“Excuse me?” I say. He must think I work at the hockey rink next door. “There are plenty of hockey sticks at the team facility.”
“Well, you look like you just lost yours,” he says in a teasing tone. “You wanted to haul off and hit me, which I don’t blame you for, and then you just…went quiet. What happened?”
All I can do is stare back at him. The long answer to that would take all day. The short answer isn’t something I tell strangers.
“I’m sorry for being an ass,” he says. “I’m having a shit morning. That’s no excuse for cutting, of course.”
His apology is so genuine and kind that I freeze and can’t speak.
“You want a coffee?” he asks me. “Or something else?”
“Just a coffee. Black. And a beignet,” I add quietly.
Too quietly, apparently, because before I know it, he’s bent his head next to my mouth. “One more time. I didn’t catch the last part.”
He’s shifted so close to me I can smell him, an erotic woodsy scent I want to inhale forever. I take a shaky breath and repeat what I said.
“A beignet? Really?” he says, confusion filling his face.
“It’s a pastry. They’re popular in New Orleans,” I say like that explains everything.
He nods. “I know what they are. I’m from Louisiana. But I’ve never had one up here.”
“This is the only place I’ve ever seen them,” I say. “They’re delicious.”
He stands up straight again and nods before stepping to the counter to place our orders.
I spend the next two minutes admiring him from behind. I stare at the lean, muscular back of the arrogant, rude, line-cutting meanie, who’s ordering me a beignet and has a baritone voice so sexy I could swoon.
He’s got our coffees now, and my pastry, and he turns and hands me my cup and bag. I take them without a word and then try to hand him cash. He waves my money off, but as I go to pass him, he leans in. “Again, I’m sorry about that. Like I said, I’m running late for my new job and needed a caffeine fix. How about next time we sit down properly and talk?”
Our eyes lock, and I can’t look away. He touches my cheek and gently brushes a stray hair off my face. I nearly let out an audible gasp as his touch gives me shivers, and my eyes cling to his like a life raft.
His shining eyes darken, and he runs his thumb along my jaw. Then he swallows and abruptly stuffs his hand in his jacket pocket while he waits for my response.
I can’t say yes, not when I’m shaking like a leaf for reasons I can’t understand.
“I don’t think so.” I look up into his face, prepared to give him a curt good-bye, but the vulnerability in his eyes surprises me, and I jerk back.
His expression changes all of a sudden, like he realized he just showed me something he wasn’t planning on revealing. He averts his gaze right away, says a quick good-bye, and he’s gone.
Well, damn. My hands are still shaking. What the heck was that?
I don’t get crushes or go on dates or have meaningless hookups. I just…work. And hang out with my family. That’s it. So, this random guy making my stomach clench—it’s unsettling.
I hurry outside the coffee shop and into the numbing cold of Climax, Minnesota, my map dot of a town just outside Minneapolis. The town name does not appear to increase citizens’ libidos or number of orgasms. None of this is scientifically proven, of course; I just know that I’ve felt asexual my entire life. And Celie’s resolution for me? In all my life, I’ve never had the urging to have sex. Not until a moment ago when I had the actual desire to climb the line-cutter’s body and beg him to get me off.
I burst into giggles as I turn into the back alley. It’s time for me to get to work.
* * *
Cameron
I head for the ice rink, but my mind is still on the brunette beauty who shot me “back off” daggers with her eyes and blushed at me like I both terrified her and turned her on.
And then I asked her out. What the hell was that about? I haven’t wanted a serious relationship in years, not since Amy and I broke things off. My preference has been to stay casual. Like one-night casual. But I never lost my healthy appreciation for the opposite sex, and that woman back there?
She was beautiful. In a classic, elegant way. Her dark hair was pinned up on the top of her head, and her green eyes swirled with brown and gold and…lust. She didn’t try to hide her attraction to me, but I almost got the feeling that was because she was so surprised by it she couldn’t mask her feelings.
