The Protective Dominant by Jan Irving Read Free Book Online

sat slumped at her table, unable to look at her. She was running a hand over the side of his arm, stroking him, calming him.
    He cleared his throat and hoped she wouldn’t notice his damp eyes when he finally faced her, but one look and he knew he wasn’t fooling her.
    He dropped his gaze.
    “Taz…”
    He shook his head when she tried to touch him. How could she bear it after what he’d—
    “Sorry,” he rasped.
    “So you should be.” Her voice was cold, strong, like a fast moving stream.
    She got up and turned off the burner. Just as well as his appetite had died. He wasn’t sure he could face food again for a very, very long time.
    After a moment, she sat down next to him. “Why do you distrust women so much?” Her voice was neutral.
    He’d give anything, anything not to talk about this, but after what he’d said, he couldn’t… He had to try to make it up to her.
    The truth seemed suddenly a small thing.
    “My mother sold me from the time I was ten until I ran away at fifteen.”
    He heard her inhale sharply. Couldn’t look at her.
    “I know what it’s like to be raped, Jenny.”
    “Oh, my God.” She reached out and crushed his hand with hers. “Taz.”
    Only someone who had lived what he had could understand, so he let her hold onto him.
    “Is that why you’re helping me?”
    He shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t fucking know, all right!”
    The only sound was his harsh breathing.
    Then she released his hand and got up. He heard her go back to their breakfast, heard the sounds of plates and cutlery and then she placed two steaming crêpes in front of him. “It’s slightly burned, but you need to eat if you’re going to go to work,” she said.
    Because she was right and because, thank Christ, she didn’t ask him anything more, he forced himself to eat. He knew it was wonderful, but it tasted like sand. He had trouble swallowing the ball of misery in his throat.
    He’d wanted to help her with her ghosts and now he’d been ambushed by his.
    “Taz, if I try to get out more, do things I used to, will you begin to examine your ideas about women?”
    His gaze made it to her throat. After a moment he gave a jerky nod.
    “Okay then.” She reached out and brushed his hair out of his eyes. Instinctively he pushed his face into her touch, yearning.
    They didn’t speak. He thought he’d break or maybe she would if they did.
    “I’ll help you with the fence. Tomorrow I’m going to visit the pup… Maybe even bring him home.”
    “Holy shit,” he croaked, then cleared his throat again. “That’s fast.”
    “The shelter left a message—they need to make room for another puppy so the sooner I can take him the better.”
    “I can swing by the pet store, get some stuff before I start my shift,” Taz offered. He felt as if he were trying to walk normally over slippery ice. Somehow he had to make it to firmer ground.
    “Oh, would you do that?” Jenny got up and went to her purse on the kitchen counter.
    “Do not try to give me cash,” he said in his voice of doom.
    Jenny sighed, looking at him. “All right, just this once.”
    “Damn straight, woman. I practically dragged you over to that SPCA display. You could say this is partly my doing.”
    “So he’s partly your dog?”
    His mouth opened. Closed.
    And Jenny laughed.
    It was like that moment when sunlight had warmed her at the window. It seared away the hard words, cauterized the pain.
    He quirked his lips. “Just until he tries to eat one of my shoes.”
    * * * *
    Jenny sat on her porch swing and watched Taz finish hammering in the last of the fence posts. He’d done an amazing job, making it hard to tell where the older fence and newer one were joined. All that remained was the little swing gate and latch, which he told her he’d install tomorrow.
    Rubbing the back of his sweaty neck, he sauntered toward her, his long legs in jeans, his wife beater giving him a sexy insolence that had stopped her heart from the first