Page 10 of Sweet Ache (Driven 6)
“And this folks is why I sing and play an instrument for a living,” he says with a half laugh, brushing his hair off his forehead, his charismatic charm coming across even when he’s frustrated. “Guess my reputation proceeds me and I’m too much to handle since the TA I was promised has yet to show and help me set everything up.”
“I’ll handle you!” a girl in the back yells, garnering a chuckle from him.
I’m sure you will, sweetie.
I watch him a few more moments until he gives up and says something I can’t hear to his friend before turning to the class. “Well, I guess I’ll have to rely on my many other hidden talents,” he says rubbing his hands together and causing me to sigh like the girl next to me while the rest of the students chuckle, “but it seems they’ll have to wait until next time…. Time’s up for today.” The sigher next to me makes a sound of protest, and I swear she’s going to be stuck to the seat she’s so desperate for all things Hawkin.
“Until next time,” he says and students begin to shuffle their papers. I lean forward to pick up my bag when his voice stops me. “Ms. I’m-Too-Special-to-Be-on-Time? Please stay a minute.”
I freeze more from disbelief than because I care. Seems to me by his arrogance that this whole I’m-a-professor kick has gone to his head. Then again, this is probably his norm, considering he’s used to performing on stage in front of thousands.
I bite the inside of my cheek to stifle the smart-ass remark that is begging for escape, and lean back in the chair, arms and legs crossed, and raise my eyebrows at him. Come at me rocker boy. I’m ready for you.
Hawkin holds my taunting gaze, and I feel like we’re on a playground having a staring contest. Guess things don’t change much when you get older.
He leans his hips back on the table behind him and mirrors my posture. “Hey, blondie, what’s your name?”
“Trixie,” I tell him off the cuff. My mind immediately went to the name Layla and I use in a club when we’re being hit on by someone we have no interest in.
“Trixie, huh?”
“Says so on my birth certificate. Is there something you needed?”
“Yeah,” he says pushing his way off the table and walking toward me. My god, even his swagger across the
short distance is sexy. He stops right in front of me and just stares. Chemistry I don’t want to feel ignites between us.
You keep telling yourself that you don’t want to feel that, Quinlan.
I look away, breaking whatever draw he continues to have over me. The one I don’t want to feel. I just need to get out of here before those eyes of his and that cocky grin wear me down until I’m lying on my back with him above me. And thankfully he speaks because his words help all of those thoughts from finding purchase inside my mind.
“So was the lecture bad or something?” He angles his head and for some reason his body language does not reflect the simple question he asks. I won’t walk right into his verbal trap of sarcasm again so I look back to him, eyebrows arched, fingers drumming on my bicep, waiting for him to continue. “Are you too cool to take notes?”
“Lecture about something noteworthy, and I’d be glad to take some,” I fire back. And yes it’s an unfair response because I barely listened to his lecture at all, more focused on ignoring him than anything, but he deserves it for his comment.
“Ooh,” he says, bringing his hand to his heart like I’ve wounded him before flashing a lightning-fast grin. “I’ve got a soft spot for a woman who’s beautiful and quick with her tongue.”
I snort in exasperation. “Well, I’m sure you have the soft part down pat but I thought a guy like you’d prefer a woman without a brain or better yet, no teeth.”
Hawkin’s friend whistles to the side of us, but I ignore him, not needing any more of a distraction than what is in front of me. I rise from my seat and start throwing my stuff in my bag knowing that me and my smart mouth need to get up and leave before they get me in more trouble than normal.
“You think you have me pegged, huh?” His voice murmurs too close for comfort behind me. My body reacts instantly: goose-bumped skin, hitched breath, and my every nerve attuned to the proximity of his body.
Then again, trouble can be so much fun.
I can tell he’s used to women begging to be played and hell if that’s an option here. Chemistry or no chemistry, I’m smart enough to know he’s one of those guys I need to steer clear of.
And I plan on doing just that. Marching up these steps and back to the department office to tell Carla that assisting this seminar is just too much for my class load. That even with the extension of time she’ll give me on my thesis, it’s still not enough. I’m sure she’ll see right through the lie, know something is up, but will never question me on it.
But before I go …
“I know I have you pegged,” I say with a small laugh as I throw my bag over my shoulder carelessly, silently hoping he is close enough to me that he gets hit by it. “And you sure as hell are proving me right.”
“Oh, I can be all kinds of right, Trixie,” he says as I turn around to find him still way too close. It’s just a moment really but with our bodies so close and our eyes burning into each other’s the pang of desire between my thighs turns into a full-blown ache.
I sidestep away from him immediately, hating the jump in my pulse and the lust coursing through me. I need to get out of here, away from him and his arrogant smirk and his come fuck me eyes.
“You were late,” he states matter-of-factly as I begin to walk toward the stairs. “Don’t let it happen again.”
