Free Pyramids and Promises (Omega Mu Alpha Brothers Book 2) by Kimberly Loth

trash. He dusted his hands off.
    “I was going to run the flowers through the disposal.”
    He laughed and reached down to help her stand then put his arm around her shoulder and led her to the couch. When they sat, she stayed as close to him as she dared. He kept his arm draped around her.
    “Did you see the back of the picture?” he asked.
    She shook her head.
    “It was nothing. Time to share.” A frown creased Conner’s face.
    “No, what was it.”
    He ran his fingers through her hair, letting the strands fall free one by one.
    “There was a message. ‘Your hair is beautiful. It’s one of my favorite things about you.’ No name.”
    No name was needed.

“I met Rick in college, second semester of my freshman year. Our relationship moved very quickly. By the end of the year we were exclusive, and as soon as we graduated, we got married.”
    Jessica turned and put her back against Conner’s side. He wished that he could still see her face, but he understood that this was going to be a difficult story for her. His arm slid around her and pulled her snuggly against him.
    “I’m listening, and I’m all yours,” he said in encouragement. He wanted to make it clear that she could take her time to get it all out.
    She sighed and rested her head on his shoulder. They sat like that, him supporting her weight, for only a few minutes before she took a deep breath and began again.
    “Rick was my one and only. I knew nothing about how relationships were supposed to work except what he told me. Sure my friends and I talked, but I don’t know, I guess I just never realized how unusual our situation was until we moved to Russia.”
    Conner frowned. “What are you talking about?”
    “Rick was really controlling where sex was concerned. Which was strange, because he wasn’t in many other aspects of our relationship. Every day of our marriage and even before that, we had sex at least twice every day. When we woke up and when we went to bed. And if he got frisky in the afternoon, we did it then too. It didn’t matter if I wanted to or not.”
    Conner clenched his hands into fists. “You mean he forced himself on you?”
    She shook her head. “No, nothing that extreme, but he told me that was what married people did, and if I didn’t like it, then we shouldn’t be married. He said that it was how I proved I loved him. It was the center of every argument he had.”
    The catch in her voice nearly drove him to call his friends in Russia to look this guy up.
    “And you didn’t see anything wrong with this? Being a therapist, you weren’t concerned?”
    “I had blinders on. I didn’t do a lot of family and marriage therapy. I had more experience in youth counseling until we moved to Russia. Of course, I had a feeling that things weren’t normal, but I loved him, and I believed him.”
    Conner kissed her hair, above her ear. Maybe it wasn’t the right time, but he couldn’t help himself.
    “The embassy in Moscow is so large that they have two therapists. They have that here too, but I still don’t really know my colleague yet. But there, Tara and I hit right off. We agreed to be each other’s therapists. We both needed that. For the first time in my life I told someone about how our marriage worked. She expressed concerns that it wasn’t normal, but didn’t really counsel me to change things.
    “Then my mom got sick, and I had to go home for a few days. Rick and I hadn’t spent a night away from each other since we’d gotten married. He argued with me for hours before my plane took off. He told me it wasn’t right for us to be apart, but there was a chance my mom wouldn’t make it, and so there was no way I wasn’t going home. He didn’t call me once while I was in the States. Of course I called him a gazillion times. I was worried that he’d never speak to me again. He never answered his phone. As soon as my mom was in the clear, I was in the air again on my way back. Three days earlier than