Chapter 18
After a couple of minutes they became aware of the moist grass beneath them, so they got up and went inside, where they took a hot bath. “My skin is getting all wrinkly,” Mira complained, but Connor only laughed and kissed the soft part of her foot she had held out to him as proof. This warm feeling inside her belly must come from the sex, she thought. It had been, without a doubt, the best sex she had ever had in her whole life. It was this perfect combination of demanding and giving that was pretty much what Connor was made of, she thought. Even though she might not have realized it before, he was very much himself in any type of situation. He never faltered from his true self and once you got to know him a little, you could see that he was by no means callous or manipulative, but instead just very careful about who he allowed to see his softer side.
“Then let’s go to bed,” he said and got out of the bath. Mira had never met a man who was able to move so confidently being naked around her. As she got out, he draped a thick towel around her and carefully dried every inch of her body. Even this particular gesture was Connor through and through. He looked after her wellbeing and at the same time he showed her just how much he wanted her. Which was a lot. And he wanted her again. Mira giggled shyly as she watched his cock slowly but surely harden once again into a full erection. Just looking at him and feeling his tender caress all over her skin fired up her own desire. Truthfully, she was tired, but actually… before he could stop her from doing it, she fell onto her knees on the thick bathmat and took his penis into her mouth. She looked up as she licked his plump and slightly pinkish glans. He buried his hands roughly into her wet hair. Connor’s eyelids closed when she took his whole head into her mouth. Her left hand gently grabbed his balls, which lay firm and plump in her fingers. Her right hand enclosed his cock as her tongue drew circles around the top of it. He didn’t say a word, but Mira could feel that his breathing had quickened. Never before had she looked at a man and found him so incredibly sexy as Connor was to her in that moment. His perfectly modelled six-pack tightened up as his whole body got tense. The fine line of blonde hair that travelled from his belly button all the way down, as well as the sexy combination of toughness and compassion was, for her, the ultimate paragon of masculinity.
They fell asleep in each other’s arms. Mira had no nightmares that night, and no fear of anything that the next day might bring. It had been a very long time since she was able to just live in the moment. At least for a few extremely blissful hours, until Connor had brought the conversation to the topic that had brought them together. “We need to talk,” he declared adamantly and yet still lovingly. “Just like you, I would love to spend the day in bed or go for a nice walk or drive to the beach and not do anything, but out there lurks a killer. We cannot hide our heads in the sand. And on top of that,” he looked at his watch, “Peter will be here any minute.”
Dammit, she had completely forgotten about that! And here she sat, in one of Connor’s oversized t-shirts in the sunroom eating breakfast. “I will quickly go and get dressed,” she murmured. “Or even better, I will quickly drive to the Hyborn and get some of my things. I will also need to tidy the place up.” At her request, the room service staff only came every three days to clean up the suite. If she was lucky, she would manage to get it all in order before she had to be back here to face the conversation with Peter.
“That’s already taken care of,” Connor said and pulled out her room key card from his jeans pocket. “Also, Peter will be bringing some of your things, so you can relax.”
Mira felt her pulse speed up. “When did you arrange for someone to clean up my suite?” It took everything in her to not yell at him hysterically.
“Last night, while you were sleeping.” He frowned. “Are you mad at me for that? Or are you angry, because Peter is getting some of your things? After last night I assumed that you wanted to stay with me.” She could see a harsh looking V forming between his eyebrows.
“Well, I did, until just a minute ago,” Mira replied. “I guess, you just forgot to ask me if you could take my room key, organize some stranger to clean up my room and, worst of all, send a man who I don’t even trust yet, to rummage through all of my clothes and bring my stuff here.” Her tone was dripping with sarcasm and she was unable to suppress it even if she had wanted to. Which she didn’t.
“I did what was right,” Connor declared confidently and now he had an angry look on his face, which showed exactly how he felt. “And I told you that I would protect you.” He shrugged indignantly, which drove Mira’s fury to unknown heights.
“I see that. But obviously you must have forgotten that I am no longer a child and I am also not a little bird that you can just lock up in a golden cage to protect it from the cat.”
Connor got up so abruptly that the chair scratched hard across the floor. “You don’t understand. Out there,” he pointed out the window, “someone is hellbent on killing you or me — someone who is not scared to go all the way. Someone is trying to prevent us at all costs from finding out the truth. “
They stared at each other with firm looks. He was the first to speak. “Also, I am pretty sure that you are the target of this killer and not me.”
“We don’t know this for sure,” Mira persisted. “I can’t even remember everything fully and clearly. Why would someone want to get me out of their way? You could just as likely be the target on this madman’s hitlist.”
“That is ridiculous. And on top of that, I am very much capable of looking after myself.” Connor spat out the words, but Mira had still seen the surprise on his face.
“You had better watch what you are saying,” Mira warned him, as she already knew what he was going to say next.
He did it anyway. “You aren’t.”
Mira leaned back and crossed her arms in front of her heaving chest. “You don’t even realize what you have done wrong here, do you?”
“No.” He frowned again. “If I did know, I wouldn’t have done it in the first place.”
“You are doing it again,” Mira exclaimed and tried very hard to keep her calm. “Just for once, listen to yourself. You talk to me as if I was an idiot or too young to understand the world. I don’t want you to do anything for me without having spoken to me first — is that so hard to understand? I am neither your pet, nor your employee.”
Somehow this little rant hit the target and it completely took the wind out of his sails. “Do you honestly think that I don’t know that, Mira?” He looked at her, challenging her, and then he bent down closer to her face. “I only want what’s best for you.”
She refused to back away from him. “I am well aware. I can sense it. But you need to let me make my own mistakes and take care of my own things myself, Connor.”
“Not if one of those mistakes you would like to make for yourself could have you killed. Why on earth do you think I asked Peter to get your things? Definitely not because I don’t believe you could do it yourself.” Where he had been talking loudly and had overarticulated every single word before, he now spoke so quietly that she could hardly understand what he was saying.
That was when the penny dropped — to put it mundanely.
“You are blaming yourself for dad’s death and mom’s condition,” she whispered with a coarse voice.
She finally understood. Wuthering Heights, the book he had read to her mother. The way he had held her mom’s hand while sitting by her bedside. He hadn’t killed her father, but he felt as if he had done it. But why?
“What aren’t you telling me?”
He didn’t answer. “Connor, please,” Mira pleaded, and she didn’t care that she now begged him to tell her. “Speak to me and tell me what happened. I want to believe you, but if you don’t tell me everything, how will I ever be able to trust you completely?”
Something washed over his face that looked like anger, but it immediately disappeared again. For a couple of seconds, she just stared at him and hoped for an answer. But he said nothing. He stayed stubbornly silent.
Mira turned on her heels and ran back into her bedroom, where she pulled his shirt, which smelled like a mixture of her and him, off her. She grabbed her wrinkled clothes from the day before, put them on, and ran back downstairs. Connor opened the door for her with a stony face. “I have called you a cab. Hopefully, that isn’t also against the rules or would you have liked to do that yourself too, just to prove to me how independent you are?”
Mira didn’t answer him. He didn’t deserve one and also… she didn’t want him to see her cry.
So much for Connor Carmichael.
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