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“God no. I’m pretty sure his face would crack.”
He loved the way Tracy laughed, full and open, welcoming everyone around her to find joy.
“Back atcha, boss,” he said, playing along and trying to keep from smiling.
“Too late, face already cracked.”
They signed off and Tracy leaned back, her hand slipping off his knee. Instinctively, he grasped at her fingers to keep them where they belonged, on his body.
With his right hand.
Immediately, he flinched, lifting his glove away from her skin. “Sorry.”
She turned her hand over, palm up, and reached for the leather, bringing it back down so she was sandwiched between his thigh and what was left of his fingers.
“It’s no problem, Cutter.” She tightened her grasp and he knew she could feel where his hand ended under the leather. He’d tucked the extra material down toward his palm to give the scars some padding, but it wasn’t neatly done. He kept meaning to learn how to sew so it fit better, but never took the time to do it. “Do you mind if I asked you what happened?”
He shook his head and flexed the little muscle he had left. “No, it’s fine. I was in an Army explosive ordinance disposal unit and just got unlucky one day. The weird thing is that I’d already disabled the switch on the IED we’d found, but we were under fire and a bullet sparked the load. The fucker misfired and the blast was only a fraction of the intended force, but still… boom.”
“Oh my god, I’m so sorry,” she said, squeezing him lightly again. “Does it still hurt?”
“Not really. Phantom pains every once in a while like a hand cramp, but the nerves are fucked up. It doesn’t twitch as much as it used to, so it’s good enough to hold things up and help balance them.”
“Were you right-handed?”
“Technically, I still am. I’ve just had to train myself to do everything with my non-dominant hand.”
Sweat beaded at the edge of his temple. He wasn’t used to talking about his injury with anyone. The guys on the site didn’t care as long as he could still do the job. Once they found that he could do all the necessary work with one hand metaphorically tied behind his back, they shrugged and never asked how it had happened.
Women tended to be really obvious about not asking, which was somehow worse. They usually treated him like an invalid, no matter what he did, so he’d quit approaching them. Instead, he learned to jack off with his left hand and found that it worked just fine for taking the edge off. At least he didn’t have to deal with the humiliation of pity sex.
But he missed the company of women, their softness, their scent, the way their wonderfully shaped asses rippled and bounced under his hand. He even missed seeing all their girly shampoos and creams and things cluttering up his bathroom sink, or finding long hairs on his pillowcase.
The last time he dated someone seriously, they’d only lasted three months before they realized it wasn’t working out. They were both holding back, unwilling to fully trust, and the link he wanted couldn’t be forged without that openness. Several years had passed since then and the desire to try again hadn’t reappeared. Until now.
Until Tracy.
ChapterTwo
Tracy grasped his hand, knowing that he only felt part of the gesture. What mattered was that he felt it.
For nearly a month, she’d watched him as he came into the Busy Bean, and remembered her first impression of him. His high and tight had needed a trim. The hair was dark and thick on top, but distinguished silver shone on the slightly overgrown sides. His skin was sun-darkened and fine lines fanned out from the corners of his deep brown eyes, the consequence of too much time spent squinting into the glare. She wondered if life had made the creases deeper than his years warranted. Straight grooves framed his mouth, partially hidden by a short, dark beard. The thick scruff, also in need of some tidying up, was shot through with a few strands of silver.
The coat he’d worn that day was the thick brown canvas often seen in farm and ranch country, aged to a shine on the edges with one poorly mended tear at the right elbow. He’d slipped off the hood of the sweatshirt layered under the the coat the moment he stepped inside, as if removing a cover was ingrained by years of habit. His jeans were a little baggy and the hems frayed, the little threads brushing over black combat boots that had seen better days.
The glove on his right hand was off balance compared to his strong, rough left hand as he carefully counted out the cost of his plain brew, plus a tip for her baristas. It took her a moment to realize that the leather enclosed only a portion of what should be there, but she knew better than to pity a working man, strong and solid, like many in the small, mostly rural town.
Since then, he’d become a regular. Every morning, he massacred a perfectly good cup of coffee with an overabundance of cream and sugar, and drank it silently out of the silly mugs she picked out for him.
The first time she did it on a whim, she hadn’t been certain if he’d appreciate her humor. He’d paused, studied the mug with a pink and purple unicorn that said, “I fart glitter,” and nodded, his dark eyes warm on hers, before holding it out for her to fill.
Since then, they’d continued the game and every time, he paused, examined her choice, looked at her with that rich velvet gaze, and nodded. Somehow, their wordless banter gathered weight until her body began reacting in an almost Pavlovian response. That simple nod made her nipples peak and her pussy swell with desire.
Then he’d leave and she’d have to deal with the aftermath of unfulfilled hunger when she got home hours later. The tiny vibrator in her nightstand was going to need new batteries soon. Again.
It had been years since she felt this craving in her belly, and even when she’d been married, she didn’t remember it being this constant. But that had been a long time ago, and after the divorce she’d been too busy raising Aidan and building a business to deal with something as frivolous as dating.
Her son was getting ready to start high school in the fall and the cafe was on solid footing, a gathering place for the community and no longer touch and go financially. Maybe it was time to act on the interest she’d read in Cutter’s eyes.
