Phoenix Burning Read online

  “Do you know Connor Archuleta?”

  “Jessa’s Connor?”

  “Exactly.” Morgan’s expression grew determined. “If you’d have told me a year ago that man would wind up in a monogamous long-term committed relationship, I’d have called bullshit.”

  Emory thought of Jessa’s voluptuous body and confident demeanor. “I don’t think I’m really in her league.”

  “Ha! You didn’t see her the first time she walked in here. She’s not even the same woman anymore. I swear.”

  “Unless she had a boob job and a facial reconstruction, I’m pretty sure whatever she was wearing the first time you met her was a minor issue.”

  Morgan rolled her eyes with an exaggerated sigh. “It wasn’t just her clothes. She was a mouse. Trust me. You should ask her about it. She’ll tell you. The point is that just because a guy hasn’t settled down doesn’t mean he won’t.”

  “And you’re basing this on what?”

  “On the fact that you’re about as far from Alex’s normal type as you can get.”

  That didn’t help Emory’s confidence level at all. Her gaze drifted around the store, settling on a full-length mirror a few paces away. “So what do I do? Start stuffing my bra and wearing short skirts?”

  “No, and I wasn’t trying to be mean.” Morgan dragged her closer to the mirror. “I’m just saying that he sees something else that he likes and that’s a good thing. A very good thing.”

  It sounded like a repackaged version of what Fox had said that morning. She just wished she had faith in that kind of thing. The boob job and facial reconstruction sounded like a better plan.

  “Are you meeting him tonight?”

  She had been. Now she was starting to feel like she’d be better off heading home and starting to work on the Monday orders. “He suggested I stop by.”

  “Then we should definitely spice up this outfit a little.” Morgan turned around and started perusing the racks and muttering to herself.

  “Don’t go to any trouble, Morgan. I think I’m just going to head back to the shop. I’ve got a huge order that has to be ready by Monday. Lots of orders actually. The Chrises are having a romantic getaway this weekend, so I should get some work done and…”

  “If you say one more word, I’m going to smack you upside the head.” Morgan grabbed Emory’s button-down outer shirt and tugged it down over her arms. “The whole camisole thing you have going on is cute. But I think we can do better.”

  “Hey!” Emory hastily threw up her hands as Morgan yanked the cami up and off.

  Her friend sandwiched Emory into a black corset top with white pinstripes and lacy cap sleeves. The top gave her a waist, defined cleavage where there’d been none, and made her narrow hips seem slender and sexy. She even liked the dusting of lace across the bust line. It was surprisingly comfortable.

  Morgan took a step back to admire her handiwork. “I’m telling you, it was a bad day for women when we decided not to wear these things.”

  “I think the women’s movement might disagree. Besides, you haven’t tried to cinch yourself five inches smaller with one. I think that was the complaint.”

  “You think too much, Emory.”

  “Can I keep my pants?”

  Morgan tugged her bottom lip, a familiar gesture that said she was thinking it over very thoroughly. “Normally, I’d tell you a skirt is a must. Every guy likes a skirt and a thong. That’s the real definition of easy access. But those slouchy cut offs you wear all the time are practically a one-zip removal. In fact, I think the belt is all that’s keeping them up. Where do you buy those things, anyway?”

  Emory looked at the mirror, evaluating the item under discussion. There was no way she was going to explain her reason for wearing men’s cargos to Morgan. When you grew up looking like Little House on the Prairie, you learned to hate dresses and value comfort pretty quickly as an adult. “Army surplus, actually. They’re really cheap.”

  “I might have to look into that,” Morgan mused thoughtfully. “They’re sort of sexy. In a nineties grunge kind of way.”

  “Is that a compliment?”

  “You know what? I think it is. Now, we’ve got to do something about your wild-ass hair.”

  Emory sighed, staring at the woman in the mirror and wondering how long she was going to be able to hold the darkness at bay before it swallowed her whole and left her with nothing. Her mother’s song drifted through her mind, a reminder of a past that wouldn’t let go.

  This maid was passing by one day

  All alone and lone

  She saw those babes, both out for play

  All down by th’ greenwood side

  O Mother, dear Mother, we once't were yours

  All alone and lone

  You neither gave us course nor fine

  You killed and buried us under a stone

  An' prayed to th’ Lord, it would never be known

  All down by th’ greenwood side

  Chapter Nine

  Alex kept one eye on the door while he pulled beers, mixed cocktails, and smiled pretty for the customers. His job had never seemed so much like real work. Of course he’d never actively waited for one person to arrive either. His liaisons didn’t work like that. He loved them while they were there and forgot them when they left. Which was why his preoccupation with Emory was so far outside the parameters of normal.

  He flashed his most charming smile at a group of twenty-something women enjoying a girls’ night out and the attentions of a group of guys fresh off a nearby soccer field. They laughed and bantered back and forth as Alex poured a round of shots. Had he ever been that young? It was starting to feel as if he’d aged years in the last month.

  Not month, just since Emory walked through that door.

  Why had she come to a place like Phoenix Rising? He’d been certain she was just another woman out to find a quick lay. Now he wasn’t so sure. The whole afternoon—interrupting her conversation with MacIntyre, sex in her bedroom, her orgasm issues—it all seemed so surreal.

  “Hey, Alex, can I get a Bud draft?” Wade hung over the bar to get Alex’s attention.

  “Sure man, no problem.” Alex flipped a clean mug right side up and pulled the beer, leaving the head frothing on top the way Wade liked it. “So, did you and the little dark-haired chick have fun last night?”

  In the four years Alex had known Wade, they had discussed a million women. It was usually an evaluation of one that had walked through the door or a pleasant memory on a quiet night. Never had Alex asked the guy to kiss and tell.

  Wade rubbed his jaw, his hand moving from his face to his short-cropped black hair. “I didn’t do anything but kiss that poor thing. She seemed interested at first, but she froze like an ice cube when things got going. I’d bet my next paycheck she’s got some major issues going on.”

  Alex hadn’t realized he was still carrying around a knot of doubt until that very moment. He’d wanted to believe she was being straight with him. His instincts demanded he believe her, help her somehow, but years of street savvy were hard to let go of. “She just froze? Like how?”

  “Honestly? It was like something paralyzed her. I didn’t get the feeling she was afraid of me, just that she was being battered by something I couldn’t fight for her.” Wade took a giant gulp of beer, swiping at the froth on his lips. “I felt bad for her. Five minutes with me, and she was curled up in the fetal position on the floor, rocking back and forth and humming to herself. Sort of scary.”

  Alex was gripping the edge of the counter without realizing it. His hands were clenched, his whole body reacting to Wade’s description. He thought of her sweetly responsive body. The way she melted at his touch, only to wind herself into a tightly wrapped ball of nerves that would not, could not, let go.

  He had to find a way to help her let loose.

  “So, I’m guessing you spent the afternoon with the dark-haired girl you met last night?” Alex looked up to realize that Wade had drifted away and Connor had co
me behind the bar.

  One thing Alex had learned about Connor over the years was that he only looked like a muscle head with no brains. Whether it was the time he’d spent in a penitentiary or just a natural inclination, Connor understood people. He could predict their emotions, their reactions, their motivations, and the choices they would make, usually before they did. Jessa was probably the only exception to this rule, though since love was almost always blind, it was an acceptable defect. Alex sometimes got the impression that it drove Connor nuts that he couldn’t predict Jessa.

  Connor leaned back against the counter facing the room, his eyes scanning the crowd. “Jessa told me that girl runs the flower shop around the corner.”

  “Have you ever met a woman who couldn’t have an orgasm?”

  “Couldn’t as in physically couldn’t, or wouldn’t allow herself to reach a climax?” Connor’s gaze briefly flicked back toward Alex before returning to his perpetual scanning.

  Which was it? Alex hadn’t considered the ramifications of either option. “She’s not deliberately holding back, and I’m almost positive it isn’t a physical defect of some kind.”

  “I’ve known women who refuse to climax unless they feel as if they’re in control. But usually it’s just that—control. And you have to remember that not every woman will have an orgasm when she has sex. I’ve known women who never had an orgasm with certain partners but managed it with others.”

  “Meaning you?”

  Connor’s shit-eating grin was enough to answer that.

  Wade’s description ran through Alex’s mind. “If something happened in the past, something that utterly undermined someone’s self-confidence, that would fall under the same heading, wouldn’t it?”

  “There’s a certain amount of trust involved in an orgasm,” Connor mused. “For women much more than men, I think. If she doesn’t feel safe, hasn’t ever felt safe, then I suppose it’s reasonable to think that might be why she’s never reached that point where she’ll let go and just free-fall into climax.”

  “Shit.”

  “You could always walk away.”

  “Not a chance.” Alex practically snarled his response before realizing that Connor had been prodding him on purpose, trying to see how deeply involved Alex had gotten himself. Bracing both hands on the counter, he sighed deeply.

  “This is the place to teach someone to let loose.” Connor held out his arms to encompass the bar. “Think with your head and not your dick, and you’ll come up with something. I have faith in you.”

  “That’s one of us.”

  The cage at the front of the bar swung open, and Gabriel admitted Emory into the main room. Connor shot Alex one of his rare full smiles. “Apparently she has faith too.”

  Alex’s mouth went dry as he took in her outfit. The snug black and white top accentuated her slender figure and put her pert breasts on display. He had a strong urge to brush his lips along the low neckline and dip into the cleft between the twin mounds. Filmy cap sleeves rested below her shoulders, more decoration than necessity, and there was an inch of bare skin between the hem and her low-slung cargos. Her hips were a soft flare and her ass perfectly shaped. Pixies weren’t supposed to be that sexy.

  He started toward her, forgetting for a moment that there was a bar between them still. Connor’s chuckle was entirely too amused when Alex bumped the counter.

  “Take a deep breath, Romeo,” Connor chided. “Gabriel can handle the room if you’d like me to take the bar.”

  That was truly a first, but Alex was past caring. “Okay.”

  She moved toward the far end of the bar, her dark gaze meeting and holding his as he walked to meet her. Her curly hair was piled on top of her head. The slender length of her neck was exposed. It was hard to think of anything but the need to kiss her pale skin, work his way down to her collarbone and up to her lips.

  “Hi.” She dropped her gaze to her hands, twining them together as though she were nervous. “Am I interrupting anything? You guys look busy.”

  The telltale sign of her nerves forced Alex to marshal what was left of his self-control. She didn’t need a lunatic preoccupied with satisfying his own desires. She needed a man who could help her lay her fears to rest and let go of her inhibitions. “I’m never too busy for you. Can I get you a drink?”

  “That’d be great.”

  He was reminded of the first night she’d come in. “Rum or vodka?”

  “How about a cosmopolitan?”

  Alex wondered at her choice. At what it meant. It was hard to decide if he was making something out of nothing, or if she was trying to send him a message. Shaking off his need for analysis, he poured Grey Goose into a glass and reached for the cranberry juice.

  “I wasn’t sure you’d have time to chat tonight.”

  Her words gave him a jolt. Connor’s faith had seemed misplaced before, but now Alex realized he had been overthinking the problem. You couldn’t force an orgasm. You couldn’t trick a woman’s body into letting go. So simple, yet so complex. In that moment he knew what she needed. He set her drink on the bar, waiting for her to pick up the thread of conversation.

  “I’m sure you could snap your fingers and get any woman in here.” She took a tiny sip of the cranberry-tinted liquid. “Don’t feel like you have to babysit me.”

  He laid his hands flat on the counter and gazed right at her. She was fiddling with the stir stick in her drink. When she finally glanced up, he could see the insecurity on her face. He decided to throw her off balance. “If you’re trying to give me the brush-off, just come out and say it.”

  “Brush-off? No! I mean—that’s not what I was trying to say.”

  Her shock inflated his ego just a little more than it probably needed. “I know I failed to make you climax, but I thought I brought you pleasure. Was I wrong?”

  “It was the most amazing thing I’ve ever experienced!” Her eyes widened, and she dropped her gaze. She’d apparently been more candid than she’d intended. “I just thought—since I can’t come—that you might not want to.”

  “To what?”

  He could see the monumental effort it took for her to lift her eyes and meet his gaze. “To deal with my—issues.”

  “The only issue you have is that you’ve been trying to have sex with assholes who only care about their own pleasure.” Alex wanted her to let go of the guilt she was packing around. If he did nothing but that, any amount of effort was worth it.

  “So you don’t care about my problem?”

  He could only think of one way to convince her, and the distance between them made it impossible. Alex walked out from behind the bar and around to the stool in the corner where she’d perched.

  She looked confused. Did she actually think he might reconsider and tell her they were through? As if Alex could ever get enough of a woman like Emory. She had been crafted by nature to respond to him as no one else ever had.

  He cupped her cheek in one hand, standing close enough to smell the sweetness of her skin. “You don’t have a problem.”

  “But…”

  Alex silenced her with a kiss. Her lips were soft and yielding. Moving his thumb to her chin, he encouraged her to open for him. She gave in and he slid his tongue inside her mouth. He caressed her gently, curbing the desire to dominate. Finesse and not force. This was the time for seduction.

  Again and again, until his heart was thundering and she was making tiny noises of pleasure in the back of her throat. The sounds inflamed him, made his cock harden painfully, until he was crazy with the desire to spread her legs and take her then and there.

  When he finally released her mouth and pulled back, her dark eyes were hazy with passion. The bemused expression on her face struck him with an unfamiliar sense of tenderness. This wasn’t the kind of woman you could love and leave. She deserved better.

  “Quit apologizing for things that aren’t your fault.” He lowered his mouth to her bare shoulder before brushing his lips across the sensitive skin at her
collarbone.

  Her tiny sigh was almost his undoing. He’d never been so turned on. Alex could feel other eyes on them from across the bar. He wanted them to look. He wanted them to see that this incredible woman was his to pleasure.

  Using his foot, he turned the barstool until he could nudge his way between her legs. He slid his arms around her tiny frame and pressed a line of kisses over the tops of her breasts. She arched her back, leaning back until he was supporting her weight on his forearms.

  She tasted exquisite. He slipped his tongue into the cleft between her breasts. She gave a little moan, and Alex imagined the wet warmth that would be soaking her pussy. A spurt of precum dampened his jeans.

  Holding Emory in one arm, he laid the palm of his hand against her belly. A strip of bare skin taunted him with the promise of more. With just his fingers, he slipped beneath the waistband of her pants. The tantalizing feel of her soft skin drew him lower. His hand brushed the dark curls covering her mound. He threaded his fingertips gently through the hair, going lower, until her breath caught, and she moved her legs apart to give him better access.

  “Is this what you want?” Alex nipped her earlobe.

  “Yes.”

  “Then let me give it to you.”

  Her harsh breathing made the creamy tops of her breasts bob up and down. The turmoil in her expression sent an unfamiliar lurch through Alex’s midsection. What demons rode her so mercilessly that she was afraid to accept what he was offering?

  “You could have anyone,” she whispered. “Why put up with me?”

  Step one—convince the girl he was interested. Alex had no experience in this department. He didn’t have poetry or elegance. Charm and wit? Certainly, but that had failed to convince her. If anything, his love ’em and leave ’em persona had already hampered her ability to put any faith in his capacity to stick around long enough to help her work through her issues.