Page 31 of Rough Stock
Jensen was confused. “Why on earth would I do that?”
“Because you’re a distraction. I think she needs a day to work without you looking on.”
Jensen thought about it for a few seconds. “How ’bout half a day?”
That made Roger laugh. “Okay. Half a day and we’ll see how it goes without you here.”
“Sounds good. I’ll sleep in,” Jensen said with a laugh.
“You do that. Bye now,” Roger replied and the phone went silent.
“Roger wants you to come by yourself.”Good. That’ll give me a chance to talk to Mama by herself, Jensen thought. He was looking forward to that conversation?and dreading it too.
“I don’t understand. Why does he want me to come alone?” Shyanna asked as they got ready for bed.
“He seems to think I’m a distraction,” Jensen answered, then fell across the bed and grabbed her around the waist as she sat brushing her hair. That got him a stern look from her, followed by a sexy smile.
“Maybe you are. A beautiful distraction,” she said and kept brushing.
“I’ve never been called beautiful before,” he said with a snort.
“I hadn’t until I met you. Hadn’t ever been called precious either,” she said, her voice dropping to a near-whisper.
“You are. At least you are to me,” he said, then sat up and gave her a little kiss on the side of her neck.
“You’re messing up my hair,” she snapped.
“I plan to mess it up a whole lot worse than that,” he said and snickered.
“What if I say no?” she asked.
He just laughed. “You won’t. You want me as much as I want you.”
“Well, aren’t you full of yourself?” she asked, mocking him.
“So you don’t want me. Say it,” he ordered. When she said nothing, he added, “That’s what I thought.”
“Does your mom hate me?” she asked out of the blue.
That threw Jensen into red alert again. “Why? Did she say something?”
Shyanna shrugged. “No. It’s just that I tried to talk to her, and she didn’t seem to have much to say to me.”
He sat up, then climbed up to the head of the bed and rested back into the pillows there. “What were you talking about?”
“Well, she asked me about my childhood, and I asked about yours.” Shyanna just kept brushing her hair, but he could see the gears turning in her head.
“What did you tell her about yours?”
“I just told her it was pretty horrible.” Then she turned to him. “She said she knew that. Did you tell her that?”
Oh, shit. What do I say now?He knew he couldn’t tell her,My mother’s been looking for reasons to dislike you by checking you out. Instead, he just said, “I might have mentioned it.”
Shyanna frowned. “She said it like she had something nasty in her mouth.”
“I’m sorry.” Jensen didn’t know what else to say. “I’m sure she didn’t mean for it to come out that way.”
She crawled on her hands and knees up to where he sat. “Doesn’t bother me if it doesn’t bother you. I’m used to people judging me and being ugly to me, but this is your family. I don’t want to cause trouble for you.”
