Connor paused, calf muscles screaming as he stretched his big body to the limits. She would be such a challenge. Such curiosity and uncultivated passion kept so tightly leashed, he could practically smell her internal frustration. Given the right man and the right handling, she was a wildcat waiting to happen.
But there was something else. Some sadness hid behind her eyes. As if she suffered an aching loneliness that made her unable to decide whether to reach out or lash out. And that was what made her dangerous. Connor didn’t need shades of grey like her in his black and white existence.
The moment she’d stepped inside his bar and gazed up at him with her beguiling hazel eyes, he’d sensed something different. It made him want to cram her in his pocket and protect her from whatever it was that was so determined to beat her down.
“Connor?”
“In here.”
Alex appeared and balanced lightly against the doorjamb. “Aren’t you done yet?”
“Just finishing up.”
Connor managed to avoid Alex’s probing gaze while he stood and rummaged for a fresh shirt and pants.
“Something bothering you?”
Connor shrugged a shirt over his broad shoulders. “No, why?”
“Just a feeling.”
“You been watching Dr. Phil again? You’re sounding awfully in touch with your feminine side.”
Alex snorted. “I’ve known you long enough that sometimes I feel like we’re married.”
“You could’ve kept that little detail to yourself.”
There was a brief pause. Connor settled his black trousers on the tilt of his hips and ran a hand over the stubble on his head. It was the same routine every morning when he had to decide if he needed a shave or not.
“It’ll be nice to have another set of hands around the bar tonight, hmm?”
“Guess so.”
“She seems nice enough.”
Connor grunted, refusing to let Alex bait him into saying anything about their new waitress.
“Great ass, too. Wouldn’t you say?”
Unable to stop himself, Connor’s gaze jerked upward and locked on Alex. The beast that lay just beneath Connor’s civil exterior howled and rattled the bars on its cage. His heart hammered in his chest and blood pounded in his ears.
“She’s just a woman, Connor.” Alex said quietly.
“I know that.”
“So keep your perspective.”
Connor didn’t bother to acknowledge that bit of advice.
Alex seemed to understand that the topic was closed. “Selena is downstairs.”
“Probably wants her paycheck.”
Alex chuckled, “I think she wants more compensation than that.”
There was an unmistakable smirk on his face when Alex left the doorway. Connor made certain his pants were fastened before following Alex. Encounters that often seemed a wonderful way to start the day had a habit of reaching around to bite you in the ass when you least expected it.
* * *
“Come to get your last check, Selena?” Connor rumbled as he eased into his desk chair.
From the corner of his eye, Connor could see her prop one of her svelte legs on the edge of his desk. In the not-so-distant past, he would’ve considered the leg a welcome invitation. But at that moment it was more annoyance than anything else.
Connor chalked it up to his being annoyed that Selena would walk off the job with no notice. He refused to admit that Jessa’s sudden, earth-shattering appearance in his life had anything to do with this phenomenon.
“Have you missed me, Connor?”
“No. We already hired someone else.”
There was a brief silence in which Connor tried to gauge whether or not Selena was going to take offense to his admission. But she smiled instead. “I can’t imagine she’d replace me in…everything.”
Connor ground his teeth together to keep from giving her the satisfaction of a response.
The long leg disappeared and was replaced by Selena’s rounded ass. She settled herself on the cluttered desktop, legs propped on the filing cabinet. Selena wore one of her trademark sinfully short skirts with no pantyhose. Connor could’ve seen up her skirt all the way to her slit by shifting his gaze an inch to the left. But he didn’t. And the ramifications of that hit him harder than anything else. Any other day, he would’ve reached over and run a hand up the inside of her thigh until his fingers brushed the dewy curls surrounding her cunt. He’d have finger fucked her until she begged him for his cock. Then Connor would’ve spread her wide on his desk and given her exactly what she asked for.
Her mannerism, the way she was dressed, and the sultry look in her eyes all tagged her a highly fuckable woman, begging like a bitch in heat. It was a wide-open invitation to a man like Connor, to any man. He couldn’t take the bait. He couldn’t even muster the urge. A pair of wide hazel eyes haunted him.