Hennessey's Handler (Protect and Serve #4) - Pandora Pine Page 0,61

far…” Morrison trailed off, but I knew what he was getting at. Safe sex or no sex at all.

“My history’s a bit different.” I shrugged. “I’d come out to my friends and family, but there was no way I could do that with the people I served with in the Coast Guard. I knew some of them would take it well but others wouldn’t. People like Stan never would have let me live it down. I kept my sexuality under my hat and my dick in my pants. Things were different when I came home from Miami.”

“Hennessey gone wild?” Morrison asked with a knowing grin.

“Something like that,” I agreed. “I had a couple of short-term relationships and a bunch of one-nighters. Those were never my thing, but I never really clicked with anyone.” Not until I met Morrison.

“Are you clicking now?” Morrison asked softly.

I nodded. “I am.” Now wasn’t the time to be coy or play head games. “I don’t know where this thing is leading, but I’m in it with you. My last HIV test was negative too and I haven’t been with anyone else since then.”

With those words, he took his first real bite of dinner, and I felt a shift in the atmosphere.

“This is so good. One of my food pet peeves is when chefs put hot chicken on a cold salad.” I snorted, knowing exactly how ridiculous I sounded. We sure in hell didn’t present salads like that at Bait.

“I hear you. There’s nothing worse than heat-wilted lettuce. I hate limp, tasteless things in my mouth.”

My dick jumped hard enough to slap against the underside of the table. I thought maybe Morrison’s word choice had been accidental, but with the way his eyes were glittering, I knew he’d meant what he’d said. “I guarantee wilting won’t be a problem tonight.”

Morrison’s fork clanked against his plate. He reached for his beer, nearly knocking it over in the process.

I’d said it before, but he was absolutely adorable when he was being shy. From Morrison’s tales of his dating life, he struck me as the kind of man who settled for what he could get in terms of love and affection. He’d spent his entire life waiting for his father to wake up and notice his value. That low self-worth pushed him into relationships with men where nothing was expected of him and nothing was given in return. Rinse. Repeat. It broke my heart.

Hopefully, I could break the mold.

22

Morrison

I was freaking out. It wasn’t like I was a virgin, but I was just as nervous now as I had been on that fateful night when I’d cashed in my V-card. My hands were shaking so hard that I kept knocking into things on the table. The grand finale being when I sent a piece of grilled chicken flying when Hennessey told me about his negative HIV test.

Discussing medical statuses and past lovers shouldn’t have been a sexy conversation, but somehow it was. My dick had been hard from the moment he’d asked me about my dating history and stayed that way as he outlined his own.

To be honest, I’d never had that kind of conversation with any of my other lovers. I should have, no doubt about it, but I figured using condoms kept me safe enough. Hearing Hennessey outline his history and test results shifted something inside of me. He wasn’t giving me this information to brag about his prowess as a lover. He was showing me he cared enough about me to speak his truth.

Hennessey’s care was sexy as fuck. As a result, every word out of his mouth made my dick twitch. Same for his sexy smiles and the way his tongue poked out to lick his lips. The man was a menace to my fraying nerves, but he was mine. All mine.

“Penny for your thoughts.” Hennessey wore a look that told me he knew exactly what I was thinking.

Hennessey’s sexy, deep voice broke me out of my head. “Are you trying to say my thoughts are cheap?”

He stood slowly from his chair but didn’t make a move toward me. With his eyes never leaving my own, Hennessey leaned over the table, planting his hands firmly against the wood. “Will you take an IOU?” His voice was barely above a whisper.

My throat had gone dry. He was looking at me as if I were the most delectable morsel he’d ever seen. His blue eyes simmered in the candlelight. There was no give in the man. If