Page 30 of Conor
We’re both quiet for the next few minutes while I clean and re-dress the wound. There’s an intimacy to helping a man like Conor when he’s in a vulnerable state. I doubt that he allows just anyone to see him this way. He’s too stubborn and proud for that.
The wound is in his shoulder, but even a couple inches to the right and this could have ended much differently. He was lucky this time, but what about next time? What if Conor just didn’t come home?
It wasn’t all that long ago when Muerto would come back to the compound, drunk and bloody from his latest wars on the street. And every time, I found myself thinking that maybe that would be the night. Maybe he would bleed out, and I would finally be free. I hated myself for thinking that way. I hated wishing death on anyone. But when his death meant my freedom, it was the only hope I had to grasp onto.
As I tend to Conor’s wound, it occurs to me that the opposite is true. I don’t want anything to happen to him. Just the possibility that something could terrifies me, and he recognizes it when I take a deep breath, trying to pull myself together.
“Alright there?”
I apply the last of the tape to his fresh gauze, allowing my fingers to edge just outside the boundary of his skin. “What happens to us if something happens to you?”
He reaches out and toys with a piece of my hair, curling it around his fingers. “That’s not going to happen.”
My lip trembles and pressure builds behind my eyes, and I feel ridiculous for getting so worked up about this. “But what if it does?”
“Ye’re mine now,” Conor says with an authority that can’t be argued. “No two ways about that, Twigs. When you married me, you married into my family, and my family protects its own. Regardless of whether or not I live to see another day on this earth, no harm will ever come to ye. Crow and my brothers will make dead sure of that.”
I force a neutral expression for his benefit, but inside everything hurts. What Conor doesn’t understand is that his words don’t ease my worries. Because the question I was really asking was what happens to us…if he’s not a part of us anymore.
To admit that out loud would be to admit that I’m already letting him inside, and I can’t do that. He isn’t the kind of guy who gives his word lightly. He told me he would protect us, and I believe him. But he never promised to care.
“You haven’t been coming home,” I say lightly. “Is it because you’ve been at the club?”
“I’ve been all over,” Conor sighs. “That’s my job, Ivy. The lads need me, and I’m there. That’s how it works.”
My throat is thick with all the things I can’t say. “That makes sense.”
Conor is quiet again, and I don’t know how to navigate these silences with him. He takes control of the situation, reaching out for my hand and weaving our fingers together. “I don’t know how to do this,” he admits. “I haven’t had anyone count on me in a long time.”
My gaze moves over our linked fingers, and the weight in my chest feels lighter, if only a little. “It’s okay, we’re fine. We have everything we need.”
“Things won’t always be this way,” he assures me. “Rory’s got us into some shite right now. The skirt he’s been chasing has him wrapped up in her war against mankind, but it’ll blow over soon enough.”
“Alright.”
“Why do I get the feeling ye say that even when everything isn’t alright?” Conor asks.
“It is. I have no reason to complain. You’ve given us a roof over our heads. Food. A safe place for Archer.”
“But?” he presses.
Heat blooms in my cheeks as I consider how much to reveal. “I just think maybe we should be honest about expectations from the beginning. I think I have a pretty good grasp on how it works in your world. The wife stays at home, and you guys go out and do whatever, right?”
Conor’s lips tilt at the corners. “You mean with whoever, aye?”
I don’t get a chance to answer because he reaches out and drags me into his lap before I can give it too much thought. I’m not under any illusions about the size of my frame, but in his arms, I feel even smaller. He feels like a shelter, a safe space, and a disaster in the making. But I can’t stop this pull I feel when he’s near. And when his fingers graze my arm, it lights a fire inside of my belly I don’t know how to put out.
“I meant what I said when I told ye that I haven’t been with anyone for years before you.” He leans into my throat and breathes me in. “And I’ve no intention of running off now to stick me dick in everything that has a hole in it. Why would I, when I have you warming my bed at home?”
I relax into him and breathe him in too. It feels reckless to allow myself comfort in his words, but I do.
“I don’t know what the Locos got up to,” he adds. “But our guys are solid. And when we give our word, we bloody well mean it. We are loyal to each other, and ye best believe we are loyal to our wives. If any one of us got caught cheating on the missus, the others would have our nuts for it if she didn’t get to them first. So, don’t think that because Muerto did it, I will too. I’m nothing like that piece of shite. Okay?”
“I know you aren’t,” I admit. “I just… I guess I wanted to hear it from you.”
Conor nods against me, and even though he’s the one that’s wounded, his fingers move over the base of my spine, soothing me in a way that nothing else ever has.
“How’s our boy?” he asks. “Settling in okay?”
