“Hi babe,” he whispered as he dropped his forehead to hers and inhaled the scent of her. She was wearing her usual perfume and it was playing with his senses and triggering memories that were only increasing his hunger for her. He didn’t dare kiss her, she’d probably slap him. Worse still, it wouldn’t make him stop ravaging her lips; if he started he would not stop.
“You promised me no contact,” she hissed.
“Actually, if you think back, you’ll find that I didn’t promise anything.” He twirled a chocolate-brown curl around his finger. God he’d missed these wild ringlets. “I’d known deep down that I’d never be able to keep that promise.”
So he’d just stayed quiet and let her believe what she wanted? “You devious little -”
“Not devious, babe, just someone who won’t give my word on something unless I’m positive I can keep it. Just someone who really needed to see you.”
She bit back a growl. “I’m not one of your women who’ll hop, skip and shag you whenever you turn up. Go home, Connor.”
Seeing that she was about to walk away, he sighed. “I had a feeling you wouldn’t be reasonable.” He shrugged. “You only have yourself to blame for this.” With that he scooped her up and threw her over his shoulder.
“What the hell are you doing?! Put me down!”
“Can’t, Jaxx, sorry. We need to talk.” As he headed for the elevator he noticed Ollie gawping at them. Connor raised an eyebrow, daring Ollie to intervene. The bloke just shrugged and sighed as if defeated.
“If I wanted to talk to you I’d have phoned!”
He smiled when he felt her reaching down under the waistline of his jeans, searching for his boxers. “You’re wasting your time on that one, I’m going Commando. You’ll also notice that I fastened a belt around my jeans so you couldn’t pull them up the crack of my arse.” Cursing him, she kicked her legs and beat his back with her fists. “As much as I love feeling you rubbing against me like this, you should know that the more you squirm the higher your dress is riding up your thighs. I don’t mind getting a flash but I’m not sure you’ll want everyone else to get a good look at your Brazilian.”
She growled as he stepped into an elevator – an elevator that wasn’t empty! Although she stopped squirming she resumed punching his lower back, then took to scratching him under his t-shirt.
“Mmmm. That’s it, babe, I love it when you scratch me.”
“We’ll see if you love it when I ram the heel of my shoe up your rusty bullet hole!”
“Dirty talk already, Jaxx?”
She continued to struggle. “Connor Lee McKenzie -”
“I’m getting my full title? You must really be fuming with me right now.”
Growling, she got to work on his lower back again. Then she jerked and gasped in shock as a hand came down hard on her arse. “You just spanked me!” she said disbelievingly. And in an elevator in front of people! Oh she was so going to kill him.
“God I’ve missed doing that.”
“You’ll be missing your balls as well!”
Exiting the elevator on the fourth floor, he took long, quick strides to the luxurious suite he’d checked into only minutes ago. Once inside he advanced straight to the bedroom and plonked a still struggling and cursing Jaxx on the huge double bed. Before she had a chance to launch herself at him he flipped her onto her stomach and pressed his body weight down on her while he secured her wrists with the cuffs he’d had waiting on the headboard.
“Ohhhhhhhhhhhh you sadistic twat!”
He then slid down her body, keeping his weight over her, until he reached her ankles which he also cuffed to the bed, leaving her in a fantastic starfish pose. “Sorry, Jaxx, but I had to be prepared in case you wouldn’t listen to me.”
“You think this will make me want to listen?”
“Well no but it does mean you’ll have to.” He settled down beside her but she turned her head away. Propping himself up on one elbow, he drew circles on her back through her dress – a dress that had a long zip that stopped at her pelvis, begging to be lowered.
“Don’t touch me!”
“I’m just trying to relax you, babe.”
“Just tell me what you want. Oh hang on, let me guess, you were passing by and thought you’d drop in for a quickie.”
“Actually I’ve just got off a very long flight to here from London to see you.”
“Why? Haven’t you got over that addiction yet?” She snickered, trying to veil just how her body was responding to his touch. “Or was it that you heard some rumour about me being with another bloke and felt compelled to come and scare him off with the caveman routine?”
“I’ll be honest and say that it has been playing on my mind that you might be with someone, and I just can’t have that, Jaxx.”
“Oh so you get to have as many bed-buddies as you like while I have to live the life of a bleeding nun?”
“I haven’t been with anyone since you.” Needing to taste her skin again, he kissed her shoulder.
She snorted. “Like I’d believe that.”
“It’s true.” He trailed kisses along her shoulder to her nape. Her answering shudder relieved him. She was still responsive to him even if she wished she wasn’t.
“Stop kissing and touching me.”
“I can’t, babe, I’ve missed you so fucking much. Everything in that apartment reminded me of you and having the dog didn’t help.”
“I told Tony to take him.”
“I kept him.”
Shocked, she almost laughed. “Why?”
He buried his face in her soft, silky hair, loving the scent of her strawberry shampoo. “He was all I had left of you and I didn’t know how to let go. I didn’t want to either.”
That had her backpedalling. The combination of his words and his relaxing touches – that were, unfortunately, still managing to feed her craving for him – had her melting into the mattress and calming. It was nice to know she wasn’t turning frigid. “It’s not enough that you missed me, Connor.”
“I know, I know.” Unable to stop himself, he slowly lowered the zipper on her dress.
“Connor, no -”
“Please, babe, I need this, I need to touch you.” Lightly he ran his fingertips along her back.
“If you know it’s not enough then why are you here? On the off-chance that I might be up for a one-off shag?”
After a deep, preparatory breath, he said, “You remember I told you that my sister died? What I didn’t tell you was that my dad killed her.” Her head instantly whipped round to face him, her expression one of shock. “He used to knock my mum and me and Selina about all the time. One day, she was eleven, he took it too far. Me and my mum walked in as he was finishing her off, he was so smashed he didn’t even realise how much damage he’d done.”
“That’s why you always hated him so much,” she whispered, recalling the times she’d tried to get him to stop wasting energy on hating him.
He nodded. “The reason my mum found it so easy to dump me onto social services when her boyfriend asked was because she couldn’t bear the sight of me. She said I looked too much like him, I reminded her of him. And I had his temper. You know what? Before that she was a good mum, a good person. What he did just messed her up. He messed up her life and mine and, worse, ended Selina’s. I was terrified she was right and I was like him; that I might have it in me to hurt a kid or a woman or mess up people’s lives.”
“So you decided not to have a family.”
“I didn’t cry when Selina died, you know. Or when my mum dumped me. I came close but never did. I don’t ever remember crying much as a kid. I thought if I couldn’t even cry when my own sister died then I couldn’t have really loved her, and if I couldn’t love my own sister then I was someone who just couldn’t love at all. That was what I reasoned.”