I wish we could do more things like this. I wish we could backpack together, wander, see everything there is to see and forget all of our responsibilities.It strikes me, then, why it was so hard for Connor to leave London. I’d understood it in a theoretical way before, but with that visceral desire comes the very real sense of what Connor had snatched for himself when he’d fled Boston and what he’d given up to come back.
To come back withme. What he no doubt feels I took from him.
By the time we make it to dinner, the city is full of neon light. We have dinner and then find a futuristic bar for drinks, seeking out every corner of the city we can see before it’s time to go back to the resort. From time to time, the lights glint off the diamonds and pearls at my wrist, and my chest fills with a bittersweet ache.
In the car on the ride back to the resort, I can’t stop myself. I feel the clock ticking; the moment when we have to go back to Boston is nearly here, and I want more. I want every moment of happiness and pleasure with my husband that I can steal.
I lean across the car, my hand on his lightly stubbled cheek to turn his face so I can kiss him. His lips have barely met mine before I’m dragged into his lap, his mouth devouring me as he yanks his zipper down and my panties aside and sets me down on his cock.
Oh god. Oh god—I moan aloud, rocking down onto his length as Connor’s hands tangle in my hair, grip my waist, my ass, the indescribable pleasure making me want to burst into tears and scream with joy all at once. Nothing has ever felt this good,no onehas, and I don’t think anyone ever will again. It feels like Connor has ruined me for any other man.
He fucks me all the way to the resort, slow and steady, grinding me down onto him as the two of us kiss and grope and rock together, groaning out his orgasm against my lips as we come together just before we get back. I stay on his cock for a moment, clenching pleasurably around him as I ride out the last waves of it, and then slide off, rearranging my clothing as we slip out of the car, buzzed and laughing, all the way up to our room.
We’re barely inside before Connor is stripping off my dress, and I find myself bent over the couch and then face down on the bed as he fucks me again.
He’s insatiable, and so am I. We fuck twice in the bed before he finally falls asleep, and I lie there, equally exhausted but unable to sleep. When I wake up, it will be time to go to Boston, and I can feel myself rebelling against it. I want more of this, and I know I’ll never have it again.
I get up to go to the bathroom, cleaning up a little, and change into pajamas, and as I walk back towards the bed, I see Connor’s phone light up with a text and then another. I glance at it without really meaning to as I\pass and then freeze as I see the name on the screen.
Kaito Nakamura.
It takes me a second to place the name. It sounds familiar, and I try to recall where I’ve heard it before. As Connor’s phone lights up a third time, I remember hearing my father mention it in passing. The older son of the Nakamura house—a part of the Yakuza.
I pick up Connor’s phone, guessing the password far too easily. I know I shouldn’t snoop, but a cold suspicion has taken root, and I can’t help myself. I click on the messages, my gut tightening instantly as I read.
Sorry we couldn’t do more for you when you came to see my father.
Alliance is not completely out of the question, but not until matters are resolved.
Think about what we said. Consider a different route. That’s all I’m suggesting.
My hand tightens around the phone, wanting to throw it across the room. I hear the rough clearing of a throat and whirl to see Connor looking at me darkly, his gaze fixed on the phone in my hand as he pushes himself up on his elbows.
“That’s not yours, now is it?” he asks in a soft, warning tone, and I grit my teeth.
“A friend from Tokyo, hmm?” I throw the phone across the mattress towards him, and he scoops it up, glancing at the message before setting it aside. “You fucking lied. You went to do business with the Nakamura house.”
Connor shrugs. “And what if I did?” His voice is coolly neutral as if I don’t have the slightest right to be angry, and that just infuriates me all the more.
“So that’s why you agreed.” I narrow my eyes at him. “When I booked the trip and you argued about it, and then suddenly gave in. You thought of a way it could be useful to you. Hell, you probably would have come on the fucking trip alone if you could have managed it—”
“You’re being unreasonable,” Connor says, his voice growing harsher. “I agreed to your game that you proposed on the plane, Saoirse, but before that—you had no reason to think I agreed to come along on this trip for any ridiculous romantic notions.”
Something clenches hotly in my belly at that, and I have to fight back the tears. Iknewnone of this was real, I’d known it all weekend, but I’d let myself slip. I’d let myself believe that maybe it was working, that perhaps he was beginning to feel something real.
I’d been fucking stupid.
“Of course, I wouldn’t have agreed so quickly if the trip couldn’t somehow help my position,” Connor says coolly. I canhearall of his walls going back up, whatever door had opened to allow him to be softer and kinder this weekend, slamming shut. “You should understand all of this, Saoirse. It’s for you, too, and our heir—who, with any luck, we’ve made this weekend. There’s no reason for you to be angry about it. I merely made the best of an opportunity.”
“Youlied,” I grind out through clenched teeth. “You made it sound like casual drinks with a friend, not a business meeting, a possible alliance. You didn’t include me inanyof it. You kept it all from me, didn’t share a thing. You’re treating me like nothing but a stupid useless woman, a warm hole for you to leave your cum in and squeeze out a son for you, instead of the powerful wife and partner youknowI can be. You manipulated me all weekend—” I’m on the verge of tears. I have to force them back, or I know I’ll hate myself even more than I already do for being too foolish as to believe him, to really think things could change.
“Why would I tell you?” Connor raises an eyebrow. “I’d already made the decision. I didn’t need an opinion or input. Why would I share it? So you could tell your daddy the moves I’m making? No, I don’t think so.”
I stare at him, appalled. “You really think—”
“Everything you’ve ever done has been for your father andyourfamily, Saoirse. Hell, you chased me down and marriedme, a man you didn’t want, who told you plainly he’d never love you or be faithful to you, just to please dear old daddy. Do you really think I believe for a second that you’re now completely loyal to me?”
I feel like I can’t breathe. I’d assumed all this time that his anger and distance was because he resented me for dragging him back, for making him change his entire life to save his brother—and maybe there is that, too—but this is something else altogether.