“Open your eyes,” he rumbled, hands still shaping her breasts.
Jessa’s eyelids fluttered. She was sitting naked on a stool with her back pressed against the bar. She barely registered her explicit position. All her focus was directed at Alex. The striking bartender leaned languorously against the counter behind her. The fly of his jeans was wide open. One hand restlessly clutched a bottle of top shelf scotch. The other pumped his thick shaft up and down. His intense blue eyes were glued to Jessa. And his expression was unmistakable.
Jessa squirmed, fighting Connor’s hold. Passion ran hot and heavy through her veins. But her innate shyness battled with this newfound sensuality. How could she lay here and let Connor pleasure her body while somebody else watched?
“Let me go!” Jessa demanded huskily.
Connor leaned forward. One strong hand held her captive. The other forced her to meet his hell-black eyes. The smoldering heat there burned Jessa to the core. She’d aroused a beast.
Burned away and reborn from the ashes. That was how he’d described it. Jessa knew now it applied to the both of them.
Her heart pounded. But underneath the fear and desperate denial was something else. She wanted him, wanted to be possessed, dominated, pulled kicking and screaming over the edge of her self-repression until the only things remaining were she and Connor, their sweat-slick bodies, and the aching need for completion.
“Kiss me, Connor, before I change my mind.”
Connor’s rolling chuckle reverberated off the walls and crashed over Jessa like a wave of brutal sexuality. “Watch Alex, Jessa. Can you see how aroused he is?”
Her body plumped, blood rushing into her excruciatingly aroused skin. Jessa whimpered. Her eyes were glued to Alex’s thick erection as it disappeared and reappeared in his palm.
Connor’s lips whispered over the sensitive shell of her ear. “Watch him.”
Sight and sensation blurred inside Jessa’s brain. She was on sensory overload. Arousal drew Alex’s handsome face taut with lust. The crown of his cock turned a dusky purple. It gleamed in the dim lights as pre cum glistened on the tip, dribbling down the flange and disappearing beneath his big palm.
Her body exploded to sudden climax, the muscles of her pussy undulating in waves that cursed the emptiness of her vagina, longing for the hot length of Connor’s cock. Jessa’s hips bucked, pressing against Connor’s palm as he ground the heel of it against the swollen hood of her clit.
Propriety be damned, her first instinct was to beg him to fuck her senseless. But her pride balked, refusing to let her beg for a release in the sensual storm sweeping her body.
Connor’s big hands bracketed her hips, tilting her body. The long, hard length of his erection slid against Jessa’s plump, wet labia. She melted against him, the creamy gush of juice enticing him to slip inside her pussy.
Alex’s groan drew Jessa’s attention back to the gorgeous man watching every wave of desire sweep her body. His eyes shimmered cobalt, darkened by his increasing hunger for release. His shirt rested above his abdomen to give Jessa an unfettered look at the perfect span of smooth skin and rippling muscles above his cock. A trail of golden hair began at his navel before snaking downward and meeting with the slightly thicker hair surrounding his cock. His muscles were tightly clenched against the maelstrom of his desire. His testicles drew tighter. The long vein running the length of his cock pulsed, once, twice, three times. Alex’s eyes slid shut as his lower body convulsed. A thick stream of white cum spurted onto his stomach.
“Oh!” Jessa gasped, mesmerized by the sight of Alex’s cum spread sexily over his stomach.
“Now, Jessa,” Alex murmured. “Let me see your passion.”
His words threw gasoline on the flames Connor carefully tended with his hands and mouth. Jessa gasped, arched her back, and was rewarded with the long thrust of Connor’s thick cock as he slid home.
Connor’s hands firmly held her hips while he slid his cock in and out of her slick pussy in long, lingering strokes. The pace drove her mad. She wanted him to pound her until she exploded. Instead, he stroked her with precision. Each slide and play of his shaft rubbed against her pubic bone. The slow massage was steadily driving Jessa insane with desire.
He lowered his mouth to her ear. “Beg me, Jessa.”
Ladies didn’t beg. Especially not for sexual completion.
“I can keep this up all night, baby. I could stroke every inch of you until your body is numb with pleasure.”
A desperate cry passed Jessa’s lips before she could swallow it down.
“I know you need more. You need it faster, harder, my balls slapping your ass while I pound my cock inside your cunt.”
Another gasp she couldn’t catch. Jessa was burning with the need for climax.
“Beg me, Jessa. Say the words.”
Jessa squeezed her eyes tightly shut. A crest of heat burned her spine, trickling painfully down the backs of her legs. She was going to die. Connor was killing her.
Her eyes snapped open. Connor’s black gaze fumed with unholy fire. “Please, Connor. Fuck my pussy; make me come.”
Her words unleashed a torrent of brutal masculine power from deep inside Connor. Every protest, every inhibition, every reservation Jessa had ever experienced went up in the flames of Connor’s utter possession of her body.
The rhythmic pounding drove her over the edge. It forced her to another peak and past, until she was mindless to anything but the feel of his hot cock sliding in and out of her vagina with ruthless intensity.
The crescendo burst over them with one last thrust that made Jessa scream. Connor gripped the sides of her face, and Jessa trembled at the hellfire mirrored in his eyes as his pulsating cock branded her with a thick stream of hot cum.
“Mine.” His growl was almost too low for Jessa to hear. She couldn’t even be certain he’d said it. But the possibility sent a new kind of heat lancing straight to Jessa’s belly.
Chapter Ten
Connor braced one hand against the cool white porcelain sink and turned on the water. He splashed the ice-cold liquid liberally over his sweat-covered bare head. Droplets slid over his neck and pooled between his shoulder blades before slipping down his spine.
He was surprised they didn’t sizzle.
Teach her to let loose. Make her leave her damned sense of propriety at the door. That had been a great plan.
But somewhere along Connor’s carefully plotted route, things had gone completely awry. He was not only affected. He was damn near as affected as Jessa. Never had he so completely let loose with a woman. And he thought he’d been so in control. Connor hadn’t felt such an intense desire for a woman in years. Every stroke was heaven.
Then he had to go and make her beg.
It had seemed so natural. He’d forced Jessa to let go of her pretensions, rendering her unable to cry coercion later on. She could never look back and say she was swept away. Not when he’d made her beg so prettily for him to finish it. But Connor had been wholly unprepared for his response to the sound of her sexy voice aching with need, asking him to take her to the heights of passion.
And that was when he totally lost it.
His knuckles gripped the sink until they were white with strain. Not even the icy water could cool the heat raging inside his body. He didn’t just want this woman. Fucking her pussy wasn’t enough. Connor wanted more. He was like an addict. A little taste would never be enough.
She was strong and stubborn and beautiful and smart. She was a woman Connor could never grow tired of. And deep inside his scarred and twisted psyche, an urge to keep her forever was quickly taking over his rigid good sense.
Because keeping her was such a great idea.
Connor pushed away from the sink and reached for the clean T-shirt draped over the shower curtain. The thin fabric was cool against his flushed skin. Avoiding a glance at his reflection in the mirror, Connor turned off the light.
“Connor?”
Connor glanced at the luminesc
ent face of his watch. “Isn’t it time for you to go home?”
“It’s only two a.m.” Alex flopped onto the couch. “Used to be, we would just be getting started.”
“I’m too old for that schedule, Alex.”
Connor dropped to the floor and began a series of one-armed pushups. The exercise usually helped him wind down on a regular night. After tasting sweet heaven between Jessa’s thighs, Connor was just hoping to get himself back under control.
It was hard not to feel the frank evaluation in Alex’s stare when Connor grunted his way to fifty, switched arms, and kept going. If Alex thought any louder, Connor’s ears would start ringing.
“She’s an interesting puzzle, isn’t she?” Alex commented after several minutes of prolonged silence.
“If you say so.”
Another pause and then, “I think I’ll dip my hand in the cookie jar tomorrow night.”
The vicious stab of fury caught Connor completely off guard. His arm crumpled and his body hit the wood floor with a dull thud. His eyes slid shut and he rested there for the span of three breaths before even trying to rise.
He could not kill Alex. He had every right to have an interest in Jessa. She was just another woman. And God knew the two of them had enjoyed similar tastes in the past.
“You okay, Connor? Have you gained a few pounds or something?”
“Or something,” Connor muttered.
“Honestly, if I worked all night and then came up here to punish myself with a few hundred crunches and pushups and God knows what else you torture yourself with, I’d hit rock bottom too.”
Connor flung himself onto the loveseat. “It wouldn’t hurt you to do a few exercises to keep in shape, Alex.”
“Oh I exercise. In fact, I did about a million pelvic thrusts tonight with Isabel. That’s got to be worth a couple thousand calories.”
Connor rolled his eyes. “I didn’t see Isabel come in.”
“Yeah, you were too involved with Jessa.”
“Don’t you think Isabel will get pissed if you’re fucking around with Jessa behind her back?”
Alex shrugged, “If she’s pissed about it, then our relationship has run its course.”
“One of these days you’re going to get yourself into trouble.”
“It’ll be a vengeful husband, not a woman scorned.”
“I still don’t think you should try to start something with Jessa when you haven’t finished with Isabel. Jessa won’t understand. She hasn’t been around long enough.”
Connor tried to remain still beneath the appraising look Alex raked over him. He knew it was completely out of character for him to try and talk Alex out of a woman. But Connor couldn’t help it. The idea of Alex and Jessa having a casual fling was unacceptable to him. And if he had to use Isabel as an argument, so be it.
“Connor,” Alex began quietly, “what’s going on?”
There wasn’t an answer to that question, so Connor didn’t even try. He levered himself off the loveseat and silently left the room instead. Alex didn’t try to call him back. Connor was glad.
It was cool and dark inside his bedroom. Connor stripped naked and slid between the cotton sheets. He spent several minutes trying to get comfortable before heaving a great sigh and flopping onto his back, hands stacked beneath his head. Normally, the bed seemed on the small side. Tonight it felt empty. Connor didn’t even want to examine the why of that phenomenon.
Jessa’s expression had been mixed when she left after their erotic love play against the bar. Connor knew she’d been relieved that it was only she, him and Alex in the bar when their arousal abated and the world stopped spinning out of control. And though Connor wanted to awaken her understanding of just how erotic it could be to exhibit raw passion and desire in front of a roomful of people, he didn’t want to push her too far. It had been a huge concession for Jessa to let Connor spread her legs and take her there in front of Alex and the few remaining customers at one a.m. on a slow night. Any more would’ve been a setback of epic proportions.
But when the passion had burned away and left the woman and the man still locked in a sensual embrace, Connor hadn’t wanted to let go. And that wasn’t the normal way of things for him.
A good thorough fucking, down and dirty, as fulfilling as sex could ever be, was followed by a casual word and a wave. That was the way Connor operated. Alex wined and dined and made promises nobody expected him to keep. Connor simply left.
So why had he lingered to help Jessa dress before making certain she made it safely to her car? He’d even watched her taillights disappear into the darkness of night. How was he supposed to interpret that? It’d been damned uncomfortable. Neither of them had known what to say. He was no good at idle conversation. And Connor had been preoccupied with fighting the urge to pull her close for a thorough kissing before dragging her upstairs and keeping her busy in his bed all night long.
Kissing her would be the equivalent of flirting with insanity.
Personal hang-ups rarely made sense. And Connor’s unspoken rule about kissing on the mouth was no exception. It was a simple rule. He didn’t do it. How a simple kiss on a woman’s mouth was more intimate than a slow, languorous taste of her feminine core was beyond Connor’s ability to explain. But it was true.
Although, considering the way he wanted to kiss Jessa, it wasn’t hard to comprehend.
Kissing Jessa wouldn’t be intimate. It would be soul searing. He’d nearly lost the war raging in his mind when Jessa had asked him to kiss her. It was a simple request that nearly torn him in two.
He needed a new plan, preferably something that took perspective into consideration.
Jessa needed to let loose. She needed to forget the asshole husband who’d turned his back on something he couldn’t possibly understand the value of. She needed someone to unleash the fiery temptress locked inside her. She needed Connor. And Connor needed to keep his head.
He blinked in the darkness, eyes staring unfocused at the ceiling. Seducing Jessa was fine. It didn’t matter where or when. Connor couldn’t let her continue to deny her own innate sensuality.
But it had to stop there. Seduce her, fuck her, and get her out of his system. Because when it was all said and done, Connor wasn’t the man for her. And therein lay the double-edged blade. Jessa was beauty and light and passion personified. And when she realized that, it would be time for Connor to step away.
After all, a woman like Jessa didn’t belong with an ex-convict like Connor.
Chapter Eleven
Jessa had stopped keeping a tally of her own inappropriate behavior. It was too exhausting. She was going to have to accept that when she was anywhere near Connor, everything from her vocabulary to her self-image got downright sassy.
She could still smell him all over her body when they were getting ready to close for the night. The scent of his sweat and cum permeated every cell of her body until Jessa was enveloped in Connor’s essence.
Of course, there was no better place to be. He’d fucked her until she couldn’t imagine not being completely satisfied. But she wasn’t. All night long, Jessa saw him from across the room, met his eyes, and caught him staring shamelessly at her as she worked. It was all she could do not to stride across the bar, flinging off her clothes as she went. Jessa wanted to bend over the nearest table and beg him to do it all over again.
“Hey, sex kitten, have a drink.” Alex pushed a bottle of beer into her hand, interrupting her daydream.
“Rough night, huh?”
Alex took a long swig from his own bottle. “Not really. It seemed pretty normal to me.”
“All I want is a nice hot shower.”
Alex paused, bottle against his full, curved lips. “Well, you’re the one who decided to start your shift sporting the freshly-fucked look.”
Jessa blinked in surprise.
“C’mon, don’t act like you thought it was a secret, Jessa. You were loud enough to bring down the house.”
She flushed scarlet
to the roots of her brown hair. “Please shut up.”
“Actually, I don’t mind listening to your screams.”
Jessa set the bottle on a table and covered her flaming face with her hands.
“But I have to tell you that Connor’s yells and groans just don’t do it for me.”
Jessa made a valiant effort at a comeback, “No guy-on-guy for you, huh?”
“Not unless there’s a sweet piece of feminine ass between me and him.”
“Speaking of Isabel,” Connor interjected as he approached with a frosty bottle of water in his hand. “Where is she tonight?”
Though Alex seemed unbothered by Connor’s implications, Jessa was fascinated. Did they actually share women like that? And why did that thought excite her instead of disturb her?
Alex shrugged and took another long pull from his bottle. “I kind of thought she’d be here by now, but you know how it is.”
“He might, but I don’t,” Jessa prodded, hopping up and settling her backside comfortably on the table.
Alex ran a hand through his already tousled blonde curls. “It’s just a casual relationship, Jessa. No strings, no agreements, no attachments, you know.”
No, she really didn’t. But Jessa kept silent and took a swallow of beer. She was feeling pleasantly buzzed. Not just because of the beer, but also the shots she’d done with a customer only fifteen minutes before close.
“I have to say, Jessa, I’m rather impressed with the amount of alcohol you’ve put away tonight.”
She flushed, wondering if it was pathetic to be flattered by such a backhanded compliment. “I wasn’t always a good girl, you know.”
“No,” Alex drawled. “I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me?”
The moment of bravado passed, leaving insecurity in its wake. “I had a year of college before I settled down.”
Alex nudged her arm. “Aha, so the reformed party girl is backsliding, hmm?”
“I suppose even boring women like me were young once upon a time.”
“Young and old have nothing to do with it, Jessa,” Connor rumbled.
Phoenix Rising Page 9
