Christmas Candy(23)

“Wait.” His voice radiated confidence, a tantalizing smile still woven into the sound.

I sped my pace and stabbed the down button on the elevator. I could feel him behind me, following me at a leisurely pace like the killer in a slasher flick. He stopped a few paces at my back.

“Where’s the fire, Jess?” He put a hiss at the end of my name that had heat bursting in my cheeks.

“I’m late.” My voice came out more harshly than I intended. I just wanted to escape him, to get behind my door and watch him, to follow his social media, to dream about his body, his mouth. I wanted my fantasy Michael to stay firmly in place, because I knew the real Michael would never be interested in me.

“For what?” He took a step nearer. I could feel his body heat against my exposed neck. He was close, too close.

“Class.”

“Do you pay as close attention in class as you do around here?” He was right behind me.

I trembled at his nearness, at the scent of his aftershave, at the deep growl of his voice. I was afraid and wanting and anxious and desperate for him all at once.

“I don’t know what you mean.” I knew exactly what he meant. He must have seen me watching him.

“I think you do.”

Where is the elevator?

“I-I don’t.” Was that my breathy voice?

“I watch people for a living, Jess. I see them, everything about them, and then I capture them.” His voice lowered and I could feel his breath whisping through the dark brown strands of hair covering my ear. “Would you like to be captured?”

He was … He was coming onto me? My body was on fire. I turned to him, his gaze bearing down on me like a weight. My heart had long since run away, the beat far too fast to stay put. A five o’clock shadow graced his angular jaw and the eyebrow piercing caught the light.

His eyes were flecked with a lighter hazel and his dark brows were drawn down, as if he were concentrating. I swallowed thickly when it became clear he was concentrating on my lips.

The elevator dinged. I hurried inside and turned around to face him again, something inside me screaming that putting my back to him was a mistake. He put a hand up, holding the doors open and putting the expansive ink of his full sleeve on display. I would have loved to follow the pattern, memorize every line, but I couldn’t escape his gaze.

There was no air, not even a puff of it, anywhere near me. Those green eyes pinned me until I backed into the steel wall, my chest rising and falling rapidly. The doors started buzzing, as if irritated by his interference. He didn’t move, just let his gaze rove slowly down my body and back up before focusing on my eyes with an intensity I’d never seen in anyone.

He smirked and backed away.

The doors moved together in slow motion. “Don’t be late to class, Jess. I’ll see you when you get back.” His words flowed around me and then I was sinking.





Jess





Class was happening. The professor was talking, my classmates were answering, and there was a general hum of note-taking on keyboards and the scratch of pencils or pens on paper.

I wasn’t there. I was still in the hallway on the fourteenth floor, standing with Michael at my back. His voice whispering darkly in my ear. Heat coursed through my body at the memory and I shifted in my seat, the tingle between my legs demanding some sort of movement.

“Ms. Shakoor?” Professor Ball asked.

“What?” I looked down to him from the fifth row of the classroom’s stadium seating.

“You volunteered, did you not? So, what’s the answer?” His glasses were slightly askew as he looked up at me.

“I volunteered?” I looked at both of my hands on my laptop keys. I definitely did not volunteer.

“I asked whether the tort of negligence carries a two-year or four-year statute of limitations in this state, and you made a sort of a high-pitched grunt.” The class snickered around me. “I thought you were volunteering.”

I wanted to sink under the table and stay there until class was over, everyone had gone, and the cleaning staff had turned off the lights for the night.

“I apologize. It’s two years.”

“Correct. Moving on . . .”

His voice faded out as I ducked my head lower, letting my long layers of dark hair hide my bright red face from the people around me. I never volunteered, and I especially did not volunteer by making a sex sound when thinking about Michael. Not that I’d know a sex sound if it bit me on the ass. A vibrator sound? I knew all about that.

Once class was over, I kept my head down and walked two doors down for my next hour-long lecture.

“Oh, and before I forget, Happy Valentine’s Day tomorrow everyone,” Professor Ball called.