Page 71 of Speechless

“No, sweetheart. That isn’t how you deal with this. Little Jenna is adorable, she really is, but she can’t deal with this. If you believe you’re ready to go further with Connor, if you’re ready for him to touch you, she can’t be part of that right now. I’ll help you as best I can, but you have to tap into that insane wealth of strength that’s kept you alive for months and handle Connor like a woman, not a child.”

Little Jenna stomped her foot and pouted, sulking like the child she was. If she’d had her plushie in hand, it would’ve been thrown on the floor as her temper tantrum erupted.

“He said we could kiss more later.” Jenna slapped the child down as she tried her hardest to distract Jenna from the conversation.

“Ah. Now we’re hitting a touchy spot. Did you think he was rejecting you?” Stern Sarah lost her strict edge, faded enough for maternal Sarah to make an appearance.

Jenna’s shoulders sagged.

“That makes more sense. Did he explain why he wouldn’t kiss you again?”

“He said we weren’t going to rush things. He wasn’t going to push.”

Sarah’s smile was slow and warm. “Yeah, that’s definitely a Connor thing. Okay, so we’ll break things down. Rampant sexual frustration aside, do you think he was wrong in slowing things down?”

Jenna went back to those moments in the recliner. Relived the stretch of her thigh muscles as her knees hugged Connor’s hips, how the thick ridge between them both unnerved her and fueled the painful emptiness throbbing inside her.

God, she’d wanted him to do the things from the film. Even as his mouth devoured hers, she’d wished for his mouth to go lower, for his head to be between her thighs. Anything,anything, to quell the insistent ache.

She’d have done anything, and Connor had known it.

“No. No, he wasn’t.”

“Connor’s not an idiot, sweetheart. Trust me, if it wasn’t going to be your first time, I doubt you’d have made it off that recliner without a good, hard…” Sarah trailed off, eyes twinkling with mischief. “We won’t go there. Let’s just say he wouldn’t have hesitated. He wasn’t rejecting you, sweetheart; he was protecting you, from him.”

Jenna frowned. “Connor wouldn’t hurt me.”

“Connor is a big man with big hands and a big…personality. By personality,” Sarah continued wickedly, “I mean cock. The O’Malley brothers are famed for their bedroom skills. Cain especially, since he’s rarely in the same bed twice.” She laughed delightedly when Jenna’s eyes rounded into saucers. “Connor is fully aware he could hurt you if he lost control. Sex can bring an excitement, an urgency, not easily controlled. That’s not a bad thing,” she reassured her quickly. “Not at all.”

Not a bad thing? Jenna shook her head frantically. She’d seen sex at its worst, when control snapped and humanity ceased to exist. She tugged at her hands until Sarah released them, then scrambled to her feet.

Pain and sex were intertwined, she’dseenthat. How could she be so naïve to think it wouldn’t be the same with Connor? He loved her, she believed that, but she wouldn’t survive him if he lost control. She imagined his big hands clasped around her throat, powerful fingers strangling the life from her. His body thrusting into hers, unstoppable, as her own writhed in death throes, heels drumming uselessly on the floor.

Imagined still loving him as the man she adored killed her.

“Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. No, Jenna. Listen to me. Let me finish.” Sarah was on her feet too, her hands on Jenna’s shoulders. “Listen to me, sweetheart.”

Anxiety gripped her lungs, slowly choking her. Heart battering against her ribs, jackhammering in her ears, Jenna shoved past Sarah, stumbled out of the room with the dog on her heels. She barely made it around the newel post at the bottom of the stairs.

Panic made her clumsy. Her legs from the knees down were numb, tripping over each step. Carpet burns scorched her palms. Bile and lack of oxygen ripped at her throat.

“Jenna. Jenna.”

She crawled the last few steps, collapsed on the landing. Everything shattered around her—hopes, dreams, reality. The future she yearned for slipped from her fingers, toppled into the abyss to join her past.

Past, present and future, all gone.

Eyes open but unseeing, she barely heard Connor’s voice calling her name. Heat fell over her, a living blanket, and Luna’s savage growls drowned out everything else.

*

Poised on the steps below Jenna’s prone form, Connor wondered whose bright idea it had been to get a personal attack dog. It was a relief to know the several thousand dollars he’d just shelled out for the damn thing were worth it, but it—she, he corrected—wasn’t supposed to be guarding Jenna fromhim.

The bitch definitely took her job seriously. She stood over Jenna like a lioness guarding her cubs, hackles raised, head lowered, and incredibly white teeth on full display. She wasn’t playing around.

Then again, neither was he.

Connor didn’t know what the fuck had happened while he finished the transaction with Mackintyre, but his nurse looked devasted. He’d left her downstairs, white as snow and trembling.

---