by Chloe Cox
But then there was his hand on the side of her face, his fingers through her hair. The urgency of his lips, his tongue, his body pressed against hers. The heat spreading from every place he touched her to her core, her chest, and her heart.
She couldn’t stop it if she’d tried. Conor Kelly kissed her in her own living room, and something inside her started to unfurl. Like for the first time in her life she was able to accept what was offered.
And with that, she melted.
Conor kept her standing, holding her against him. When he pulled away it was only to look at her, to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear.
And then it was to undress her.
Neither of them said a word as pushed first one strap over her shoulder, then the other. As he slid his hands over her breasts, unclasped her bra and let it fall. As he knelt, for the first time, in front of her, for a second letting his face rest against her belly, inhaling, nibbling, biting. Then her underwear was off, pooled at her feet, and she was naked.
Not for the first time. Not with him. But for the first time she was practically shivering with…what even was this? An electric joy that danced along her collar bones, her chest, her thighs. She shuddered every time he touched her, and it was like there was too much feeling. Nowhere for it to go, just escaping in little quakes, little jolts. She felt like she was balanced on the edge of something.
Conor stood up in front of her, watching her. Drinking her in. In a moment of insanity, Sierra moved to cover herself. He caught her hands, grinning, and she almost laughed out loud. It made no sense, except that this…
This was raw.
And then Conor wasn’t smiling anymore. She’d never seen him look like this, before. Never seen him as anything but in control.
He lifted her up and carried her into her own bedroom. Let her pull his tank top over his head as he did, let her hands roam everywhere they could reach, just needing to feel the warmth of his skin, the roughness of his hair, the slippery hardness of muscle sliding under skin.
He placed her on the bed, gently, like she was precious. Cherished. And when he spread her legs, she knew to stay like that, so he could see her as he undressed.
Just looking at him, standing there, naked in the moonlight from the skylight above. He was so beautiful. The tattoos winding up his arms, the muscles breathing under his skin, all across his torso. Powerful legs, broad shoulders, and a massive, shining erection, slick already with precum. Even from there, she could see his pulse in the vein. Her stomach fluttered in time, her legs still spread, her body open to him.
Conor prowled onto the bed, his eyes on hers. Sierra sighed as she felt his naked body on hers, completely, her legs wrapping around his back, her arms his neck. His skin on her skin. His hands in hers, pinning her back.
He entered her slowly, so slowly. He filled her until she felt like she was drowning in him. Until the rest of the world fell away completely.
Neither of them said a word.
Conor woke up slowly. That was the first tell.
The second was the warm body draped over his that felt like fucking home.
Usually he woke up immediately. No hazy transition from sleep to reality. Eyes open, alert and ready, one moment to the next. He never let go enough to sleep so deeply that he let his guard down.
Except, apparently, tonight. Sierra was wrapped around him, her skin warm and smooth and soft against his, her scent sweet in the air.
Conor replayed the night in his mind. He’d crossed every line that mattered. She’d started talking about how she still had hope in her brother and something wild had broken free inside him. He couldn’t tell her the truth, so he’d shown it to her. That was how it felt at the time.
Made no fucking sense now. What truth was that? Conor didn’t know. But he remembered how it had felt. He couldn’t remember ever feeling like that before in his life. His whole body alive with it.
He sure as shit hadn’t been able to feel anything like that anytime recently. Maybe even since his sister died. She had been the first to go. Then Mikey, then Granny. That was the last funeral.
It felt like he was awake for the first fucking time since then.
Sierra stirred slightly in his arms and he settled her, like they’d been sleeping together for years. He hadn’t wanted to wake her after she fell asleep on his chest. Now that he was awake he knew there was something wrong with it. Some reason this was a bad idea, swirling around his half-awake head. Like an animal circling the bed in the dark. But he was telling it to fuck off for now.
His sub had needed him. He’d needed her. That was enough.
And then he realized why he’d woken up at all.
Sierra’s phone started to ring again in the other room, where she’d left it. He recognized the ring. It was the middle of the night, but he recognized the ring.
“Princess,” he said, stroking her cheek with his thumb.
She woke up groggy. It was adorable as hell. She wasn’t thinking like he was, wasn’t aware. Just slid off of him and padded into the living room naked, looking for her phone. She caught it just before it buzzed off the kitchen island.
Conor knew something was coming as she pressed the phone to her ear, and her shoulders tensed.
Then she turned back around, and he knew whatever it was, was here.
“It’s Tiffany,” she said.
Twenty-Three
The voice of the man on the other end of the phone had been tense, almost angry.
“Be here in twenty minutes or I’m dumping her on the street,” he’d said. “I can’t have this shit in here.”
“I’ll be there,” Sierra had said, her knuckles going white. “Please. Please.”
“Is that Sierra?” Tiffany’s voice, watery and faded, could be heard in the background. “Don’t bother Sierra, she’s so busy.”
“Please,” Sierra had said into the phone again. “I’ll be there.”
And the man had hung up.
Sierra had stared in hopeless terror at her phone for what felt like an eternity but was only long enough for the man who had called her from Tiffany’s phone to send her an address.
After that, it had been a little bit of a blur.
Conor, rising in her bed, his face alert, calm, concerned. In charge, already. He’d helped her throw herself together, been ready to go without question in under a minute. Had projected this confidence, this sense that he could and would handle whatever came next, and for a little while it had helped her to feel calm even as she rushed around trying to get out of the house as fast as possible.
They would go to the dealer’s house or wherever it was, get Tiffany, bring her to the hospital if necessary. It would be ok. It was going to be ok.
And then, in the car, Conor asked for the address.
Sierra gave it to him.
For the first time, Conor paused. Then he looked at her. She was sitting in the front seat of the car this time, right next to him, also for the first time. They hadn’t talked about it, she’d just done it. And now he was looking directly at her.
“That’s in Winter Hill,” he said.
“Yes,” she said.
“This a dealer’s house?” he said.
Sierra couldn’t say it. Silently, she nodded. A house, a drug den, an office, whatever. Same thing.
Conor didn’t say anything. Just nodded back, and gunned the engine.
And then there was the silence. Conor concentrating on the road as he broke all possible speed limits, and possibly land speed records, the orange lights above them on the Harvard Bridge strobing through into the car, illuminating the space between them in discrete moments of time.
Moments when Sierra had plenty of time to think, her mind racing as fast as the car.
She hadn’t had time to think about Conor and her and what sleeping together — really sleeping together, in her own bed — meant, let alone anything else. No time to ask him what he wanted, assuming she’d have had the courage to do that. She’d been half awake b
efore her phone rang, lying on top of him, breathing him in. Letting herself, for the first time in a long, long time, just enjoy herself. Letting herself believe that something good might actually be happening. That Conor might want her. The real her.
And now…
Now he was going to see the worst parts of her, all at once.
For a heart-struck, frozen moment, Sierra wished they were going anywhere else. About to do anything at all other than what they were about to do, where Conor would see her past and the parts of herself she was most ashamed of. Because she knew what would happen after that.
She’d get her stupid heart broken.
But it didn’t matter. Tiffany needed her, in a way Sierra once needed someone, so it didn’t matter what it cost her. Besides, she shouldn’t want a guy who didn’t want the real her, right? Who she had to hide from?
Sierra looked out the window as Conor sped deep into Somerville along little-used back roads and willed herself not to cry. She needed to deal with Tiffany. And she just prayed that this time wasn’t worse than the last time. She was working so hard she almost didn’t notice when they came to a stop.
“We’re here,” Conor said. “Stay right here and do not open the doors for anyone but me.”
“Wait, what?” Sierra said. But Conor was already getting out of the car.
Sierra followed him.
“I need to go get her,” she said.
“You are not going in there,” Conor said, through gritted teeth. “I don’t want you to see any of that.”
Sierra looked at him across the hood of that fancy, bullet-proof silver car. They didn’t have time for this. But Conor was looking at her like he did when he was determined to protect her, with that primal ferocity. That intensity roiling beneath the surface, his ice blue eyes glowing, his shoulders tight, his hands balled into fists.
Like he could protect her from it. Like it wasn’t something she already knew all about.
And suddenly the idea of Conor caring about a version of Sierra that wasn’t the whole truth was just too lonely to bear thinking about.
“What makes you think I haven’t seen it all before?” she said.
Conor watched her, his shoulders relaxing, his eyes boring into her. He waited. Unperturbed. Waited, knowing she would filling the silence.
Goddamn Doms.
“That could be me in there, Conor,” Sierra heard herself say.
No. Say it all. Say the whole truth.
Just this fucking once, bear it all.
“That was me in there,” she said. “Once upon a time.”
There it was. The truth.
And the truth was that when Sierra first got her party girl image, she’d earned it. She hadn’t known how to deal with her loneliness, with her fear, with basically anything, and no one had ever taught her. So she dulled it all in the usual ways. Which led to less usual ways. Which led to the decidedly dangerous ways.
Such a freaking cliche.
She’d never gone to rehab. She’d never even told anyone she thought she had a problem. She’d been too ashamed of why she’d used in the first place, of the fact that she’d lost control, of the fact that she had every privilege possible and still couldn’t hack it. She was ashamed that she’d been so lonely as a kid that she concluded there must be something wrong with her, and that she still, in her heart of hearts, believed that might be true.
But she’d escaped. She’d rented a house by herself, hadn’t told anyone where she would be, and she’d thrown her phone out the window on the way there. And then she’d toughed it out alone on the tiled floor of a seaside cottage far away from anything she’d ever known, and she hadn’t touched anything stronger than a polite half glass of champagne since.
So Sierra had gotten out. But Tiffany hadn’t. She’d only fallen in worse while Sierra was away, partially because she’d been freaking out about where Sierra was, and ever since it had been this thing between them, no matter how hard Sierra tried. So she’d left Tiffany once. She wouldn’t abandon her again.
Even if it cost her Conor.
Ridiculous. A man who hadn’t even… a man who wasn’t even really hers. And yet she was watching his face so carefully, in this endless, eternal second, so, so carefully, for any clue about what he was feeling. About what he was thinking.
About what he thought about her.
And she saw it.
There was a flash in his eyes, a passing shadow, a twist in his features like he was fighting something. And then it faded, and she watched him pull inside himself. Watched him lock it all down, leaving just one side of himself visible.
Conor the Dom.
“You will stay behind me,” he said, finally. “Understood?”
“Yes,” she said, nodding. “Yes.”
“Let’s go.”
She couldn’t worry about it now. Instead she was just grateful for his confidence, his calm certainty as he walked up to the residential door of the old, wooden building. So old, made of rotting wood peeling several layers of paint, so that the years were visible in color: dark purple over a faded green, over a ghostly brown. Three stories, probably two apartments each on the upper floors, the lower occupied by a closed convenience store with ghostly-empty shelves. The whole building sagged to the left in a defeated shrug and the door simply opened when Conor pulled on it. No lock, no latch.
The entryway smelled. The stairs were uneven. The seconds ticked on as Sierra hurried up after Conor in silence, neither of them knowing exactly what they were going to find.
2R.
Conor pounded on the door, somehow saying “do not fuck with me” with his closed fist. The door opened a crack and Conor pushed it in, saying as he did, “No trouble. I’m here for Tiffany, care of Sierra.”
The door opened, whether the man behind it wanted it to or not, and Sierra rushed inside.
Fuck. So much worse than she’d thought. So much worse than the last time.
Sierra didn’t waste time taking in her surroundings, though she knew she’d think about it later. For right now, there was just Tiffany sprawled out on a lumpy brown couch, her dress halfway up her thighs, her skin pale.
“Tiffany,” she whispered as she tried to gather her friend in her arms, “Tiff, I need you to talk to me. Can you wake up, Tiff? Wake up for me. Please, Tiff.”
Her own voice, the words that it made, seemed nonsensical, right up until the moment when Tiffany smiled slightly, her eyes still closed, her lips still blue around the edges.
“I’m sorry,” she said, slowly, so slowly.
“Where’s your Narcan?”
Conor’s voice intruded, made Sierra start to cry. Because he was right. Fuck, he was right. Tiffany needed fucking Narcan, and Sierra wanted to cry.
The dealer, who Sierra hadn’t even looked at, just followed in her periphery as the bearded, blurry piece of crap who was partially responsible for this, began to move. There were sounds, boxes open, papers shuffling.
“I fucked up, didn’t I?” Tiffany said, and opened her eyes. She couldn’t quite focus them, but kept trying. “I can’t leave you alone on your birthday. I’m the only one who knows…”
“Shhh,” Sierra said. “Don’t even think about that. We’re going to get you to the hospital, and it’s going to be fine.”
Sierra said it, and realized she had to believe it. She had to.
She couldn’t lose Tiffany.
And then Conor was there, crouching down in front of her, doing the difficult thing. Sierra had never seen one of those needles before. She’d made sure she never had to. She would have no idea what to do with it, would have fumbled with the instructions, even now was wanting to scream, thinking about how the dealer could have done it. Should have done it.
But Conor was there to do it. And in another second, he drove the needle into Tiffany’s thigh, and Sierra caught her friend as she woke up to hell.
After that, it was all a blur to Sierra. All of it except the few moments that burned themselves right into h
er permanent memory.
Tiffany had come to screaming, and that had made a terrible kind of sense. Apparently getting an injection of Narcan was like going into immediate, intense opiate withdrawal. It hurt, and Tiffany had never been shy with her feelings. Sierra caught her, held her, while somehow Conor got them in the back seat of the car and raced over to Mass General in record time, carrying Tiffany into the fluorescently bright ER himself.
After that — after the doctors had her, after she’d been admitted, when they were just waiting for word on when Sierra could see her — everything came to a crashing halt.
Sierra and Conor were alone together in a little corner of the waiting room, an alcove separated from the rest of the people who were having a bad enough night that they were in a waiting room in the middle of the night. Nobody came near them, nobody asked Sierra for an autograph. Conor’s presence was enough. And then suddenly he turned and nailed her with those ice blue eyes.
She hadn’t realized that they hadn’t spoken until then, not about anything not immediately practical. More than that: it was like Conor had been far away, somewhere inside himself, and Sierra had done the same, burrowing somewhere inside, leaving just their bodies to navigate the world side by side. And then with one freaking look, Conor pierced through all of that.
“What did she mean about your birthday?” he said.
His voice sounded strange, hoarse. For just a second he was the man who’d stepped forward and kissed her in her own living room, telling her, showing her, what he meant.
“Tiffany is usually my excuse,” Sierra said, too tired to care about hiding things that made her feel stupid any longer. “So that I can just ignore it. She gets me ice cream or something, and we watch movies.”
“Not this year,” he said.
“No,” Sierra said.
And then, just like that, the tall, dark, and devastatingly handsome man with the ice blue eyes turned away and turned off the light between them.
A couple of things happened.
Sierra sat on one of those rough stackable chairs and tried to figure out, well, what the hell was happening. She had been waiting — was still waiting — for Conor to reach out to her, for Conor to make the connection again, for Conor to tell her how it would be, and that it would be ok. And while Sierra put a pin in that, because uh wow that wasn’t actually ok to do? The fact remained that Conor was not doing any of those things.