Destination Connelly (15 page)

I understand so much better why my brothers act like lunatics about their women. Being with Nora has brought out every single caveman tendency I never thought I possessed but apparently do. I guess I wasn’t immune after all.

For the most part, we’re quiet as she tries a bit of everything. It’s not uncomfortable for once. It feels…right. Easy. Like a missing part of me has been put securely back into place. I know for the first time since I last laid my eyes on Nora, I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be. The panic I once felt about someday calling this amazing woman my wife has vanished.

I’m content, I finally realize. That, too, is a foreign feeling, yet one I’m embracing. Isn’t it strange how one person, out of the billions on this planet, can change your outlook on life entirely?

Just one.

The
right
one.

Suddenly you’re thinking about things in a whole new light. Your path bends, your dreams shift, and the steadfast future you planned for yourself without her now looks dull and lifeless, dark and full of profound loneliness. But you are strangely okay with it all. That’s how much this
one
person means to you. For her, you’re willing to upend every brick you’ve spent your life laying and lay new ones…
with
her.

“How did you do this?” she asks, after polishing off every last bite.

“Do what?” I push my plate of half-eaten fried junk away and grab my wine. I’ll be starving later, but I’ll live.

“This?” Her arms spread as wide as her smile and my chest puffs at her happiness.
I
did that. “Who has freezer crap just lying around, and more importantly, who did you get to bring it to you?”

My mouth turns up. “I have connections all over this city, baby.”

That makes her laugh. A genuine, relaxed, happy laugh.

I feel such intense love for this woman at this very second, it’s hard to even understand myself, let alone explain. I want to drop to my knees in front of her and beg her to come back to me, demand that she give us a fair chance. A real chance. But I do none of those things. I know I need to
win
her love, not demand it. I briefly wonder if now is the time to confess my sins, then quickly decide against it. I don’t want to ruin the only relaxed moment we’ve experienced in two months. So instead, I refill her wineglass.

“Trying to get me drunk so you can take advantage of me?” she quips with sparkling eyes and a cheeky grin after taking a sip.

I set down the nearly empty bottle and pick up my own glass, my face replicating hers. “That depends.”

“Depends on what?” The brilliant smile that lights up her face steals my thoughts and air at the same time.

“If it will work?” I wag my brows and wink.

Her eyes close as she laughs. I feel time slow as I sit there taking in her beauty and everything that is Nora. The sound of a real laugh is as brilliant as the authentic joy on her face.

“No. It won’t,” she replies, still chuckling. But, once again, I detect she’s not being entirely truthful.

“That’s too bad. I’ll just have to find something else that will.”

Her smile falls and she gazes at me thoughtfully. I wish she’d tell me what she’s thinking, but Nora holds her thoughts very close to the vest, more so now than ever. Her emotions, not so much, though, and that will work in my favor during my quest to win her back.

“You done?” I nod at the food still littering my table. The cleaning people will hate me tonight, but all I give a shit about right now is that I’ve made Nora happy. Score one for me.

She dips her head once.

“Good, then grab your drink and let’s sit on the couch. The smell of this fried shit is making me nauseous.”

Her eyes bounce between the couch and me and, once again, the nervousness returns. But I also see obvious longing. With wine in one hand, I hold my other hand out to help her up, relieved she doesn’t reject me like last time. Pulling her right into my “personal space,” I tell her lowly, “It’s just a couch, Nora. Not a bed.”

Then it’s my turn to chuckle when she replies breathlessly, “Beds are overrated anyway.”

“Damn straight they are.”

She stands there, hand in mine, unmoving. Staring. Clearly wanting. If I pushed her against the wall right now I could be inside her in less than ten seconds. And she’d let me. I have no idea when this about-face took place, and I’m sure I’ll kick myself to hell and back for what I’m about to do because I’ve wanted nothing more than to be buried inside her sweet pussy for a goddamned month. But I walk with her hand in mine to the couch, gesturing for her to sit.

As much as I want to fuck her, I want to talk to her more.

For a while anyway.

A
s I suspected
, she takes the far end, so I sit in the middle. I’m not crowding her, but I’m not letting her put three feet between us either.

“Thanks again for dinner.” Her gaze drops. When it returns to mine, it brims with sadness and heartbreak.

“You’re welcome.” I frown, confused about her sudden change in mood. “I thought it would make you happy.”

“It did,” she quickly answers. “It did, Connelly. More than you know. But it also makes me…sad at the same time.”

“Why?”

Her gaze falls again. We both watch her finger trace the rim of her glass over and over, the musical sound from the rhythm filling the silence.

I didn’t want the night to go like this. I wanted to get reacquainted with the woman I once lost. I want to start over again, not spend the night cemented in history we can’t change.

“Nora, I’m sorry,” I say softly, not having a fucking clue what just happened or what I’m sorry for other than making her upset. I’m mentally preparing myself for our past to be split open, the entire sordid guts of my unintended betrayal exposed for my rightful judgment, but the next words out of her mouth couldn’t have shocked me more.

“My mom died of lung cancer a few years ago. I just miss her, is all.”

Her mother died?

“Jesus, I had no idea. I’m…” I scrub my face, not knowing what to say. How did I not know this? “I wouldn’t have done this had I known.”

She puts her hand on my forearm. When she looks up her tears destroy me. “I’m glad you did. It brought back good memories, too. It’s okay. There’s no way you could have known.”

I couldn’t have, but I should have. I should have been there for her, helped her with the funeral, helped her carry her grief. I vow right then and there to be by Nora for the rest of my life, no matter what. Even if she doesn’t want me like that, I won’t let her go through those heart-wrenching events alone ever again.

I take the wine from her hand and set both of our glasses on the small end table next to the sofa. “Come here,” I croak, holding my arms open. She hesitates just for a moment before sliding into me, sighing as she melts against my chest. The feeling is sublime. Nothing has ever felt as good as having a willing Nora in my arms.

Stroking her silky hair with one hand and lacing the fingers of our other hand together, I ask, “Did you want to talk about it?”

“I thought this was supposed to be a business dinner?”

“That can wait.” The truth of the matter is I could tell Nora what she needs to know ten minutes before our meeting tomorrow. I just used it as an excuse to spend time with her. I knew she wouldn’t say no. Well...I wouldn’t
let
her say no.

“Did you…did you want to hear about it?”

I tug on her hair gently until her head tilts back, mainly because I don’t want to stop holding her other hand. “Of course I do, sweetheart.”

Her sad smile dives straight to my heart, squeezing it tight. This woman completely owns me. I would do anything to take away her sadness. “Okay.” She settles her head in the groove my shoulder, flexing her smaller fingers between my bigger ones, gathering courage as she stares off into space. I tighten my other arm around her shoulder, pulling her closer, letting her know it’s safe to let go. This time, I’ll be there to catch her.

“Well, she was diagnosed a little over a year after we moved to Baltimore. She’d been having back pain for months, even before we left Detroit and no one could figure out what was wrong. Eventually they found a suspicious spot on an X-ray and after a PET scan, they found eight more. Stage-four metastatic adenocarcinoma lung cancer.”

“Nora, sweetheart.” I have no words that will make the loss of her mother easier. I know from my own father’s death a few years back that losing a parent is a hole that will never be filled, no matter how much time passes.

“Did you know the number one cause of cancer-related death in women is lung cancer? It kills more women than breast, uterine, and ovarian cancer combined. A useless fact I found when pouring over the Internet in search of any type of hope.” She squeezes my hand tighter and I let her continue at her own pace. “She was never a smoker, which also is apparently irrelevant when contracting lung cancer, and by the time they found it, the cancer had spread to her liver, her kidneys, her bones, and her brain. She was in a lot of pain. She suffered horribly. I think that was the worst part of it all, you know—watching her literally die right in front of my eyes, suffering but trying to be brave for me.”

“Nora, God. I am so sorry.” Sorry seems utterly inadequate, but I don’t know what else to say. My father died, but at least his heart attack was quick and not long-suffering—a fact I was probably not grateful enough for at the time. “How did your father handle it?”

She tenses. “How did he handle it? Like he did everything else. He threw himself into work, forgetting that he even had a family. Do you know he wasn’t even there when she died? I was holding one hand and Carl was holding her other.”

Her father always did live in his own little bubble. And where was I when Nora was going through ten kinds of hell? I was undoubtedly fucking some random woman while she had to grieve almost alone. I couldn’t hate myself any more than I do right now, even though I know it’s totally irrational.

“I wish I could have been there for you,” I say quietly, kissing the crown of her head.

She’s silent for a long time. When she tilts her head, her eyes sparkle with unshed tears. “I’m sorry, Connelly.”

Her apology hangs thickly in the air like an opaque curtain I need to pull back. I don’t want to yet.

“What are you sorry for, princess?”

“Everything. I’m sorry for everything.”

I’m sorry for the same thing.

She searches my face for forgiveness. I hope she sees it. I know we can’t create a new story, a new us, without it. And that’s all I want to do right now.

Forget the past.

Forget the hurt.

Forget the rejection.

Forget the reasons we both left us behind.

I reach up and palm her cheek, feathering my thumb right underneath the fullness of her bottom lip. “I’m sorry, too.”

With the half-mast doe eyes she’s giving me, all I can think of is kissing her, ripping off her clothes, and taking her with the ferocity I’ve felt building inside me for weeks. I force myself steady, letting her lead. But I’m here to tell you…one touch of my lips to hers and it’s all over. I will have her underneath me tonight, filled with both my cock and my quasi knots, because once I’m inside of her that final knot is fastened. I will not let her walk away from us.

“Connelly…” Barely audible, my name goes straight from her lips to my cock. The surrender in her tone feels like a snug fist, squeezing my dick from root to tip. I feel pre-cum soak my briefs as my breaths quicken.

“What, Nora? Tell me what you want.”

Wetting her lips, her eyes drop to my mouth and she whispers huskily, “Kiss me. Please.”

“Fuck,” I mumble, knowing straight where this will lead, even if she doesn’t. This will not be an innocent kiss. It will be pure, raw, out-and-out passion and claiming. And I won’t stop with one fucking kiss. I won’t stop until she’s crying out my name in utter euphoria over and over again. “Are you sure this is what you want?”

“Yes,” she pleads, breathless.

“I’m warning you now, princess, if my lips land anywhere on your flesh again, I’m not stopping with a kiss. I won’t quit until I have all of you.”

Her chest expands rapidly, with excitement or fear I’m not sure. “We…we can’t have sex. Not here.”

I grab her hips and pull her astride my lap, settling her hot pussy snug against my hard-as-stone erection. One hard thrust has her head falling back fleetingly on a rough exhale. “Good, because I don’t want to have sex with you, Nora.”

Her brows furrow in confusion. “You don’t?”

Grabbing her bare thighs, I squeeze gently as my hands trail upward, raising her dress until I expose the tiny pale pink panties scarcely covering her sex.

Fuck.
Me
.

They’re already drenched. I have to tear my eyes away before I turn into a complete Neanderthal and ravage her right now without preamble.

“No.” My voice is gravelly with lust. Kneading the soft flesh on her hips and thighs, I hold her smoky eyes and begin to tell her in great detail what I want from her. What I will have from her. “Sex is just a physical act. A few inches of penetration. Lust. Gluttony. Pleasures of the flesh, the sharing of bodily fluids, and a physical release that can be had with anyone, anytime without emotion or attachment.”

I would know. I’m the master of emotional detachment.

Letting my thumbs slip under the silky fabric, she bucks and I curse under my breath at the feel of her velvety wetness on my fingertips. Jesus, she’s soaked. My cock is in absolute agony with want for her, but I tell him to be patient because I’m nowhere near done yet. I’ll fill her mind with every carnal thing I want to do to her. Then I’ll act on them.

“No, that’s not what I want at all. What I want from you is far more than a simple physical act, Nora. I want your heart, your mind, your spirit, your passion. Your complete and total surrender. I want to rejoin our souls, where they belong. I want to steal your heart and hold it captive.” I run a thumb, now wet with her desire, along her lips until she opens up for me. Taking it inside she swirls her tongue around, tasting her desire.
Fuuuck
.