Jessica didn't need to be told twice as she righted her underwear and pulled first her shirt on because it would hang down to her hips and afford her the most cover in the quickest amount of time. Her jeans followed.
As she sat on the bed slipping her sandals back on, he came from the bathroom. She finished the task and stood to her feet. She didn't want to be on that bed any longer than was strictly necessary.
He came to stand a few feet from her, and she looked anywhere but at him, still unable to contain the fiery pink that colored her face.
He didn't make a move to sit back down, but leaned against the wall, close to the entrance of the room. "You told the truth."
She licked her lips. "Yes."
"Are you telling the truth about everything else?"
"Yes."
"You've satisfied me enough that I'm ready to move on to the next phase. If you're in agreement, I'll set up your appointments." As he waited for her answer, he pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and she knew he was getting ready to exchange numbers with her. She also knew that this was it. If she agreed now, there really wouldn't be another opportunity for her to back out. She cleared her throat while she gathered her wits. "I'm in agreement as long as you told me the complete truth also. No sharing, no threesomes, no force. You won't make me do anything I don't want to do."
His gaze captured hers and caught her in its snare. "I told you the truth. The only sexual requisite I have is my cock buried in your pussy. Anything else is surplus to requirements and an added bonus to me." If possible, his eyes became even more heated. "I promise you, I'll be the most easily pleased sexual partner you've ever had."
His words washed over Jessica in a heated rush. She realized instantaneously that he didn't use the term 'lover.' Oh no, he wouldn't want to confuse her with even that. Sexual partners were all they'd ever be, and evidently, she mustn't forget it.
She wasn't likely to.
"I have to be out of my room in four days. Do you think you can you find me a place to live in that amount of time?"
"Yes. I'll ask for a rush on the results of the drug test. Also, I want you on a birth control shot, so you're going to have to get off the pills or whatever else you're using. As soon as I get to the point where I trust you enough not to be fucking around on me, I'm going to stop using rubbers. But believe me when I tell you, I'll never trust you to take a daily pill."
Tilting her head in acknowledgement of everything he'd just spelled out to her, she pulled her phone from her bag and prepared to key in his number.
****
Jessica boarded the bus that would take her back to Richardson and sat down with a sigh. Her skin was clammy and she couldn't control the fine trembling of her limbs. She recognized the symptoms as mild shock. She had seven hundred dollars in her purse and she already felt dirty. The fact that she was actually going to go through with this was ringing like alarm bells in her head.
She reminded herself that her reward at the end of everything would be her bachelor's degree. The consolation prize in the meantime was definitely Connor. He was articulate, intelligent, and incredibly handsome. He also seethed sexual heat and he couldn't keep his eyes away from her. She'd never been the recipient of such looks before. If she could just remember those things about him and stop her crazy brain from analyzing him further. But she couldn't. Because he was also intense, imposing . . . almost menacing.
She was smart enough to know that she'd need to figure out the best way to handle him, and quickly. The only idea she had for the moment was also the simplest. She would acquiesce to him, remain meek at all times and hope he took what he wanted quickly and left her to go about her business. She wanted no confrontation with him, no dispute at all. She'd sensed his underlying aggression, and frankly, she wanted no part of it. He had a commanding, assertive attitude that she had no desire to contest whatsoever.
The only problem was, she'd never really learned how to do meek. How fast could one possibly learn it?
****
She was exactly what he was looking for. If Connor could have placed his order for a woman directly and requested all the attributes he wanted, she'd have checked them off perfectly, one by one.
First and foremost, he'd bet his entire investment portfolio on the fact that this was the first time she'd entered into a relationship like this. She'd told him so herself, but more than that, he believed her. It pleased him immensely that she wasn't seasoned to what she was about to do.
She had no objectionable piercings, no ink, and if she was telling the truth which he'd know for damn sure very soon, there was no drug use. She didn't seem to be contaminated in any way that he could see. She was clean.
She was young enough for him to mold her until she knew what to expect from their arrangement, and to learn how to please him. He'd treat her well, and he had no doubt she'd be smart enough to realize she needed to conform to what he wanted. Yes, she'd be resilient that way, because she was intelligent. No question about that. She'd made the dean's list. That salient point had come across whether she'd meant for it to slip out or not. And once again, he believed her. Son of a bitch, he'd never even made the dean's list. He'd come damn close once or twice, but had never seen his name on that exalted list.
When she'd told him which university she attended, that had momentarily thrown him for a loop. The school wasn't one of the largest in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, and he hadn't expected that answer. He wasn't pleased. It suddenly made her seem more human, more of a real person with a personality and life that he could envision when that was the last thing he wanted. In his mind, he could see her walking on campus, going to the student union, visiting the bookstore, and with a coil of heat in his gut, he could clearly picture her sun-tanning at the Phase Eight swimming pool.
No, he didn't care for the parallel, but there wasn't anything he could do about it and he wasn't going to dwell on it. Everything else about her was too incredibly perfect.
She wasn't entering into this lightly, and that was another point in her favor. She wasn't vain or spoiled, and she had a legitimate reason for why she was willing to virtually sell her body to him. And as an added bonus to him, she didn't appear to be sexually loose. She'd made her demands of a one-on-one relationship with him. She wouldn't be shared, she wouldn't agree to a ménage, not that he'd ever entertained the idea; he wasn't into that shit. Rather than hurt her chances with him, those concerns of hers only cemented to him that she was the type of person he coul
d make this work with.
He knew himself; he knew he had to be able to at least have some respect for a woman to make this work. If he had no respect, one or two fucks would be all she was worth to him.
But that wasn't the case here. Oh, no, on the contrary. He'd had a hard-on since the moment she'd walked into the restaurant. And the more she'd talked, the things he'd learned about her and from what she had verbalized about herself, the attraction he felt for her kept growing stronger.
Yeah, he'd have no problem fucking her over and over again.
And now all he had to do was set the ball in motion for it to happen.
****
The next morning, Jessica rode the rail to a large, private clinic where she was put through the ringer. The first stop had been to the lab where they'd taken the samples for her hair analysis. They explained that there was a rush being put on the results, and the expected turn around would be less than forty-eight hours.
She had blood work done, and a well-woman check as well.
The female doctor looked her over and pronounced her fit as she jotted something down in her notebook. "So, you want the Depo-Provera shot?"
"Yes."
"First time on birth control, I take it?"
Jessica had been uncomfortable in her own skin since she'd first walked into the clinic and now all she wanted was to get out of there.
"Yes." Even as she answered, her mind raced with the question of why the doctor would assume such a thing. She didn't think it was just because of her relative youth, and when she latched onto the probable answer, she squirmed in her seat and almost died from embarrassment. The doctor had given her a thorough examination. Jessica stayed silent as she gripped her hands together in her lap.