To Hate Adam Connor

“I…” I started, but couldn’t find the words, didn’t know how to finish the thought as the tears kept coming. This must be what they call hormones. I already didn’t like it.

“Lucy…”

He tilted my head up again and his thumb wiped away my tears.

The tears didn’t stop coming. His hand on my back tightened, and I lost myself a little more, felt myself falling a little further. Despite having his hard body pressed against mine, his hand holding me in place, I could feel my body start to shake, the hopelessness of the day finally catching up to me.

I put my hands on his chest and tried to push him away, but it was like trying to push away a lion that didn’t want to move. He somehow managed to pull me closer, and I let him.

“Lucy,” he warned, his voice gravelly. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

We stared into each other’s eyes for so long.

“I’m pregnant,” I admitted in a broken voice. Adam let go of me.

It was the lowest moment of my life. Not that being pregnant was anything bad because for someone else, someone who wanted to have a baby, someone who was looking forward to having a baby…it was everything. For me…being pregnant was the confirmation I’d never wanted to receive.

I really was cursed.

“I did it,” I said, curling my arms around my stomach. “I’m just like them. I’ll be just like them. Bitter. Unhappy. Angry.” I lifted my eyes up to meet his. “Not at the baby. Never at the baby. I’ll always be angry at myself, and I’ll end up being angry at the world. I should’ve never said ‘I love you’ to Jameson. He was a flirt, yet I still said I loved him. I knew it would never work, but I still said those stupid words. And now I’m being punished. I should’ve…I shouldn’t—”

Why the hell was I still crying?

“I’m not crying because I’m sad,” I tried to explain, my voice rising. I was such a disgrace to womankind. “I’m angry. These are stupid angry tears. Or hormone tears, I don’t know! I don’t wanna cry!”

Then his lips were on mine and my words got lost between us with my gasp. His fingers tangled in my hair as I pushed myself up on my tiptoes to put my arms around his neck and pull him down to me. This one wasn’t a sweet kiss or a lazy one. This one was full of life, full of pain, pleasure, hate, anger, even a little bit of hope and love.

I took a deep breath through my nose.

Shit! The smell. The smell of his skin.

Don’t breathe, Lucy. Don’t breathe. He’s toxic. Don’t do it.

The hell with it! I moaned and breathed in his scent. His fingers tightened in my hair, and I let his tongue surround mine, licking, sucking, pulling, pushing as he slanted his head in every possible angle.

I was done for.

This was the end of me.

With a guttural groan, he tilted my head with his hands and went in deeper, took more from me. I grabbed at his collar, clawed at his neck, pushed my fingers into his hair, pulling on it. Hard. The hiss of pain he whispered into my mouth was beyond satisfying to hear, to feel vibrate through my body.

He tilted his head the other way and kissed me into oblivion. His body was towering over me, forcing me to move a couple steps back. It was perfect. It might have been the best moment of my life. At the very least, top five.

Hell, it was the only kiss that actually deserved to be called a kiss. The way his hand moved, his fingers threading into my hair, his palm cupping the back of my head with the perfect amount of gentleness and roughness, holding me just where he wanted me…the way I could almost hear his wild heartbeat…the way I pulled at his hair, clawed at his neck to get him closer so I could drown myself in him…

The way my entire body was begging for him, trembling to feel his hot skin on mine, every one of our movements jerky and frantic.

It was a beautiful mess.

It was the perfect mess.

My heart…my own frantic heartbeat drowned out every other noise but him.

Everything but him was just white noise.

Holy hell!

My body burning brighter and trembling harder in his arms, I let out a soundless protest when he took his lips away from mine. With my eyes still closed, I leaned forward to take them back, but his whispered words forced me to come back down to earth.

“Stop, Lucy. Stop.”

Wasn’t he aching just as much as I was? Didn’t he want me?

I wanted him. I wanted him inside me.

Oh God, I wanted to have his cock inside me. I wanted him to never stop kissing me. I never wanted that connection I’d just felt to break. That warmth. That tremble he gave me. That high I felt when his lips stopped my world.

“Look at me,” he whispered in a low voice, and I had to force my eyes to blink open so I could actually see him.

God, he looked so good. Those fucking eyes of his were killing me. I’d never look at that shade of green the same way again. Still breathless and unsettled, I let go of his hair and rested my hands on top of his shoulders. Jesus, his hair looked like he’d just had the best fuck of his life. I lived for kisses like that; the ones that made you feel like you’d been fucked good and well without even having a cock in your vagina.

“That was…holy hell, that was a good kiss, Adam Connor.” I cleared my throat and patted his shoulder. “You’re learning. Glad to help.”

“It was the only way to stop you from spewing bullshit and crying.”

I stopped breathing and my body turned rigid in his arms.

“What? You kissed me so I’d stop crying on you? You…you jerk!” I pulled away from him, but he caught my wrist in midair and roughly pulled me against his chest.

“Let me go,” I said through gritted teeth.

“Shut up,” he said hoarsely, his fingers loosening around my wrist. “Please, just shut up for a second.”

I didn’t move.

“How?” he asked after almost a full minute of looking into each other’s eyes, breathing in each other’s air. “Lucy, how are you pregnant?”

Oh, right…

I did my best to get my breathing under control and pushed my hair away from my face with my free hand. It was unsettling to have all of his attention on me, those eyes piercing my well-constructed walls as fast as I tried to build them up. Also I could still smell his goddamned cologne, which did stupid things to my poor, neglected vagina…and maybe my heart.

“When a penis enters a vagina and then—”

His eyes still open, he slanted his lips over mine and kissed me until my shoulders relaxed, and I melted in his arms again. Then he took them away from me.

How many times have I already told you that he was a bastard?

“For a second, just be honest with me, Lucy. Be yourself and tell me what’s going on.”

“What the hell do you think I’m doing?”

He started to lower his head again.

“Fine. Stop. Stop. Enough. Okay? Enough.”

“Tell me what’s going on without all the bullshit. You told me Callum hadn’t—”

Callum? As in Jake Callum? What the hell was he talking about?

“Jake Callum? What does he have to do with anything?”

He visibly relaxed in front of my eyes. “So it isn’t him?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” I shook my head. “The baby is…” I touched my stomach again, looking down at it as if I could actually see the life growing inside me. “Jameson. My ex.”