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number he was on. “Jessa. Her name’s Jessa. Happy now?”
    “Sure, whatever.”
    Connor threw the ones back in the drawer and slammed it shut so hard the machine gave a jarring ring. “Don’t use that tone with me,” he snapped.
    “What tone?”
    “The one that says you don’t believe a word I say!”
    Alex stowed a bottle of Stolichnaya on the shelf and turned toward Connor. “Look, you’re the one with the rules. Me? I fuck whatever walks through that door and enjoy them all the same.”
    Rules! His damn rules again. He’d lived by the rules for years and years, since prison and the hell-bitch that’d put him there. It was the reason he couldn’t look at Jessa. Couldn’t get attached, couldn’t give a shit what it was that tortured her on her off hours.
    “Why the hell did you hire her, anyway?”
    Alex looked miffed. “She’s a hottie in disguise, man. I sure as hell wasn’t going to let her walk away when she said she was looking for a job. I figured she might be up for a quick fuck after hours. You know, the usual way we do things around here.”
    “I don’t want you to fucking touch her,” Connor growled.
    Alex lifted his hands in surrender, “Told you, man. You gotta keep your perspective. Go calm down. Get a grip on your temper and maybe you can find a way to get her out of your system before you have a breakdown or something.”
    Connor didn’t comment on Alex’s ridiculous suggestion. But he left the bar before he said something he would really regret later on. No matter how badly Alex ran his mouth, he was still Connor’s oldest friend. In fact, he was probably Connor’s only friend. They’d known each other since grade school, long enough that Alex knew all Connor’s secrets, even the one he kept hidden from everyone.
    His feet carried him back up the narrow staircase. He hadn’t eaten, but the kitchen wasn’t his destination. The clock on his bedside table said ten minutes until eleven. He’d told her to arrive around noon. Just a little over an hour and she’d be there again, in his bar, working for him.
    What was it with her? The why of it completely escaped him. Connor had felt such intense attraction only once before in his life. It had brought him nothing but trouble and eventually led him to disaster. Since then he’d been cool, the definition of detached. He was known throughout the city as someone who knew how to show women a good time. He could make them so hot that they begged him on hands and knees to sink his cock deep inside their warm bodies. But the lust went one direction. They wanted him. Connor did not slip the leash on his self-control or his insatiable lust.
    So what’s the deal with Jessa?
    He strode to the narrow window and looked out. But a view of the cobbled downtown street wasn’t what he sought. Somewhere out there she was getting ready. Perhaps taking a shower and choosing her clothes while wearing nothing at all. The thought gave him a raging hard on that threatened to burst from his pants.
    Reaching down, Connor unzipped his fly and freed his cock. It lay hot and hard in his palm. Gripping his shaft tightly in one hand he tried not to focus so intently on the mental picture of a naked Jessa. He tried and failed.
    Connor’s hips bucked as his hand slid up and down his hard shaft. A tiny drop of pre cum beaded on the head of his cock. Sliding one thumb through the hot liquid, he spread its silky warmth over the crown. His brain conjured up the image of Jessa. He wanted nothing more than to feel her tongue lapping at the bead of moisture. Her mouth sliding down his shaft as the crown of his cock disappeared into her throat.
    Someone groaned. Had it been him? The muscles in his belly clenched as his balls tightened. His other hand gently cupped them. He used his fingers to knead their straining weight while he tightly gripped his shaft. Connor’s feet shifted further apart to give his imagined lover better access to his body.
    Did she want him? Did