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After the fight, Conor nurses more than a mild concussion. I sense him working shit out, plotting maybe. Though he’s difficult to read, I get the feeling he wants to leave the party.
But I insist we stay. Not for the free food and booze or to shake our asses on the dance floor. We can’t leave because that’s what certain assholes want.
“Never give your enemies anything to celebrate,” Uncle Clive would tell his sons.
Sitting at another table are my enemies—Wyatt, Taryn, and DeAnna. They want to leave but refuse to back down to me. Wyatt’s face is all fucked up with his eyes nearly swollen shut. DeAnna whines about her broken nose. Taryn nurses her wounds by sucking on a beer bottle. Bambi and Rooster sit with them. There is a silent understanding that they deserve to be here while I don’t.
Well, fuck that shit! Lowell Sinema helped build this club. Conor’s father was a founding member, too. Barbie helps run the trucking business and gives Bronco plenty of input. I learn this last fact once the booze hits her system, and she tells me three times.
Barbie and Conor are Executioners royalty. No way should they back down. Besides, I have no interest in bowing to those assholes. Even in Minton, I hated backing down, which is why I had to run. If I stuck around, pushing and poking at Clive, he would have needed to end me.
Many of the people currently around me are probably dangerous, too. The kind of power the Executioners possess doesn’t come from asking nicely. They’re violent people, and I could die here just as easily as in Minton.
But I’m not afraid of them. Clive was a real, flesh-and-blood threat to me. These people feel like extras in a show I’m not sure I plan to finish.
“We should get back home,” Lowell says, appearing next to Topanga.
Instantly, I decide to dance. Sure, some of it is my need to play a teenager pissed at her daddy. However, I also like the song “Long Cool Woman (In a Black Dress)” playing over the speakers.
I ask a bored Pixie if she wants to dance. Conor is too busy pretending as if his head doesn’t hurt.
Anders smiles at the sight of his woman and me walking to the empty dance floor. Pixie sways—hippie-style—to the music. I shake my ass—stripper-style—next to her. We’re in our own worlds, and I’m fairly certain neither of us is actually moving to the beat.
Despite my terrible dancing, Conor wears a smile. His bedroom eyes remind me of how easily he’ll remove my dress soon.
Even with a pounding headache, he joins me on the dance floor. His hands go straight to my ass and remain there while we sway to “Is This Love.”
“Yes,” he says and carefully kisses my battered lips with his busted ones.
“All day long,” I murmur before our tongues make speaking impossible.
Nearby, Pixie climbs Anders, who doesn’t really dance as much as hold her like a kid and sway back and forth. Somehow, all this lovey-dovey stuff doesn’t get the rest of the party onto the dance floor. No one even dry humps in a corner. Then again, maybe the horny ones already left.
“Not to interrupt,” Topanga interrupts two songs later. “But we’re heading to Bronco’s house for a nightcap. Barbie is joining us. Are you two coming?”
Conor pries his gaze away from me and says, “We’ll be over when we finish making the room jealous.”
A grinning Topanga hurries to join her fleeing husband. Watching them go, I pout despite my pained lips.
“My father doesn’t like me,” I mutter.
“I’m not sure mine liked me, either,” Conor says, too buzzed on pain pills to lie. “He thought I was soft.”
“You are soft,” I say, sliding my fingers inside his shirt through the openings between the shirt buttons. “Hot too.”
“This party is dying. Even the giant and his hippie honey are bailing,” Conor says and tilts his head toward where the couple disappears out the door. “Why don’t we head to my house? We’ll grind out a few hard orgasms before joining the gang at Bronco’s. Then, we’ll return to my house and fuck more. Afterward, we’ll watch a movie and then fool around in the Jacuzzi tub. Finally, we’ll sleep.”
“I stopped listening at the ‘hard orgasms’ part, but, yeah, sure. I’ll go wherever you go.”
“Promise?” he asks, suddenly overly serious.
Conor’s intensity forces the music and people to fall away. There’s only him and me.
“When I find someone special,” I tell him, “they imprint on my heart. I love them so completely that I never feel right again without them. You imprinted on my heart right away. No other man exists. I’ll go wherever you want and live however you need to live.”
“The universe knew its shit when it whispered in my ear about you,” he says and smiles softly.
“The universe spoke to you, and you called dibs on me as if I was the last slice of pizza,” I mutter, giving him grief because he’s still hiding his feelings behind that cool-guy exterior.
“I like how you were going to bang all the guys in the club if I didn’t,” he says, sneering at me.
“I would have sucked so much cock,” I growl, trying hard to bug out my eyes, but my head hurts too much to make the look work.
“Stop,” he whines, giving up on his overly macho routine. “You’re making my dick sad.”
“Well, let’s go to your house and find a use for its tears.”
“That sounds gross,” he teases as I return to the table where my heels hide under a chair.
“Give me a break. I headbutted a shit weasel today. That’s gonna leave a mark.”
Conor slides an arm around my shoulders and guides me away from the now empty dance floor. Everyone except the staff has left. We’re the dipshits holding up their cleaning process.
“Are you safe to drive?” I ask Conor as we walk outside to his lone Harley in the parking lot.
“Fuck no. But you can’t walk three blocks in heels.”
“Can’t you push the motorcycle while carrying me on your back?” I ask and smack his fine ass.
“Sure, on an average day, I’m fucking Superman. But I got a brain owie and need to be babied.”
“Fine, I’ll drive,” I announce and climb on. “Which button does what?”
Despite grinning, Conor clearly has no intention of letting me drive his precious motorcycle. He slides in front of me on the bike before wrapping my arms around his waist. He quickly places my hands squarely between his legs, where his erection remains half-cocked.
After a slow drive from the community clubhouse to his house, we deal with his dick problem. I consider staying in bed with his warm body rather than heading next door to Bronco’s after-party. Why deal with people when the best person is right here with me?
“You’ve got a lump,” Conor says, stroking my forehead. “I know we were fucking around with the head injury talk, but maybe we ought to stay up until midnight just to make sure nothing shady happens.”
“Then, we need to get out of this bed. Might want to stop drinking the devil’s nectar, too. I can’t promise I won’t doze off if I remain this comfortable and boozed-up.”
“Well, if we hurry, we can spend time with your dad and my mom. That ought to make you awkward and sad.”
Wanting to keep Conor awake, I look through the bag of clothes I brought over earlier. A pair of comfy beige khakis and a tan T-shirt feel good on my bruised body. Conor dresses in a black tank and jeans. He looks so sexy with all his tats on display that I have to fight the urge to crawl back into bed.
Instead, we walk from his mother’s large two-story house to Bronco’s slightly bigger one. We head around to the side gate, where I hear Tim McGraw playing on the backyard’s speakers. The first person I see is Carina wearing a cowboy hat, dancing around like a drunk redneck. Bronco and Lana watch their youngest daughter with the kind of awe that I remember from my mom. Needy lost her fucking mind when I got on the honor roll, even for a single semester. A parent’s pride is an amazing kind of magic.
That’s why I don’t mind Barbie’s need to tug Conor away from me. She loves her boy so damn much that I must feel like a threat. Well, Barbie can baby him all she wants, but she’s a fool to think her bossiness will scare me off. Conor’s a gift, complete with a giant red bow on top, and I have no intention of giving him up.
