Needing Her (From Ashes #1.5)(27)

“And I know you act like a badass around your brothers, but I’ve seen you cry, Maci. I know you’re not heartless, and I know, from drunken ramblings and what happened last night, that you’re in this just as bad as I am. So stop waiting for me to show you to the door, and stop acting like you don’t care.”

I’d stopped breathing at drunken ramblings. “What did I say to you when I was drunk?” I asked, horrified.

A massive smile crossed his face seconds before he kissed me hard. “Enough for me to know that you want me, and more than enough for me to be pissed off that you were gone the next morning.”

“Connor. What. Did. I—”

We both looked over at his phone on the nightstand, and with a huff, he pushed away from me to grab and answer it.

“Green. . . . When’s she coming in? . . . All right, I’m leaving now.”

Shoving his phone into his pocket, he finished buttoning his shirt and tucked it into his pants before grabbing the tie off the bed.

“Work?”

“Yeah, I need to get down there to interview someone who may have information.”

I waited until he was done with his tie before I started climbing out of his bed; but he just put a hand on my bare shoulder and pushed me back down.

“You can sleep a couple more hours before you have to get up for work. You don’t have to leave.”

“Are you su—”

“Maci,” he said my name low, and hard. “I’m sure. Stay, and stop questioning this, okay?”

“ ’Kay.”

After a slow and firm kiss, he straightened up and smiled widely. “I’ll see you later, sweetheart.”

I lay there with the biggest smile on my face, trying to convince myself that I wasn’t dreaming until I heard his front door shut. There was no way I could go back to sleep now. I needed to call Amber, and my phone was still in my apartment. After jumping out of Connor’s bed and getting dressed, I ran into my apartment and grabbed my phone.

Less than one minute and five sentences later, I was rushing to put on normal clothes to meet her at our favorite coffee shop before I had to go into work.

I DIDN’T SEE Connor that night or this morning before work due to whatever case he was working on. But he’d texted me two hours after I’d gotten to work this morning letting me know he was on his way home, and was going to crash as soon as he got there.

I was eager to see him; I was still in such a state of disbelief with this that I wanted to be near him to make sure I hadn’t dreamt the entire thing. Even telling Amber yesterday morning, I kept questioning my sanity as I gave her most of the dirty details from the night before with Connor. She’d seemed more excited about it than I was, but, then again, she’d been afraid I would get back with Bryce. So to say she was hoping this night with Connor had snapped me out of my “obviously liquor–induced Bryce phase,” was an understatement.

A loud clap directly next to my ear mixed with Dakota yelling my name caused me to jump and throw my wireless mouse across my office. I noticed my computer had come back to life when I’d moved the mouse, and wondered how long I’d been sitting there daydreaming when I saw a half-finished game of solitaire on the screen.

“Jesus, what the f*ck are you trying to do? Give me a heart attack?”

He just smirked as he picked my mouse up off the floor and tossed it back at me. “Not my fault you were somewhere else and didn’t see me walk in here.”

I started clicking on the old game and rolled my eyes. “Can I help you?”

“I’m just making sure you got all your shit done.”

“And what shit would that be exactly? Playing games on the computer, or the hour I actually spend on my job?”

His face fell into an expressionless mask seconds before he kicked my rolling desk chair away from the desk until it hit the wall.

“What is it with you and Dylan kicking me away from my desk?”

“We wouldn’t do it if you weren’t such a bitch. Did you get all the reports done today and get everything ready for the weekend?”

“Fuck you too, big brother. And, yes, I got everything done forever ago. Reports and pictures are uploaded to the site. Stuff’s ready for the guys working this weekend.”

“Funny how you seem to do everything, but I only ever see you playing games.”

“I’ve been doing this job for Dad and Craig since I was thirteen because I was mad I was the only one who didn’t ever get to go in the office. I could do this shit in my sleep. Now if you’re done being an *, I obviously have a game that I need to get back to.”

My dad owned a private security company, and later on, Craig bought in to own it with him. The rest of my brothers all worked for them somehow, and did security work for them when they were old enough, and I basically sat here. Uploading reports and pictures for our clients to read used to take me all day . . . and when I say “used to” I mean ten years ago; now it takes about an hour. Making sure the security officers had whatever they needed for working that night or weekend took me fifteen minutes, tops. Which led to me being bored most of the day. I couldn’t complain though. I worked for my dad, for crying out loud. I had a cushy job, especially since I was his only daughter.

Dakota grabbed the mouse from my hand and flipped me off as he walked back down the hall that led to the rest of the office. Asshole.