Текст книги "Checkmate"

Автор книги: R. L. Mathewson

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Текущая страница: 17 (всего у книги 22 страниц)

Chapter 31

“Ow! Stop hitting us!” Trevor snapped, grabbing Jason and shoving him towards the slap happy Rory as the woman let loose on the men that turned her yearlong ban into a lifetime ban in less than twenty minutes.

“How many samples did I tell you that you could have?” she demanded as she moved to kick Jason in the shin, but before she could make contact, Connor had her in his arms and over his shoulder. That didn’t seem to slow her down, not at all.

“How many?” she demanded when her cousins didn’t answer her fast enough.

“Ten,” they muttered sheepishly.

“And how many did you take?”

The men muttered their answers. Not that it mattered. Rory was too busy flipping out to actually listen to them. “You scared the hell out of everyone in that warehouse! You made men and women cry and run screaming for their lives! And thanks to you, my photo now hangs in front of the building next to the Recall Notice board, you greedy bastards!”

“Hey! It’s not our fault that those samples were so damn yummy!” Jason snapped back.

“We wouldn’t have had any problems if they hadn’t been so fucking cheap with the portions!” Trevor added.

“That’s it. Put me down. I’m going to kill them,” Rory demanded as she struggled to escape from his hold, but he’d been prepared for her escape attempt and kept his arm firmly locked around her.

He looked past the two pouting men towards the front of the warehouse where the manager and about twenty employees stood on the sidewalk, watching them warily. No doubt they’d already called the police. Not that he could blame them, but he really didn’t want to deal with having to tackle Rory when she went for the cop’s billy club to beat the shit out of her cousins.

“Listen,” he said, pulling his keys out of his pocket and tossing them to Jason. “There’s an all you can eat buffet about thirty-five miles from here.”

The two men’s pouts instantly disappeared as a predatory gleam took over. “We’re listening,” Trevor said, focusing on him.

“It’s in Haverville. There’s a map book in the truck. The restaurant is on Copper Street. They close down at one in the morning so that should hold you over and keep you out of trouble.” Rory snorted at that announcement, not that he could blame her.

“Let yourselves into the house and be ready to work your asses off by five,” he said, determined to keep her cousins busy and out of his way.

He wasn’t an idiot. He knew why they were here. They were definitely here to help them with Strawberry Manor, but he knew that the main reason for their presence was him and Rory. It wasn’t difficult to guess that her brothers were behind this one. They probably thought their cousins would manage to scare him off. They wouldn’t, but he appreciated the effort.

That didn’t mean that he’d put up with this bullshit. He’d keep her cousins busy with work and food so that they didn’t come between him and Rory. He had less than five months to convince Rory to spend the rest of her life with him and he wasn’t about to let anyone fuck that up.

“Put me down, Connor. I need to kick their asses,” Rory demanded, but he simply ignored her as he headed for her Jeep.

“You can kick their asses later, Rory. Right now we have to get out of here before the cops show up,” he said, placing her on her feet and stealing her keys out of her pocket. He had the door open and her inside before she could put up much of a fight. Not that he expected her to put up much of a fight, not with the police on the way. They’d been in this situation enough times to know that it was time to haul ass.

“Fine,” she said, sounding tired as she buckled up. “Can we please stop for a cup of hot chocolate before we head home?”

“That’s a good idea,” he said, not mentioning that he’d already planned on doing just that.

To be honest, he was exhausted as well. It had been a very long night and it was barely eight-thirty. All he wanted to do was enjoy this quiet time with Rory, steal her hot cocoa and hold her in his arms for the rest of the night, but he knew that the night wasn’t over quite yet. There were a few things that they needed to clear up before any misunderstandings formed and screwed with his plans to make Rory his wife.

Keeping his eyes on the road, he reached over and carefully took Rory’s broken hand into his. When he felt his ring on her finger he couldn’t help but smile. It had been a long time coming and to be honest, he never really expected this day to come. Granted, he had to earn her agreement to marry him, but he would. Now that he knew that she cared about him, nothing was going to stop him, not even the stubborn woman that he loved.

“We’ll move your stuff into my room tomorrow night,” he said quietly, hoping that she was too exhausted from the hell her cousins put her through to catch what he said, but of course this wasn’t going to be easy.

“Why would I do that?” Rory asked, pulling her hand away from his so that she could toy with her new ring.

“I just thought it would be easier,” he said offhandedly as he took a right on Oak Street.

“Why would that be easier?”

“I just thought it would be easier if you started to move in with me now. That way we wouldn’t have to worry about moving you out and selling your house after we get married,” he calmly explained as he pulled into Brennigan’s parking lot.

“Ah, I’m not selling my house, Connor and I’m not moving in with you,” Rory stubbornly argued.

“Rory,” he said, sighing heavily as he shut the Jeep down, “keeping two houses after we get married doesn’t make sense. I suppose we could rent it out, but that’s a pain in the ass.”

“I love my house, Connor. I’m not selling it,” Rory said, shooting him a glare as she threw open her door and jumped out.

He chuckled darkly as he climbed out of the truck. “I know that you don’t expect me to sell my house,” he said, shutting the door behind him and moving to join her on the sidewalk.

“That’s exactly what I expect if you want me to marry you,” Rory said with a shrug, effectively dismissing him and headed for the small coffee shop, leaving him to trail after her as he did his best to reign in his temper.

He should sell his house?

Bullshit.

That was not happening. He’d worked his ass off for that house. He’d taken on extra jobs to pay for it and to fix it up. Did she have any idea how hard he worked to restore his house? She had help, he hadn’t. He’d worked his ass off and he wasn’t about to sell his house. But for now, he’d drop it. There was plenty of time to deal with the simple misunderstanding after they were married. Right now it was more important that he convinced her to take a chance on him and if that meant biting his lip and keeping his mouth shut until she was his, then that’s exactly what he was going to have to do.

* * * *

“Large hot chocolate?” Beth, the senior barista, asked as Rory stepped up to the counter.

“Make it an extra-large please,” Rory said, pulling a ten dollar bill out of her pocket and tossing it on the counter. “I’ll be right back,” she said, fighting back a yawn as she headed for the bathroom.

As soon as she got home, she was going straight to bed. She’d deal with Connor and her cousins tomorrow. Normally she’d be worried that her cousins were hitting a buffet so close to home, but tonight she just didn’t have the energy to care. She’d worry about how she was going to keep them in line tomorrow. Tonight she was-

“Oh my God, did you hear the news?” a vaguely familiar feminine voice asked, sounding excited and drawing Rory’s attention as she went to push open the women’s bathroom door. She looked down the small hallway and realized that she was alone and that she was hearing a private conversation coming from the manager’s office behind her. Deciding that it was none of her business and that she really didn’t care about the latest town gossip, she moved to open the bathroom door when the next words stopped her dead in her tracks.

“Connor proposed to Rory!” the excited woman practically squealed, making Rory cringe as her eyes shot down to the ring on her finger. She should have taken it off before she went out. She cursed softly when she realized that her father and brothers probably already heard the news. That was just great.

“No, he didn’t,” a voice that she knew all too well said, laughing off the news.

Cindy, one of the most annoying women in town, was unfortunately the manager of this place. Not because she had a degree, had experience or had worked her way up to the position. No, Cindy became the manager of the best coffee shop in the area for one very simple reason, she screwed old man Webster.

Rumor had it that old man Webster called Cindy into his office on her very first day, within the very first hour because customers and staff alike complained about her attitude and inability to get off her ass and do anything. As soon as old man Webster finished firing her, Cindy started negotiations to keep her job and kept it up until Mr. Webster stumbled out of his office a half hour later, smiling and looking more relaxed than he had in years. Cindy walked out of the office looking smug and still very much employed. A year later, Cindy was the manager and still hadn’t served a single cup of coffee and Mr. Webster no longer bothered coming to the coffee shop since Cindy started making house calls. Normally she didn’t pay attention to rumors, but a few years ago she’d walked in on Cindy giving the owner of the Donut Shack a reason to smile.

“Megan called and told me that she saw Connor and Rory at Sam’s Club and that Rory was wearing this really tiny diamond engagement ring.”

“So?” Cindy demanded with a sneer.

“So? So, everyone knows that she’s been dating Connor! What do you mean so? This is huge! It’s also so sweet!” the other women gushed. “Don’t you think it’s sweet? I wonder how long they’ve been in love.”

Cindy let out an indelicate snort as she demanded, “And what makes you think that they’re in love?”

“How could you miss the way he looks at her?” the other woman asked, sounding confused.

“Oh, and just how does he look at her?” Cindy demanded, mockingly.

There was a slight pause before the other woman answered, “Like she’s everything that he’d ever dreamed of and he can’t quite believe she’s real.”

“Oh my God, you’ve been reading too many of those romance novels! He doesn’t look at her like she’s anything special!” Cindy said with a sneer.

“You’re the only one that doesn’t see it then.”

“Really? If he loves her so damn much then why did he fuck me last week?” Cindy demanded.

Rory stood there for another moment, feeling numb and barely registering the rest of the private conversation as her mind worked through everything she’d heard. When she settled on a decision, she turned around and walked back down the hall to confront Connor.

* * * *

When he saw Rory walk out from the back hall, looking determined and pissed he knew that he was in deep shit. That was confirmed when Rory ignored the cashier trying to hand over an extra-large hot cocoa and headed for the door, not even looking at him as she passed him.

“Great,” he muttered, sighing heavily as he walked over to the counter and took the hot cocoa from the stunned cashier, who was probably wondering if hell had frozen over. Everyone in town knew that hot cocoa was Rory’s weakness and as far as he knew, she’d never passed up a cup.

He couldn’t exactly say that he was surprised to find Rory waiting for him when he stepped outside. They’d been playing this game for over twenty years so he knew by now what to expect when Rory was pissed at him and she was damn well pissed right now. That little murderous glare that she shot him as she gestured for him to follow her told him everything that he needed to know.

She didn’t wait to make sure that he’d follow her as she walked over to her Jeep, climbed in the driver’s side and slammed the door shut behind her. Any sane man would probably walk the ten miles home instead of facing this woman’s wrath, but he was in love with this woman so that pretty much negated the sane part, at least for the moment.

Resigning himself to whatever Rory had in store for him, he took a sip of her cocoa, walked over to the Jeep and climbed in. Without a word, he handed over her keys and settled back, sipping her cocoa as she started the Jeep and drove off. Still she didn’t speak and to be honest, he was in no rush to have his ass chewed out right now. It had been a long day and an even longer night and all he wanted to do was go home, climb into bed with this cranky woman and-

“Where are we going?” he asked when Rory suddenly took a right into their old high school’s parking lot, their old high school that had handed them each a No Trespass Order along with their diplomas on the day they graduated.

Rory didn’t answer him as she drove around the back of the building and parked in the empty, dimly lit parking lot. He was in no mood to spend the night in jail and opened his mouth to tell her just that when she started to take her clothes off. Once she started to pull her pants down, he lost all ability to think, never mind talk.

“You and I are going to have a little talk, Connor, and clear a few things up before I decide whether or not to take a chance on you,” Rory calmly explained as she hooked her thumbs in the sides of her panties and pulled them down, revealing chestnut curls between her legs that had his breath catching in his throat.

“Are you going to answer my questions, Connor?” Rory asked as she straddled his lap just as she finished pulling her bra off and dropped it to the side, leaving her naked and gorgeous.

When he didn’t respond fast enough, she settled herself comfortably on his lap and teasingly ground her pussy down against the erection that was begging to be freed from his pants. She didn’t bother asking him if he agreed again, but simply started asking her questions.

“Do you love me?” she asked, cutting right to the chase which was part of the reason that he loved this woman. She didn’t play any of the bullshit games that other women played, didn’t use drama to get what she wanted. Granted, she was using his dick against him at the moment, but he was fine with that.

“Yes,” he hissed out as Rory ground down hard on him.

“Since when?” she asked, placing her bad hand on his shoulder to steady herself as she continued to rub her pussy against him, teasing him and driving him out of his fucking mind with pleasure.

“Since the moment that I saw your father drag you into daycare, looking cute and mean as you tried to glare the man down,” he admitted as he placed his hands on her hips and dragged them up her sides until he was cupping her beautiful breasts. When she made no moves to stop him, he caressed her breasts as he dragged his thumbs over her nipples until they hardened.

“You really want to marry me?” she asked, moaning as she reached between them with her good hand and started working on his fly. His right hand quickly abandoned her breast as it joined her in freeing his cock.

“Yes.”

“Did you sleep with Cindy?” she asked, pausing with his zipper between her fingers.

“Hell no. She offered sex last week to get out of her bill,” he explained, leaning in and pressed his lips against hers, because he felt like he would die if he didn’t kiss her.

“Then you have less than five months to convince me to marry you, Connor. Don’t fuck up,” she said, sounding almost desperate as she struggled to yank his zipper down. It was difficult to get his fly open with her still grinding on him, but he wasn’t complaining. He didn’t want her to stop. It felt so fucking good, but it felt better a minute later when they managed, with a lot of yanking and pulling, to clear his fly and get his dick out.

Once it was free, Rory wasted no time in raising herself up and taking the tip inside. They both groaned as she slid down, welcoming him into her swollen, wet sheath.

“If you fuck this up, I’m gonna have to kill you,” Rory swore, leaning in to kiss him.

“I’m not gonna fuck this up,” he promised as he met her lips in a hungry kiss.

“Good,” was the last coherent word that came out of her mouth for a while. By the time he pulled her off and positioned her on the driver’s seat so that he could lick her out, she could barely manage to say his name. Even when the police showed up and banged on the window she was barely able to speak, but after she calmed down from the third orgasm he’d given her just as the banging started and they were being read their rights, she managed to say a few colorful words that had him grinning.

He loved her too much to fuck this up. He had five months to prove to her that he was the man for her, and he was going to make them perfect.

Chapter 32

July

“Are you still not talking to me?” Rory asked, shooting Jacob a glance as she sorted through the large pile of mail that he’d left on her desk.

“Yes.”

“Are you going to tell me why?” she asked, already guessing that it was going to be another big fat “no.”

For the past couple of weeks he’d been giving her the silent treatment. He only answered her when it was absolutely necessary and he made damn sure that it wasn’t necessary. His mood had been sour since she started this thing with Connor and only got worse when she had to call him up at three in the morning to come bail her and Connor out of jail. Grudgingly, he agreed and came down to the police station two hours later with the checkbook for petty cash. He only stayed long enough to bail her out, confirm that she was engaged and send her a glare as he stormed out of station, leaving her to bail Connor out.

She tried to make it up to him and find out why he was so upset, but the stubborn bastard just kept on ignoring her and sending Connor glares whenever the two men were in the same room. Speaking of stubborn bastards………

“You need to sign this so that we can have more lumber delivered,” Bryce, another bastard that wasn’t happy with her, demanded as he stepped into the trailer.

Word about her engagement to Connor had spread very quickly. Her family’s reaction varied greatly. Her father simply called her up while Connor was arguing with the guard that had impounded her Jeep. He’d been very direct and unemotional as he asked if the news was true. She’d been scared to death of his reaction when she explained that it was true, but she needn’t have worried. There was a small pause after she told him that she was engaged to Connor. She almost asked him if he heard her when he simply told her to make sure that she made it next Sunday for fishing and then he hung up.

Her brothers’ reactions were a bit different. As soon as she managed to make it into work, two hours late, they hunted her down in her office and blocked off her exit, demanding to know if she was out of her fucking mind. Johnny went as far as to demand that she take a drug test. After a lot of arguing, a few threats to have her locked away and a few shin kicks, her brothers agreed to let it go for now and get back to work. As they walked out, a few limping, they all glared at her and she’d been fully prepared to keep Connor company in the emergency room that night, but they didn’t touch him. They only glared at him. Okay, there was that one time that Craig had to wrestle a hammer out of Brian’s hand when he went to throw it at Connor, but other than that they hadn’t beaten the shit out of him or harmed him in any way.

The fact that they hadn’t sent Connor to Intensive Care actually scared the hell out of her. Every guy that spent time with her got the warning. It used to piss her off, but now she was wondering why the guy that she’d agreed to spend the rest of her life with, if he met her conditions, hadn’t received the same warning. Actually, one would think that the man that she planned on marrying would receive a more thorough warning, but so far, nothing. That could only mean that they were trying to handle this a different way and she knew exactly how they thought they were going to do that.

By having their cousins drive her and Connor out their goddamn minds.

Well, that probably was the plan, but it was failing miserably. The first week Trevor and Jason stayed with Connor. The next week they were replaced by two of her other cousins and every week after, two fresh Bradfords showed up at Connor’s door. This week the twins were staying with him. Well, they stayed in Connor’s house, but not with him since Connor ended up sleeping in her bed, holding her all night. The first night he tried to get her to sleep in his bed with him, but having two Bradfords getting into a shouting match at two in the morning over the last jar of pickles quickly changed his mind. He hadn’t brought up who was selling their house and neither had she. She was too happy to ruin it and God, was she happy.

Never in her wildest dreams would she have imagined a man treating her the way that Connor did. He was sweet, funny, attentive, and he went out of his way to make her feel special. The other night they came home after putting in a fourteen hour day, looking forward to a quick meal, a hot shower and bed. Instead of the relaxing night that they’d hoped for they’d been greeted with a nightmare, a Bradford nightmare to be more exact. They pulled into her driveway only to find a terrified pizza delivery kid stuck up in a tree where he’d been forced to run for his life.

Not that she could really blame the kid for being scared. He had forgotten her cousins’ double order of chicken tenders and honey mustard sauce back at the restaurant. It probably wouldn’t have turned out so bad if the kid hadn’t got lazy and offered a credit for the chicken tenders instead of going back and getting them. At that point, her cousins had been seeing red and the delivery boy was lucky that all he got was the hell scared out of him. She’d actually been pretty scared that their little secret was going to get out and that they were not only going to end up in jail, but lose the extra help that they desperately needed.

Just as the kid in the tree finally managed to pull his phone out and started to call the police, Connor climbed up the tree and snatched the phone out of the kid’s hand and somehow managed to talk the kid down. Then of course her cousin Devin just had to go and make the kid cry, again, which sent him right back up the tree. It took Connor an exhausting half hour and a hundred bucks to get the kid to come back down and get him to promise not to call the cops. When Connor was done with that, he sent her cousins off to yet another buffet since Jason and Trevor had unintentionally shut down the last one.

After that she’d been more than ready to settle for a peanut butter sandwich and bed, but they quickly discovered that her cousins had cleaned out both kitchens to hold themselves over while they waited for their delivery. She’d been tired, hungry and was starting to get pretty pissed that she had to run out and hit the grocery store for the second night in a row when Connor, who she knew was just as tired as she was, gave her one of those sweet kisses and told her to go take a shower and relax.

By the time she was done with her shower, dressed, and ready to go get the trip to the grocery store over with, Connor surprised her with a large hot chocolate from Brennigan’s and a sandwich with all the fixings from her favorite sandwich shop. As she took her first sip of that lifesaving elixir, Connor kissed the top of her head and told her that he’d be right back, which turned out to be a bit of a lie.

She tried to wait up for him, but she’d been too tired by that point to do much of anything but lie down and once she did, she was out for the night. The next morning she was woken up by Connor kissing her and the scent of hot chocolate. The kiss was sweet, but the way he took her that morning had been fast and hard and had her toes curling for the rest of the day.

It wasn’t until she went downstairs to feed Bunny that she discovered that he’d made two runs to Sam’s Club the night before and stocked both their kitchen’s with food. He’d also had a word with her cousins and told them to stay out of her kitchen and to get their own damn food from now on. Her cousins hadn’t been happy about having to get their own snacks, but they weren’t dumb enough to bitch, not with Connor providing them with the names and locations of the buffets and restaurants offering “All You Can Eat” deals.

“Oh my fucking word, you’re thinking about him again? Really?” Bryce said, dragging her attention away from the man she decided that she should have a meeting with in about an hour, a very secret and private meeting that would most likely involve her being bent over her desk with her pants around her ankles, again.

She really loved their lunchtime meetings.

“Rory? Rory!” Bryce snapped, wrecking her little fantasy. So, with a glare and a kick to the shin, she yanked the clipboard out of his hand and signed her name.

“You bitch!” Bryce gasped in pain, but she knew that he didn’t mean it. He’d beaten the crap out of enough guys who called her that for her to know that he didn’t stand for anyone disrespecting her. She also knew that he’d feel bad once the throbbing in his foot subsided. He would apologize with a large cup of hot cocoa. Connor on the other hand…….

“Mother fucker!” Bryce shouted as he stumbled back, cupping his nose as blood poured down his chin.

“Don’t you ever call her that again,” Connor said evenly as he stepped in front of her and faced off with her much larger brother.

Was it wrong that this turned her on?

Probably, but damn, it was really nice to have a man love and adore her and treat her like a woman, like she needed protection. She didn’t, but it was still nice all the same. She never thought the day would come when Connor’s chivalrous behavior would stop annoying her and start making her smile, but here it was, she mused as she shoved him aside and went to help her brother.

“She kicked me!” Bryce said accusingly, his eyes narrowing to slits on her and if she was still a kid, that look would have her hiding her tooth brush for a month so that he couldn’t give it a “special” cleaning.

“I don’t care what she did, don’t fucking call her that again!” Connor snapped, grabbing a roll of paper towels off the counter and tossing it to the big baby.

“She knows that I didn’t mean it,” Bryce muttered as he tore off a bunch of paper towels and pressed it against his face, leaving enough of his mouth uncovered so that she could see that he was pouting. He really was a big baby.

“It’s fine,” she said dismissively, turning her back on her brother and ignoring him as he continued to mumble and bitch.

“No, it’s not,” Connor said, sending Bryce one last glare, which earned him another bout of muttered whining before he turned his attention on her. As soon as his gaze landed on her, his expression softened and he smiled that sweet little smile that seemed to be reserved only for her.

“Miss me?” he asked, taking her good hand into his.

Ignoring Jacob and Bryce’s twin sounds of disgust, she shook her head. “Nope, not at all,” she said, lying her ass off, but before that smile of his could turn knowing, she quickly changed the subject. “What did you need?” she asked, hoping that he needed her in the office for an early “meeting.”

He leaned in and pressed a quick kiss to her lips, which earned more of that damn muttering that was really starting to annoy her. “Sorry, baby, but I was actually looking for the big cry baby behind you.”

“What do you need?” Bryce asked, not sounding happy at all about having to deal with Connor, which she knew that he wasn’t. Not that she cared. She didn’t. For the first time in her life she was truly happy.

It didn’t matter that her assistant wasn’t on speaking terms with her or that her brothers were up to something and really starting to annoy her with their attempted daily interventions. It seemed that every time her brothers tried to corner her to talk some sense into her, their plans would get screwed up by whichever cousins were staying at the time. The interruption was usually work based and while it pissed off her brothers, they understood that the project needed to be completed.

Sometimes they tried to hold their sad little interventions outside of work, but those all failed as well, mostly because everyone was too damn exhausted to get into an argument. It also didn’t hurt that her brothers had to take turns babysitting their cousins. The few times that her brothers tried to stall their cousins into waiting to eat so that they could try and talk some sense into her hadn’t ended well. Apparently they hadn’t listened when their father warned them never to come between a Bradford and his food, because more than once over the past couple of weeks her brothers had learned that valuable lesson the hard way.

She was still cringing at the memory of what happened last night when her brothers tried to ambush her while she’d been snuggled up with Connor in bed, watching a movie. The twins, Reese and Darrin, warned her brothers several times that they were coming between them and a buffet, which was more than any other Bradford would have given them, but then again, the twins were both police officers so it was probably more out of habit than anything. If her brothers had listened they probably wouldn’t have been dragged from her room, screaming and begging for mercy. It was more pathetic than anything, but she hadn’t complained about how the twins got the job done since it left her free to snuggle in Connor’s arms.

“What do you want?” Bryce said, tossing the bloodied paper towels in the trash, his glare shifting between her and Connor.

“I need you to take over the third floor,” Connor explained, stepping past her and grabbing two bottles of water out of the fridge. He handed her one before he took a sip from his bottle.

“That’s your little buddy’s job,” Bryce said with a bit of a bite, his glare taking on a whole new meaning and for good reason.

If she thought that Andrew was lazy before then she’d been dead wrong. Over the past couple of weeks the man had given a whole new meaning to the term lazy. He was constantly late, left early most days, hung out in the parking lot every couple of hours and several times he’d been found asleep in his truck or on the site. It was also becoming painfully obvious that the man had a substance abuse problem. He was seen vomiting several times, having the shakes, sweating profusely after one of his many trips to the parking lot and he’d lost a great deal of weight.