left the bathroom, he squeezed my hand and pulled me to him, delivering one more kiss on my mouth. He kissed me with so much passion, it made my legs wobbly. Then he pulled back and looked down at me with loving eyes.
“You want to know what I just realized?” he muttered just then, smiling peacefully at me.
“What?” I asked, drowning in his gaze.
“You’re the dove, and I’m the raven.”
My spine straightened in surprise. My skin broke out in goose bumps.
“What did you just say?” I asked in a shocked whisper.
Before he could respond, Ember’s voice shrieked, “We ever going to leave yet?”
Conor chuckled and tugged me to the door.
I stumbled over my feet, my head suddenly clouding with a memory of a raven.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Thames
He really couldn’t stand noise.
His ears immediately ached upon entering Jem’s bar. There were too many faces. And this time, he recognized many of them.
He was greeted, pat on the back by the very same people who waited for him to fall all that time ago. He squeezed Charlotte’s hand as Jem led them to a corner table. Now Jem, he looked like he was right at home, making idle conversation as they went, smiling up a storm the way Thames used to back in the day. Even Ember looked like she was in her zone. She fucking glowed, already stopping at the bar to order drinks.
So much had changed.
So much remained the same.
It was starting to dawn on Thames why that was.
Blackwater hadn’t changed.
Blackwater was the same, it was him that was different. He wasn’t the same man anymore. The bar scene – had he genuinely enjoyed that before? He wracked his brain, trying to remember, but it was blacked out. All of it. Because he’d spent so much of his life wasted on alcohol, blocking out the noise, thinking of his next hit.
He sat stiffly, looking about the room with a cautious gaze. He wasn’t searching for trouble, but he wondered if it would find him. What wasted idiot was going to insult him? What nosy prick would ask him about prison? How would he respond to it?
He didn’t know what to anticipate, but the shakes were already setting in.
Charlotte immediately grabbed his hand when they did. Her warmth seeped into his skin, and he looked to her, finding equal warmth in her eyes. She squeezed his hand and smiled reassuringly at him.
“If you feel something coming on, you just look at me,” she whispered to him.
He nodded, already feeling his heart rate come down.
He wanted to tell her he wanted to go. He wanted to be back at the house, in their room, fucking her, or bathing with her, or even watching Penny sleep.
No, no, what he wanted the most was her mouth back on his cock, her tongue flicking at his head. Why the hell had he taken so long for that to happen?
This being here was out of his element.
Guys he used to know stopped by the table for a quick word. They were welcoming and kind, not prodding or asking nosy questions. Conor answered with ease and they respectfully left, knowing very well that he needed his space.
This was good.
He could handle this.
Ember returned to the table with drinks in her hands. She settled beer bottles down in the middle of the table. “Drink up, guys. Char’s the designated driver. We’re safe tonight.”
Charlotte’s eyes narrowed. “I never volunteered that.”
“Oops, well, guess I just did for you,” Ember laughed, necking her drink quickly to ensure the responsibility was not on her.
“I’ll drive, dove,” Thames said suddenly. “You can relax.”
Charlotte pushed the beers in Ember’s direction, shaking her head. “I’m too old for this shit, Conor. I’m already thinking about bed.”
Ember’s brows shot up. “I hope you’re joking.”
“I’m not.”
“You don’t know how to have fun, Charlotte. That’s always been your issue.”
“Hey, leave her alone,” Jem intervened, frowning at Ember. “Char has a lot of responsibility.”
Ember looked insulted. “You saying I don’t?”
“Yeah,” Jem retorted. “I’m saying you don’t.”
“Fuck you, Jem, I have a kid, too, you know.”
“Yeah, does your kid know that?”
Now she was beyond pissed. “You don’t have the right to say shit like that to me. Who the fuck are you to tell me off about my parenting? And then to act as though Charlotte’s got it rougher than me. She had everything handed to her –”
“That’s bullshit, Ember, you’ve sponged off your mom for years now, and Grandma may as well be Mommy to Lily because you’ve always stepped outta