She moaned and made tiny mewling sounds and he encouraged her, whispering words of desire and lust even as he struggled to keep his own release at bay.
‘Come for me, sweetness,’ he demanded before sucking her nipple back into his mouth.
She wanted to come for him. Bad. Her body was running away from her. She was losing control. The sensations were coursing through her body. She was on fire from head to toe and the ache in her womb was painful.
She relished it. Revelled in the ache and burn.
She wanted to grab him and demand he fuck her. She wanted to pinch her nipples until they hurt. Wanted to feel the sting as he spanked her nipples until even the air made them scream.
She wanted him to throw her down, bind her, and have his way with her while she was completely helpless. She wanted more, harder, rougher. Now.
With an anguished cry, Bridget pulled away from Connor, breaking all contact.
‘Bridget?’ His confusion was apparent. ‘What happened? Did I do something wrong?’
It would be so easy to lay this at his doorstep. To act as if he’d done something wrong. But it would also be a lie and he didn’t deserve that.
Shaking her head, she said, ‘No, Connor. You didn’t do anything wrong.’
Taking a deep breath, Bridget willed herself to relax. To retreat into that space she always found in these moments.
That didn’t work.
She felt erratic. Brittle.
It was as if one touch from Connor would send her careening off an edge she’d spent the last 20 years ensuring she never even came close to.
He was dangerous to her carefully cultivated self-control.
‘I don’t know if I can do this, Connor.’
Connor was at a complete loss. One moment, she’s languid and hot, practically purring like a kitten. The next, she’s distant and unreachable.
She sat inches from him, but she might as well have been a mile away. She’d righted her clothes and now was once again looking anywhere but at him and trying,
She was under his skin like a tick and, especially now that he had some inkling of her past, he was not interested in letting her get away. This wouldn’t be the simplest relationship he’d ever embarked on, but Bridget Ross was the sexiest, smartest woman he’d ever met and he was willing to bet all she needed was patience and honesty. He could give her that. She had to let him, though.
‘Why do you always try to run away from me?’
That clearly was not the response she’d been expecting.
‘What?’
‘From the first, you literally ran away on the jogging trail. You tried to cancel this picnic and now you want to run some more.’ He looked her dead in those bright green eyes he was coming to adore and said, ‘I didn’t peg you for a coward.’
She could have done a great beached fish imitation with the way her mouth opened and closed repeatedly.
‘How dare you call me a coward!’ she finally snapped.
‘You’re acting like one.’ He refused to back down.
‘Why? Because I think I might not want to date you?’ She scowled hard. He liked her better like this.
‘No, because you absolutely want to date me and you keep trying to make excuses to get out of it.’
‘I don’t need a reason to not date you.’ She wouldn’t look at him.
‘Exactly, so if you really didn’t want to, you wouldn’t be making excuses. You’d just stop. But you are making excuses so I know you want to.’
She was incredulous. Literally staring at him with her mouth open. He wanted to laugh. He wasn’t at all sure his logic made sense, but it was damn fun arguing with her. He liked her fiery. He didn’t like her shut off.
Finally, she laughed and said, ‘You make not one bit of sense, you know that, right?’
Taking her hand, he replied, ‘What makes sense is you and me giving this a go. Let’s take it slow, OK? I promise to not rush you and you promise to give me a fair shot. All right?’
For several long moments she stared at him. He could see her weighing the options, looking for an out, but when she spoke she said what he wanted to hear. ‘OK. We’ll give it a shot.’
Grinning, Connor leaned over and planted a hard kiss on her lips.
‘Good.’ Reaching for his CleanSlate, Connor said, ‘How about I draw you? Will you let me?’
She nodded, but then looked chagrined. ‘Connor. You didn’t –’ She waved a hand in the direction of his groin. ‘I could –’
‘All I want is to draw you.’
It wasn’t completely true. He’d gladly make love to her. But they weren’t there yet. He was definitely going to have to take things slow with her. She needed to trust him. Especially if she was ever going to tell him the full story.
Chapter Nine
‘How would you like me to pose?’ Bridget eyed the tree trunk and wondered what she was getting herself into. The idea of sitting completely still for an extended length of time didn’t appeal to her.
‘I don’t want you to pose
Bridget took a deep breath to expel the last remnants of the emotional overload she’d just gone through and switched positions with Connor so that she now leaned against the willow tree.
Watching him work was almost surreal. Deft fingers wielded the stylus on his screen. His concentration seemed complete. He didn’t speak, only looked intently at her from time to time. At first, it was quite embarrassing to sit quietly under his scrutiny. He seemed to be seeing beyond the surface; unravelling her layers and deconstructing her, only to reassemble the pieces in his mind’s eye. She fancied that he was seeing not Bridget the woman, but lines, shapes, angles, and shadows as he set them indelibly in ink.
Slowly, she relaxed and let her mind wander. Unsurprisingly, her thoughts turned to Skyler. The note she’d brought in confirming her appointment had been completely ambiguous. She was scheduled in at a private practice just outside of town. So, Bridget still had no idea what was really going on with her. She only knew that the once bright, vivid girl was withdrawn and seemed shattered.
Objectively, that had been happening slowly for a while now. The semester started with Skyler being gregarious and funny. Quick with a joke and always the first to support her fellow students. Bridget couldn’t really pinpoint where it had all changed, but slowly Skyler had become more quiet, less involved. Bridget often caught her staring off into space with a worried frown.
As the girl’s professor, there were boundaries she couldn’t cross, but she always made herself available to her students. Skyler had been a regular at Bridget’s study groups originally, but now her attendance was sporadic at best. She looked pale and the shadows both under and in her eyes grew more pronounced every day.
Bridget had a very bad feeling about whatever was going on with her. The scene in the bathroom could have been anything, really, but her intuition said that Skyler was pregnant. Not that you could tell at this point; she was as tall and lithe as ever, but where before she’d seemed to stand tall, now she appeared shrunken. It was as if her spirit was folding in on herself and that was something that Bridget couldn’t stand to see.
She knew that feeling. She knew what it was to question your very being. To second-guess everything you ever did that led up to a pivotal moment in time. Every time she thought back to the weeks leading up to her rape, she wished she could go back in time and kick her own ass.
She’d tell that child, for child she truly was in so many ways, to listen when someone warned her in good
