Page 23 of Breaking All The Rules
“Well…” He shrugged, feigning an aww-shucks expression. “I don’t like to brag.”
Bea raised eyebrows that hadn’t had any kind of sculpting in well over a month and probably looked like twin giant pornstaches high on her forehead. “But you will.”
“I think someone who can get you all flushed with excitement like that deserves a moment to shine.”
She didn’t need a mirror to know she was pink-cheeked; she could feel the heat radiating off her face. She felt—and no doubt looked—like a wildling. “This isn’t excitement. This is terror.” It was amazing how closely the two were related.
Laughing again, he said, “Feels good, doesn’t it?”
It felt freaking amazing. Best thing she’d ever done with her clothes on. This whole being-reckless, living-on-the-edge thing was utterly titillating. Every cell in her body buzzed with accomplishment. Was this how her mom felt when she’d been in the middle of one of her impromptu painting frenzies and she wouldn’t sleep or eat or bathe, yet she seemed to glow from the inside out?
And why in the hell wasn’t the mere thought of that scaring the crap out of her?
God…who even was she right now? Sitting here burning rubber in a hideously expensive car with a guy—a police officer—ten years younger than her, in a town literally in the middle of nowhere.
Maybe she was like her mother. As her grandmother so often said.
She’d never meant it as a compliment, though, and those words had always made her father tense, but whatever was happening right now wasn’t her. Bea couldn’t remember the last time anything less than scoring a major account was able to get her this jazzed.
But she was damned if she was going to give Officer Sexy Teacher any heads-up as to the internal fireworks going off inside her at the moment. She had the feeling he’d know exactly what to do with them. “Like I said,” Bea replied noncommittally, trying to rein in the flood of exhilaration, “you’re a good teacher. Some people suck at it.”
“I bet you’re a good teacher, too. I bet there are things you could teach me.”
He grinned at her, and his eyes were sparkling and the skin around the corners of his eyes crinkled and he was teasing her and so in to teasing her, it was causing a funny skip in her pulse. She doubted very much that she could teach Austin Cooper what he was implying. She was no Mrs. Robinson. Whereas he, on the other hand, looked like he’d been born with The Joy of Sex chip already fully integrated with his mainframe.
He could probably teach her a thing or two…
But the engine was idling at just the right level of rumble, keeping everything on a kind of simmer, and Bea was finding it increasingly hard to take a deep breath, and she just wanted to lean in and kiss that smile right off his mouth.
Which wasn’t going to happen.
She might be in the middle of a personal and career crisis that had knocked her on her ass and left her questioning every single thing she ever knew about everything, but she knew this—kissing Austin Cooper would be a bad move. Putting aside the fact that getting tangled up with a younger man hadn’t ended well for her mother, Austin was a human being. Not a distraction. Not someone to play with to make herself feel better or forget.
Credence was her home—for the time being. It was a…circuit breaker. A place to hide away and regroup. When she figured out what she wanted to do next, she’d be moving on, and she didn’t want to leave with any ill will surrounding her stay.
“Unless you’re into brand analysis and what age demographics are more or less likely to buy perfume, halogen lamps, or canned salmon, and where these demographics intersect, probably not.”
He nodded and deadpanned, “That sounds totally hot.”
Bea laughed. “Uh-huh. Sure it is.”
“Sounds like you have a lot of…” For a moment, Bea thought he was going to say useless crap, but he didn’t. “Data inside that head.”
Oh yeah. Bea had critical levels of data, aka useless crap, taking up space in her head. Hell, she could be on an episode of Hoarders, it was that cluttered up there.
At least here in Credence, she could Marie Kondo the hell out of her brain.
“I do.” And she was done thinking about it. “But I’m on a high here—don’t spoil it.”
“Fine by me.” He shrugged. “So…what do you want to do now?”
The question was about as loaded as was possible and, because she was amped up and kiss Austin was whispering through her head, she grabbed the next sweetest option. “Pie.”
His left eyebrow kicked up. “I thought you were worried about your ass?”
Not as worried as she was about what she might do with her mouth if it wasn’t busy doing something else. “What can I say? Recklessness makes me hungry.”
He grinned. “Lucky me.” Then, turning his attention to the glove box—thank you, sweet Jesus—he pulled out the brown paper packet and handed it over.
