Needing Her

Chapter Nine

Connor

WAKING UP TO Maci in my arms was rapidly becoming one of my favorite things. The hard exterior she always wore from being raised in a house with only brothers was gone. Other than the few times I’d seen her cry, this was the only time when her guard was completely down, and I loved seeing her like this. But every morning I woke with her was a blaring reminder that I was one more morning closer to losing her.

My body was sticky from having been covered in a thin sheen of sweat when I’d woken thirty minutes ago, and like I was every morning, I was thankful I didn’t act out my nightmares. Maci would always still be asleep in my arms when I jolted awake, and only tried to move closer to me when my frantic breathing changed the quiet and calm air between us. But after making sure she hadn’t been hurt, I always crawled out of the bed and away from her to try to calm myself from the too-­real scenarios my dreams played out.

Pushing her wild hair from her face, I grimaced and my heart rate sped up as I was assaulted with images from the latest nightmare. My hands around Maci’s throat. Her hands clawing at my arm as she struggled to breathe. Her face bruised, and blood dripping rapidly from her hairline. Her arms covered in varying stages of bruising.

I squeezed my eyes tightly shut and moved my hand away from her to cover my face as I pushed away the dream. I kept reminding myself over and over that she was fine, that I hadn’t touched her . . . but it didn’t take away the fear that one day it could be real.

I can’t do this to her. I can’t do this.

But I’m not ready to let her go.

Opening my eyes, I stared at her unmarked skin and took deep breaths in—­letting her sweet scent wash over me as I looked over every exposed part of her body and reminded myself that she was fine. That I hadn’t hurt her.

When my breathing had returned to normal, I glanced at the clock behind Maci and stifled a sigh. Brushing my knuckles against her cheek, I leaned in and kissed the corner of her lips gently. A soft whimper sounded in the back of her throat, and she curled her body closer to mine as she dug her head into my shoulder.

“Wake up, sweetheart,” I whispered into her ear.

“Mmm, nu uh.”

Laughing softly, I kissed a trail down her jaw, and then up to her mouth. “I have to leave.”

She’d been leaning into my kiss, but jerked back when I spoke. “Where are you going? I thought you were off.”

“I am, but it’s Saturday. I need to go see my sister.”

Maci nodded in acknowledgment and studied me for a few moments before asking, “How is Amy?”

“She’s fine,” I said automatically.

“You don’t talk about her much.”

“There isn’t much to say.”

Another minute went by before Maci pulled from my arms and started to get off the bed.

“Where are you going?”

She looked over her shoulder at me as she grabbed her pants from the floor and pulled them on. “You said you have to leave, so I’m going.”

“I don’t need to go yet, I planned on spending some time with you first.”

“It’s not a big deal, really. Have fun with my brothers tonight.”

I sat up and pushed the comforter off me. “What the hell, Maci, what’s wrong? What changed from last night to this morning?” Last night she’d cried because she was afraid her brothers would make us stop seeing each other, and now she wouldn’t even stay with me? My stomach churned when I realized I might have done something to her in my sleep, and that’s why she was rushing to get away. “Maci,” I said again when she reached my bedroom door, my voice ragged as lifelong fears clawed at my chest.

She stopped and held the handle of my door, like she was going to shut it behind her, for a few seconds before finally looking back at me. “I don’t believe you.”

My brows pinched together in confusion. “Wait, what? About what?”

“Your sister. That there’s nothing to say . . . I don’t believe it.”

I let my face go into the expression I wore during interviews and interrogations, and hoped like hell she hadn’t noticed how I’d just gone still.

“You’re extremely protective of her. So much that I think I’ve only seen her twice in my life? And you pushed her into another room one time, the second toward her car. Have my brothers even met her?”

“What difference does it make?”

“You wouldn’t be that protective of her if there was nothing to say. You told me this week you see her every Saturday unless you’re at work. So all that says to me right now, is you’re lying. You’re keeping something from me.”

“Maci, don’t start this—­”

She shook her head and crossed her arms over her chest. But it wasn’t a defensive stance, it looked like she was curling in on herself. “No, Connor, don’t tell me what to do or not to do. You didn’t like that I kept waiting for you to hurt me, that I acted like I didn’t care about you. Why is it okay for you to get frustrated when I lie because I’m shielding myself from being hurt by you, but it’s not okay for me to get upset when you lie to me?”

“I won’t hurt you.” My body felt hot and cold at once as I remembered making her bleed last night, and the nightmare I’d just repressed came flooding back.

“You keep saying that. I know. But you’re keeping something from me.”

Shaking the disturbing images from my head, I flung my arms out to the side, and tried to remember what we were talking about. “I don’t understand why you’re getting this worked up over my sister.”

“Don’t say it like that. You know why I’m upset. You freeze up whenever anyone mentions her, and you did it with me just now. If you want me to keep being open and honest with you, you need to be honest with me. I know you’re hiding something, Connor.”

“No, you think—­”

“Save it. Have a good day.”

“Maci!”

She didn’t respond, and I didn’t go after her. Because she was right . . . I just couldn’t tell her. Sharing my past with Cassidy—­and ­people who could benefit from my story—­was one thing. Telling Maci was another. She’d had no idea that Amy and I were even adopted. And if I told her about my past, I’d have to tell her about my fears of the future. I wasn’t ready for that. I wasn’t ready to lose her.

Once I heard both our doors open and shut, I slowly got out of the bed and went about straightening it up before picking up the broken pieces of my lamp. I tried to stop the thought that by keeping Maci in the dark . . . and keeping her . . . I’d actually just lost her.

Letting our night together flood my mind instead, I took a shower, dressed, and headed over to Amy’s to spend time with her and my nephew.

AMY HAD SPENT most of the last two hours watching me carefully, and I’d hated that she was doing it. I knew what she was doing. She was about to go all mom mode on me, and she’d see right through my bullshit.

With a sigh, I sat up with Ben in my arms and focused on her. “Just say it. Let’s get it over with.”

Her lips pulled up on one side in a sympathetic smile. “What happened between you and Maci? You were so happy when I saw you last week.”

Knowing it was pointless to lie, I told her about this morning, and waited for five agonizing minutes as she studied me.

“You still haven’t told her about us?”

“Still?” I asked, a little confused. “I don’t know what you mean by ‘still.’ We’ve only been seeing each other for a week and a half.”

“You told Cassidy and you weren’t even seeing her,” she said, accusation coating her voice.

“Cassidy was different and you know that. She had a past worse than ours, she understood.”

“But you weren’t in love with her.”

I sat there, waiting for her to correct herself . . . or maybe for myself to realize I’d heard her wrong. But the way her eyes speared me, I knew I’d heard her correctly. “I’m sorry . . . but I’m not in love with Maci either.”

“Maybe not yet, but she’s different for you. You can’t deny that.”

Ben started squirming in my arms, so I let him go to crawl around the floor between us. “It doesn’t matter if she is or not, nothing can come of it and you know it.”

“Why not, Connor? What is so wrong with marrying Maci Price? You’re fearless, her brothers can’t scare you that bad.”

I looked at her, horrified. “I can’t marry her.”

“You would have married Cassidy.”

“She would have understood, Amy! She would have understood everything!” I tried to calm down as I waited for her to respond. But she just sat there shaking her head at me. “What?”

“Kevin didn’t have our past: was it wrong for me to marry him? Was it wrong for me to have Ben?”

“Amy”—­I sighed and ran my hands through my hair—­“you don’t have problems with your anger like I do.”

“You don’t have a problem with your anger. You’re afraid of getting angry, period. There’s a difference. You can’t always be afraid to turn into him, Connor. We don’t have his genes, who knows what either of our biological fathers were like? Mom sold herself so she could get coke. What you should have been afraid of all this time was developing a drug problem, because our fathers probably had one too. The man you’re afraid of turning into just took his anger with our mother out on us. You need to get that through your mind.”

I sat there staring at the floor and chewing on the inside of my cheek, trying to stop myself from saying what I so badly wanted to. But, in the end, it still came out. “When we were adopted, you were terrified of new men. Anytime you saw a man that was older, you would start shaking. It took you years of being asked out by guys at school before you finally said yes, and then you came home crying because you were afraid he would turn out just. Like. Him. Until Kevin came along, the only man you ever trusted was Dad. I have nightmares of me being the one to beat my future family. I never once judged you or said a word; I was just there for you. So don’t start judging me because of this.”

“I just want you to be happy. Cassidy may have understood better than most, but you have to know that you wouldn’t have done anything to her or your future family with her if it had ever even gone that route. But all you can see, or think about, with her is that she would understand. You’re not letting yourself realize that even you understood that you wouldn’t hurt her. You won’t hurt anyone, Connor.”

I looked up and instantly felt like shit when I saw her crying. “Fuck, Amy, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I just—­I don’t know. I shouldn’t have said that, though.”

“I’ve seen how much Maci has changed you, and I saw how happy you were last week. I know you won’t turn into him. But if you won’t let yourself have that, then don’t lead Maci on with the pretense that something will happen between you two. I can see it, you may not realize it yet—­maybe because you just don’t want to—­but you love her. She’s going to see it too, so don’t do this to her. Don’t break her heart when you know that you can’t give her what she’s going to want.”

I knew what she was saying, and knew I needed to listen to her. My head started to nod, but shook instead. “I can’t stay away from her. I tried, but Cassidy didn’t even consume me the way Maci does. It’s like, now that I’ve finally pulled my head out of my ass, I’m trying to make up for all the time I’ve already lost with her. I can’t get enough of her, and I hate when I’m not near her. I hate that she’s mad at me right now, and it’s killing me because I know I still won’t tell her when I go home.”

“You have to tell her.”

“Amy, I just told you—­”

“Tell her, or stop wasting her time. I know you’ve tried to protect me since Mom and Dad adopted us, and I appreciate what you did. But, I love you too much to let you ruin yourself and Maci like this.”

I just sat there, not knowing what to say after that. If only it was as simple as she made it seem.

Maci

TURNING AROUND TO face Amber, I blew out a deep breath and asked, “Okay, I look hot, right?”

“For the tenth time, yes, you do! I still don’t know why you’re trying to make him drool over you when you left his bed just this morning, but whatever.”

Amber wouldn’t understand what had happened between Connor and me this morning. It would seem stupid on my part, but she hadn’t seen the way Connor had hidden and protected his sister for as long as I’d known him. She was a huge part of his life, and I didn’t know what it was, but whatever it was he was keeping from everyone had everything to do with her.

Turning back toward the bar that I knew my brothers were at with Connor, I squared my shoulders and said, “Just want to make sure I drive him crazy tonight.”

“Mission accomplished. I’m betting he won’t last the entire time we’re here before he makes a move toward you.”

I smiled to myself. I was betting the same damn thing. I was wearing my dark skinny jeans with ridiculously high heels I’d borrowed from Amber, but the shirt . . . well, we’d gone on a hunt for it today. What little fabric there was, was a bright green color that connected in a knot low on the small of my back, and with a gold chain around my neck. The front was cut so low that I couldn’t wear a bra—­not like I needed one anyway. It’d cost a stupid amount of money since all it covered was my boobs and stomach, but I was hoping it’d be worth it.

I’d spotted them sitting at a table with a pitcher of beer among them as soon as we walked in, and like he could sense I was there, he turned and his eyes went wide when he saw me. I watched as he took me in, and loved when his blue eyes met mine again. They were dark with want. Good.

Walking past their table, I paused when Dakota called my name, and tried not to smile. “Amber, please remember to stay away from my brothers tonight.”

“But they’re so—­”

“You’re dating Aaron!” I hissed before turning around to walk toward their table. “Can I help you?” I asked lazily and eyed Dakota before punching Dylan’s arm when I caught him checking out Amber.

“The fuck are you wearing?” Dakota asked.

“Um . . . clothes?”

“You need to put more on,” Dylan added, and grabbed his jacket off the back of his chair.

“I’m not putting your jacket on, I look fine. Was there something else you needed?”

Dakota pinched my arm, and I smacked his hand as I jumped away from him. “We’ll be watching you, Maci.”

“That’s nice.” Grabbing Amber’s hand, I turned without looking at Connor. Everything in me wanted to rebel against the action, but I had this planned out.

Twenty minutes after we’d walked away from the table, I walked toward the restrooms and waited in the hall, hoping like hell I would be right about this. And not two minutes later, Connor was storming down the hall toward me, a determined look on his handsome face.

Grabbing me around my waist, he hauled my body against his and pressed his lips down onto mine as he forced me back up against the wall. “You trying to kill me, sweetheart? Wearing something like this when you know I have to sit next to your brothers?”

Looking around the hall, he grabbed my hand and walked us into the women’s restroom and locked the door behind us. His hands were all over my bare back, gripping and pulling me closer, and he moved the front of my top aside to suck on one of my breasts.

I pulled on his hair, until he released my breast, and brought my mouth to his for a few seconds. “We have to get out of here. My brothers are going to realize I’m not with Amber and go looking for me.”

“I know, I know. Just . . . fuck. I can’t sit there next to them while you’re walking around looking like this.”

Looking at him from under my eyelashes, I rubbed my hand over his hard-­on and bit down on my lip, loving when his eyes rolled back. “Then what are you going to do?”

“Give me a few minutes, I’ll check my phone and tell them I’m going to meet up with a girl. Ten minutes after I leave . . . no, fuck that. Five. Five minutes after I leave, you and Amber leave. If they ask where you’re going, tell them to another bar—­and apologize to Amber for me for cutting your night short.”

“Her boyfriend is waiting for her at his place, she’ll be fine.”

With another hard kiss, Connor pushed away from me and moved my shirt back into place. “Five minutes after I leave, sweetheart. I’ll be waiting in your apartment.”

“See you soon.”

His eyes raked down my body one last time, and he harshly whispered, “Fuck!” before unlocking the door and walking out.

When I didn’t hear yelling from my brothers immediately after, I followed him out into the hall and smiled when he turned to wink at me before leaving the hall. I was so focused on him, I didn’t even notice the girl walking down the hall toward me until she was talking to me.

“Don’t fall for it, honey.”

I jerked back and looked up at the busty brunette. “Excuse me?”

She pursed her lips and looked back over her shoulder. “Connor Green.” She said his name like he was a legend or something. “I get it, I swear I do . . . but don’t fall for it.”

“Fall for what, exactly?”

“You think I don’t know you two were just in the bathroom together? This is just the start for him. He’ll call you ‘sweetheart’ and say all the right things to get in your pants.”

I stopped breathing at “sweetheart.”

“He’ll make you feel special for a little while, but then he’ll leave you . . . and he’ll do it without a second thought. Then he’ll move on to the next one. It’s what he does; I’m just warning you so you don’t get hurt.”

Tears burned the backs of my eyes, and I forced myself to smile at the bitch. “Thank you. So, so much. I’m glad you warned me before anything else happened.”

She gave me a sympathetic smile that was as fake as her breasts, and patted me on the shoulder. Walking quickly back into the bar, I found Amber, grabbed her hand, and began towing her toward the front door.

“Mini, where are you going in such a hurry?”

When I looked up, I noticed Connor was still there with my brothers, and he looked confused. “Go to hell.”

“Hey!” Dylan and Dakota said at the same time, but I didn’t stop.

“Oh my God, what’s going on? Are you okay?” Amber asked when we were finally outside and making our way to my car.

“Fine.”

“Maci!”

I choked back a sob and walked faster.

Once we were in my car and I was reversing out of my spot, Amber spoke again. “Okay, I saw him follow you, what happened? What did that fucker say? I’ll go shank him!”

“He didn’t . . . didn’t. Son of a bitch!” I yelled and blinked back the tears. I couldn’t figure out if I was more upset or angry. “Gah, he didn’t say anything bad. He . . . we made out, it was actually really hot. This girl approached me after; obviously it was someone he’s been with, because she knows that he calls me ‘sweetheart.’ She was warning me, she said how he’d treat me and then how he’d leave me.”

“Well, Maci, you knew he’d fucked random girls before. This isn’t news, and he said you weren’t one of them, didn’t he?”

“That’s what he said, but he called them all sweetheart. That’s what he calls me.”

Amber was silent, but kept watching me, until we made it to Aaron’s apartment complex. When I pulled to a stop in front of his building, her voice was careful. “Maybe he just—­”

“Amber, I know for a fact that he called his random hookups that, because he didn’t want to bother remembering their names. I just don’t know why I’d forgotten that until tonight.”

“But he knows your name.”

“He’s also known me for years. Those girls he’d just picked up at bars.”

After a few silent minutes, she squeezed my hand and opened the door. “Call me tomorrow. Love you.”

“Love you too.”

Almost immediately after I’d gotten home and started undressing, my front door flew open, and I could hear Connor charging through my apartment.

“Maci!”

I’d only taken my shoes off, and I really wanted to throw them at him.

“What the hell was that?”

I turned on him and threw my arms out. “ ‘Sweetheart’? Really?”

Connor’s head jerked back. “Wait, what?”

“You call me ‘sweetheart.’ ”

“Yeah . . . and? Maci, you’re really fucking confusing me right now.”

“I was stopped in the hall by one of your random fucks, and she was so kind as to remind me that you call all your one-­night stands ‘sweetheart,’ and that you’d say all the right things and make me feel special for a little while before leaving me, like you’ve done all the rest.”

“Maci—­”

“I can’t believe I was fucking stupid enough to forget that you called them all ‘sweetheart.’ I was so happy that you and I were finally together, that I didn’t even realize it when you called me that. In fact, I loved it.” Connor opened his mouth, but I kept talking. “I’m not going to be one of your random hookups!”

“You’re not! When have I ever treated you like one? I’ve told you from the beginning that you weren’t like them. Did I ever let one of them stay over? No! And you know that. I’m sorry calling you that made you think that, but you have to know by now that I would never do to you what I did to them. I was an asshole to them, and, granted, I’ve been an ass to you so many times. But, Maci . . . can you really not see that you’re everything to me? I can barely make it through a shift because all I want to do is get home to see you. I’ve been going out of my mind all day knowing you were mad at me, and I just—­you know what? Fuck it. You’re never going to believe me. This is what you’ve been waiting for. You’ve been waiting for something to give you a reason to get pissed at me again. So now you have it.”

Laughing loudly, I ran one hand roughly through my long hair and tried not to start crying again. “You found me out. Congratulations! Obviously you know your way out. So, have an awesome fucking life, sweetheart.”

Connor had started walking out of my room, but stopped, and turned back toward me. Quickly closing the distance between us, he grabbed me and crushed his mouth to mine. I pushed against his chest, but he didn’t move away.

His lips only left mine long enough to say, “I’m not letting you do this to us.”

“Connor—­”

“Maci, I know I took a long time to finally realize what you mean to me, and I know it’s only been a week and a half. But I know you’re in this deep . . . just as deep as I am. Do you think I’d risk my friendship with my two best friends for some random fuck? No. You know I want you, and, Maci, I want you so goddamn bad, it’s all I think about. And don’t say it’s just about sex with you, because you know it’s not. I don’t know what I’ll do if I can’t wake up with you in my arms tomorrow morning. I hate watching you walk away from me, I hate getting out of bed when you’re in it with me, and I know you feel the same.”

“I don’t.”

“Then why are you crying?”

“Because I seriously fucking hate you right now,” I choked out.

Connor’s thumbs brushed back my tears and he shook his head. “No you don’t.”

His mouth fell onto mine again, and it was all I could do to hold onto him. He moved us until my back was pressed to my bedroom wall, and his tongue teased my lips until I opened them for him. A whimper rose up my throat when our tongues met, and I moved my hands over his broad shoulders and up his neck so I could run my fingers through his hair.

Slowly, his hands ran over my waist and dropped to my hips. Usually we were ripping each other’s clothes off, but the controlled way he rid me of my jeans—­his mouth leaving mine to make a trail down my bare chest as he took them all the way off—­had my breath accelerating. Lazy, openmouthed kisses made a trail back up my body, and his hands went to the scrap of fabric covering my torso. With movements just as slow and calculated as before, he pushed the fabric up over my shoulders and down my arms, pushing the rest of the shirt past my hips so it fell to the ground.

Gripping the backs of my thighs, he pulled me up against the wall, pinning me there so I had no option but to wrap my legs around his still-­clothed body. But the moment my legs locked around his hips, he was turning us and walking us toward my bed. My hands went between us to grab at the bottom of his shirt once he’d laid me down and stayed hovering inches above me. With help from him, his shirt was thrown over the edge of the bed, and my hands eagerly went to the belt on his jeans. I barely had the belt and jeans undone, and down to his thighs, before he was already pushing against my entrance. The second they hit the floor, Connor was slowly sliding into me, and I couldn’t stop the erotic moan from leaving me.

Every movement against each other was slow, and in sync. Every movement had my blood rushing through my veins, and my stomach tightening in a delicious way. Every movement had the tears falling faster down my face and into my hair as I finally accepted that I’d fallen in love with him.

He hooked a hand behind one of my knees and brought my leg to rest on his back as he gently made love to me for the first time; and his lips met mine briefly before going to my wet cheeks to kiss away the tears. When our movements quickened, nothing about the passion that was flooding my room changed. Everything still felt like it was going in slow motion, and every time his body moved against mine, I struggled with not telling him the three words that were repeating themselves over and over in my mind.

I gasped, and my body felt like it burst into a million pieces seconds before Connor stilled above me.

He’d been rough, he’d been intense, he’d finally lost control with me, and he’d exuded raw power every time we’d been together. I’d craved more, and loved every second of us together the last week and a half. But he’d never been like this. He’d never been gentle; he’d never been this loving; it had never felt like this; and I wanted it again and again.

My eyes opened when his thumbs rubbed lightly against my cheeks, and I found bright blue eyes directly above me. In them, I found everything I was feeling being reflected back at me. I wanted to tell him that I was done pretending. That I was in love with him, but I ached to hear him say those words and knew I would wait until he did.

“Never doubt what you mean to me,” he murmured, and watched me until I nodded before kissing me slowly and thoroughly.

Pulling back the comforter, he helped me slip under before sliding in next to me and pulling my back up against his chest. Curling around my body, he grabbed my hands and held them tight as he pressed his lips to my shoulder.

“You’re everything,” he said against my skin before I felt his body relax as he fell asleep.

Everything.

That word continued playing in my mind, and I decided right then that I was done hiding. I was done protecting myself from a heartache that may or may not happen with Connor, because all I’d been doing was pushing him away. I was done pretending that he didn’t matter, and that I didn’t care. And I was ready for anything and everything with him.