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My gaze snapped back to Jack.
He tilted his head, examining my face with a softness in his. “Care to continue your thought?”
“Not really.”
He laughed. Jack didn’t look like the kind of man who laughed much. Not because he was scary, but an intense, professional, controlled aura definitely surrounded him. That fact that I just made him snicker a little, felt good. Like I’d accomplished something.
“Well, now you have me very intrigued.”
I shrugged and tried the best I could to explain away my obvious awkwardness. “I’m not very smooth with this—” I motioned between us— “type of interaction.”
He raised a brow. “Oh? And what kind of interaction are we having?”
I swallowed hard. “The kind that makes me nervous.”
He leaned away. “I see. I didn’t mean to make you nervous.”
“It’s a different kind of nervous than a regular nervous,” I said quickly, not liking that he was backing away.
His dark brows sliced down. “You’re losing me on your logic.”
I licked my lips, an action he seemed to zero in on, and tried again. “I’m not great with words, I tend to blurt things out. Quantifying things is easier than qualifying them.”
“You must work with numbers?”
I nodded. “I just got my degree in statistics.”
“Impressive.” He scooted a little closer, and I didn’t shy away. Instead, straightening my shoulders, I allowed the advance. I was even excited about how it made me feel. “I’ve found that playing to your strengths allows for practice of your weaknesses.”
It was my turn to frown. “Now you’re losing me.”
“Let’s keep it simple with words and quantify. That’s what you’re more comfortable with, correct?”
I nodded.
“You say I make you nervous?” He ran a finger along my folded hands. A shiver raced at the contact. “On a scale of one to ten, how nervous does this make you feel?”
“Five,” I breathed. Probably pathetic, since it was a mere touch of hands. But my hands were in my lap, which meant his hands were near my lap. My skin zinged with anticipation, not only from the proximity of this man, but by the fact that I hadn’t been touched in a lot longer than I’d care to admit.
“And is it a hot or cold nervous?”
That made me pause. I’d never thought of it that way. The nervousness I felt most of the time when I was out of my comfort zone, much like I’d been feeling sitting alone, waiting for Brock to zero in on me made me cold. Very cold. But when Jack sat down, the first thing I felt was…
“Hot.”
His eyes bored into mine and he removed his hand. “So that was a Five: Hot.”
I smiled and nodded. “Sounds like the makings of a flow chart.”
“That would require more data.”
Suddenly, I was very interested in what kind of data we would collect.
“I brought you a fresh bourbon,” the bartender said, interrupting to set a glass in front of Jack.
“Thank you, Angel,” he said. The extremely beautiful female bartender stood, giving Jack a little smile.
I swallowed hard, realizing right then that she was the kind of woman he must date. And I was nowhere near the five-ten, painfully pretty, rail thin goddess who was slinging drinks and, from the looks of it, warding off wandering hands regularly.
