Chapter 56
FIFTY-SIX
DAISY
“This was a bad idea,” Connor mumbles against my neck. I swat at his arm, trying to get him to disentangle himself from me before we walk into the hockey house with all of our friends. “There are too many annoying people here.”
I roll my eyes. “They’re our friends.”
“Exactly.” He sighs, unwrapping his arms from around me and turning me so we’re face-to-face. He looks down at me, serious. “It’s not too late to make a break for it. No one will even know we’re here.”
“It’ll be fun.”
“Not as fun as what I had in mind.” He’s pouting. This six-foot hockey player is actually pouting on the front step of his best friends’ house, because he’s forced to go to a party instead of going home. It makes me giggle.
I can’t help myself; I lean over and press my lips against his for a quick kiss. It’s intoxicating being able to do that without the little nagging voice at the back of my head telling me to just drop it.
It only lasts for a second, before Willa steps up beside us, pinching Connor’s side and earning a small wince from him.
“If you think for even one second I’m letting you steal my best friend the entire night when you get to have her forever, you’ve got something else coming for you mister-Hockey.”
“Fine.” He groans, playfully rolling his eyes at Willa when he releases me, and she hooks one arm around me and tugs me to her side.
Connor leans over, pressing a kiss against my temple and murmuring against my skin, “But only because I’m really liking the idea of you walking in there wearing my jersey.
” Then he disappears through the front door, leaving me to follow with my best friend.
“That man is sex on legs. How are you even standing?” She sighs dreamily beside me.
I slap her arm. “Stop checking out my boyfriend.”
She lets out a dramatic gasp. “Look at you being all serious and committed. You almost wouldn’t think I had to pull you out of a funk twenty-four hours ago.
” She grins, looking altogether too proud of herself.
Then she wiggles her eyebrows suggestively and leans closer to say, “Good thing I stocked up on condoms for you before I got here.”
“You did not!”
“I so did. The big city has so many more options than back home. Did you know you can get glow in the dark ones? I’m going to have to suggest to Mrs. Aldridge she starts stocking them.”
“One day you’re going to get banned from the town for causing too much chaos.”
“That’s the dream, baby.” She grins, and I shake my head at my best friend and her reckless ways, before I guide her through the packed hockey house to the heart of the party and the boy who stole mine.
It’s close to midnight when we find our way outside.
The party is still raging, but most of the guys have vacated the busy house for the early summer evening.
We’re gathered around the fire pit in the backyard, and I can’t help thinking about the last time I was sat around a fire with these guys.
Now, instead of stolen glances at Connor from across the fire, I’m perched on his lap, one hand on my thigh rubbing soothing circles on my thigh and the other locked around my waist holding me to him.
Willa is chatting happily with Lauren across the fire, the two of them taking turns sipping from the bottle of tequila Lauren stole from the bar inside. I feel at peace, a soothing sense of warmth flooding me and warming me to the bones in a way that the fire never could.
“What are you thinking about?”
“I’m thinking there’s nowhere else I would rather be.”
His hold on me tightens. “I was thinking the same thing.”
Maybe it’s the shots slowly making their way through my system, or maybe it’s the fact that Connor ditched his suit jacket the moment he stepped through the front door.
The urge to run my fingers through his already disheveled hair falls over me.
And suddenly I’m experiencing a different kind of heat.
He must notice, because his warm eyes darkens as they flicker between mine and I feel his fingers twitch on my waist. My stomach tips over at the sight of the crooked smile that threatens to spread his lips.
I touch him like it’s on instinct—it feels like it is—my hand brushing against his chest. I feel the groan that rumbles through him more than I hear it.
Suddenly I’m very aware that we’re surrounded by all of our friends.
I’m out of his lap before I can think about it. His eyes pop open, peering up at me confused as I wrap my hand around his wrist.
“Is something wrong?” he asks, looking confused for a second as I shake my head. Then I’m tugging him with me, through the thick crowd of people, toward the staircase and up to the second floor.
“What’s going on?” he asks as I pull him with me into the upstairs bathroom.
“Close the door, Connor.”
I watch as his entire face changes from confused too mischievous when I pull myself onto the bathroom counter.
Without taking his eyes off of me, he reaches for the door and pushes it shut behind him.
His eyes trail my hands as they move across my body, hooking under the hem of the jersey I’m wearing. His jersey. A slow fire starts to burn within his pale eyes, and I feel it ignite every part of me.
“I like this,” I say. “I was going to take it off, but now I think I want to wear it while you touch me.”
He’s on me in a flash of a second, his arm hooks around my waist, pulling me to him. “You’re trouble, Tulip.”
“I’m yours,” I tell him, my hands wrapping around his jersey and pulling him down until his lips are crashing onto mine.
It’s hungry, desperate, needy, and everything I want.
Everything I never had before.