massive blur. Until I don’t know up from down. Until I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do.

“Parched,” I settle for, taking another unladylike swallow.

“So…what did our new boss want this afternoon?”

Me. He wanted me.

“Just buttoning up some outstanding terms of my new employment with Wynn.” My gaze instinctively drops with my lie but snaps right back up at his statement. I do not miss the protectiveness in his tone.

“You two know each other.”

Oh, we know each other, all right. Intimately. And I’m not sure what the hell I’m going to do when I see him here after he vomited his “honesty” all over me earlier, crushing my determination to stay away under his heartfelt confession. What I
want
to do is drag him into a dark corner and beg him to fuck me until I forget my name, forget every reason why I shouldn’t want him and forget why I left him in the first place.

I can’t, but
sweet baby Jesus
do I want to.

“Who?” I feign, looking around the room.

“Nora.” He lowers his voice as a few Wynn employees crowd around us trying to erase their sad problems with their own poison. Gently grabbing my elbow, he maneuvers us over a few feet for privacy. “We’ve known each other far too long and far too well to play this game.”

I look up at Brad, all six foot four, two hundred twenty taut pounds of him. With gray eyes, sandy hair, and a somewhat crooked nose that’s just a tad too big, he’s handsome in a roughhewn sort of way. In college, he was a linebacker, playing for the Florida Gators and was nearly drafted by the NFL. He was an undrafted free agent for a couple of years before he gave up on his professional sports dream and put the business degree he’d earned at UFL to good use.

He’s smart and kind. Charismatic. He’s trustworthy, successful, and treats me like a desired woman. He would be a good husband. Just for someone else. Not me. We’ve worked together now for three years and for the past two he’s been unrelenting in letting me know he’s all but in love with me. Maybe he is.

I
want
to reciprocate his feelings, but unfortunately, when I look at him, I don’t get tingles on my skin or flutters in my stomach. My pulse doesn’t race with desire nor does my body light up with lust. But that didn’t stop me from inviting him into my home and into my bed after the Christmas party last year and subsequently breaking his heart when I made him leave right after the act.

I rationalized it by telling myself I’d had too much to drink, but the truth of the matter was…I was lonely. Hurt. And insanely jealous.

A few days before, I “happened across” a picture online of Connelly at a fundraiser with a stunning blonde. His arm was wrapped around her perfectly tiny waist and her perfectly painted lips were pasted against his perfectly happy cheek. Connelly’s tux draped perfectly over his fit body, and Barbie’s perfectly perky boobs were pressed against his perfectly buff chest. The roundness of her perfectly shaped ass was the perfect landing spot for Connelly’s perfectly manicured hand. Hell, they looked like the perfect couple who could live a perfect life in a perfect house with perfect pets and have perfectly fucking perfect babies.

Yep. They were dripping perfect, perfect perfection, so I did what I do best.

Make mistakes.

I sigh, the memory jogging all the reasons why giving in to this insane desire I have burning for Connelly is a supremely bad idea. “It was a long time ago,” I answer almost too softly to be heard.

He nods, his lips tightening. Reaching up, he runs a finger across my cheek. It’s a comforting gesture, one friend to another. He sees more than I want him to when he makes another very observant statement. “Now, things are starting to make sense.”

“What does that mean?”

“He hurt you.”

I open my mouth to deny it. The last thing I want is people knowing about our past. I can’t, though. It’s true. Connelly hurt me terribly, but I’ve made my share of bad decisions and I can’t sit here and shovel all the shit into his pigpen and stay clean. I’m up to my ears in it. Shit’s everywhere and it’s getting deeper than ever.

I’m now like a sitting duck mired in a deep shit pile of its own making.

I’m in hell and I’ve never been more aware of that than I am now.

“I’m far from blameless.”

“Hmmm,” he says thoughtfully, looking over my shoulder before mumbling, “Somehow I doubt that.”

You’d be so wrong
, I think. So very wrong.

Then I feel
him
. I wish I could stop the intoxicating warmth from spreading throughout my bloodstream like a drug was just shot into my veins. I feel the weight of his stare heating my flesh, sending tingles on the fast track to my core where the desire I’d managed to settle to smoldering embers before now flares to life with renewed potency, burning me from the inside out.

Brad’s eyes return to mine and he runs his free hand down my arm, giving my hand a squeeze, which in retrospect may have been a career-ending move for him. But kudos to him. He knew exactly what he was doing and who was watching. He did it anyway, uncaring about the consequences. I may not be in love with Brad, but he’s a good man. He’s been a good friend to me, even when I haven’t been to him.

Taking a fortifying breath, I turn around to see Connelly standing tall and regal and composed across the room, his face stoic and impassive as he watches us. Connelly’s always had the best poker face of anyone I’ve known, never letting his eyes express what’s going on behind them or his body show the emotions crawling underneath his skin. It’s admirable and irritating all at the same time.

Damn, he looks good. His suit jacket is shed, so now he’s sporting just gray dress pants and the lavender button-down from earlier, which he’s managed to make look ultra sexy by undoing the top button and loosening the tie so it hangs haphazardly down his sculpted chest. The sleeves are rolled up enough to showcase his strong, masculine forearms. He holds a highball glass with amber liquid in one hand while the other is draped casually in his pocket, thumb hooked outside. Two men are on either side chatting him up. In an instant, I recognize them as his brothers, Gray and Asher.

But he’s not paying attention to anyone except me. While I register that Brad is still right at my back, talking to someone else, the rest of the noisy crowd falls away and it’s just the two of us.

Hazel eyes kiss my skin as they slide slowly down my curves, stopping for long lengths in all the right places. My parted lips, the swell of my breasts, the juncture of my thighs, the long expanse of my bare legs. By the time they land back on mine, they are no longer cool but smoldering with fire and hunger. I feel almost singed by their intensity.

As a woman, there’s not a headier feeling in the world than being visually undressed by the man you desire—the man who will fuck you until you melt into a sated pool of bliss in his arms. Except maybe
actually
being undressed by him.

“Nora, I wanted to personally welcome you to Wynn,” a raspy female voice drawls in my ear, breaking our thrall. I already know all too well who that voice belongs to and she’s a goddamned viper lying in wait for her prey. She is as unprofessional and cold-blooded as they come and has a cutthroat reputation that well precedes her. How Connelly doesn’t see through her bullshit and fire her ass is beyond me.

“Thank you, Jeanine. It’s great to be here.” I paste a plastic smile on my face as I turn toward her, but not before I notice Connelly’s eyes widening just a bit like he’s worried about a catfight breaking out.

He shouldn’t be. My venom comes in the form of poison-tipped words, not razor-sharp claws.

“I’m sure it is.” With a smirk on her stiff Botox-injected lips, her eyes slide briefly to Connelly before returning to me. She’s baiting me, seeing how I’ll respond. It would be a shame to disappoint. It’s not like we’re going to be besties anytime soon anyway. I have standards.

“It’s nice to finally meet the
infamous
Jeanine Anderson.”

“You mean famous, don’t you?” she responds with thinly veiled vitriol, her synthetic smile not reaching her eyes. It’s not her fault, really, given the fact her red lips are swollen to almost the size of a peach. Jeanine is a tall woman, probably five foot nine, and she may be striking on the outside with her olive skin, dark chocolate eyes, and long, sleek black hair, but ugliness on the inside always dims outer beauty. I could tell within thirty seconds in her presence that her insides are full of rot and fakery.

“Ummm…no. I chose my words very carefully.”

Her fake smile falls—
I think
—and she attempts to thin her lips, but it’s an effort in futility. “I think you have your sights set a little too high, sweetie.”

“All right, I’ll bite,” I reply in amusement after finishing the last of my Pinot Grigio. This is the most fun I’ve had in weeks. Who knew it would be so easy to get under her skin? “What, pray tell, are my too-lofty goals?”

This time, she turns fully toward Connelly and waves. You know, the kind of head-slapping, nauseating wave that high school girls do where they scrunch up their shoulders and wiggle their fingers like the rest of their arm doesn’t function properly?

Yeah, that one.

He acknowledges her with a slight dip of his head but does a poor job of hiding his irritation. I smile inwardly. Or I guess it’s outwardly, because when the childish display is over and my attention swings back to Jeanine, I think my throat would be ripped out by now if she were a vampire. Lucky for me, she’s not. But just in case, I’ll be stopping at the corner market on the way back to my hotel to pick up a garlic string.

“He’s undeniably hot, but he’s a once-and-dump kinda guy.”

Despite my best efforts, my jaw clenches and my quick temper flares. I take a couple of deep breaths, trying to drive away the red mist that just showered me in deadly thoughts. Thoughts that will get me hard prison time in an unflattering orange jumper if acted upon. And no matter what they say, orange is not the new black. But I’ve gotta be honest, I’m having a very difficult time because it never occurred to me until right now that Connelly’s maybe wet his dick with most of his staff as well. And although I can’t imagine him with the likes of her, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised either.

“And who exactly are we gossiping about now?” I finally manage to ask, proud of the way I controlled my voice. And my fists, because I’m feeling all kinds of violent right now, despite the fact I have not a violent bone in my body.

“Don’t play coy, Nora. He may be interested in you because you’re the new pretty little plaything, but I guarantee you Connelly Colloway, CEO and playboy extraordinaire, is not marriage material. But if you’re looking for a great fuck for the evening you couldn’t pick a finer, well-bred male specimen.”

“Sounds like you have firsthand knowledge,” I fire back. The words feel hot as pokers on my tongue.

Her slow, malicious smile is nothing short of victorious. After luring me smack dab into the center of her minefield, I took that final fatal step myself and felt the explosion rattle my entire body. The shrapnel lodged itself deep in my soul—I feel each agonizing slice keenly.

Why does it seem as though I need these painful reminders of why I should stay far, far away from the only man I’ve ever allowed myself to love?

Because you’re a slow fucking learner, Nora.

“Best I’ve ever had.” She winks, then leaves me standing alone, watching her generous ass sway in her too short, highly unprofessional, almost see-through white dress.

That bitch. I was played. I knew it and I let her do it to me anyway.

I don’t want to look at him, but my head turns of its own accord anyway. Connelly’s gaze is darting between Jeanine and me. He’s now not even trying to hide behind his cool demeanor. His jaw is tight, he’s grinding his teeth, and his eyes have gone slate hard.