Some Kind of Perfect (Calloway Sisters #4.5) (11 page)

“I’d think less of you because I know you’re better than that.”

“Then you must think less of me now.” I cast a glare at the ceiling.
Just say it, Rose. Let your impulsive misstep out into the world
.

Connor speaks before I do. “Because you went to the doctor without me?”

He definitely knows.

Connor clasps my ankle, sliding me to the edge of the bed until my legs fall off. He stands tall above me. “Because we made a promise that we’d go together?” He kicks my ankles apart, spreading my legs wide.

I eye the knife in his hand.

Not even a second later, he places my knife back in the drawer, as though to say,
never will I harm you.
And then he returns to me.

“I wouldn’t think less of you because of this.” He steps nearer. “Because I know who you are. Because I know exactly why you would’ve broken our promise today and why you couldn’t wait longer than a night to confess.”

I breathe shallowly.

Connor presses his hand to my breastbone, and I follow the force of his palm. Until my back meets the soft comforter. “Because you’re impetuous.” He stretches my arms above my head, crossing my wrists. “Because you see our promises like vows of love and death.”
I do.
“Because you feel like you broke something that’s unbreakable.”

I shiver, cold sweeping my arms and legs.

He fits something in my hands and closes my fingers over it. A chess piece.

My queen.

Connor hovers above my frame, his hands on either side of me, his lips only inches away from mine. My legs curve around his waist, my bare skin beginning to heat.

Very deeply and very hushed, he says, “If you were anything other than a torrid fire, you wouldn’t be the woman I’ve admired and loved. I understand your reasons. I respect them and adore them because they belong to you.”

I inhale sharply, my back arching and body rising against his. He lets out a deeper breath, skimming me for a moment, before meeting my eyes.

I clutch my queen tightly. I’d give her to him again, but not in the same way. I’d love her more beforehand.

“It drove me insane not knowing if I was pregnant,” I explain. “I thought I’d just be in and out and nothing would be changed.” Before going, I took two tests. One said a faint
yes
and the other said
fuck off no way
. I convinced myself that the doctor would say
you’re not pregnant.

Connor isn’t surprised. Though he never really is. “I’d rather have this moment with you than have an ordinary day with anyone else, Rose.”

“I won’t break another promise, so don’t get used to this,” I say in a softer tone, much softer than my usual voice. I’m melting beneath my husband and his words and reassurance of his love for me. The
me
that can be unpredictable and fiery and full of contradictions and all the other personality traits I spent the day loathing.

As I attempt to bring my arms down, he grips my wrists together, cementing my hands where he first placed them. Heat stirs between my legs, and his dominance pours over me.

“Do you remember when you hid your pregnancy with Jane from me?”

“Yes.” I could never forget my first pregnancy and how scared I’d been. I was so stubborn that I left Connor in the dark much longer than most people would—though I knew he’d figure it out. I just didn’t acknowledge what was happening, and the silent battle became something more intimate between us. Something that strengthened our trust.

We might seem strange, but I can’t see that event happening any other way.

“I’d never been more captivated by a person in my entire life, and that time only furthered my belief.”

“What belief?”

He licks his lips. “‘You have a place in my heart no one else could ever have.’”

I drill a piercing glare at him, my wrists still pinned by his hand. “And I’d believe you more if you didn’t quote F. Scott Fitzgerald’s
The Ice Palace
.”

His grin is blinding. “What I said was real, even if they’re not my words.”

“Fine.”

“Just fine? You’d give up that quickly, Miss Highest Honors?”

I nearly smile at the title he uses for me, as though reminding me of who I am and why I should continue to treat myself like royalty. “I took something from you today that I can never give back.” My smile vanishes completely.

Say it, Rose.

So I say it, and even supine beneath him, my words feel like mine. Like a force of nature. Like the surge that propels a tidal wave. “I’m pregnant.”

He does a poor job at concealing a smile, which means he let it pass through for me to see.

“She said we probably conceived in September, so I’m not far along, but I’m pregnant. And I heard this news
alone
in a doctor’s office, and all I wished was that you were beside me. I wished that you were there.” My eyes flood, but I restrain tears from spilling over.

With his free hand, Connor cups my cheek, his thumb skimming my bottom lip. I search his deep blue eyes as they illuminate. “But I’m here with you now, Rose, and anything else sounds too predictable to belong to us.”

Translation:
ordinary is boring, darling.

I expel any lingering remorse.
I’m pregnant.
Internally, I might as well belong to the nauseatingly cheerful scenes in Disney films, birds chirping while I twirl and stroke my hair and sing.

Outwardly, I am Ursula.

This attracts my husband. Connor kisses me…gently. More
gently
than I ever like. My gaze narrows.

Richard.

His lips fall to my ear. “You didn’t think I’d take you deep and hard, did you?”

He’s going to punish me.

In the best way.

I glare. “I thought you’d be a mediocre narcissist with terrible hair. Which you are.”

“Mediocre?
Terrible
hair?” His hand tightens around my wrists.
Oh God.
“You could’ve picked less obvious lies.” His other hand disappears up the bareness of my thigh.

“It’s my opinion—” I gasp as he tenderly strokes his fingers between my legs, my lacy panties obstructing his skin from my skin.

“Open your eyes, Rose.”

They closed on their own accord. Just as I open them, he pulls me further onto the bed and pushes the chessboard aside. Before I hone in on the fallen pieces, he holds my face so…
softly.
I grimace, aching for his force. I’m not fragile dishware.

I could tear him limb by limb if I desired.

I don’t, however. I only desire his strength to trump mine until I’ve melted entirely in his hands. He won’t lower his body weight on me, but he’s stepped off the ground, his pelvis fit above mine.

Connor captures my blistering gaze. His eyes so fixated on mine, he might as well be fucking me with them.

I pulse.

My lips part.

He whispers tender, quiet French that I struggle to understand, dizzied and lit up. I break my wrists apart to hold onto his shoulder. Swiftly, he seizes my hands once more and stretches them above my head. When I try to protest, Connor pins them, removes his other hand from my thigh, and he reaches towards the end table.

Connor purposefully
grinds
his hardened cock against my panties.

My toes curl. “Connor…”

I choke on a moan, my whole body clenching with arousal.

His erection is outlined in his drawstring pants, and I imagine him inside of me.
Hard. Deep. Rough.
Not this gentle shit.

Being six-foot-four, he has the arm-span to reach the end table and open the drawer, all without moving off me. Just forward.
Grinding in.

I tilt my head back and see him collect leather handcuffs. He shuts the drawer and then locks the cuffs around my wrists. I now lose the ability to break them apart.

I try to skewer him with a single glare.

Connor only grins.

Ugh.

He leans teasingly close. His pink lips brush against mine as he whispers, “What am I?” I inhale his words as much as he breathes in my own.

“Average,” I combat.

“Wrong.” He puts distance between our mouths, as though to say
you get none of me.

I grow more insolent at the idea. “Who even said I wanted to kiss you?”

“Who even said you were smart?” he rebuts with this conceited nonchalance.
He’s sexy.
No he is
not.
His lips curve upward.
Yes he is.
No, Rose. I bristle at my contradictory thoughts.

Dear God,

Make it so that I can loathe all parts of my husband.

Sincerely,

Rose Calloway Cobalt.

“Princeton said I was smart.
I
say that I’m smart,” I tell Connor. “And I never said that I wanted to kiss you.” I lift my head and shoulders off the bed. He presses a palm between my breasts, pushing me back down.

He’s reached the last button, and he slowly, too slowly, fully opens my shirt. My breasts come into view, my sensitive nipples at attention. My body begs to be manhandled, but I’m too stubborn to verbally plead.

Connor strokes my hair out of my face, and I anticipate him yanking the strands
hard.
He never does, and a frustrated sound rumbles my throat.

“Yes?” he asks, full well knowing why I made that noise. “Do you ache for something, Rose?”

“Your death.”

He nearly laughs.

“And to slaughter your laugh.”

He hooks my panties with his finger, and he lifts my leg, his lips trailing a hot, feather-light line from the inside of my knee to the inside of my thigh.

Bite me.

I dizzy. As he pulls my panties halfway off, he stops, his mouth partially against my thigh. “What am I?” he asks.

Give in to my husband?

Never.

I breathe, “Ordinary.”

“Incorrect, Miss
Highest
Honors
.
” He carefully, too carefully, slides my panties down my legs instead of ripping them off. I want his large hand against my throat. I want him drilling into me. All I have to do is answer correctly.

My arousal mounts, my legs in his possession. I pulse once and twice,
hungering
for his cock
.
He slips my panties off my ankles, and I suck in a breath.

“I
loathe
your face,” I tell him.
I love his face.
Why does he have to be so handsome? His perfect abs. His wavy hair. Even his moisturized skin. It’s annoying. Everything about him. Is. Infuriating.

“Such lies, darling.” He tenderly kisses my knee before stretching my legs wider again. He’s knelt between them, and he rolls down the band of his drawstring pants.
Dear God.

My collarbones jut out. “Connor…” I can feel myself getting wet.

His erection emerges—long, thick and incredibly hard. Ready to fit
deep
in me. He removes his pants but takes his time to fold them, all to irritate me and prolong what I crave.

My body wants to buck up. My back wants to arch.
Do not betray me, body. Prepare for battle against thy husband.

I buck up towards him.

Dammit.

Connor quickly places his palm on my lower abdomen, gently pushing me back down. Then he delicately, too delicately, places breathless kisses from between my breasts, over my nipples, down to my ribcage, lower and lower, spending extra time on my abdomen. And the place where our baby will grow strong.

He pauses, only to look up at me and ask, “What am I?”

My legs tremble. I jerk against the handcuffs, pleasure swelling. “You’re
appalling
.”

“Réessaie.”
Try again.

“Run-of-the-mill, typical,
common
—”

Connor abruptly seizes my handcuffed wrists, and he brings my arms down in front of me. Then he laces my fingers together and extends both my middle and index fingers, pressed like I’m miming a gun. He holds my gaze, and he lifts my hands higher—up to his mouth. My muscles burn in satisfaction as he pulls.

“What am I?” His deeply whispered words stimulate me much more than the sight of his body. My veins scald and blood rushes to my clit.

The sensations escalate so quickly that I forget to spout off an answer.

“Rose,” he says again. “What am I?”

“Maddening.”

Connor takes my fingers into
his
mouth. His eyes still on mine. I shudder, my body quaking. I nearly come at the sight of his unrivaled confidence. My lips part, breath caught in my throat. As he skillfully sucks my fingers, he
slowly
pushes his hardened cock into me, but he never thrusts. He never rocks deeper. He just stops and torments me. Full but no friction. Full but no aggression.