Connell (Carolina Reapers 3)

Connell held back his laughter and instead nudged me with his shoulder. “That isn’t half as embarrassing as the time ye saw me naked.”

A laugh burst from my chest, freeing the mortification from my lungs. “Oh, come on,” I said. “You weren’t embarrassed. Streaking through Reaper Village like that. You were so proud.”

“Not true!” He chuckled. “Okay, half true. I am proud. I mean, look at me.” He motioned to all his gloriousness. “But I didn’t know you were there. I wouldn’t have done it if I’d known we had a non-resident on the street.”

I pressed my lips together to keep from smiling. “Good to know,” I said.

Echo blew me a kiss and returned to help other customers.

Connell leaned closer, lowering his voice. “Now, back to what we were talking about.”

I tilted my head, feigning innocence. “I have no idea what you’re referring to.”

That wicked grin shaped his lips, those lips I couldn’t help but stare at.

“All right, Annabelle,” he said, his voice coaxing, soothing. “We’ll revisit that conversation another time.” There was a promise in his tone that shook me to my core. I watched him walk back to where a bunch of his teammates were celebrating, hating that I couldn’t tear my eyes from him.

Sex may be overrated in my book, but my body sure as hell seemed to think Connell MacDhuibh could change my mind.

3

Connell

The first week wasn’t too bad, honestly. I’d never shied away from physical labor, and I got a rise out of knowing Annabelle couldn’t get a rise out of me.

The second week she tried harder, and even when I hung off the side of the building to remove a bird’s nest from the roofline, she didn’t get to me. I had been raised on hard work, and if the lass thought this was hard, she had another thing coming.

I may have also faked a fall and scared the shit out of her, but really, that was just for fun.

The third week, we were halfway through my sentence, and she started to run out of things for me to scrub, but there was never a lack of shit to get done. I walked into the office with a dusty box of records from the basement, still sporting the shit-colored jumpsuit. I’d tied the top around my waist and gone with a t-shirt because South Carolina in July was no bloody joke.

“You sure it’s in there?” she asked with a worried glance as I set the box down on the empty desk in the corner that had somehow become mine.

“Since I’m the one who refiled all of this two weeks ago, I’d have to say I’m pretty certain. Give me a second here.” I took the top off the box and sifted through the papers, and she went back to glaring at her computer screen.

Och, but she looked beautiful today. Her hair was piled up on her head, which only drew my attention to the line of her neck just above the collar of her white, pressed blouse. But it was the skirts that killed me. Today it was a black pencil number with a slit up the back that hugged her hips like a second skin.

My workload may have become physically easier in the last week or two, but keeping my hands to myself was infinitely harder.

“Annabelle, I’m going to take off for lunch, okay?” Lacy asked as her husband walked into the office.

“Sure thing,” Annabelle answered without looking up from her screen.

If the way Lacy looked at her husband as they left was any indication, we didn’t need to see the two of them for at least an hour.

“Is it just me, or do they go earlier and earlier every day?” I glanced at my phone to make sure I wasn’t crazy. It was only eleven.

“They’re newlyweds,” she answered with a shrug. “Give them a few more months and the lunches will stop, and the headaches will start.”

“Och, sometimes I forget how jaded you are.” I thumbed through the papers until I found the one I needed.

“Not jaded, just realistic.”

I walked over and sat on the corner of her desk, then waited for her to give me her full attention. She flicked her gaze at me a few times, but finally gave in with a sigh about a minute later and turned in her chair so she could fully face me.

“Is this where you assure me that not all men are the same and promise me sweet, sweet pleasure if you could just talk me out of my clothes?” She arched an eyebrow in clear challenge.

Ahhh, so our conversation in the bar had stuck with her.

“Lass, if I talked you out of your clothes, I wouldn’t need to promise anything. I’d simply show you. Weak men make promises when it comes to sex. Good men let the orgasms speak for themselves.” And I would, over and over again. If I ever got this woman in my bed, she wouldn’t leave it until she was too weak to walk, and then she’d stay for the very same reason. It would be a vicious, delicious, satisfying cycle.