by Aycart, Elle
“Con, wait. Slow down,” she let out, panting. “Please. I’m about to—”
She didn’t get to finish her sentence. She tensed and came right there in his arms, his kisses muffling her ragged moans as she disintegrated into a thousand pieces.
He got even more intense, riding her orgasm, fisting her hair and controlling her head as he raked his teeth over her throat. He released her hands, only to turn her around. He caressed her ass roughly, pulling the bikini bottoms aside, positioning himself. His hand was trailing lower, to her core… and then he stopped dead in his tracks. “Fuck. Sorry,” he croaked, abruptly releasing her and putting some distance between them.
It took a moment for her to understand what was going on. She grabbed the edge of the pool and fought to find her voice. “This is the first time someone has apologized for giving me an orgasm.”
“Sorry,” he repeated, backtracking, his hands going up as they had that first night when he realized he’d attacked her. His expression wasn’t much different either. “I almost fucked you. This can’t happen again.” He jumped out of the pool and, dripping water, grabbed his discarded clothing.
The ladder was close by, so she got out of the pool herself and stopped him. “Why can’t this happen again? What’s wrong?”
“Get away from me.” He all but bit the words out.
“Are you afraid you’ll hurt me during sex? Is that it? You didn’t hurt me.” He wanted her; that much was clear.
“Being around me is dangerous.”
“Don’t I get a vote?” she asked, crossing her arms.
“Fucking drop it,” he warned between clenched teeth and, looking mighty pissed, stormed away.
Yep. Apparently she didn’t get a vote.
* * *
Connor had come to the gym late in the evening, just a couple of hours before closing time, hoping to be alone. He’d already run on the treadmill and gone one round through the weight machines. He’d been jumping rope for a while now, his hoodie drenched. He’d always liked training. It helped him to decompress. Unwind. Now it had become an absolute necessity. It was either sweat it out or take up drinking. He’d seen from other soldiers where that road ended, with a barrel in his mouth and a bullet in his brain, so no, thank you. He’d stick to sweating it out.
He saw Mike walking his way. The gym owner stopped near a pillar and leaned on it, his arms crossed over his chest, a smile on his face. “Haven’t seen you much around here.”
Con shrugged. “Aren’t you busy?”
“Nah. Closing time soon. You want to stop jumping rope and spar with me?”
Con faltered. His aggression levels were off the charts; that’s why he’d avoided sparring, but if anyone could take him on, it was Mike, hands down.
He nodded and dropped the rope off to the side.
“So, what sort of business came up at the inn the other day?” Mike asked as they were putting on boxing gloves. At Con’s grunt, he continued, “Stop me whenever you want, but I reckon Rach saw correctly and it was you with Audrey that night at the party.”
“I was helping her remodel the cottage.”
“Is that what they call it nowadays?” Mike asked, smirking.
“Just put the mouthpiece in and shut up, will you?”
Mike laughed. “Why are you so tense, man?”
“I’m always tense,” Con grumbled.
“True, you’ve never been a bucket of laughs since you joined the military, but you’re extra tense these days.”
Could be. He hadn’t slept worth a shit since that night in the pool, almost a week ago. He’d arrived home, still dripping water, fuming at himself for crossing the line with Audrey. And with a motherfucking hard-on that had taken a century to go down.
He should have known better than to put his hands on her. He should never have jumped into that pool. Heck, he should have stopped sneaking onto the inn grounds long ago. Too bad he hadn’t been able to. He’d wanted her so fucking badly—her touch, her laugh, her company. Still did. Although he hadn’t wanted to admit it to himself, he craved being with her, so he’d kept going back to the inn like an imbecile, playing with fire. Which pissed him off to no end, because he knew he was teetering on the brink, and at any moment he could go crashing down. He’d rather go alone; no need to drag anyone with him.
He was almost certain he wouldn’t hurt her during sex. He’d been on the verge of ripping her bikini off and fucking her in the pool, so turned on he’d been about to lose his mind. His heart had been pumping like mad, his breathing heavy, his body alert, heightened, tense, and hypersensitive. Yet he hadn’t freaked out, nor had all that adrenaline triggered a panic reaction. He’d just been dying to fuck her.
Or that’s how it had felt to him. But he wasn’t 100 percent sure. What if he lost it in the middle of having sex? Or heard a dog bark or smelled something that reminded him of what had happened to him?
Everything came down to one inescapable point; in his current condition, Con was a ticking bomb. Dangerous. And more so to Audrey, because she required from him an intimacy that scared the living shit out of him.
Yet these last few days without her had been excruciating.
Thank fucking God, Mike’s chattiness ended once they got the head protection on and the mouthpiece in. Not a second too soon, in Con’s mind.
They started circling each other and soon went head-to-head. Man, he’d forgotten what a formidable opponent Mike was. Whatever Con threw at him, Mike threw back and more. Connor could let loose without fear and he did, until they were both on the floor, sweating and breathing hard.
Con took off his helmet and mouthpiece. Mike followed suit. “You haven’t lost your touch,” he said.
Thank God, otherwise Mike would have finished him. As it stood, he was going to have problems making it home.
“By the way,” Mike continued. “I heard Greta’s already been scheduled for a court-mandated session with a shrink. Need backup? My grandmother and Wilma are planning to go to show their support.”
“Nah, I can manage it.” Or so Con hoped.
Con gestured toward a kid who had been watching them, in between picking up gym equipment and putting it in its correct places. “Who’s that?”
“XL. One of Rachel and Adrian’s kids. The punks Adrian tries to rehabilitate.”
“Right.” Con had heard something about them from the OGs. “XL as in short for…”
“XL,” Mike stated with a sigh. “He’s working here and at Rachel’s garage, and he’s renting the apartment upstairs. Monti and Ash have also finished the court-appointed classes, and they’re at Rachel’s almost daily. You haven’t met them yet?”
He’d probably seen them but hadn’t realized it.
Then Sara, Mike’s little sister, walked toward the punk, who greeted her with a kiss on the lips.
“And that?” Con asked, amused at Mike’s grunt.
“Don’t even ask. Let’s hit the showers and go home, neighbor.”
Con stiffened. “I’d rather run home to unwind. I’ll shower when I get there.”
If it had been someone else, the silence between them would have felt uncomfortable. Not with Mike.
“Con.” Mike’s voice sounded serious again. Too serious. “What exactly happened?”
“You already asked me that, remember? In my back yard?”
“Yes, I remember,” Mike muttered. “I remember me asking for specifics and not getting any.”
“And what makes you think you’ll get them now?” Con asked, struggling to get up. “Thanks for kicking my ass. I needed it.” Tonight he was going to sleep, even if only for two hours straight. Even that would be a noteworthy feat under the circumstances.
Con felt Mike’s stare while he gathered his bag and left the gym. Mike hadn’t bought for a second his reason for running home, but whatever. He was respectful enough not to ask.
Once outside, Con realized there was a storm on the way. A big one, by the looks of the sky and how strongly the wind
was blowing. He’d barely made it to his car when it started pouring like crazy. Early summer storms were very unpredictable around these parts. More than once he’d had to wrestle with the weather to secure a boat or risk losing it. Dread filled his stomach.
She wouldn’t be that stupid, would she? She would have anticipated the storm, right?
The engine roared to life. Making the best he could of the shitty visibility he had, he drove as fast as possible to the inn. By the time he made it there, it was raining so hard the windshield wipers weren’t helping jack shit.
He ran toward the lakeshore and saw what he’d feared: Audrey struggling to secure the Jet Ski to the dock. It looked like she had already tied down the pedal boats, but the Jet Ski was too heavy for her.
Panic knotted his stomach. The wind was blowing so hard, it would be very easy for Audrey to get knocked down and lose consciousness. Once unconscious, she could drown. She wouldn’t be the first one either.
He dashed toward the dock. Audrey was losing the battle. She was going to fall into the water if she didn’t let go—which, damn her, she wasn’t doing. He made it to her and grabbed her robe just as she was about to go flying. Either her legs had given way, or his sudden arrival had tipped the scales in her favor, because she landed on her ass.
“Con?” she yelled over the wind.
He didn’t bother answering. It took a while before he got control of the situation and secured the Jet Ski. Then they ran for the refuge of the cottage’s porch.
“What the fuck were you thinking?” he roared once they made it there. The fear he’d felt for her had transformed into anger now that she was not in danger anymore. “Were you trying to kill yourself?”
She’d been smiling sweetly at him before he opened his mouth. Well, before he looked at her with laser beams shooting from his eyes, actually. Now her expression was guarded and her lips pressed into a prim line. “I was securing the—”
“You should have done that earlier, damn it! As soon as you saw the black clouds!”
Her back straightened. “I was busy. I didn’t realize it would get this bad this fast. The second I saw the rain, I ran to the dock.”
“Too late. Next time, forget whatever you have on the dock. No machinery is worth risking your life.”
Her soft snort caught his attention. “Well, you aren’t the one stuck with the ginormous bill for that machinery.”
Fuck him, this chick couldn’t shut up to save her life.
His expression must have been forbidding, because she harrumphed but lowered her gaze and shut up.
“Thank you,” she said in a whisper after a long moment. “Thank you for saving my butt.” Then she let out a nervous giggle. “It only took an act of nature to make you come back, but you did.”
He looked at her. He didn’t want to, but he couldn’t help it. She was drenched; her hair was stuck to her head and her clothes to her body. She was shivering and her nipples were poking through her very transparent shirt. Fuck, he needed to get out of there before he wrapped her in his arms and took her for himself, dooming them both to hell.
“Let’s get dry. I think I have some towels in here,” she offered, gesturing to the cottage, a smile flitting over her beautiful face.
He took a step back. Then another, until he was again in the rain.
She stared at him in confusion. “Where are you going? Stay. If you don’t want to talk to me, you don’t have to. I’ll be quiet. Or I’ll go back to the inn and leave you alone if you don’t want to see me. You don’t have to leave.”
Yes, he had to.
“Stay the fuck away from the shore until this blows over,” he growled, and ignoring her pleas, he turned around and ran away, leaving her there alone.
Chapter Six
Connor opened the door of the shrink’s office for the OGs. “Wait over there. I’ll let the receptionist know you’re here.”
Greta sighed out loud and sat in the waiting room. Her two friends followed suit.
“Don’t worry, dear,” Rebecca said. “We’re here for you.”
“You didn’t have to attend en masse,” Connor pointed out, coming back and sitting with them. “I have everything under control.”
Greta smiled, patting Connor’s knee. She knew he would never let anything happen to her.
“We know, but we’re here for moral support,” Wilma said.
“And to make sure this shrink doesn’t try anything funny,” Rebecca added.
Connor frowned. “Funny like what?”
The three looked at each other and rolled their eyes. They didn’t mean to be condescending but come on. With age came wisdom.
“You go to see a shrink because you’re a bit down, and the next thing you know, you’re singing over the cuckoo’s nest,” Greta said.
“Flying, dear, flying,” Wilma clarified.
“True. Flying lobotomized.”
Connor let out a dry bark and shook his head.
“Where’s the bathroom?” Wilma asked.
Greta lifted her index finger and looked around. “Hmm… left-hand side down the corridor. Last door.” Con’s brow furrowed. Before he could ask, she shrugged and continued, “It’s my superpower. Wherever I go, I’m always the first one to find the bathroom.”
“Okay, but please try not to mention that to the shrink. Just in case.”
Con stood up. Crossing his arms over his chest, he walked to the window and looked through it. His jaw was clenched, his body radiating tension.
“What’s wrong with him?” Rebecca asked in a whisper.
“Not sure.” Although Greta had her suspicions. He was back to not eating and not sleeping, and he was in a foul mood. Con had always been a merry, sweet boy. Being in the military had sobered him up a lot, but the Connor who came out of the military wasn’t only stoic but withdrawn and tense.
While he’d been visiting the inn, he’d improved somewhat. He’d seemed more relaxed, not so much on edge. Something must have happened, because he wasn’t going there anymore. Greta had stopped by and tried to get some intel, as the youngsters said nowadays, but Audrey had been as tight-lipped as Connor. The innkeeper had been sick as a dog with the flu after getting caught in the storm, so maybe that was the reason. Whatever the case, she’d smiled and been polite, but when it came to Connor, she’d clamped down and just said he stopped coming. Those two must have had some sort of falling out. The OGs would have to work their magic to change that.
“Let’s talk later,” Greta whispered. She knew they were all not only legally blind, but deaf also. Probably the people in the neighboring room could hear their whispers.
Wilma came back from the bathroom, sat down, rummaged in her bag, and produced some sort of device that looked like a cell phone, only bigger. Was that one of those tablets Greta had seen kids use?
“Rachel gave me her old e-reader,” Wilma offered before anyone could ask. “She told me we can choose the size of the font, so this should be great for us.”
It took a while before they figured out how to do that, but they finally managed it. If Con hadn’t been in a funk—and miles away by the looks of it—he would have done it for them.
“Let’s see what books she has in here,” Rebecca said.
They got to the main menu and pressed on the first book in a long list. Rachel must have been reading that one, because it opened in the middle.
They hadn’t been reading too long before they started to sweat.
“Holy cannoli, Wilma,” Rebecca whispered, grabbing a magazine and fanning herself with it. “The old man inside your cell phone’s got nothing on this one.”
Greta wholeheartedly agreed.
* * *
“The grass is getting a bit long, don’t you think?” Red asked Audrey as they watched people arrive at the pool for the party.
Yeah. Her house elf had gone AWOL. He was avoiding her, not even trusting the cover of night to sneak in. But Audrey couldn’t say that to Red, because it would involve telling her why.
She wasn’t sure why, and what she did know, she wasn’t at liberty to tell. As far as Audrey knew, no one was aware of Con’s condition but her. “I think the grass is fine.”
That poor attempt didn’t derail Red. “I also noticed Con hasn’t been around since the day he helped you wallpaper the cottage.”
“He’s probably busy. He never agreed to be our official gardener, so there’s nothing we can do. I’ll start looking for one.” It shouldn’t be too hard. Con had taken care of a big share of the installation work, so now it was mostly a matter of upkeep.
Red’s nostrils flared. She was losing patience. “Do you understand that the window in my room faces the pool?” Red had needed a place to stay, so in exchange for a reduced salary, she was living in the room next to Audrey’s.
Audrey turned to her, outraged. “You were spying on us?”
“Me?” Red’s face showed outrage too. Faked, Audrey thought. “Abso-fucking-lutely. It was totally accidental at first. Then I just had to watch to the end of the soap opera. What bug crawled up his ass? I couldn’t hear well.”
“Oh God.” Audrey tried to remember which rooms had views of the pool, and of those, which ones had been occupied that night.
Red laughed. “Don’t worry. You guys were very well hidden. I don’t think any of our clients saw. Or heard. It just so happens I have thirty-ten vision in each eye. So answer me, what was the issue?”
Audrey shrugged. “Maybe he didn’t like me enough.” Although she was convinced that wasn’t the case. Con was hiding something. He wanted her—much more than he was ready to admit, which probably scared him into pushing her away. She was attracted to him, and not only because he looked at her and she got wet. There was something in Con that called out to her. He was tough and vulnerable at the same time, and that combination tugged at her heart. She would have loved to have hugged him that day, cradled him, but she hadn’t been allowed. The second even a drop of blood had been rerouted to his brain, he’d wrenched away from her.