Page 2 of Teach Me
He added the sugar, trying to ignore the panic in his gut and his one-track mind. The latter was impossible. He wanted to know Doe Eyes’ name,herphone number. Were her breasts as full as they looked beneath that starched white button-down? Was her hair as soft as he swore it would be when he fisted it between his fingers?
He stirred a bit too vigorously, and coffee sloshed over the side of the cup.
Don’t look. Don’t.He realized he’d closed his eyes. A sigh escaped as he rubbed a thumb and finger against them, but as soon as the lids popped open, he searched for her. Had to see her. Felt his heartbeat pick up knowing she might meet his eyes.
He was so screwed—and smart enough to admit it. He let go, let the conflict and the churning in his gut and the tension cramping his muscles go. And then he looked toward her table.
It was empty.
“Well shit.”
He stood for a moment, cursing himself, the coffee, and everything else he could think of. When another customer stepped up behind him and cleared his throat, wanting access to the counter, Con grabbed his cup and headed out the door. On his way, he chucked the coffee in the trash without a single sip.
Chapter Two
“He’s watching you,” Cristina teased. Jess ducked her head, but the hot tide spreading across her cheeks was impossible to hide.
It wasn’t mere embarrassment. She was mortified. If she could’ve started her first day back at work anywhere else, she would have, but Cris had insisted. Since Jess began her job right around the corner at Ex Libris Media straight out of college, she and Cris had met here for coffee on Monday mornings. It was their girl time, and Cris would be damned if she’d let what had happened to Jess take that away from them.
Jess, on the other hand, thought sometimes change was good.
That wasn’t her lying down and giving up. Yes, she’d been attacked by her boyfriend two months ago, but she’d survived. There were things she was determined to make happen—like standing on her own two slightly wobbly feet. It was just…seeing the man she’d fantasized about for months wasn’t one of them. Not now, while she still felt the imprint of every bruise, every cracked bone, every foolish dream across her healed skin. She felt ugly because what had happened was ugly, and no matter how hard she scrubbed, all these weeks later, she couldn’t get the ugly gone.
“I love watching bikers,” Cris mused, seeming oblivious to Jess’s discomfort. “If only I could get Steven to wear leather, I’d be a very happy wife.”
Sneaky woman. Who could resist laughing at the image of Steven, all five-feet-eleven lanky inches of him, being swallowed whole by a leather jacket and pants? Not that he wasn’t cute; he was just more Mr. Rogers than Mr. Hell’s Angels. “Sounds like a good setup for chaffing.”
Cris choked on a sip of tea. Spluttering, laughing, she finally managed, “Why do you think it has the cutout right there in the middle, huh?”
“For convenience.”
“Pffttt.” A flick of Cris’s hand brushed the idea aside.
“Display purposes?”
Cris tilted her head, considering. “Okay, that too, but…”
Jess shook a finger at her friend. “Uh—”
“But—”
“Uh-uh.”
“Je—”
Only one thing had ever stopped Cris when she got on a roll: The Look. Jess used it now.
“Party pooper.” Cris’s bottom lip poked out.
“Am not.”
“Are too.”
They both laughed. To Jess’s horror, she felt mirth give way to the burn of tears at the backs of her eyes.
“Oh, Jess…”
Shit shit shit.
