Destination Connelly by K. L. Kreig Page A

limit for her. The thought of her leading by my side, like the queen she is, makes my heart pound in excitement.
    I stand and retrieve the ball, tossing it toward the net hanging from the back of my closet door.
    Swish .
    Picking it up, I aim and let the spongy roundness roll off the tips of my fingers again.
    Swish .
    My bum knee may have fucked up my college basketball scholarship, but after tens of thousands of hours practicing, I can still hit a three-pointer with consistent accuracy. Unless I’m having an off day, I always win when I challenge my brothers to a friendly game of HORSE. And since my off days with a ball in my hands are few and far between and my brothers can’t resist a bet any more than I can, I always rake in the dough. But with all of my brothers now paired off except for me, we don’t get to play as often as we once did.
    Swish.
    Swish.
    As I sink basket after basket, I let myself bask in the first win in my not-so-elaborate game plan. A few more legal formalities and Steele Executive Recruiting will be mine. Very soon, Nora will be here in Chicago working for me and I will put the second portion of my plan into motion. The first part was the hard, messy one.
    Swish.
    The second one, folks, is the simple one: getting her into my bed and keeping her there. I excel at many things, but getting a woman to willingly open her legs? Piece o’ fucking cake. Nora was the one and only exception. But that was then and this is now. Regardless of the cold shoulder she gave me earlier, she's still very much attracted to me. I know once I have her between the four walls of my business, getting her between the thousand-count Egyptian cotton sheets on my bed will be a breeze.
    I've already begun tying a continuous, complex string of knots and loops that will be wound so tightly Nora won’t know where she begins and I end. Despite what I thought a few days ago, that I didn’t know what I’d do with her once I had her bound to me, after setting my starved eyes on her again, I know exactly what I’ll be doing with her. And I’ll be doing it repeatedly because I also know sampling Nora once will not be enough to sate the starvation that’s cramped and twisted my insides for years.
    The need to ravage, claim, and strip her physically, emotionally, and spiritually raw so all she will know is me is too powerful to push away or ignore. For the first time in years, I want more than one meaningless night between the thighs of a woman whose name I won’t remember and sometimes don’t even bother to ask for.
    Swish .
    Ten in a row.
    Nora Cantres will be mine again, and there is nothing or no one that can possibly keep her from me.
    Swish .
    Not even her.

Chapter 8
    N ora

    “ O h my God ! It’s so good to see you, sweetie!” Kamryn Winthrop screeches in my ear as she squeezes the air from my lungs.
    “You too, Kam. It’s been a long time.”
    “Too long,” she whispers.
    In the early summer before fifth grade, when my father accepted a research position at UCal’s San Diego branch, my family moved from the icy cold of the Northeast to sunny La Jolla, California. We lived in a fancy, gated community filled with old people and even older money.
    I hated it.
    Until I met the person who would become one of my best lifelong friends.
    Kamryn Winthrop.
    It was a hot summer day. I was practicing my golf swing in the front yard with a nine iron and Wiffle balls. Most ten-year-olds are riding their bikes or going to the pool or even still playing with dolls, but not me. My Uncle Carl had me on the greens at the age of four, telling me that every young woman should “never rely on a man for happiness, money, or carrying your ass on the golf course.”

    I swing sure and swift only to watch my ball slice, missing the fake green I’d constructed in the middle of the grass by winding three jump ropes together. “You’re doing that wrong,” a squeaky voice yells from across the street.
    “And how would you know?” I