“Okay?” I asked.
“I guess.” She shrugged.
Growling, I tugged at the strands of her hair. She sucked in a hissing breath and let it tumble out in a giggle, her chest rising just slightly and her neck craning to expose her throat. I don’t know if she saw my eyes trail from her neck to her chest and dip to her blue sports bra, but when I raked them back up to her face, her smirk did something to my pants that would need adjusting later.
“Okay,” she amended in a smug whisper.
Oh, she was trouble. She had always been. But for whatever reason, I felt like the real trouble had just been awakened in her.
I released her, more so for myself than for her.
As if she sensed my attraction, her eyes slid down the length of me and back up to mine with a calm, almost claiming stare. Then she turned and started her way out the room calling, “Pancakes on me tonight.”
Chapter Twenty-one
CECI
“What are you looking at, Ant?” Paulo asked as he craned his neck over the other side of the counter.
Clicking the lock key, I shut down the website I’d been looking at, flipping my phone down on the table and straightening up.
“I’ve rotated the bottles in the cellar, corked the new inventory, and swept up the main floor,” I said. “I’m on my way to restock the shelves now.”
“Pssh,” Pau waved a hand. “Pipe down, bimbosa. You’ve handled everything, I will take care of the shelves. Sit.”
“Okay…” I said, lowering back down to the stool behind the counter. My legs ached just slightly from all the foreign bending and moving I’d done in the self-defense class the night before. But a good kind of ache. An accomplished pain that reminded me I had done something. One that brought my mind back to the website I was looking at just seconds ago.
It was only the day after our first self-defense lesson and ever since being in that building—taking the class, getting a peek atotherclasses—I had been feeling this jittery feeling. I’d stayed up all night thinking about Counter Strike Gym and the people in it. The only reprieve from my sudden obsession were the thoughts of Connor’s sweet hands and sweeter words still dancing along my memory. Memories that were becoming hard to think of in the daylight for fear of looking absolutely fucking lovestruck over my best friend.Fuck.
I wasn’t an idiot and Connor wasn’t my first friend who also happened to be a boy. When you were friends with guys there were those times when things were said or done that could seemtotallydifferent if they were said or done with a guy you were actually interested in. A long hug or a passing compliment was just that with a bro. Nothing to examine, nothing to worry about. But with a man you were interested in, that same hug or same compliment was suddenly more intimate, more sensual, justmore.
Last night at the class, everything from the way his voice had gone tender when reassuring me to the way he’d slipped his fingers into my hair (and pulled at it), had felt like more.
Which was scary.
Terrifying really.
And the way I distracted myself from the scary and terrifying, was pushing it aside and focusing solely on the other things occupying my brain.
Jenny was so cool. With her half-dyed hair and subtle back tattoos. And the way that she taught the class with both an easy laid back nature and a sharp hawk’s eye for detail and movement. Plus the way she controlled her body, like she was so in tune with every move, every tiny action adding to the bigger picture she was painting. It was gripping. It made me want to do more than just remember. It made me want to go back.
But what for? The self-defense class was cool, cooler than I thought it would be. Part of that had to do with Connor being there with me, doing anything with him was an automatic drop in the fun bucket. But I think another, deeper part of it had to do with the satisfying power it gave me to feel in control. Of my body, of my movements, of the situation. It was, of course, a hypothetical situation, but having just been in that position recently, I could testify that the knowledge would be useful. Much more useful than what I’d come up with.
“Are you going to tell me what you were looking at with such stars in your eyes? Or will I have to guess?” Paulo asked, reaching a hand across the counter and poking me on the cheek with his long finger.
I smiled sweetly at him, leaning two elbows down onto the counter. “How about you guess?”
The finger he’d just poked me with rubbed along his chin thoughtfully. “Knowing you, you’re probably thinking of the next meal you will feed that greedy belly.”
He grinned when my mouth dropped open. Waving, he added, “Or that boy.”
“What boy?”
“The large one.”
“Con?”
“I suppose that’s what you call him in your daydreams,” he said, so airily it made me want to smack him.
