Phoenix Burning Read Online Free PDF Page B

eyes were rimmed in red. A jolt of adrenaline forced his hands into fists at his sides. Had Wade hurt her? So help him, if Wade had done something to the pixie, Alex was going to rip Wade apart with his bare hands.
    “What kind of woman orders an appletini?” Her voice was hoarse with emotion.
    Alex whisked a clean towel across the bar to give his hands something to do. Running Wade down without a good reason wasn’t the right choice at the moment. “A woman who’s uncomfortable in her own skin.”
    With careful, deliberate motions, Emory set the martini glass aside and wiped the back of her hand across her eyes. “I’m trying to put that person behind me, you know.”
    Done trading verbal innuendos that didn’t tell him what he wanted to know, Alex placed both hands on the bar and leaned forward. “Then who are you, and why are you here?”
    “I came here for a little bit of real, just like everyone else.”
    “But you aren’t like everyone else.” He guessed suddenly.
    The startled wariness that swept her pixie face told Alex that he’d hit it on the head.
    “So what is it you’re looking for?”
     
     
     
    Emory fought the urge to turn and flee the bar. What could he possibly mean by demanding such things from her? She’d come here to see if she could accept the feel of a man’s touch against her skin, to fight another battle in the war that constantly raged in her psyche. She craved the physical contact like a drug, yet couldn’t deal with the emotional backlash it triggered. She’d come for a little satisfaction and a chance to move on. She wanted to leave her past behind, find something to sustain her future, find a way to get past the expectations that had been dogging her every step since childhood. She’d failed, but that didn’t give Alex the right to torture her for it.
    “Someone told me this was the place to come for a drink and a quick fuck,” Emory said with forced bravado, leaning back in her seat and doing her level best to appear unaffected.
    “You’ve had a few drinks, but I’m getting the feeling things didn’t work out like you’d hoped with Wade,” Alex mused. “Why hang around when this really isn’t your scene?”
    Pain lanced through Emory’s midsection. She scraped together what was left of her threadbare self-esteem. “Judge much?”
    His gaze skittered around the bar. The clock had reached one o’clock, and the crowd was winding down. Several knots of men and women were laughing and trying to outdrink each other at some of the larger tables. The bar itself was almost empty.
    Alex’s eyes left the immediate room for the shadowy recesses. Emory watched his gaze linger over the near corner less than half a dozen yards away. She was drawn there despite her desire to seem cool and unaffected.
    Two women embraced, their full lips melded together in a passionate kiss. Emory was instantly riveted as the more buxom of the two drew her top over her head and discarded it to the floor. Her companion slid her hand upward and cupped one full breast. Emory watched the woman’s nipple bead into a diamond-hard point before her lover took it gently in her mouth and suckled. In a chair beside them, a man half reclined, a long neck bottle of beer in one hand and his erection in the other. His gaze was focused on the women before him as he slowly pumped his shaft.
    Blood rushed from Emory’s extremities and culminated at a point between her legs. Her vision swam, and her heart raced until her own nipples were taut and painful against the fabric of her camisole, begging to be touched, to be pleasured by a skilled tongue. She waited for the black haze to bubble up inside of her, but the passion thrumming through her veins held it at bay.
    “Sometimes watching can be as arousing as participating,” Alex murmured in a gravelly voice. “Though it isn’t nearly as satisfying as being watched.”
    Something in the wryness of his tone pulled Emory’s eyes away from the scene playing