“Fuck, sunshine. You have no idea how much willpower I’m exercising by not wrapping your legs around my waist and carrying you out of here right now.”
Just the idea of wrapping myself around his body filled me with lust. Alcohol had stripped me of all inhibitions, and I stared at him longingly, silently willing him to do it. He looked pained as he shook his head.
“No,” he said firmly, and my heart sank at his blatant rejection. The great Cormac O’Connell, who’d fucked countless women, was turning me down. He tilted my chin up with his finger until I met his eyes.
“I take you out now with you wrapped around my waist, and I’m fucking you. Hard. I don’t want that for us. Our first time together is something we won’t ever forget, and I have some big plans for us. So stop raining on my parade. You deserve all that romantic shit, but I’m so hard it’s getting painful. So, go easy on me, baby, okay?”
Well, wasn’t that the most romantic thing I’d ever heard? O’Connell had made me feel sexy, loved, and wanted all in the same speech as rejecting me. My huge, drunken, sloppy grin told him just how cute I thought that was. I leant up on my tiptoes and reached my lips up to his ear. Thinking that I was trying to talk to him, he bent his head toward me. Feeling bold and brave, I sucked the lobe of his ear gently between my lips and nipped it lightly before I answered him.
“Promise me a few more kisses tonight, and I promise to stop trying to wrap myself around you like a pretzel.”
He groaned as he touched his forehead to mine.
“A pretzel? Fuck, baby, you really are gonna make me come in my jeans. You have no idea how sexy you are, do you?”
I shook my head vigorously as though the question wasn’t rhetorical, and O’Connell kissed me quickly on the lips.
“Come on. Let’s get some water in you.”
After drinking at least two pints of water, I felt a pair of floppy arms wrap around my neck.
“See. I soooo promised to take care of you, didn’t I?” If I was drunk, then Nikki was completely plastered. Her idea of looking after someone and mine were wildly different, but there was no doubt that my first choice for a friend had been a brilliant one. Nikki was one of the kindest, most generous people that I’d ever met. She leant me clothes, worried about me, and cared enough to turn up tonight with practically no notice. If she was a little unreliable when drunk, well, it wasn’t the worse fault to have. I only hoped that given time I could be as good a friend to her as she’d already been to me.
“Do you know that I’m a teensy bit drunk,” she told me very matter-of-factly, as she held up her thumb and index finger slightly apart to indicate just how fractionally drunk she was.
“Do you know, I think I might be a bit, too,” I admitted.
At this point, our arms were wrapped around each other in solidarity, as we struggled to hold each other up. O’Connell and Kieran looked amused, but Ryan was pissed.
“What shall we do now, shots or dancing?” she asked me. “My vote’s on shots,” she decided for us, as she pulled me toward the bar.
“Who wants a shot?” she shouted to everyone. Tommy didn’t once detach his lips from his slut, but lifted one hand off her tit and raised it in the air to show that he was part of the round. I held my hand up as well and waved it enthusiastically like a little kid, afraid that she’d miss me even though I stood right next to her.
“I’m good, thanks, sweetheart,” Mac answered.
“Me, too,” agreed Albie, shaking his blond head no.
“Well, count me in, baby,” Kieran hollered, looking at Nikki dangerously.
“Arsehat?” Nikki asked Ryan.
“For fuck’s sake, Nikki. I have a name, use it!” he grumbled. She rolled her eyes at him.
“Okay, don’t get your knickers in a knot.”
“Don’t you think you’ve had enough?” he asked her.
“Who are you, my mum? Do you want a shot or not?”
“Fine!” he all but screamed at her.
O’Connell and Kieran grinned openly at the pair of them. You could cut the sexual tension between them with a knife. It was only a matter of time before they either kissed or killed each other. Nikki brought the tray of shots over and handed them out. Tapping our glasses together, we threw them back like pros. I fought the shiver that ran through me as the liquid hit the back of my throat.
“This has been such an awesome night. Thanks for inviting me, Con,” Nikki screeched at O’Connell, while squeezing me like a rag doll. I could feel the bile rising up in my throat as she did it.
“No problem, Nikki. It’s been pretty cool hanging out with some of Em’s friends. We should do it again sometime,” he answered.
Everyone except Ryan seemed pleased at the suggestion. I did feel a little sorry for him. Having his masculinity threatened by all these God-like men might not have been so bad if Nikki was acting a little nicer toward him. Right now, though, I had bigger things to worry about, as the churning in my stomach seemed to get worse.
“O’Connell?” I whispered, tugging gently on his shirt as I clutched my stomach with the other hand. “I don’t feel well.”
“What’s wrong, baby?” he asked with concern.
I opened my mouth to answer him when my stomach rolled over. Losing all control, I vomited down the front of his shirt.
I TRIED NOT TO CRY as my stomach emptied itself repeatedly. For one brief and glorious moment, I’d feel better, then my stomach would churn, and I’d vomit all over again. Even when there were no fluids left inside me, I was still going, retching so much that my stomach hurt.
“Make it stop, please,” I begged O’Connell, as he held back my hair. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear amusement in his voice or even censure. It was the least that I deserved, but he seemed genuinely concerned for me.
“Sunshine, if I could take your place, I would. But it will stop soon, I promise.”
With his free hand, he rubbed big comforting circles on my back, and I slumped against his enormous frame.
“I don’t deserve you. I get blind drunk on my first real taste of alcohol, vomit all over you then spend the rest of the night showing you exactly what I had to eat yesterday. And you’re still here.”
He chuckled as he let go of my hair and reached up to wet a washcloth in the sink. Squeezing out the excess water, he placed the cool compress over my eyes.
“Ahh, that feels so good,” I moaned in relief, as it shielded my poor retinas from the blinding bathroom light.
“Before I met you, this was pretty much my typical weekend morning. I hate that you’re feeling shitty, but I kind of like the fact that you felt comfortable enough to get drunk with me. I know you wouldn’t have let down those barriers of yours if you didn’t think I’d protect you.”
“That’s important to you?” I asked him curiously.
He removed the compress and looked into my eyes.
“When you’re with me, you never have be afraid of anything. I would decimate any fucker who so much as looked at you wrong if you asked me to. Tonight, you believed that, and you dropped your guard. You trusted me. Every time you let down another one of those barriers, I know that you’re a bit closer to being mine. One day, when the last one falls, you’ll be as much mine as I am yours.”
With that mind-blowing declaration, he kissed my forehead gently.
“Are you sure you want them down? The stuff behind them isn’t pretty,” I whispered hoarsely.
“There’s not one bit of you, inside or out, that isn’t fucking beautiful. Nothing that happened to you before me is gonna change that,” he replied.
“I’m scared,” I admitted, the tears running tracks down my reddened cheeks.
“Me, too. I’m scared that you’ll take my heart and stomp the fuck out of it. But there ain’t nothing in this world for me worth fighting for more than you.”
O’Connell was literally seeing me at my worst. I was raw and ugly, yet still, here he sat, making himself as vulnerable to me as I was to him.
“I’ll tell you everything. But not today, okay?” I whispered, and he smiled gently.
“Not today,” he agreed.
“I’m sorry about your shirt.” I groaned.
“You really will do anything to get my clothes off, won’t you?”
I couldn’t help but laugh, only to stop suddenly and lurch forward. Instinctively, O’Connell reached for my hair as I retched again, praying that this would all be over soon.
THE POUNDING SOUNDED like a bass drum next to my ear.
“Is that my head or the door?” I mumbled to O’Connell, my voice muffled by the pillow I’d pressed over my ears. A few months ago, I’d have been in the wardrobe at the first knock. Now, I trusted that O’Connell was bigger and badder than anything on the other side of the door. He would never know just how much progress that was for me.
“You’ve got company, sunshine,” O’Connell called out, as a body collapsed on the bed beside me.
“Why’d you disappear last night on me, bitch?” Nikki’s voice was hoarse from all the drinking she’d done.
“Don’t call me a bitch. It’s not nice,” I answered, though I was barely audible with my face embedded in the pillow.
“I don’t feel nice this morning, but I need credit for being an amazing friend ‘cause I bought you a coffee on the way over.”
I groaned with appreciation as I inhaled the delicious aroma. Peeling my face gently away from the pillow, I braved the daylight to look at her.
“You look like I feel,” I groaned.
“Now you’re definitely being a bitch.” She grinned.
O’Connell walked toward me with a glass of water and some painkillers, and sat down next to me on the bed.
“How you feeling, baby?” he asked, as I gratefully downed both.
“Awful. Why would anyone do that more than once?” I asked.
“Last night was great. Totally worth the hangover,” Nikki enthused.
“Maybe you should go a little easier next time,” O’Connell cautioned.
“I am NEVER. DRINKING. AGAIN,” I replied firmly. He chuckled and pulled me into his chest.
“Considering those abs are rock hard, you give pretty good cuddles,” I complimented him, as I snuggled in deeper.
“Yuk. Get a room,” Nikki complained.
“We did. You’re in it!” O’Connell replied. I smiled at the two of them, but I knew if Nikki wasn’t there, getting closely acquainted with each one of O’Connell’s abdominal muscles would have sounded like a pretty good hangover cure.
“You need anything before I go?” O’Connell asked me.
“Do you have to leave?” I groaned, perfectly happy to spend the rest of the morning lying across his chest.
“If I miss training even once, I don’t think that Danny would have me back. Kier’s supposed to be sparring with me today, so if he turns up hung over, Danny’s already gonna be on the war path,” he warned.
“Don’t worry. I know you have to go.” I glanced up at him, and he looked torn.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, alarmed.
“You never ask me to stay, and the one time you do, I really have to go,” he replied.
I smiled gently, even though it really made my head hurt to do it.
“I’m not asking you to stay. It’s important that you don’t let Danny down. If you mess this up, he might not give you another shot. Be gentle with Kier, though. I have a feeling he’s going to be a bit delicate today, and if you knock him out, you won’t have anyone to spar with. Then Danny really will be pissed.”
“You’re no fun.” He grinned. “I’ve been looking forward to beating on Kier all morning.”
I had the feeling that Kieran was really going to regret agreeing to train today. I was guessing that O’Connell kept a change of clothes in his car, because he was carrying his training bag when he bent over to kiss me.
“Bye, baby. I’ll see you soon.” He spoke softly, as we tried to ignore Nikki’s dramatic gagging noises by the side of me.
“Bye, Nikki,” he called out, winking at me on his way out. The soft click of the door sounded like a gunshot in my head. In the absence of O’Connell’s lovely warm body, I collapsed back into the pillow.
“If your man was a bar of chocolate, I’d be nibbling on that all day.”
“Nikki!” I blustered. “If he was a bar of chocolate, I’d never let you open the wrapper.”
She giggled at me, and I blushed, both of us knowing that we were picturing O’Connell naked.
“Don’t worry.” She sighed. “That boy only has eyes for you.”
The fact that O’Connell and I were technically just friends, and that Nikki had every right to look as much as she wanted, was something that would have to wait until my hangover had gone.
“I feel like crap,” I complained.
“Go back to sleep then. You’ll feel better later.”
“What are you going to do?” I asked her. It was kind of a weird situation, never having had a friend around just to hang out at home with before.
“I brought my laptop and some movies so I’m going to veg here all day until I feel less like I’ve been licking the pavement all night.”
“You dragged yourself all the way over to my shitty apartment to do that? Your place is much nicer,” I told her in disbelief.
“What can I say, bitch. Misery loves company,” she retorted. Having set up the laptop, she climbed under my covers, and we spent the next couple of hours watching movies. My eyes were begging for sleep, but I loved every minute of just chilling out with Nikki, so I wasn’t giving this up. Sleep could wait until later. By the time she left, I was exhausted but less nauseous. After a quick shower that brought me back to life, I climbed into bed and slid my hands under my pillow. The sharp pointed edge of a folded piece of paper jabbed at my fingertip, and I pulled it out with a smile.
Jeez, that boy seriously knew what he was doing. With Nikki gone, I was starting to worry about how I could face everyone tomorrow, knowing that I’d completely humiliated myself by puking all over O’Connell. Now, all that I could think about was my seriously sweet, hot fighter.
THE REST OF THE WEEK rolled by quickly. Despite my anxiety, none of the guys made a big deal about ‘vomit gate’, and I think they knew me well enough to guess that I’d retreat back into my shell if they gave me too hard a time about it. I hadn’t seen O’Connell since Saturday, but I had a note waiting from him every single day, either posted underneath my door before I woke or delivered by Kieran. I was beginning to think that the main entrance to my building was less of a security door and more of an inconvenience to O’Connell, because he never asked me to buzz him up to deliver any of these messages. They were so much better than text messages or emails, though, because each word was in his handwriting and holding them in my hand made them tangible and real. O’Connell hadn’t been able to give me flowers and take me on extravagant dates, but this stack of notes that I kept so carefully was his way of dating me. I loved it. They conveyed so much more than a text ever would have. When his handwriting was messy, I knew that he was tired. When he underlined the word sexy, I knew that he was horny. When he signed with a kiss, I knew that kiss was real. True, I missed his voice, but I really did love these notes.
I CAME OUT OF CLASS Thursday to find Kieran leaning against his fire engine red bike, legs and arms crossed and winking at all the pretty first years.
“Seriously! Don’t you ever get sick of chasing girls?”
“Nope,” he replied. “Having a body like this is a gift, and I feel a moral obligation to share it with the world.”
I wondered if he was joking, but I doubted that he was. There was no denying that Kieran was sex on a stick, but O’Connell was the only flavour I was interested in. I grinned as I waited for him to hand me my note. I really was starting to get a little clingy about those.
“Why is he sending me a note? I’m seeing him later,” I asked.
“Not soon enough, apparently. He se
nt me to come and get you because he’s having withdrawals.” He reached behind him to grab a helmet.
“No note, then?” I was disappointed about the note, but jump-up-and-down excited that he was as eager to see me as I was to see him.
“Fucking hell. You two are getting ridiculous with these notes. I’m not a fucking postman you know,” he grumbled.
“How does this thing do up?” I asked, ignoring him as I fiddled with the strap of my helmet. Instead of a cool biker chick, I suspected that I looked more like a bobble head. He rolled his eyes and fastened the strap for me.
“Did I ever tell you how awesome you are?” I asked him as I climbed onto the bike behind him.
“Yeah, yeah,” he mumbled. “You only love me ‘cause I bring you stuff from your man.”
“He’s not my man, you know,” I reminded him.
“Whatever you say, sunshine.” He sighed, and we pulled off toward the gym.
“THAT WAS AMAZING!” I squealed as I climbed off the bike fifteen minutes later.
The Hurricane Page 13
