“Con!” I screeched.
“What?”
“Put me down!”
“No,” he said matter-of-factly. “And be quiet. I have neighbors, you know?”
“You sure as fuck didn’t care about theneighborswhen you decided to come out herenaked!” I hissed.
“Someonedidn’t give me much of a choice. Where the hell were you going to go on foot, huh? Are you even thinking, Celestia?” he scolded.
Heat rushed my face, anger clogging my throat at his chastising words.
I wanted to be out of his grasp. Out of this weird zone where he was being so kind to me. He was always kind but—I don’t know. He was being too much. He was crowding me. Crowding my senses with his intoxicating smells and inviting squeezes and hands that I never realized could be both gentle and capable.
He was fucking me up, and I was already feeling pretty fucked up from whatever the hell kind of karma rained down on me last night. I needed out.
With a pinch to his neck, I tried to escape. He jerked, but just batted my hands away like I was more of an annoying bug than a threat.
Grunting, I tried to use my knee to dig into his side. That didn’t work either. Just causing him to hold on to me tighter, his hands sliding along the backs of my thighs as he gripped me.
Frustrated, I started kicking my feet, each knock of my shoe landing on his sturdy thigh. Still, he kept walking, and even worse, he was getting agitated too.
“Ceci,” he warned, voice deceptively normal. “You got one more time to put your hands on me, and then I’m getting you back.”
So, I did what any girl would do. I called his bluff. Using my elbow, I dug into his shoulder blades. Leaning partly over his shoulder to get a better angle. Only, he wasn’t bluffing.
Damn, was he not bluffing.
In a quick jerk, he hiked me the rest of the way over his shoulder, my torso doubling over him and my ass rising high into the air. Then he took his hand—his big-ass, warm,best friendhand—and swatted me on the butt. It was quick, and it didn’t hurt so much as it surprised me, because it was his full palm.
Connor had afull palmof my ass. A palm that was now cradling it as if that was the only thing he couldpossiblyhold on to as he continued to carry me.
The yip I let out had to be the most embarrassing part. I was a grown woman. I didn’t fucking yip like a goddamn dog. But the sharp electricity that shot through me at the little slap-and-grab from Mr. Handsy was enough to startle the sound out of me.
Assuring myself the relentless burning in my face was because I was upside down with the blood rushing to my head, andnotbecause my backside was still tingling from Connor’s touch, I twisted my torso to look at him. “Why’d you do that?”
“Because sometimes Ceci, if I don’t play hardball with you, you’ll take me for all I’m fucking worth,” he grumbled. “Now, are you gonna try me again?”
“No…” I pouted. “That just hurt.”
“You can take it. You got a lot of cushion back here,” he said. And was it my imagination, or did his voice get deeper? More rumbly than before.
Like I said, loose tongue.
The closer we got to the house, the more the palm shaped imprint on my ass seemed to sting. It might as well have been copied on my heart too, because that was also ablaze.
Nope. It was official, I couldn’t go back to sleep. It wouldn’t work. I don’t think I could close my eyes anytime soon now that I knew what Connor’s hand felt like on my—
“We either go back to bed or you start talking,” Connor said, cutting off my thoughts as we made it back into the house. He was still charging ahead like he was annoyed, but his caveman grip had loosened to a soft hold at the back of my thighs. His voice back to yesterday’s murmuring rumble.
“Put me down, Con.” I squirmed again and finally as we entered the kitchen, he set me down on the countertop, standing before me in all his half-naked glory.
This was so strange for so many reasons. One of the biggest was that Connor hated mess. Yet, not only had he charged out after mebarefooton his sandy driveway, but he hadn’t stopped to wipe his feet clean when we returned to the house. And now I was sitting on the countertop with my sand covered shoe propped up against his thigh as he untied the laces and yanked them off.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Limiting means of escape,” he answered. His focus on my shoes.
