“You’re a little overdressed there, Picasso.” Her eyes darted down to his denim-clad legs.
He raised his brows. “Aren’t you supposed to take care of me? Attend to my every need? In a purely medical sense, of course.”
“Oh, of course,” she parroted back in a condescension-laced tone. She moved over him, snapping the button open and pulling the zipper down at a speed that belied her assertion to take the night slow. “Lucky for you, I take patient care very seriously.”
Once he was free of his pants and boxers, she straddled his lap, lowering herself down onto him gently, moving inch by inch at an achingly slow pace. By the time he was fully inside her, her lungs burned and her heart raced. “A-are y-you okay?”
Connor’s chest heaved. “I won’t be if you stay like that all night.” He gripped her hips and encouraged her movement. “I need you, Kels.”
His words mixed with the perfect filling inside to throw her rapidly to the edge of delirious bliss. She bent forward and braced her hands on either side of his head.
“I love you, too.” His hoarse voice broke through her fog of pleasure. “Y-you said you never stopped loving me. You need to know that I never once stopped loving you, either. Not for a second.”
A tear trailed down her cheek, and she joined her mouth with his to show him how that affected her much more efficiently than any verbal response possibly could. Three more thrusts up and down on his hard length sent her spiraling over the cliff as stars burst in her vision. Her climax was quickly followed by a low, guttural growl from Connor as she collapsed on his chest.
He kissed the top of her head where it rested against his rapidly beating heart. “Don’t move. Not yet.”
Within moments, they both slipped into a peaceful slumber, completely entangled in each other.
Chapter
Twenty-Two
Connor
Three Years Earlier
Connor smirked at the plate. “Pretty damn good, if I do say so myself.” Moving at the pace of a snail, he ascended the stairs, his eye on the precariously sloshing orange juice.
He bumped the bedroom door open with his shoulder, set the tray down on the floor, and settled on the mattress beside Kelsey’s slumbering form. Tucking a strand of hair that had fallen over her face behind her ear, he pressed his lips to her cheek. He moved his mouth over to her ear and whispered gently, “Time to wake up, gorgeous.”
She groaned and rolled onto her back, blinking up at him and holding her hand up against the light streaming in through the window across the room. “I feel like I just fell asleep.”
Chuckling, he dropped a kiss on the tip of her nose. “That’s probably because you were tossing and turning all night.”
Her lips thinned and brows drew together. “There is so much riding on this day.”
“It’s going to be great.” His fingers tangled in her hair and lowered his mouth to hers in a soft and gentle pairing that silently spoke all the encouragement and support he had tried to show her over the past several months. “But you need to start off your day on the right foot.”
He popped off the bed and reached down. Unfolding the legs to straddle her lap, he set up the tray in front of her.
Three slow blinks preceded her outburst of tearful laughter. “Exactly how long did it take you to make these?”
Connor dropped a kiss on her nose. “You’re going to marry an artist who happens to also design buildings and homes. Do you think a few custom pancakes are too hard for me?”
She gripped his face between her palms and gave him a much deeper and more meaningful kiss. “I love you, but turning my logo into a breakfast dish is slightly ridiculous.”
“Your logo is basically just three letters.” He rolled his eyes and waved at the tray. “Eat up while I clean the kitchen to save you a heart attack. And drink your coffee.”
Kelsey rolled her eyes at him as she took a long draw from the beverage. “I might get used to this, Picasso. You’re setting the bar pretty damn high.”
He stood and stretched. “Just give me thirty minutes before you come down so I can keep the illusion alive.” With one more peck, he exited and took the stairs two at a time.
“Maybe I should’ve given myself a little extra time,” he murmured to himself as he surveyed the kitchen that looked far more disastrous than five minutes ago when he’d been so proud to deliver her breakfast.
He’d just loaded the final pan into the dishwasher and slammed it closed when she descended the stairs. She’d had more stress on her plate than normal as she managed her client load from a temporary location and worked on rebuilding her office. Today was the culmination of far too many sleepless nights and hours they’d spent brainstorming the layout and design.
Kelsey knitted her hands together as she stood in the archway between the kitchen and living room. “I’ve been waiting for this, but now that it’s here, I feel completely unprepared and wish I had more time.”
He crossed the few feet separating them and untangled her fingers, lacing them with his own. “But you’re not going through it alone.”
She melted into him, wrapping her arms around his midsection and laying her cheek on his chest. “I can’t imagine how I’d have managed any of this without you.”
“Good thing you’ll never have to find out.” He pressed his lips to the crown of her head. His phone chose that moment to emit the blaring ringtone parody of a current pop music chart topper. He curled his lip back into a sneer when his older brother’s name flashed across the screen. “Ah, hell, it’s Wyatt.”
Kelsey giggled as she stepped out of the circle of his arms. “Wonder what he broke this time.” She refilled the mug she’d carried downstairs on the tray. “We could take bets. His autograph-signing hand? Maybe he has a big dirt rash down his back so he can’t model jeans topless anymore.”
Connor rolled his eyes and swiped across the screen to connect the call. “What kind of bad news do I have to break to Mom this time? Her darling cowboy managed to smash his face into the ground and effectively ended his storied career?”
“This is serious, Con.” Wyatt’s voice held more gravity than Connor could ever remember hearing from his brother in the past twenty-five years of his life. “It’s Tanner.”
Ice trickled through Connor’s veins. “Tanner? Is he…what happened?”
Across the room, Kelsey’s face sobered, her brows drawn tightly together and lips pressed into a thin line. She mouthed back his oldest brother’s name in a shocked question, and Connor nodded in reply.
A weighted sigh came over the line. “It…might have been my fault.” The pacing of Wyatt’s boots against some hard surface filled in the silence as his brother left the statement hanging between them. “I was just trying to give him shit like we always have. You know, Tanner the great, Tanner the responsible, Tanner the Carlisle who was born in a damn three-piece suit.”
“Yeah, I get that he’s an obnoxious bastard, but you sure as hell didn’t call to tell me that.” Connor ran his tongue along the back of his teeth and wished Wyatt would just spit out whatever was wrong.
“I goaded him into going shot for shot with me, and…you know Tanner. Aside from a business deal over scotch or wine with dinner, he’s a total lightweight. I drank him under the table in no time.” Wyatt huffed out another frustrated breath. “And I was too damn busy with a buckle bunny trying to take my shirt off on the dance floor to notice where my brother was. And now…shit, Wyatt, I might have screwed up Tanner’s entire life.”
***
Kelsey
Three Years Earlier
Despite countless hours spent mentally rehearsing the day over and over and trying to solve any possible issues before they came up, Kelsey’s grand re-opening went far better than she could have possibly envisioned. Every chance she had, she’d told Connor that the day, and her emotional wellbeing as a whole, could not have possibly been as good if it hadn’t been for him, but it didn’t even come close to the truth.
> Not only had Connor taken the initiative to begin sketching the office design at a moment in her life when she wanted to crawl under a rock and hide, he’d solved every issue along the way that came up with the contractor. Especially the ones that seemed to pop up when she was most stressed.
He gave her the freedom to focus on caring for her clients in alternate locations and sharing office space with colleagues until her own practice was rebuilt. He’d taken one of the worst experiences in her life and somehow transformed it into an event that solidified what she’d known since she came in contact with the blinding grin that managed to make her melt even when the owner was covered in soup—they were meant to be.
She snuggled more firmly against his side in the darkened room. They had both been absolutely wiped out from all the events—again, largely planned by Connor—that they’d collapsed into bed as soon as they’d crossed the threshold. Her parents, who had come in for the big day, laughed at them, proclaiming it far too early for sleep. They still sat downstairs watching her father’s favorite cop drama.
Despite the exhaustion in her body, her mind raced to replay the re-opening, and she smiled into Connor’s cotton-covered chest. “Thanks for everything, Picasso.”
His grip on her shoulder tightened, and his lips pressed against the crown of her head. “I’d say no thanks were necessary, but I’d love to see what kind of reward system you’d put in place for my immensely good behavior.” He rolled her beneath him, his hands trailing down the length of her body. “I mean…the balloon animals ought to account for at least three—”
Kelsey smacked his bicep and angled her neck to give him better access. “My parents are right downstairs.”
Connor nipped along her jawline until he reached her ear. “Then I guess you better be quiet.”
She moaned softly and gave in to every kiss and caress that he directed to all the right places. Familiarity found a way to lend itself to a deeper pleasure rather than to complacency and boredom.
With far more enjoyment than anyone should have in the task, Connor brought her to a near-silent climax that found her teeth buried in her hand to mute the screams begging to be let out. Although she delighted in wiping the smile completely off his face when it was his turn to achieve the same level of ecstasy he had sent her to without making a sound.
“Okay,” he panted as they lay beside each other in the afterglow, “we clearly need to do that more often with guests in the house, because damn, girl, you are creative.”
She offered a wicked grin and winked at him in the nearly pitch dark room. “Even after three years I manage to surprise you? Good to know, Picasso.”
Lashes far too long for any man rested against his cheeks, barely illuminated in the moonlight and small glow from the adjoining bathroom. The events of this morning sobered her light mood. She laid a hand on his chest and propped her chin on it. “Connor?”
“Hmm?” Not a cell in his body moved except for the slight rise of his ribcage.
“How bad is it?”
He angled an arm behind his head, elevating it slightly, and looked down at her. “How bad is what?”
Kelsey ran a tongue along her suddenly dry lips. “Tanner and Izzy. Are they going to be okay?”
Connor’s silence was beyond deafening; it was terrifying. He’d given her a brief outline and shattered her heart in the process. She knew he looked up to his brother, and the blow that Tanner’s marriage had taken over the weekend created ripples that would encompass each of the brothers in various ways. It was impossible for four boys to be so close and not be deeply impacted by the events going on in each other’s lives, good or bad.
Even if their daily interactions could nicely be described as playfully aggressive—and sometimes light on the playful—they occasionally drove nearly every woman in their lives to the brink of insanity with the ceaseless insults that bordered on bullying.
“It…it’s Tanner and Izzy. They have to be okay. They were meant for each other.” He tightened his hold on Kelsey. “And I’m not just saying that because I’ve been exposed to far too many of my mom’s favorite romances. Even Wyatt, as big of an asshole as he is, has always managed to see it, too.”
Connor let out a heavy breath. “They’ll be fine.” He winked down at Kelsey. “They are almost as perfect as we are.”
The concern swirling around in her mind like white water rapids stilled a fraction. “Almost,” she confirmed with a grin that was far more confident than she felt in that moment.
With another kiss to her head, Connor dropped off into sleep at an enviable speed. Kelsey muttered a few curses under her breath at his incredible ability that she both hated and coveted. Her brain still whirred with activity and worry and showed very little sign of letting up soon enough to allow her to drift off into the slumber she so desperately craved.
In the darkness of the room, she pieced together a few lessons, determined to avoid mistakes that would plunge her relationship with Connor into the same peril her soon-to-be in-laws currently faced.
Connor was right; Tanner and Izzy would pull through this rough spot. They had to. Their bond was too strong and their love too disgustingly obvious for any other outcome.
Just as the affirmation cemented itself in her psyche, Connor’s hold on her tightened, and he pulled her impossibly closer to him. “Your brain is working so loudly it’s keeping me awake.” His hoarse tone belied his words, thoroughly laced with sleepy gravel.
“Do you believe she can give him a second chance?” She didn’t even truly expect an answer, assuming he’d fallen back into his near-comatose sleeping state.
He moved slightly without letting her go. “Everyone deserves a second chance. Even my idiot brothers.”
She pressed a soft kiss to his left pec. “Everyone?”
“Everyone.” His confirmation brought a smile to her lips moments before his deep snore made her roll her eyes.
Chapter
Twenty-Three
Connor
Present Day
“Son?”
Connor dropped his head to the back of the couch and groaned. “I’m in the living room, Dad.”
Mike Carlisle strode into the room with the same confidence and authority he’d had Connor’s entire life. He cast a glance over to the cane. “How are you doing?”
It was a question he loathed in the weeks following the accident, but one that didn’t bother him nearly as much now. He was steadily regaining his mobility, and most importantly, he had Kelsey back. The glittering ring sequestered away in his nightstand drawer, despite all his assertions that he’d sold it and drank the profits, filtered through his mind again.
“Better,” he confirmed with a nod. A large part of it had to do with waking up to Kelsey in his arms every morning this week, but he wasn’t going to voice that to his father, of all people. “I’m going back to the office soon, just part time, and then doing the rest from home, but it’ll be good to get back to normal.”
His father took a seat on the coffee table directly across from Connor, dipped his chin, and pinned his son with a penetrating stare. “Are you really going to leave out the part about you and Kelsey working things out?”
Heat scalded the back of Connor’s neck. “She hasn’t moved back in.”
“Yet?” Mike raised a brow with the question.
Connor’s lips twitched with a repressed grin. These were all things he and Kelsey had discussed late into the night, wrapped in each other’s arms. Nearly every time she’d gone quiet and whispered an apology through her tears. And every time he’d kissed each drop and assured her this wasn’t an impossible issue for them to overcome.
“Next week. She’s already brought a bunch of clothes and washed the bedding twice.” He rolled his eyes, and his father chuckled, the Carlisles well used to Kelsey’s perfectionistic tendencies. “I…was thinking of proposing. Again.”
Mike rested his elbows on his knees, knitted his hands together, and let them dangle between his legs.
“This is moving kind of quickly.”
A thought not unlike one Connor himself had. But… “What have you always said about you and Mom?”
The older man pulled his thick brows together. “What are you talking about, son?”
“You guys dated for three weeks before you ran off and got married.”
Mike winced. “It was four weeks. But you also have to remember that it wasn’t all that easy for us, either.”
Connor shook his head. “Clearly not, since you two divorced before your first anniversary.” He readjusted on the sofa, aches with the simple movement reminding him that he wasn’t as healed as he’d like to believe. “But you made it back to each other. And you’ve always told us that if it’s meant to be, it’ll be. Dad, Kelsey and I are meant to be.”
“Why do you have to be the only child capable of listening to the stuff I say?” His father reached up to rub the back of his neck, chuckling. “And do you think you could possibly teach your brothers how to do that?”
“Sorry, Dad, they are all hopeless. Especially Wyatt.” Connor tugged at the short strands of his hair that he’d cut on a whim, well, actually on a drunken night, after Kelsey left.
Mike patted his knee before he stood. “You know we all love Kelsey, and shit happens in relationships all the time.” When Connor opened his mouth, the older man held up his hands, palms out. “It’s between you two and none of my damned business. But don’t forget that you have a family that loves you and wants the best for you.”
“I know, and I’m sorry I’ve been such a pain in the ass since the accident.” Just then, his cell phone rang. He slid it out of the pocket of his sweatpants, and his heart kicked into overdrive when he saw the number of the PI light up the screen. A story his parents knew the bare bones of, but had no idea of his self-imposed mission. “I’m sorry, Dad, I’ve got to take this.”
His father nodded and turned to leave, pausing two steps away. “And for the love of everything good, can you please give your mother a call?”
Meant To Be Family (Meant To Be Series Book 3) Page 15
