Page 31 of Teach Me
“You’d actually prefer it if Ihadfucked our client?”
“Maybe, yeah!”
Conlan ignored that in favor of finishing his beer in one big swallow. Their blushing waitress had come and gone again, leaving behind two fresh bottles, before either of them broke the silence.
“Jesus, Con.”
“Just shut the hell up.”
“No.” The word was sharp, hitting harder than Jack’s fist on the table, which hit pretty damn hard if the shaking that ensued meant anything. The sudden switch from humor to violence shocked Con speechless. Jack was deadly when he wanted to be, when the situation warranted, and his temper wasn’t anything to turn your back on, but not with friends, and never with Con.
“Why would you do that—to yourself or Jess? It’s not like it hasn’t been building from the first moment you laid eyes on her.”
And that was the problem. Jess had been different from the very start. And Jack damn well knew it. “You know why.”
“I know why, and I think it’s stupid. She’s sweet and nice and hot, for fuck’s sake. And so what if she might want a little something more than a roll in the hay—she just might be the best damn thing that ever walked across your path, and you’re throwing it away? Over the vague possibility that she might eventually want an actual relationship?”
“Yes! Yes, that’s why I can’t—” Chest tight, breath like a freight train, Con struggled to control the anger threatening to take the top of his head off. “I can’t let myself have her, because…she might…she deserves…”So much more.He couldn’t say the words, but they were there all the same, deflating his anger as quickly as it had come.
Jack hung his head, shaking it and giving a weary sigh. “You know, sometimes I wish Lee was here so I could kill him myself.”
Con reared back. “What the fuck?”
Jack leaned across the table, his entire body pushing his point. “Come on, Con. When are you gonna face the fact that Lee and Sarah never had a real, healthy relationship, that what happened to him—what he allowed to happen—had nothing to do with reality and everything to do with some sick obsession neither of them wanted to let go of?”
The beer in Con’s stomach threatened a return appearance. “No. It wasn’t like that. She dumped him after jerking him around for years of his life.”
“And he let her!”
No, it wasn’t true. What had happened to Lee was Sarah’s fault. She might as well have aimed the gun at him herself.
Jack wouldn’t stop. “Lee should’ve bowed down and thanked that woman for finally hooking her claws in someone else. She gave him a gift when she walked away, but he was too obsessed to see it. Hell, she probably got off on knowing he was dying inside—then she had two men to dangle on her puppet strings. What the two of them had wasn’t love; it was a sick two-way street neither of them really wanted off. I loved Lee like a brother, you know that, but I wasn’t blind to his faults.” Jack picked up his fresh bottle and drained it in two big gulps. “I sure as hell refuse to let Lee’s dumb-ass choices rule my life,” he said, voice gruff from the alcohol, gaze making it clear one of them was doing just that.
Con opened his mouth—to deny that Jess meant anything beyond a dumped one-night stand, to argue Jack’s claim, to defend Lee somewhere beyond his own mind…he wasn’t totally sure which—when his cell jangled along the table. He glanced down on instinct to catch the first line of a text message that flashed across the screen.
The first word was all he needed:Jess.
Still pissed and grateful for the reprieve, he tapped the screen.
Jess is mine.
He squinted, the message not truly registering for a moment. A second buzz sounded.
Disappear or she will.
A curse broke from his lips.
“Con?”
The number wasn’t one he recognized, but then, when you were one of the biggest security companies in Atlanta, you got weird contacts all the time. When you specialized in defending abused women, threats weren’t uncommon either. Jess’s name was—he only knew one, and only one reason to threaten her.
“Something interesting?” Jack asked.
“Yeah. Take a look at this.” Turning his phone toward Jack, Conlan ran the message back through his brain.
Jack’s gaze locked with his over the phone. “Who is this?”
“If I had to guess, I’d say it’s the guy Jess needs protection from.”
