Phoenix Rising(38)
“You’ve got to talk to her, Connor. She needs to know the truth.”
“Truth is never pretty.”
“I think you might be surprised. I think Jessa Kincaid has some truths up her sleeve, too.”
“You know I hate conversation.”
“You don’t hate conversing with Jessa.”
Connor had opened his mouth to argue when he realized Alex was right. He’d spoken more full sentences to Jessa in the short time he’d known her than he’d spoken to anybody but Alex in the last year.
“Go on, you big idiot. Go back to bed so I can get a little more sleep.”
Connor grunted and hefted himself up off the floor.
“And keep the noise down. Some of us need our beauty rest.”
* * *
A pair of warm hands caressing her naked curves pulled Jessa from her warm cocoon of sleep. Blinking in the bright light, she managed to focus on the familiar features of Connor’s lazy smile as he looked down at her.
“Where are we?”
Connor chuckled. “My bedroom.”
“Do I even want to know what happened last night?”
“You, Alex, and I had a good time.”
She put a hand over her eyes and gave a half-hearted laugh. “I think I’m starting to remember.”
“Don’t tell me you regret it.”
She seemed to consider this. “Not all of it.”
“You’d best not regret the parts with me in them.”
“Never.”
Connor ran his hand down her arm and grasped her hand in his. Lifting it toward the light, he fingered the pale circle where her wedding ring had once been. Jessa pulled away when she realized what he was staring at.
“Tell me what happened, Jessa.”
“Why, does it matter?”
“No. But I want to know why you’re the way you are. And I suspect he has a lot to do with it.”
“What does that mean? The way I am? How am I?”
Connor ran one hand down the curve of her body until it rested lightly on her bare hip. “You keep a tight leash on your desires, Jessa. I want to know why.”
“Tight leash? You call last night a tight leash?”
Connor chuckled. “I’d say the liquor had something to do with last night.”
Jessa let the silence stretch long between them. She was curled into the curve of Connor’s big body. His heat both soothed and agitated her. How was it possible to feel this comfortable with a man she barely knew?
It hit her hard and fast. Connor wasn’t really a stranger.
He wasn’t. Connor was a kindred soul. He was a man who suffered from the same crippling emotional disassociation Jessa did. She wasn’t certain how she knew that, but the patterns of his behavior weren’t all that unlike hers. She’d stayed in a loveless marriage for nineteen years because it was a damn sight easier than setting out on her own.
Connor never spent more than half a dozen nights with a woman. He never let them see who he was. He didn’t let down his guard or confide anything. It was only logical to assume that at some point he’d decided, just as Jessa had, that it was much easier to turn inward than to reach outward.
Jessa finally took a quavering breath and answered him. “He ditched me for another woman. In fact, he’s living with her right now. She’s got kids already and she’s a helluva lot more good looking than I am.”
“Bullshit.”
She smiled and caressed the side of his face with her palm. The rough stubble was scratchy against her skin, but Jessa liked the contact anyway. “I hate to break it to you, big guy, but you’re the only one I’ve ever met who seems to prefer me to those waif-thin girls with no ass and fake tits.”
Connor growled and rolled to his back. Locked in his embrace, Jessa rolled with him. His big, warm hands squeezed the globes of her ass and pulled her tightly into his body. The thick ridge of his erect cock pressed into her tummy and Jessa’s breath hitched with excitement.
“That’s how fucking gorgeous you are to me, Jessa,” Connor said in his gravelly tone. “I can’t get rid of this hard on when you’re anywhere near.”
Jessa took a moment to study him while settled so comfortably on top of his massive frame. Connor was hard and brutal and male. He should’ve intimidated the hell out of her. But he didn’t. Not since the moment he’d offered her a job without question. Since then, he’d irritated her and shocked her in turns. But he’d never once scared her.
This man would never deliberately hurt her. Not physically, not emotionally and not even by proxy.
“I didn’t care that Will left me,” Jessa confided softly.
“Why not?”
“I didn’t love him. I don’t think I ever loved him.”