NFH 03 Checkmate (29 page)

Unfortunately for her, she didn't have
experience using that "one thing" to get a guy to do what she
wanted. But, if it stopped Connor from doing something stupid then
she was just going to have to learn to do it, she decided, ignoring
the little fact that the idea of seducing him appealed to her a
little too much. There was going to be hell to pay for missing
fishing with her family, but she was pretty sure that spending the
day in bed with Connor would be more than worth it. Knowing that it
was now or never, she undid her belt and shifted closer to
Connor.

"What are you doing?" he asked, throwing her
a curious glance as he continued to drive.

"Stop the truck, Connor," she whispered as
she carefully climbed onto his lap, taking the choice out of his
hands.

With a putout sigh, he pulled off to the
side of the dirt road and threw the truck into park. "I appreciate
your concern, Rory, but-"

"I want you, Connor," she said, leaning in
to press a kiss against his stunned lips. "I want you to take me
home and give me a reason to stay in bed all day. Can you do that,
Connor?" she asked in a husky voice that she barely recognized as
she teasingly kissed her way down his chin and neck. When he tilted
his head to the side and groaned softly, she knew that she had
him.

Even better, she knew that she'd be spending
the day in his bed.

"You're just doing this to get out of
fishing," he said roughly as his hands landed on her ass and he
moved in, using his face to move hers so that he could take her
mouth in a quick, hard kiss that left her breathing hard and
desperate for him in a way that actually scared her.

"Does it matter?" she asked softly as she
pressed down against that large bulge in his pants that her
trembling body screamed for.

"Not one fucking bit."

Chapter 25

"The James brothers looked like they wanted
to kill you," Andrew commented as he looked around to make sure
that they were alone before he opened the small blue cooler that he
had perched on the driver's side seat of his truck.

Connor shrugged it off as he looked around
the basically deserted makeshift parking lot, playing lookout. It
was a job that he'd perfected over the past year and one that he
hated, but he knew that Andrew hated it more so he kept his mouth
shut and kept an eye out for unwanted company.

"Does it have something to do with that huge
shit eating grin that you were sporting this morning?" Andrew
asked, chuckling as he pulled out the first of many syringes.

"In a roundabout way," he admitted, feeling
his lips pull up into that grin that he couldn't seem to keep off
his face. Yesterday with Rory had been.....

Amazing.

After somehow managing to drive the truck
back to his house without wrecking it, they managed to stumble into
his house while tearing each other's clothes off and hadn't left
until this morning. They'd made love against the front door, on the
stairs, in the upstairs hallway, three times in the bathtub before
they managed to collapse in a tangled mess on his bed where he
proceeded to make love to her until he swore that he'd never be
able to move again. Sex with Rory was incredible, but surprisingly
it wasn't the reason why he couldn't stop smiling.

Rory was.

He loved spending a lazy Sunday with her. It
didn't matter if they were making love, holding each other,
fighting over the remote or trying to annoy the hell out of each
other, just being with her felt good. She turned him on, made him
laugh and drove him out of his goddamn mind and he loved every
single minute of it. She was definitely worth the bullshit that he
was going to have to go through to get back on her family's good
side after yesterday.

"Oh, fuck," Andrew groaned, dragging
Connor's attention away from the most incredible weekend of his
life in time to see his oldest friend stumble away from the truck
and make his way towards the overgrown brush surrounding the woods
where Andrew proceeded to lose his lunch near a patch of poison
ivy.

"Stop," Andrew said on a gasp when Connor
moved to help him.

He wasn't sure what he hated more, watching
his best friend slowly lose this battle or feeling helpless. It
wouldn't be so bad if Andrew wasn't being so damn pigheaded, but he
was. Andrew refused to ask for help and Connor feared that the
man's pride was going to get him killed. He knew that it was
Andrew's choice, but he wished the man would ask for help, scream
for it, but he wouldn't. Andrew was leaving his fate in God's hands
and Connor didn't think that was enough, not for this.

"You need to go home," Connor snapped, sick
of this bullshit. The man didn't belong here, especially if he
wasn't going to put up a fight. If this was it, he'd rather see his
oldest friend go out with a bang, but Andrew refused to act like
anything was wrong.

"Are you still going to pay me?" Andrew
asked, sitting back on his haunches as he dropped his face in his
hands, no doubt fighting another wave of nausea from the expensive
medicine that was supposed to help him.

"Yes," Connor gritted out, already knowing
where the stubborn man was going with this.

Sure enough, Andrew shook his head as he
slowly got to his feet. "Then I'm staying, Connor. I'm not a
charity case," he said, pressing a shaky hand to his stomach as he
walked back to his truck.

"No, you're a fucking idiot!" Connor snapped
as the fear that he'd been fighting for the last year crept up his
spine. He couldn't lose his best friend. They'd been friends since
they were little kids and had always been there for each other.
Andrew was one of the best people he knew. The man was kind,
considerate and put up with his bullshit and helped keep him in
line. Without him......

Hell, he didn't want to think about that
because it wasn't going to happen. Andrew was going to beat this
damn thing and that's all that mattered.

"Love you too, man," Andrew said with a
forced smile as he placed the used syringes in a canister and
placed it beneath his seat. Andrew carefully stored the cooler on
the floor, grabbed his hardhat and clipboard while Connor wracked
his brain, trying to figure out a way to fix this. He refused to
believe that there was nothing that he could do.

"Let it go, Connor," Andrew said softly.

"I can't."

"You're going to have to, Connor," Andrew
said, sounding tired as he walked away.

Connor cursed up a storm as Andrew stumbled
on his way back to the site. He wasn't too surprised when Andrew
couldn't make it past the flatbeds before he needed to take a
break. He was supposed to rest for three hours after taking his
medication, but he never did. Andrew didn't want to be sick and
didn't want to face what lay ahead of him and Connor couldn't blame
him, but sometimes like now, it was too much to bear.

He wanted to yell at Andrew, scream at him
until his voice was hoarse and then do it some more. He needed to
shake some sense into his friend, tell him how unfair he was being
by making him feel this fucking helpless, but he couldn't. Andrew
didn't need to hear how scared he was. It wouldn't be fair, but
then again nothing about this situation was.

* * * *

"We don't have to do this if you don't want
to," Rory said casually even as her stomach fluttered in dread.

"You're not getting out of having dinner
with me tonight, Rory," Connor said with a hard glare as he caged
her in against her Jeep’s driver’s side door.

"I'm not trying to get out of anything,
Connor," she explained, reaching between them and hooking her
fingers through his belt loops.

"Then why do you keep asking if I changed my
mind?" he asked, frowning down at her as he reached up and lightly
traced her jaw with his finger.

"Because you've been acting like you have a
bug up your ass all day and haven't said more than two words to me
since lunch," she said, liking the way his lips twitched as some of
the sadness seeped away from his expression.

She shouldn't care if he was upset. This was
only a deal after all, albeit a deal that now included incredible
sex, but a deal nonetheless. Not to mention that this was Connor,
the bastard who jumped behind the student driver's ed car while she
was taking her driver's test and made it look like she ran him
over, causing her to fail the test and her instructor's breakdown
when Rory may have “inadvertently” tried to run over Connor. If she
was smart, she'd figure out what caused him to lose that easy going
smile of his a few hours ago and exploit it to get her project free
and clear and get out of this deal.

Apparently she was an idiot, because not
only did she not want to get out of this deal like any sane woman
would, but she was afraid that she was falling for him. She should
be wringing his neck and going for his nipples for stealing her
project and dangling it in front of her like a carrot on a stick,
but instead she wanted to do whatever it took to make him smile in
that way that curled her toes and made her heart race. Maybe her
brothers should have her committed, she thought as she used her
slight hold on his belt loops to pull him closer.

"Is this your way of telling me that you
missed me?" he asked softly, his features softening as he
smiled.

Yes, unfortunately for her and her sanity,
and not to mention her pride, she had missed him. Her brothers, who
apparently were not speaking to her at the moment, spent most of
the day glaring daggers at Connor and teasing her like she wasn't
standing less than ten feet away from them. When Johnny started
chanting, "Connor and Rory in a tree" she decided that it was time
to go around and check up on the rest of her men, right after she
tarred Johnny's ass to the roof.

"Nope," she lied, her focus moving to his
lips, "not at all."

Slowly, his lips pulled up into the cocky
grin that she had to admit looked good on him. "You missed me,
Rory. Just admit it."

"It's just so sad that you think so," she
said, reluctantly forcing her attention away from his lips as she
released her hold on him and gave him a gentle push that got the
point across.

With a chuckle, Connor stepped back, giving
her, her much needed space, but he didn't go far. When she moved to
the side to open the driver's side door, he was already there,
opening it for her. Not that she was surprised or anything. Even
when Connor was going out of his way to make her life a living
hell, he always seemed to remember that she was a woman. It was
something that used to aggravate her, but now she had to admit that
she kind of liked it.

"I'll pick you up in an hour," Connor
announced as she climbed into her Jeep.

She pretended to think that over. "That's
really not going to work for me. Better make it eight," she said
with a shrug, moving to turn around. By the time she sat down,
Connor was there, resting his forearms against the hood of the Jeep
as he leaned in and pressed a quick, too quick, kiss against her
needy little lips.

"One hour," he said, moving to step
away.

"Sorry, not gonna happen. I need at least
two," she explained, which was true.

She really did need at least two hours to do
everything. She had to take care of Bunny, clean up her house a
little bit, take a long hot shower to relieve her sore muscles,
enjoy a hot cup of cocoa on her patio, and get dressed. Actually,
what she really needed was a night to herself so that she could get
all of those things done plus run a few errands that she hadn't had
a chance to do over the weekend like grocery shopping.

There was nothing to eat in her house,
absolutely nothing. She ran out of cocoa last night and Bunny ran
out of food this morning. If she was going to be ready in an hour,
and she already decided that she was, then she was going to have to
move her ass and take a chance with the convenient store down the
street for Bunny's food. Sadly, her cocoa fix was going to have to
wait until later.

"Be ready in an hour and I'll take you to
Brennagin's for a cup of hot cocoa," he said, reading her mind or
bribing her, not that she cared which one since Brennagin's had the
second best hot cocoa in town. Hers was number one of course, but
that didn't change the fact that just the thought of having a
delicious, creamy cup of Brennagin's hot cocoa had her practically
drooling.

"Extra large?" she asked, already planning
on ordering two.

They were extremely expensive, but so worth
it, at least to her, to her past boyfriends, not so much. They
balked at the idea of spending eight bucks on a cup of cocoa for
her. Not that she could really blame them since they weren't
addicted to the stuff, but it would have been nice if at least one
of them had acted like she was worth it.

Connor leaned in and gave her another one of
those too quick kisses. "I tell you what, Rory. If you're ready in
an hour, I'll buy you an extra-large cup of cocoa before we go out,
one before we come home and as many as you want in between."

As many as she wanted?

Dear God, she was in heaven, she thought
with a content little sigh before something occurred to her and
when it did, her eyes narrowed dangerously on him.

"This isn't some sort of sick joke, is it?"
she demanded, because really, this was hot cocoa and she didn't
screw around when it came to her cocoa.

He sighed heavily as he shook his head in
mock disgust. "So little trust."

"Is it?"

"You'll just have to wait and see, now won't
you?" he teased as he moved in and tried to give her another quick
kiss, but she was done being teased. When he tried to pull away,
she laced her fingers through his hair and kept him right where he
was, determined to get the proper kiss that he owed her.