Conquering Conner Read online

  Nine

  Conner

  2017

  I’m really going to have to stop pushing her buttons in public. Because, seriously—the way she’s standing over me, cheeks flushed, dark eyes narrowed on my face—mom-squad behind me be damned—I’m about five seconds away from jumping her.

  When she spins on her heel and stalks off toward the elevator, the fast click of her high heels moving away from me, it’s like someone’s got a tow chain wrapped around my neck.

  I don’t have a choice.

  I have to follow her.

  I can’t move fast enough.

  I don’t know what I’m doing here.

  I think after last night, I just needed to know that I could be around her without losing my shit.

  Maybe I’m trying to erase what happened. The way I bitched out. Ran.

  Maybe.

  All I know is that Henley has her hair twisted up in some sort of bun and the freckles scattered across the back of her neck are not helping matters any.

  Standing behind her, close enough to reach out and touch her if I want to but not close enough to be considered inappropriate, I can’t stop staring at them. The gentle spread of them disappearing into her hairline. The way they flow down her nape, slipping below the collar of her tailored suit jacket.

  I can hear people whispering behind us. Looking at me. Young moms in yoga pants, waiting for the Baby & Me exercise class to start. High school girls who are too young to even think about looking at a guy like me. The bunch of old ladies meeting for book club. The security guard posted at the main entrance. Even Margo, who’s known me since I was a kid. They’re all looking at me.

  I know why. I know what women think when they look at me. What they see. Want. Most times I can pretend it doesn’t bother me. Sometimes I can even pretend that I enjoy it.

  Right now, it takes every bit of self-control I have to stop myself from shoving Henley into the elevator when it slides open. Somehow, I manage it, stepping into the car after her without pinning her against the doors as soon as they close.

  Instead, I reach out and press the button marked 3 on the panel before dropping my hand. When I do, the back of it skims across hers and her fingers twitch against mine. That’s all it takes. An acknowledgement that I’m here, that she sees me, and I’m there. So hard, so fast, I see spots.

  There are cameras in here, genius.

  I imagine whoever’s in charge of manning the security cameras watching us. Seeing Henley in her no-nonsense navy skirt and jacket. Soft skin. Not a hair out of place. Me, in worn jeans and a T-shirt. Covered in ink. Rough hands. Visible erection.

  Yeah.

  There are cameras in here.

  But no sound.

  “Do you know why I’m here, Daisy?” I say, my gaze still trained on the nape of her neck.

  “You heard your fan club was meeting and wanted to give them a thrill.” She says it without looking at me, gaze aimed straight ahead.

  I came here to see her. That’s it. I just wanted to see her. Look at her. Talk to her. That’s all I wanted. I know I was supposed to wait until five and I’d planned to, but I couldn’t. I needed to see her. Not on a computer screen. I need to see her. To take a breath and know she was standing in the same space I was. Even though she’d never let me, I needed to know that I could reach out and touch her. Brush her hair out of her face. Kiss her cheek. Hold her hand.

  That’s it. That’s all I wanted.

  And then she had to go and get snippy with me.

  I feel mouth twitch, fast and tight. “Given my reaction to that mouth of yours, you’d think you’d know better than to sass me in public.”

  I watch her lips part.

  Hear the intake of breath, soft and uneven.

  That sweet, pink blush spread across her cheeks.

  The soft flush that sweeps across the nape of her neck.

  She’s remembering all the things I’ve done to her.

  What happens when she gets sassy.

  What that mouth of hers does to me.

  Makes me want to do to her.

  “So, do you?” My voice sounds heavy. Rough and pitted.

  Her gaze slides to the left, raking up the length of me without turning her head to look. “Do I what?”

  “Do you know why I’m here?” I enunciate each word carefully. Makes she hears the warning in my tone.

  This time she minds her manners. “No,” she whispers, the tip of her tongue calls her a liar when it skims along her upper lip, just as the elevator jerks to a stop.

  The doors slide open, not a moment too soon because I suddenly don’t care if there’s a ten-man camera crew in this goddamned elevator with us.

  I lean into her space, shifting slightly in my boots. Close enough to catch the sweet, dark scent of her. To see the freckle I used to tease her about. The one behind her ear. One of my favorites. I want to lick it so goddamned bad I have to practically bite my tongue in half to keep it in my mouth.

  “I’m here to see how quiet you can be while I make you come.” Somehow, I manage to make my way past her without dragging her out of the elevator along with me.

  For the smallest of seconds, I think she’s not going to follow me. That she’s going to ride the elevator back down without giving me a second thought, but I keep walking because despite the fact that I am a pathetic shitsack, I’m still hanging on to a few shreds of my tattered pride.

  Ten

  Henley

  What am I doing?

  Holy shit.

  What am I doing?

  Yesterday was one thing.

  It was fun to think that someone looking up at my apartment would be able to see us. What we were doing. The way Conner was fucking me. Like he owned me. How out of control I was. How much I liked it.

  It was fun because somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew it wasn’t real. The windows are covered with a Mylar tint, like a two-way mirror. No one could see us.

  This is different.

  This is a public place.

  There is a very real possibility that someone will see us.

  I want to spend the night.

  Yes or no.

  I push the thought out of my mind because I don’t want to think about it. How close I came to saying yes. How hurt he looked when I didn’t.

  He doesn’t look hurt anymore.

  In fact, he seems to have forgotten all about it. He looked up from his book (my book) and gave me that cocky grin of his, the one that stiffens the back of my neck, even as it weakens my knees. Makes me want to strangle him. Makes it hard to look at him and breathe at the same time.

  It’s like it never happened.

  Like I imagined the whole thing.

  I’m here to see how quiet you can be while I make you come.

  And then the elevator doors slide open and he breezes past me, my worn copy of Gatsby tucked into the back pocket of his battered jeans, without so much as a backward glance.

  Like he didn’t care if I followed him.

  Like it didn’t matter to him, either way.

  I tell myself that I’m going back downstairs. That he’s crazy if he thinks I’m going to follow him. That I have too much to lose to play his games.

  Then the doors start to close and somehow, I’m on the other side of them, following him.

  He seems to know exactly where he’s going, weaving himself deeper and deeper into the stacks. Turning corners and slipping between shelves, so fast and sure, I lose sight of him. It makes me wonder how many times he’s done this. Led girls through the stacks so he can—

  Strong, callused fingers close over my wrist, jerking me out of the aisle and into a dark, narrow space between the stacks. He pulls me deeper into the dark, turning me to push me against one of the shelves.

  “I don’t think this is—”

  “Don’t worry, Daisy. I work fast.” He breathes it into my ear, his hands closing over the lapels of my jacket to jerk it off my shoulders. His fingers fly down the delicate r
ow of buttons holding my shirt closed, quick and sure. “It’ll be over before you know it.”

  Jerking my shirt from the waistband of my skirt, he turns me again. The smell of old books fills my nose. The musty scent of timeworn paper pressed against my cheek. “Con—”

  “Shhh…” He’s behind me, the length of him hot and rigid against the curve of my ass. His lips press against a spot behind my ear before he whispers in it. “People are trying to study.”

  He’s right. We passed a few people hunkered down at study tables, heads buried in stacks of books, so engrossed that they didn’t even look up when we passed them.

  Instead of speaking, I nod.

  His mouth slips along the curve of my throat to the nape of my neck. I can feel his breath, hot and uneven against it, teeth scraping against the hard knot at the top of my spine. His hands fisted in my skirt, pulling it up so slowly I start to shake until it’s finally bunched around my hips.

  A hand slips around, fingers between my thighs, silently urging me to open them. I widen my stance, nearly groaning with relief when I feel his hand cup itself around me, the length of his callused middle finger pressed against the wet lace covering my throbbing pussy. “I bet you’ve been wet since the second you watched me walk through the door.” He breathes it in my ear, barely even a whisper.

  His other hand drifts upward, fingers skimming along the lace cup of my bra. Finding my nipple, he rolls it, plucking and squeezing until it’s hard and swollen between his fingers.

  He taps his finger against my slit, each rhythmic tap sending shockwaves through me, vibrating against my core, until I’m clenching my teeth, forehead pressed into the back of the bookshelf to keep myself from crying out.

  Like he knows how close I am, he releases me, both hands moving lower. Rough, blunt-tipped fingers curl around the waistband of my underwear, peeling delicate lace off my hips and down my legs until they fall to the floor completely.

  I don’t even think about it. Don’t hesitate. I step out of my panties and plant my feet further apart, giving him room to do what he wants to me.

  He sinks to his knees behind me, his palms smoothing over the curve of my ass. Fingers digging in, he pulls me closer. Thumbs slide lower, between my thighs, skimming the seam of me before gripping me, opening me from behind. He says something, too quiet for me to hear but I feel the breath of it, soft and warm against the heat of me. I feel it because his lips brush against mine with every word.

  Ohmygod.

  That’s the last coherent thought I have, right before he leans in to run his tongue up the center of me before flicking the tip of it against my clit.

  I moan, the sound of it trapped in my throat, eyes squeezed shut, hips tilting shamelessly against the pressure of his mouth. Pushing myself against his face. Asking for more.

  He makes another sound and this time I hear it, a growl, low and tight in his throat, shaped around a word.

  Henley.

  Fingers gripping even tighter, he pulls me closer. Buries his face in my pussy, teeth nipping and grazing over tender flesh. Lips and tongue, licking and sucking every inch of me he can reach, until he’s angling himself between my legs, my thighs quaking against his shoulders and I’m reaching between my legs to thread my fingers through his hair, holding on for dear life while he fucks me with his mouth. His tongue pushing into me, stroking and licking my clit.

  I can feel his fingers, skimming over the curve of my ass, the tips of them tracing gently over its cleft, brushing against the tight hole at its center. I gasp, can’t help it, when I feel him push against it, the slightest of pressures, stroking me there while his lips close over my clit, sucking it hard and fast.

  There is no gentle build. No warm spread of heat along the length of my spine. No tightening pressure in the pit of my belly.

  There’s only Conner.

  And then I’m coming, so hard and fast I can’t stop the scream that barrels its why up my throat. Before I can give it a voice, her reaches up and covers my open mouth with his hand. Surprised, I bite down, sinking my teeth into the side of his hand. He groans against me when my teeth make contact, but he doesn’t stop. Doesn’t move his hand away. He pushes it tighter against my mouth, while he keeps eating me, licking sucking my tender flesh until my fingers in his hair gripping so tight they start to cramp. My legs give out completely but he’s there, his arms hooked under me, holding me against him, my pussy quivering against his tongue and mouth while he keeps fucking me through my orgasm.

  Before I barely have time to recover, he’s standing, hands gripped around my shoulders, turning me until my back is against the bookcase, he leans into me and I think he’s going to kiss me. The thought of tasting myself on his mouth is almost more than I can bare.

  But he doesn’t kiss me.

  His lips graze past my cheek, finding my ear so he can whisper into it while he pulls my skirt down over my hips. “Pleasure doin’ business with you, Daisy.”

  And then he’s gone.

  Eleven

  Conner

  I take the stairs because I don’t want the elevator to spit me out into the atrium. I don’t want to have to cross it, feeling all those eyes on me. Not when I can still feel her. Hear her.

  Taste her.

  Not when I’m so fucking hard I can barely walk.

  I might not give a fuck about social decorum but even I know that rocking a horse-sized hard-on in a public building isn’t something that would be considered appropriate in polite society.

  So, I take the stairs, as fast as I can, cutting left when I hit the ground floor, so I can push through an exit that feeds directly into the parking lot. Climbing behind the wheel of my car, I start it up and slam it into reverse, tires chirping as I hit the brakes and press the clutch before shifting into 1st.

  It’s 4:35PM. I have twenty-five minutes.

  Thankfully, my shop is only a few blocks away. When I pull up, Lena Ford is blaring, and Tess is buried in the last of the service trucks. The same one she was working on when I left.

  Declan’s.

  It bothers me that she insists on working on it herself. Will argue with me when I try to do it. It bothers me but right now, it’s barely registering. I’ve got bigger things to work about than Tess’s low-key obsession with my dickface brother.

  Cutting the engine, I leave the keys dangling from the ignition. Popping the door, I leave it hanging open, in too much of a rush to bother closing it. Despite the racket she calls music, Tess notices me. Shouts at me as I streak past her.

  “Hey, I thought you were meeting—”

  “Forgot something,” I shout back, hitting the stairs to my apartment, taking them two at a time.

  She turns down the music. “Can you call Dickface and tell him his truck won’t be ready until tomorrow afternoon? It needs—”

  Again, I don’t let her finish. “Yup,” I bark at her before I knock my shoulder into the door, pushing my way through it before I slam it closed and lock it.

  I’ve got my pants worked open and jerked down around my hips before I even get to where I’m going, hand jammed into the front pocket of my jeans.

  I took her panties.

  Pulling them out, I fall back onto my bed, boots planted on the floor, fist clenched around the wad of silk and lace in my hand. They’re soaked. Still warm.

  Jesus.

  Tess is downstairs.

  She’s got her music up so loud she can’t hear shit.

  Henley is expecting me to pick her up in a matter of minutes.

  Henley.

  My cock twitches in response, a hard jerk that has me gritting my teeth around a deep, rumbling groan.

  Am I really doing this?

  Yeah, motherfucker, you’re doing this. You can’t be around her without wanting to fuck her. You can’t fuck her without wanting to kiss her and you can’t kiss her.

  You can’t.

  I can’t do this either. It’s wrong. Even I know that.

  Since when do you give a
fuck about wrong?

  Since it’s Henley.

  Wrong was agreeing to keep fucking her in the first place. Wrong was letting her make you pancakes and asking her to kiss her. You want to survive this, this is how you do it because you can’t fuck her and you’re physically incapable of fucking anyone else, so this is it. This is what you’ve got so, quit whining and get to work.

  Before I can let myself think my way around what I’m doing, I jerk my pants further down my hips, taking my boxer briefs with them. My cock practically jumps into my hand and I wrap her panties around it. Fisting them around the head, pre-come seeps through silk and lace, my arousal mingling with hers.

  Just like that, I don’t give a shit about right or wrong. What I can’t do and what I can. Should or shouldn’t. My brain finally shuts the fuck up.

  The silence is glorious.

  Giving myself a slow stroke, I pump my shaft from tip to base, again and again, until I’m thrusting my hips against the grip I have on my cock, her panties sliding along the hard, swollen length of it, each stroke I give myself harder and faster than the last.

  I think about kissing her last night. The way her lips felt against mine. Her tongue in my mouth. Swirling and licking against mine. The way she tasted. Sweet and sticky like maple syrup. Warm and salty like butter. Her hands in my hair, fingers gripped against my scalp, hard enough to hurt.

  Suddenly, it’s her hand wrapped around me, pumping and stroking up and down the shaft of my cock. I can feel her breath, hot and ragged against my neck. Her tongue tracing the ink on my chest. My neck. My bicep. The seam of my lips.

  I want you to kiss me.

  “Christ.” The curse rips itself up my throat, heat pooling at the base of my spine, seconds before my balls go tight, the orgasm spiraling up the length of my dick so fast and hard I have to clamp my hand around it to keep it from jerking itself out of my grip while spasm after spasm wash over me, hot spurts of semen lashing against my exposed stomach.