Should've Been Us

by Jess Bryant

  She’d been right there with him and now she was gone. Her eyes were glassy and distant. He couldn’t read anything she was thinking. Worse, she was shaking slightly and looking at him with that gaze of confusion and wariness again.

  More than anything he wanted to pull her back into his arms and finish what he’d started. But this wasn’t the end of anything. It was the beginning. And now wasn’t the time for it considering she was still looking at him as if she was lost in a foreign land without a map or a guide for the language and his phone was still ringing in his back pocket.

  “Connor?” Lulu raised her fingers to her lips and he almost kissed her again when he heard his name in that sweet, slightly husky voice.

  Her beautiful mouth was red and swollen from the way he’d taken it. It was always lush, pouty and full, but knowing he was the one that had stained it red and left it glossy with moisture sent a surge of pride and possessiveness through him like nothing he’d ever felt.

  That mouth belonged to him now but he’d have to wait to claim the rest of her.

  “Go and fix the damage I did to your hair and makeup.” He attempted to smooth his own hair back into place and sighed, “And for the love of God, put on some clothes.”

  “Con…” She shook her head, her glassy eyes regaining focus and that mouth he loved so much beginning to thin with what he knew would be another argument that they didn’t have time for right now.

  “We’re going to be late as it is. You know that’s them calling. They’re wondering where we are and what we’re doing. Go and get dressed before they come looking for us, okay?”

  Lulu let out a shaky breath but ultimately nodded. She didn’t say a word. She just moved slowly past him. She looked absolutely wrecked and while he took a great sense of satisfaction in that, and in the fact that for once in her life she hadn’t argued with him, had simply gone to do what he told her to do, he also hated watching her walk away from him.

  Her dark eyes watched him as she disappeared behind the bathroom door. The last thing he saw was the way she bit into her bottom lip before the door clicked shut, completely closing him out this time. Once she was out of sight, Connor dropped to the edge of the bed and let his head fall into his hands.

  Fuck.

  It wasn’t supposed to have happened like that. He’d had a plan. To make her trust him. To make her see him. To make her understand that he wanted more than sex from her. But instead of taking his time and winning her over he’d yelled at her then all but attacked her and though she’d come willingly with him as he jumped over the edge of no return, he knew that his timing left a lot to be desired.

  He grabbed his phone out of his back pocket and looked at the screen. He had a text message and a missed call. It buzzed in his hand with a voicemail. All the messages were from their friends. Their friends would come looking for them if they didn’t show their faces in the ballroom and soon.

  Derek would come looking for them and then what? Connor didn’t even want to imagine what Lulu would do if Derek was the one to find them together. He didn’t want to think of how she would try to hide Connor, get rid of him, ignore him and pretend that kiss had never happened and for what? All for a man that was marrying someone else in a few days time.

  Connor cursed under his breath again as he shot back a quick message that they’d be there soon and then tucked the phone away again.

  He knew that by now, even when they did appear in the ballroom, even if Lulu managed to put herself back into sorts and didn’t look as if she’d just nearly had an orgasm in his arms, Derek would ask why they were late. He would be there in the ballroom watching them and asking questions. And Derek was the last person in the world Connor wanted anywhere near either of them after what had just happened.

  He wanted to lock the door and keep Lulu to himself. He wanted to make her feel things she’d never felt before. He wanted to make her feel so good that she forgot that she’d ever wanted anyone but him.

  Instead, after a terrible ten minutes passed she came out of the bathroom. She was dressed in a short black dress and heels this time. Her makeup fixed and her hair smoothed into place. She looked put together but she didn’t quite look like Lulu.

  It wasn’t that her lips were still swollen. It wasn’t the slight flush that stained her cheeks when he stood and she saw him. It was the wariness that had crept into every one of her muscles and the way she held herself stiffly away from him, as if she was scared to get too close to him.

  He winced, “Lu…”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.” She clipped at him instantly.

  “Lu…” He tried again, moving towards her, but she held up a hand that stopped him in his tracks.

  “I can’t do this right now, Connor. Like you said, they’re expecting us. Let’s just go and get this over with and then…” She trailed off and he didn’t know how she’d intended to finish the sentence.

  Then they would what? Talk? Continue? Pretend it had never happened?

  “Please?” She blinked up at him and for a split second he saw the Lulu that he’d fallen for, the girl that was so damn fragile one wrong word could shatter her. He’d never been the one with that kind of power over her. Those looks had always been Derek’s before now. And the realization that he’d gotten under her skin, finally, made his heart ache, “Please, if you meant anything you said to me tonight just… give me some time to figure it all out, okay?”

  “Of course.” He gave in immediately, not wanting to make things any worse, “Let’s just go.”

  But he knew that he couldn’t let it go. Not now. Not now that he knew what she tasted like. Not now that he knew she was liquid fire and passion in his arms. Not now that he knew she wanted him too.

  Maybe it confused her. Maybe it scared her. But she wanted him.

  She could have some time to think if she wanted, but she hadn’t asked for space so he intended to be right there with her all night, reminding her of just how damn good they could be together.

  Chapter Seven

  Lulu had never been so confused in her life. She’d always thought she knew exactly who she was. She’d known what she wanted. Even when she’d learned that she couldn’t have the life she wanted, the person she’d wanted, she’d still known where she stood.

  Until today. Until Connor had kissed her. Until he’d turned her world upside down.

  Connor Shaw had kissed her. He’d told her she was gorgeous and sexy and that he wanted her. He’d said he had always wanted her. And when she hadn’t believed his words, had thought he was still up to something, he’d shown her. Connor had kissed her like both of their lives depended on it.

  Connor had kissed her and she’d completely lost her footing.

  Her mind had been whirling ever since. Nonstop. Questioning everything. Every moment. Every interaction. Everything for the past twenty years of her life was suddenly flashing to her through a new filter, the Connor filter, without the mask of disapproval she’d always seen shading their relationship.

  He did disapprove. She hadn’t dreamed that. But now she had a small inkling of why it was that Connor had continued to dash her dreams of a life with Derek again and again.

  It wasn’t because he was rude or mean-spirited. It wasn’t because he had wanted to hurt her. He’d wanted her to face the truth, to give up on the man that had broken her heart so many times she was certain it would never fully heal.

  He’d needed her to face that truth before she’d be able to hear his. He knew her. He knew her better than she’d ever let herself believe he did.

  In his own way, Connor had helped her pick up the pieces of her heart again and again through the years. He’d distracted her from her pain and sadness. For the first time, she wondered if she gave him a chance, if he wouldn’t just pick up the pieces but help her heal too.

  She shook her head to clear the thoughts. It was crazy. She was crazy. One kiss and she was thinking of crazy things and possibilities.

  Just this afternoon
she’d accused Sierra of being the insane one but as it turned out, the woman was really insightful, observant, and perhaps nowhere near as crazy as she liked for people to believe.

  Sierra had told Lulu that Connor wanted her. She’d been right. She’d pointed out the ways he had taken care of her throughout the day, made her smile and laugh, and pulled her out of her own head. Lulu hadn’t been willing to listen then but now, thinking on everything between them she could see it for herself.

  Connor had been taking care of her for a long time.

  Sierra had also said that Lulu wanted Connor though and she wasn’t entirely sure how the blonde had known that. She hadn’t known it herself. Not at the time. She’d known that her eyes had a tendency to linger on his beautiful features when he wasn’t looking. She’d known that her body reacted to his presence with heat that she’d never been able to completely explain away. But she hadn’t thought it was anything more than a simple chemical reaction to his superior gene sequence.

  But then he’d kissed her…

  Connor had kissed her and she hadn’t pushed him away. She’d never even considered it. As soon as his mouth had taken hers, she’d melted. She’d been overcome by the surge of desire that leapt inside of her.

  The part of herself that had always wondered what he would taste like, how he would kiss, why every woman that had ever been graced by his touch went all dreamy at just the sound of his name afterwards, had wanted that kiss, had needed it. She’d needed to know but it had been so much more than anything she’d ever expected.

  His hand in her hair had been firm and aggressive. His mouth had taken absolute possession of her. He’d held her right where he wanted her. He had been in total and complete control and she had been able to do nothing but accept the onslaught of his passion in that moment.

  She’d never experienced anything like it.

  The boyfriends she’d had, the lovers she’d taken, none of them had ever been so demanding. Never been so thorough. Never forced her to feel every ounce of desire, every spark, with nothing but the stroke of their tongue and their hands on her body.

  When that phone had interrupted Connor and his kiss, she’d felt on the verge of coming apart at the seams. She would have climaxed the minute he touched her. Maybe even before. He’d driven her so high, so fast, that when the kiss had ended so suddenly she’d felt like all of the oxygen had been sucked away from her. When he’d pulled back, pulled away, she’d felt like she lost the ability to breathe. She still wasn’t sure she was breathing properly because she kept getting bouts of dizziness as she spun across the dance floor.

  The instructor Aubrey had hired to teach them the steps to the all-important first dance the wedding party would be doing kept clapping and yelling out tips and counting steps. His voice rang in her ears. It was the only thing she heard over the sound of her own thunderous thoughts that kept asking…

  Now what?

  “Darlin, you’re giving my ego a hell of a bruising you know that?”

  She blinked and glanced up into a set of playful, dark brown eyes that she’d known all her life, “Sorry, what?”

  “Exactly.” Dean chuckled. “You haven’t heard a word I said, have you?”

  She must have winced because her current dance partner only laughed again. He led her awkwardly through the next round of steps without commenting. She hadn’t even realized he’d been talking to her. In all honesty, because they kept changing partners every few minutes to make sure the dance would go off flawlessly, she couldn’t even remember when it had gone from Reed guiding her across the floor to Dean.

  She could dance all day and night without giving the steps a second thought. Dance was her life. It always had been. She’d been practicing ballet since she was a kid. She’d taken up ballroom as a teen. She’d tried jazz and tap and hip hop and everything in between. If it had a beat that she could get lost in, Lulu fell in love with it.

  She’d made dance her career. Teaching classes at the fitness center back in Fate. Doing shows across the state with a local troupe when she found the time.

  Dancing flowed through her veins so she wasn’t surprised in the least that she’d been following the instructors steps even as she zoned out and didn’t hear Dean’s voice.

  “Sorry. Distracted I guess.”

  “I’d say so.” Dean only shrugged good naturedly, “You want to talk about it?”

  “Definitely not.” She returned his smile and he nodded.

  “Not appropriate for little brother ears huh?”

  That made her laugh a little as their feet got tangled and it took them a moment to get back on track. As much as she’d always hated when Derek said she was like the sister he’d never had, she’d always considered Dean family. He really was like a little brother to her. He’d spent years chasing behind her and Derek on his bike and climbing up trees after them. She would always think of him as that adorable, cherub faced little boy that wore Spiderman pajamas even if he was over six feet, two hundred pounds of pure man, muscle and lady-killing charm these days.

  “It’s cool. I get it.”

  “For the record, there’s plenty of things I don’t need to hear about your life as well.” She teased.

  “But I always have the best stories.”

  She laughed again even as she heard the instructor call for a change of partners. Dean laughed with her. He was already beginning to step back away from her, to move on, when a big figure cast a shadow over him. She looked up and her breath caught.

  “Connor.” Dean grinned.

  “Scram kid.” He didn’t smile, “This one is mine.”

  Dean chuckled and gave a mock bow before moving away. Lulu gaped up at Connor as he moved into her personal space. She was in too much shock over what he’d just said to even argue when he wrapped an arm around her and pulled her closer than any of her previous dance partners had dared.

  “What were you two laughing about?” He asked, voice rough and serious.

  She stared up at him mutely. He’d called her his. To Dean. Surely she should have some sort of comeback for that. She wasn’t his… anything. Not really. Just yesterday she’d have called him an enemy. Today, he’d started to become a friend. Then he’d kissed her and twisted everything she thought about him up in knots.

  Connor raised one eyebrow, “You’re not going to tell me?”

  She frowned at him. Frowned at the way he so easily guided her across the dance floor. She had only a vague memory of dancing with Reed but she remembered him stepping on her foot. Dean had nearly tripped them at least twice. Connor though, Connor held her with confidence and surety, guiding her exactly where he wanted her to go, leading her as if he’d been doing it for years.

  And just when the hell had Connor learned to dance like this? And with who? And why did the thought of him learning to dance with someone else annoy her so much all of a sudden?

  “Do you have any idea how jealous it makes me when you laugh for one of them?” He lowered his voice when she remained quiet. “I want your laughs. I want your smiles. I hated seeing Reed and Dean touch you, even innocently. I’ve wanted you back in my arms since the moment I let you go.”

  Lulu sucked in a shaky breath and stared. His blue eyes twinkled and the chandelier overhead sparked gold off his hair. His lips were just a few inches away and if she leaned up, she could kiss him again. Take another taste of that deep, sensual, bourbon and chocolate taste of him that made her insides melt. She pulled her gaze away and swallowed hard.

  She had to stop this whirlwind going on inside her.

  “Are you really not going to talk to me?” Connor’s hand slid up her back in the gentlest caress and she fought off a shiver of awareness.

  Right. Talking. He wanted to talk and she was being a mute idiot.

  She shook her head, “I told you earlier that I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Okay. I can think of much better ways to put that sassy mouth of yours to use.”

  She growled at the class
ic Connor comment that made her want to smack him, “You’re an asshole.”

  “You’re right. I’m the asshole that isn’t afraid to say the things you don’t want to admit you already know.” He only smirked down at her, igniting both a heat of desire and anger in equal measure.

  Had it always been both? Was she only tricking herself into thinking it was the latter? Or was she just so lonely that she would accept even the attention of this man that she didn’t like all that much?

  “I hate you. I know that.”

  “No. You don’t.” He sighed, twisting them around the next turn gracefully before catching her gaze again, “You just hate that I’m willing to admit what you can’t. Holding onto those dreams of you and Dare were pointless. You knew that. You knew it long before we got to this point, Lu.”

  “Shut up.”

  “It was never going to be him for you. He can’t handle you. Never had a clue what to do with all that wild, untapped energy inside you, but I do. I get you. I match you. Now that you’re finally starting to realize that you know, just like I do, that it always should’ve been us.”

  She snorted, “A match? You think we’re a match? We’re more like fire and gasoline.”

  “Mmm.” Connor smirked, his body brushing against hers suggestively, his voice low and husky and just at her ear, “Just imagine the explosion.”

  “Stop it.” She whispered but her voice was too soft to be a deterrent.

  Her breathing had sped up and it didn’t have a thing to do with the dancing. It was him. His hands on her body. His masculine scent in her nose. His heat radiating all around her. Her body reacted to him and to his taunts that had begun to feel more like promises.

  Sierra was right. All the fighting they did? It definitely felt like foreplay now.

  “Just admit what your body already knows. You want me just as bad as I want you.”

  “You’re delusional.” She shot back the only thing she could think of because her body was a traitorous bitch and even her mind felt cloudy in his presence.