She smirked. "Honey, I'm married. Not dead. How could any woman not see that?"
I scooped coffee into the basket, remembered it needed a filter, poured the granules back out, and started over. "True. But do you see anything out of the ordinary? Anything – I don't know – hot?"
"Sweetheart, that is the definition of hot."
"No. Well, yes, but do you see anything unusual?"
"You mean the way he sits?" she asked, her voice growing husky. "His legs always slightly parted with one hand resting on his thigh. How can any man make something so mundane as sitting so damned sexy?"
She clearly did not see the fire.
Before she took off again, she asked, "Is it wrong that every time he comes in I want to straddle him?"
"Only if you act on your desires. In front of your husband."
She chuckled, narrowly escaped a head-on with Erin, then took her customers their lunch.
But she was right. So very, very right. The guy defined the hyphenated euphemism sex-on-a-stick, and I had to get the fuck over it. Dating him would be like playing Spin the Bottle in a nuclear reactor. He should've been wearing a biohazard sign, because I was so not tapping that. I had no intention of going anywhere near it. One hundred percent off-limits. Soooooooo not happening.
I grabbed the water pitcher to see if he needed a refill, which was not so much me going near him but me doing what I was paid for. I had a job to do, damn it. And I lived in a constant state of denial.
Actually, the reasons for my approach were threefold. One, I wanted a closer look at the table. Did he really burn it? Two, I wanted to test a theory I'd had for a long time. Every time he walked into the café, the entire area seemed to grow warmer. It made sense, him being made of fire and all, but was he really causing my hot flashes? I was way too young for menopause, so I had my fingers crossed on that one. And three, how close could I get? If he really was hot and he touched me, would I burn like the table? Would he set me on fire – in the nonmetaphorical sense? Would his touch blister as much as his presence?
I walked toward him with purposeful steps but slowed as I got closer. Cookie stopped what she was doing to watch me, surprise evident on her face. Francie had a similar reaction when she spotted me heading for her customer. Not that it was all that unusual. We each saw to all the customers as needed, and this one was most definitely in need. The poor guy was on fire, for crap's sake. If anyone needed water …
Twenty feet. I was now about twenty feet away and closing fast. Ish. The heat that I felt whenever he walked in increased exponentially with every step I took until it became almost unbearable by the time I stood beside his table. Standing next to him was like being too close to a blazing furnace. His heat radiated out in white-hot waves.
"Can I top this off for you?" I asked, my voice only a little wobbly.
He didn't look up at me right away. He'd seemed to sense my approach, though. His sparkling gaze landed on my lower extremities as I'd walked up, but he didn't move then and he wasn't moving now. What was moving was the fire that forever sheathed him. It sparked to life. Swelled. Consumed him completely until his muscles contracted beneath it. His jawline sharpened. His forearms corded, hardened to the density of tempered steel as though he were fighting something inside him. As though he were fighting for control.
I took a minuscule step back. After a few seconds, the fire died down to the soft glow of his everyday armor.
I waited a moment longer, a moment that seemed to stretch forever, before taking the hint. He really did hate me. His emotions were so dense, so tightly packed, I couldn't distinguish any one in particular, but I was certain at the middle of it all lay a seething kind of hatred.
Embarrassment rocketed through me, and I prayed for a sinkhole to appear beneath my feet. On the bright side, no one knew who I was. Including me. I could leave town anytime and all this would be forgotten.
I'd have to change my name. Janey Doerr – because Jane Doe was so last week – would become nothing but a memory. And I didn't have many of those. I could use a few more.
Mortified, I started to step away, but then slowly, methodically, he lifted his lashes. His gaze raked up my body, leaving heat trails everywhere it touched until it met mine. The effect of that meeting was like being hit by a freight train, his presence was so powerful. So raw.
He nodded, the movement barely perceptible, and I'd almost forgotten the question. The cold pitcher in my hands reminded me. I swallowed hard. Tore my focus off him. Bent forward to top off his water.