Phoenix Rising(19)
“No, of course not!” Jessa amended quickly before realizing what she’d just implied.
And there was his answer. The attraction was real and it went both ways.
Satisfied with that, Connor didn’t delve any deeper into the strange connection they seemed to share. He wasn’t ready to deal with that yet. Especially not if it interfered with his plans to seduce Jessa and get her out of his system.
“I’m not a big believer in long term relationships.” Connor explained.
“Me neither.”
The naked derision in her words disturbed him more than it should have. “You shouldn’t let one bad apple ruin the whole bunch, Jessa.”
She gave a noncommittal shrug before changing subject. “So what kind of hours do you need me to work?”
“Pretty much any day you want to come in. We’re closed Sundays. And if you want another day off, Tuesdays tend to be a little slower.”
“So, are the activities that went on last night…” She paused to collect her thoughts. “Is that normal around here?”
Connor leveled his dark gaze at Jessa and willed her to understand. “Whatever they want to do, they can. Just as long as everyone involved is willing.”
“And if they’re not?”
Connor leaned back and laced his fingers behind his head. “That’s why I stand up there at the door and keep an eye on everything that happens.”
“Are there many fights?”
“Not usually. But if anyone starts bothering you, let me or Alex know. I don’t tolerate harassment. And nobody has the right to touch you unless you tell them it’s okay. Understand?”
She nodded. Connor knew he was acting a little fanatical. But he couldn’t help the primal rush of male dominance that swept him when he even considered standing by and letting some half-drunk moron grope Jessa’s curves.
Nobody was going to touch her, nobody.
Chapter Six
Jessa had forgotten how utterly satisfying it could be to put in a hard night’s work. It wasn’t that she hadn’t gained any enjoyment from being the wife of a busy executive. But there was something about getting to the end of a long shift and being able to look back and know you’d worked your tail off. And she had.
When she’d ducked into the bar, Jessa hadn’t paid a whit of attention to what its name was. But Connor had named his bar Phoenix Rising. After spending an entire shift working with Alex and Connor, Jessa knew it was more than just a name.
She might have been out of circulation for almost two decades while living the life of an average housewife. But Jessa found it hard to believe that all the things going on in that bar were normal. There were plenty of power drinkers, social drinkers, partiers, depressed businessmen, searching singles and lonely ones. But there were also a number of patrons who’d come there to find a partner for a quick romp in the back corner.
By the end of the night, she’d witnessed six women performing oral sex, two women enthusiastically fondling each other’s breasts and four different couples fornicating in every position physically possible. Not only that, but one ambitious guy had pleasured two different women with only a forty-five second break in between. No matter how odd it seemed to witness all that, she couldn’t help but be impressed.
There had come a point during the night where Jessa stopped wondering why her gaze kept returning to the dark corners of the bar. She accepted the tantalizing glimpse of people living events she’d not thought of in the last nineteen years.
Her cotton panties were damp from the constant arousal. It was hard to say if the new erotic awareness sweeping her body was because of the things she saw or because of Connor’s steady black gaze. Anytime she looked around the room, her eyes would lock with his. The odd sensation was becoming hard to ignore. Even harder to disregard was the rising sense of anticipation that sent her heart rate soaring when their eyes met and held.
It was 2:00 a.m. when the last drunken customer fumbled his way into a taxi on the cobbled street out front. Jessa watched the yellow vehicle lurch into motion and vaguely wondered if the poor cab driver was going to have to clean his seats before his shift was done.
“Excuse me, please.”
The breathy voice belonged to a strangely familiar, though scantily clad, woman standing expectantly at the door. “Sorry, it’s past last call. Maybe come back tomorrow night, hmm?”
The leggy dark-haired temptress chuckled, the sound even breathier than her speech if that were possible. “You’ve got it all wrong, sweetheart.”
“She’s all right.”
Connor’s voice rumbled through the doorway as he approached. Jessa quickly stepped aside and the woman eased her way into the bar on her five hundred dollar an hour stilettos.