Page 2 of Sexpresso Night

Danya looked at her friend and grimaced. “I know. I went over to his place for a while, but we just sat and watched a movie.” Then they’d had sex, and she wasn’t even going to tell her friend about that humiliating experience. Her body tightened at the memory and she nibbled her bottom lip.

When it was her turn to order, she requested Jenny’s Americano and her own skinny vanilla latte.

“Vanilla again?” Carter asked.

Danya’s head snapped up and their eyes locked. A smile tipped up the corners of his mouth.

“Yes. Please.” Her tummy quivered.

“You should try something different, Danya. Something more exotic.”

“Um. Thanks but…a skinny vanilla latte is good.”

“How are you today?” he asked.

“I’m great.” She watched him as he pulled espresso shots, his movements quick, efficient, graceful. It was like watching a choreographed dance. An artist at work. His long fingers on the pot as he tipped foam onto her drink were so sexy. A warm tingling started deep inside her.

“You always come on Sunday afternoon,” he said to her. “You know, you should come Saturday nights. Saturday nights are adult night.”

Adult night? In a coffee shop?

“I’ll uh…keep that in mind.”

“Sounds better than what you were doing last night.” He set her coffee on the high counter and paused, both hands resting there as he met her gaze. His voice was as rich and smooth as café au lait—he could have been telling her he wanted to strip her naked by the way her body reacted. She quivered, even as she hated that he’d overheard her discussing her relationship with Chris. They’d always made a point of never talking about their significant others, as if their flirtation could exist in a separate world from reality. “Is that why the long face today?”

Heat washed up into her cheeks. “Long face?” She forced another smile.

“Yeah.” He wiped his hands on his apron, still looking at her intently. “You don’t seem your usual cheerful self today.”

“Oh. Well.” She searched for words, not sure how to respond to that. Had he really paid that much attention to her? “I’m fine.”

“Okay. Good.” He winked at her, and turned to Marina to take her order.

Danya escaped back to the table with the two coffees, cheeks burning, body suffused with heat. He’d winked at her. Holy crap, that was sexy.

“What’s wrong?” Jenny accepted her drink from Danya with two hands and set it on the table.

“Nothing.”

Jenny rolled her eyes. “You were flirting with him again, weren’t you?”

Danya sipped her coffee and glanced over at Carter, now talking with another co-worker. She was probably close to sixty years old, with died black hair and heavy eyeliner, and was giggling—giggling!—and blushing like a girl. She gave him a playful swat as she went through the doors into the back.

“He likes you, Dan,” Marina said, taking her seat at the table.

Danya shook her head, looked down at her coffee, a small knot of emotions tangled inside her. A harmless flirtation was fun, but a low yearning way down deep inside her for something more than that took hold. She didn’t even know what she wanted. Sizzle. Burn. Steam. More than she had.

A whoosh of hot foamed milk behind the counter brought her head up. She firmed her lips and directed her attention to her friends. They talked about work, school, homework, evil professors, bosses, and their respective boyfriends while they sipped their coffees, laughing, venting, unloading.

When they left, Danya couldn’t help but look over at Carter and sure enough, their gazes collided in that weird thing that sometimes happens when two people pick the exact same moment to check each other out. But instead of quickly looking away, he smiled.

“Bye, gorgeous,” he called out. “See you next weekend?”

She nodded and lifted a hand in a quick wave.

When the door closed behind them, Marina said, “Oh, Dan, he is so hot for you.”

“Don’t be crazy. I hardly know him.” She slid her sunglasses onto her nose.

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