Page 76 of Connor's Claim
“You’re such an asshole,” she slurred.
Good. The sedative was already taking effect.
With a sigh, she placed her hand on my thigh. I enclosed it with mine and shifted it to my inner leg. Squeezed.
Everly moaned. “God, that was a deeply sexy move.”
With a wrench of the steering wheel, I pulled over, nothing around us but strips of grassland bordering concrete forecourts, and further on, the ‘Welcome to Deadwater’ sign. Once, Everly had told me how the city came to have such a grim name—something to do with the effect of the river water meeting the sea further down at the coast. It had been a big part of the draw for both Arran and me. It warned incomers of what to expect when they entered our city. Else the water take them away.
The cars monitoring us formed a defensive position, one crew member popping his door but holding off when I lifted a pausing hand.
From the hedgerow, I picked a spray of autumn wildflowers. Tall stems of tiny white and yellow blooms and stiff grasses. Took them back to the car and handed them to Everly.
“You always loved flowers.”
“You giving them to me while half naked and covered in blood is doing something strange to my heart.” Her hand rested softly on her chest.
Right over the heart that belonged to me.
All I knew was how mine would fucking break if she reasoned and excused away our history. I’d loved Everly Makepeace since I was sixteen years old and I’d never once stopped.
For much longer, I wouldn’t be able to hide the fact her father had me by the balls. With a single phone call, he could put me behind bars, and I’d be taken away from Everly for good. Which meant, as always, that to gain the future I wanted, I needed to act first.
Chapter 25
Everly
The red bricks of the warehouse had soft edges, and I glided my fingertips over them, exhaling with happiness at being home. Connor’s sedative had wrapped everything in cotton wool. My brain, my limbs, my emotions. In the car, my muscles had cramped, an apparent side effect, but it eased, and my eyes longed to sink closed.
The door for the lift pinged. I hadn’t even noticed us reaching it.
“Don’t fall asleep,” Connor whispered in my ear.
He tried to guide me into the lift, but I stalled.
Music competed from the two sides of the building, merging into something new. People milled around us, women in tight clothes or black skeleton t-shirts, depending on where they worked. Upstairs, the ladies would happily walk around naked.
I could never do that.
Even after the display Connor had arranged for me with Tabitha and her two men.
“Two dicks,” I said on a breath.
Connor laughed. “Ye sound high. That drug is only meant to relax ye, which makes me think you’d be a fuck load more adventurous if ye didn’t have cause to worry all the time.”
The lift started to move. When did we go inside?
Connor sank to his knees in front of me.
He slid his hands into my leggings and pulled them down, ridding me of them plus my shoes and socks. Luckily, the long t-shirt he’d lent me covered my ass or any cameras in here would get an eyeful.
Desire tightened my insides. A bloom of heat that was all the more potent for everything else being muted.
“Can we go to the brothel?” I asked.
“I’m covered in blood. I can get away with it downstairs in the staff areas. Naw where members of the public might see.” Connor drove his thumbs up my thighs, taking the shirt’s hem with him. He kissed my underwear, right over my clit. “But on Friday night when the game is running, we can play there. Whatever ye want to do is good with me.”
I touched his hair. My fingers came away red.