Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
Current day…
Connor drove to Reid Nolan’s house with The Nutcracker playing softly. When your boss invited you to a Christmas party that was really a Sabre Security meeting in disguise, you went. Especially when that boss was more like a brother.
Connor took a lot of ribbing from his brothers over his love of classical music, but it centered him. The sound of strings rolling through the truck calmed him, smoothing the sharp edges of a mind that rarely stopped working.
Especially now that Bliss was back in town.
He got it. Winnie was her only sister, her only family, really.
But… Bliss was here now, but as far away as ever.
So, yeah, he listened to his music a lot more than usual.
A lot more. Because when the music stopped, his thoughts always circled back to her.
Rolling his neck in a futile attempt at relieving his tension, he tried to think through what he would say to her if she was at Reid’s house when he got there. How would that play out? Would she be happy to see him? Would those brilliant seafoam eyes light up the way they had that night in Vegas?
Seemed unlikely.
She hadn’t made any attempt to get in touch with him in the two months she’d been back in town. Not a call. Not a message. Not even an accidental run-in around town. Hell, Darling wasn’t exactly a big city. People talked. So her lack of communication had to be intentional.
She had to know he’d been keeping tabs on her for the past eleven months, right? As best he could, anyway. He’d reached out more than once to that manipulative dick of a father she had. Then again, he had no way of knowing what the man told her.
Either way, he wanted to be prepared in case she was at the party with Winnie.
Being prepared was important. It was the only way to keep himself under control. And control drew the line between the man he was and the man he refused to become. Not that he hadn’t blown that to hell and back the last time they’d been together.
It still blew his mind that he’d taken her virginity after knowing her for only a few hours. But those few hours were burned into his memory like a brand he couldn’t scrape off. Something about her got to him.
Not that her effect on him started in Vegas. Something about her had called to him from the first time she’d shown up in Darling. He’d studied her. Gathered every piece of information he could get his hands on about Belissa Jayne Carpenter as if she were one of the targets he tracked for Sabre.
He’d learned her schedules. Her habits. Even the places she liked to walk when she thought no one was watching. The fact that her father hadn’t given her his last name. It still pissed him off that, in the Society, only male children were considered worthy of their father’s name.
Unlike most of the women, who were only given a first name, Bliss had taken her mother’s last name, too, the same as Winnie had. It was a quiet rebellion Connor respected more than she’d ever know.
His cellphone rang, the tone letting him know it was Reid before he even looked at his screen. Everyone in his phone had their own ringtone, so he’d know who he was dealing with before the conversation started.
No surprises. That was his goal in life. Surprises were for men who enjoyed chaos. Connor preferred control.
Connor answered what he knew would be Reid’s question before he could even ask. “I know. I’m running late. I’m seven minutes out.”
There was a beat of silence that made Connor smile.
“I hate it when you do that shit,” Reid growled through the phone. “Just say hello like the rest of us. And hurry up, we’ve got shit to cover, and Hutch is antsy to leave. Something about getting to Georgia before she joins some women’s roller derby team she had on her bucket list.”
Connor shook his head. Jedidiah “Hutch” Hutchinson worked for Sabre.
Like all the men who worked there, Connor counted him as a brother.
But brother or not, he needed to keep his Little girl on a tighter leash.
That was the only way he was ever going to keep her from pulling all the shenanigans she seemed to live for.
But they seemed to both get something out of it.
Hell if he knew what it was though. Georgia’s unpredictability would drive him insane.
He loved Georgia to death, so long as Hutch was the one to keep up with her.
Truth was, he felt that way about most of his brothers’ Little girls.
That and more than a small amount of envy.
No one could deny that they all walked around smiling a lot more than they used to. Like they’d finally found the missing piece they’d been looking for.
Connor was ready to have someone to smile about, too. After their night in Vegas, he’d thought he’d be smiling about Bliss. Right up until he got back to the motel room to find her gone.
She’d shown back in Darling two months ago. Pregnant. And with twin girls. Which confused the shit out of him, since she’d been a virgin. But two babies? Make that three, since she’d given birth to Nori a month ago.
Three babies. Three.
Even though they weren’t hers by birth, she hadn’t mentioned them once during the entire time they were together. He liked kids, he really did. As long as they belonged to someone else. Now, Bliss had three precious reasons for a man to stay away.
Or rethink every damn thing about your life.
She’d said something about loving kids after they’d made love that night in Vegas, but he’d been so dog-tired he could barely stay awake. Yeah, passing out while she was talking wasn’t his smoothest move.
He’d felt like a dick the next morning. On their drive back to Darling, he’d planned on talking to her about it more. But then she’d pulled her little Houdini act on him, and that was the end of that. They’d be having words about her disappearing act when he saw her again.
He’d almost had a heart attack when he’d gotten back from grabbing some boxes of cereal and milk from the hotel office, only to find the room empty. She had to have snuck out the second he was out of sight because the bed was cold. Her bag was gone. It was like she’d never been there at all.
Oh, but she took his shirt with her, now didn’t she?
His grip tightened on the steering wheel at the memory. If he’d been able to get his hands on her then, she’d have had a hard time sitting comfortably on the long drive home to Darling. He still had no idea how she’d managed to lose him so fast, and on foot.
“Con. Are you still there?”
Connor blinked. He’d completely forgotten he was talking on the phone. Apparently, Reid wasn’t done.
“Yeah, sorry. I zoned out there for a sec. What do you need?”
There was a pause before Reid answered. “I need you to keep an eye out for Bliss on your way. She was supposed to be here almost an hour ago to pick up Nori and the twins, but she hasn’t made it yet. We’ve tried calling her, but her phone goes straight to voicemail. Winnie’s worried.”
Connor’s heart rate kicked up a notch. A familiar spike of adrenaline shot down his spine. Obviously, Winnie wasn’t the only one worried. Reid wouldn’t have called if he wasn’t worried, too. And his brother’s voice was tight.
What the hell was Bliss thinking? She should know better than to turn her phone off. She should also know that, after everything Bliss had gone through in the past year, Winnie would be worried.
Bliss could be impulsive, but he’d never known her to be thoughtless. Then again, with the Society and now the Lawless Warriors MC added in, he couldn’t be sure one of them hadn’t seized the opportunity to snatch her again.
“I’m sure she’s fine,” he said. Because she probably was. But the probably had him worried. “I’ll keep an eye out. Did you call Ivy?”
“Of course, I called Ivy. Do you think I wouldn’t call her boss?
The daycare line goes to voicemail, and if Ivy has a personal number, it’s unlisted.
Sawyer’s working on it.” As Sabre’s computer guru, Sawyer probably found out everything without talking to Ivy at all.
Reid sighed. “She probably had to stop for some diapers or some shit like that, but keep an eye out just in case.”
“You got it.” Connor disconnected.
His eyes automatically scanned the area for her car. Nothing.
Bliss was fine. She had to be. She had survived things that would have broken most people.
He wasn’t ready to explore why her safety and wellbeing was so important to him. It just was. It always had been. Something about her had called to him from the first time he’d seen her wandering the streets of Darling in one of those ridiculous outfits the Society made her wear.
He could still see it as if it were yesterday.
She’d been handing out tracts, smiling at people, and being way too friendly. Did she have no idea how gorgeous she was? One dude walking past her stared at her so long he ran into a streetlight. What an idiot. She didn’t seem to notice the effect she had on people.
If she’d been his, he’d have been standing at her side to let people know she was taken.
That way, there’d be no confusion, and he’d have been there to handle any wandering eyes.
Then, when he got her home, he’d have had her bent over the back of the sofa to spank her ass for being so damn beautiful before fucking her senseless for the same reason.
She was still beautiful. She hadn’t seen him since she’d been back, but he’d seen her.
She hadn’t changed at all. With a baby in her belly, she’d glowed.
She was soft and fierce at the same time, like motherhood had lit something inside her.
Why did she still get to him? She was officially off limits, now that she had her girls to take care of.
He rolled his neck and scanned the countryside again.
His first thought after seeing Bliss’s newborn was to question if the child was his. The thought had blindsided him the second he’d seen that beautiful pink face. No one else would ask because no one else knew how he lost control and royally fucked up by making love to his client.
Logically, he shouldn’t wish that baby was his…
but he did. He longed to have children, to plant all the babies Bliss wanted in her belly.
But he knew what having a shit father could do to a child.
And since that was all he’d ever had, he wasn’t about to repeat the mistake and ruin an innocent child’s life.
That was why control was everything. He might be struggling to control his emotions when it came to Bliss, but he could damn sure control his actions. He turned the music up. The swell of violins filled the truck, but it did nothing to drown out the one thought hammering in his chest. Find Bliss.
Merry damn Christmas.