“Come inside for a coffee, okay? I’m not done with you yet.” She winked and pushed the door shut behind her.
I froze and gripped the steering wheel tighter, and watched her bounce towards the cafe door.
Her coat ended just over her backside, her very round, biteable backside…
Gods. Autumn’s curves were something else.
I exhaled through my nose and caught the last traces of her in the air when I drew a deep breath. It didn’t just fill my lungs, it lingered in my vomeronasal organ, that ancient switchboard of instinct I’d spent years pretending I didn’t have.
You’re not an animal, Graham.
And I knew that to be true on a soul level, but that faint trace, that thorn in my flesh was still there. And that part of me hungered for her.
I could walk away. It would be safer, the easy choice. But I didn’t want a way out. I wanted her.
I hesitated for another moment but, in the end, unclipped my seat belt. As usual, I snagged the end of my horn on the door frame and straightened up.
Let’s hope she didn’t see it.
Autumn had already shrugged out of her coat and changed her boots into trainers, which made it obvious how much shorter she was than me, and tied on her buttery soft apron with the cafe’s logo burned into the tan leather. The coffee machine heated up and ran its first cleaning cycle of the morning.
“Come closer, good sir.” She beckoned me forward with a cheeky grin on her face, and I followed her invitation. “I don’t bite.”
Gods, woman!
The counter barely reached my navel. I smelled her soap over the coffee beans, warm and clean and entirely too distracting.That old and stupid thing in me leaned forward, inhaling deeper, before sense dragged it back by the horns.
Autumn brewed my coffee meticulously as ever, then set it in front of me in a branded porcelain cup. The first time she’d prepared it to go, but today she knew I would stay.
“Good?” she asked when I’d taken the first careful sip of my hot brew.
I hastened to answer and burned my tongue. “Ouch, yes. Very.”
“Sorry,” she chuckled and dug her teeth into her bottom lip.
I waved her off and took a second, more careful, sip.
“I’m only working a half shift today, by the way.” Autumn spoke more with the machine than with me. “I could come over later for our first official lesson.” She let her offer hang in the air, waiting for me to pick up the hook she’d thrown out. No, it was worse, this wasn’t just bait, it was a sweet and deliberate lure.
You can give me lessons any day.
She flirted…with me.
Just say yes!
“That would be great.” I swallowed hard.
“Great,” she repeated.
Autumn turned away but not before I caught a glimpse of her face. She beamed.
She is flirting.
“Let me pay for my coffee today,” I blurted out. I could have kicked myself when she turned to face me and the smile slid off her face.
The way her dark red curls framed her face mesmerised me.
She looks like a fairy.
