Though, that’s not entirely accurate seeing as how we’re new business partners. I never thought that’d happen. I’m not wholly happy about it but I’m not disappointed either. Besides Connor, my relationship with Loren is the most complex one I have.
Before I can even tell Connor about the text, another one buzzes.
And this time, I have a hard time reading the words. Connor suddenly fills me with his fingers, and my back arches and my head tips to the side, my eyes tightening shut, too many heightened emotions overtaking me in a hot, electric wave. My body is his in this moment. He could do whatever he wanted to me, and I’d let him, willingly.
“Please,” I beg. I used to hate the sound of my voice when I was with him in bed. How weak and wanting it was—but now I love that I can give myself to someone else this way. I’m allowed to be vulnerable too.
He pumps his fingers deeper into me, simultaneously flicking my clit with his tongue. He squeezes my neck, and I reach a blinding climax, my lips parting. No noise escapes, too breathless to create a moan. My hips rise and my muscles constrict. He leaves his fingers inside of me while I pulse around them.
Connor raises his head, watching me catch my breath, his own desire washing over his features. He stares at me like he’d rather fuck me at our house than return to my parent’s. If we didn’t have responsibilities like friends and a daughter, then maybe that’d be possible.
But I like the way our life is. Minus a couple large kinks that we need to smooth down before Jane reaches a certain age. Before we decide to have more children.
These are the kind of kinks that have deadlines. If we don’t iron them by a certain point, it’s over for us. The Cobalt family will just consist of Jane, Connor, and me.
I want Jane to have a sister, more than anything else. The best parts of my childhood consisted of Lily, Daisy, and Poppy. And I can’t imagine her growing up without one.
Connor looks at me as though he’s reading my innermost thoughts, with reverence and intrigue. I touch his hand around my neck and he laces my fingers with his.
He sits up, kneeling.
I check his phone again.
What the fuck are you doing? Samantha just opened photo albums. We’re going to be stuck here for another three fucking hours if you don’t come back. – Ryke
“It seems we’re wanted.”
“We’re always wanted,” he says, pulling my arm so I straighten up against the seat. His lips linger near my neck. “We’re the oldest, smartest and most responsible of our roommates.”
I turn my head to call him conceited and maybe note that his ego is choking me more than his hand.
The minute I swing in his direction, he kisses me, not for long, but enough that my insult disappears. He bites my lip gently before he releases.
I swallow, and as I clench between my legs, I suddenly remember something. I am not wearing panties. And I’m sitting on a leather seat. My leather seat. And I’m aroused and wet and—I push away from him and snatch my panties on the dashboard. I try to examine the damage I caused to my beautiful leather seat, and how gross it must be, for me, to sit here while we drive back.
“You’re not that wet, Rose,” he says.
I smack his chest. “Shut up—”
He clasps my hand again and lifts me onto his lap so I can see the seat. No stains, but I contemplate whether or not I should have the leather properly—
“I’ll have it cleaned tomorrow,” Connor tells me, easing my concerns. I nod and he slips my panties on my legs, dressing me. He reaches over and opens the passenger door before climbing out, setting me on his chair. When he walks around the Escalade to the driver’s side, his cell vibrates in my palm.
Got the photo. You’ll see it tomorrow. – WA
My shoulders relax. “They accepted the switch.”
Connor hears me as he shuts the door, the corners of his lips rising. He was certain they wouldn’t have a problem. His confidence in life and his choices are unparalleled.
He turns the car on with a much wider grin. “‘Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under it.’”
I tilt my head at him. “Macbeth.” The quote from Shakespeare is very familiar to me.
He wears that billion-dollar grin again. We won round one of a much larger game tonight. At least that’s what it feels like.
At the end of the day, we’re still in bed with the media. And no one knows this but Connor and me.
People look to Connor to fix their problems, to solve things greater than them, and usually he says no. If there’s no benefit for him, he sees no point to help, to take that risk.
But there was one exception.
I saw it happen. That day. Weeks ago. Connor came into our bedroom and told me that he had to bury an article. He said the only way to do it was to make a deal with the press. Me and him. If we feed a tabloid scandalous photos or a headline every so often, then they’d agree to never print this one defaming editorial.
“Is it about Jane?” I asked, my eyes flaming. I was ready to raise hell at the Celebrity Crush offices, to march to New York and stick a finger in the face of a journalist and shout and scream. I even grabbed my purse off my vanity stool.
Connor stopped me, and I read his gaze well enough.
It wasn’t about our daughter.
The article was about someone else. He explained how Celebrity Crush was going to run a story on Lily and Loren’s son, my sister and my brother-in-law. How the tabloid was going to claim their paternity test a forgery, citing Maximoff’s deep chocolate brown hair as evidence of being Ryke’s son. Ryke, as in Loren’s half-brother.
Lo has light brown hair. His birth mother’s hair color. Not dark brown, the shade that Ryke, their father, and now Moffy all share.
The article is a stretch, a false claim. But one that would rock Lily and Loren’s world. After fighting for so long, they deserved a win.
Their son deserves to never doubt his parentage.
“I have to help Lo,” Connor said, his brows cinching at his own words. He knew. He knew that what he was doing was so out of his character. Because here was a man that always weighs opportunity cost. This, in no way, benefited him. In fact, it cost him.
And for the first time, in probably his entire life, he’s choosing a price with no reward for himself.
“You know when you asked me to do this with you?” I say softly while he drives back to my childhood house.
He nods once.
“I think I fell in love with you all over again,” I admit. This is something I would have chosen. Without a second thought. To protect the people I love. Years ago, Connor would have laughed at those words.
Love. It meant nothing to him.
Now it’s guiding his choices.
2
CONNOR COBALT
“I can already tell that she has bad taste in clothes,” Rose declares, our six-month-old daughter sitting upright between her legs. “I put this Chanel clutch in front of her and an ugly straw hat, and she went after the ugly straw hat.”
I rub a towel through my hair, just coming out of the shower. On our four-poster bed, Jane wears a straw hat that dips below her big blue eyes, a delighted smile pulling her soft cheeks. I can feel mine rise.
I wondered if I would feel weak by a child, like a softhearted, loving fool—emotions that my mother refused to feel with me. But it wasn’t ever the case. I love Jane, and I feel strong enough to move mountains for her, to part waters and dig through stone.