But good looks sure as hell don’t make him any less of an asshole.
My own lips pull into a tight, scowling grimace, thoughts firing, but the damn words don’t come because I’m still momentarily frozen by whatever just ricocheted between us.
“Well, at least you’re quiet, huh? Not one to disrupt unless you count arguing with Axe on the stairs.”
How did I know he was going to be a prick? “I wasn’t arguing. I’m not a—”
“Look,” he says, cutting me off. “There’s one seat left, and it’s right here.” He points to a front row seat right in front of the lectern when a man hurriedly stands and vacates it. I watch the occupant stroll to the side of the room and turn to lean his back against the wall, arms crossed, grin wide, as all the while he shakes his head at Hawkin like they have a private joke between them.
He seems vaguely familiar but I don’t get a chance to figure it out because Hawkin speaks to me again. “C’mon now. I don’t bite…. Right, guys?” he says to the rest of the lecture hall, and the audience erupts in a cacophony of hoots and hollers, egging me on to go take the seat.
I also hear a few offers from the females that they’ll take the seat if I don’t.
I’m sure they would. Particularly a seat that’s astride his hips if my hunch is right.
“Please, take your time. We like waiting.” His voice floats through the room but grates on my nerves.
I grit my teeth as I move reluctantly, my anger escalating with each step I descend toward the front of the room. As much as I don’t want to be here dealing with the likes of a cocky asshole like him, my graduate career does have requirements, and I really don’t think pissing off what I have a feeling will be one of the most popular lecturers of the year is the brightest idea.
But hell if I don’t want to tell him to kiss my ass with that smart mouth of his while I stride up the steps toward the exit and flip him the bird instead.
But my degree is more important, so I swallow my pride and my anger, even though I’d much rather verbalize it as I reach the front row. I keep my eyes fastened to the honey color of his gaze, refusing to let him think he’s gotten the upper hand, despite me following his directive and taking the seat he so graciously offered.
I reach the seat and stop before I sit down and stand my ground, my eyebrows arched and eyes telling him everything my lips can’t. He meets them challenge for challenge while all the while those lips of his smirk and taunt me.
I force my eyes to remain forward, not to wander and take in the whole of him because I don’t want to see how sexy-hot he is face-to-face; don’t want to notice his cologne, which is a mixture of fresh air and outdoors; don’t want to feel my cheeks flush because I know my nipples just hardened and I’m quite sure they’re more than obvious through the thin layer of my bra’s lace and my T-shirt’s cotton.
After a moment, when I know I have no point I can really make in front of several hundred students, I lower my eyes and take my seat. But instead of continuing on right away, he stands in front of me a few seconds more, making sure I know who has won this ridiculous little show of control between us.
And of course as he stands in front of me with his hips right at my eye level, I can’t help the two thoughts colliding: the one of him being in control with the one of just how well his worn denim jeans are filled out behind that button fly of his.
I immediately chastise myself. Tell myself that it’s my sex-deprived brain—well, more like other deprived body parts—that is directing my thoughts like a nympho’s. And that alone fuels my dislike of Hawkin even more because I should be focused on being pissed off at him rather than wondering about how he performs in other ways … off the stage.
Author K. Bromberg is that reserved woman sitting in the corner, who has you all fooled about the wild child inside of her, the one she lets out every time her fingertips touch the computer keyboard. She lives in Southern California with her husband and three small children. Her motto is ‘have lap-top, will travel’ because she writes around school drop offs, homework battles and endless soccer practices. When she needs a break from the daily chaos of her life, you can most likely find her with her Kindle in hand, devouring the pages of a good, saucy book.
Visit K. Bromberg online:
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Slow Burn
Copyright © 2015 K. Bromberg
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
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