“I used to be like you,” she said, sipping her tea, with one hand on each side of the mug. Her eyelashes fluttered to keep the steam out of her eyes, and she knew he was looking. She could feel his eyes staring at the delicate tips of her nails that touched right at the place where her mouth should be. She could sense him waiting for the cup to move so he could watch her lick her lip before she looked into his bright blue eyes and continued their discussion.
Even now she could smell the pheromones trickle off of him, even through the steam of the tea and after all the hurt she’d caused. She wondered if he could smell her as strongly. There was no doubt that he’d won, even if he didn’t know it yet. If only he’d take the chance.
When she looked up, the brief moment their eyes met, she saw the color flush to his cheeks as he looked away.
“How does one seduce a man so shy?” she thought. “How does she get him to seduce her?”
“I used to be like you,” she continued. “I used to watch and wait for the right moment to speak, but was sure it would never come.”
“I doubt that,” he said, the delicious deepness of his voice rumbled through the air. She could feel it like a kiss to her eardrums. If only he knew how much power there was in a voice like that. A voice like that could make women swoon from across a room. It had certainly worked its magic on her, which was not an easy feat.
“It’s true,” she said, shifting slightly in her seat. “In fact, in most situations, I’m still that quiet, but there’s something about you that makes me… unquiet.”
It was her turn to be uncomfortable, staring at her own hands, looking for the right words to explain what she meant without leaving herself so emotionally exposed. With her hands, she spun her teacup lightly around, staring blankly into the cup, while her mind raced through things to say: “You make me nervous,” or “do you realize how intimidatingly handsome you are?”
Neither would do, of course. She was trying to put him at ease, not make him feel bad. She’d done that enough already.
In the past week or so, she had, in no less than a dozen ways, told him, unintentionally of course, that he wasn’t a good person, that he wasn’t what she wanted. She had flubbed her way through an attempt at an apology, meaning to say that she was sorry for offending him, but instead telling him she was sorry they couldn’t even be friends…
Friends was the least of what she wanted from him.
Her brain ran through all the wrong things she’d said, all the ways she’d embarrassed herself in an attempt to be casual, nonchalant, unimposing, and now, removed from the events, she could see just how many ways she had managed to say the opposite of what she had wanted to say.
No wonder he wouldn’t look at her.
She sighed.
“What is it you want from me?” he asked. She could hear the hurt in his voice. Had she managed another mistake?
She wanted to say, “I want you to do things to make be unquiet in a dozen different ways, a dozen different positions, until neither of us can move. I want to feel those strong hands of yours running along my flesh and tangled in my hair. I want to hear you moan my name as we collapse into each other.”
What she managed to say was, “I don’t know.”
Just Add Tea 