Blind Spot - Katana Collins Page 0,16

bottom lip, and writhe in pleasure as I tasted her? How would that husky voice sound first thing in the morning over coffee…or better yet, screaming my name in the middle of the night? I wanted to know her body—every curve, every hot spot, and every birthmark that existed on her smooth skin.

I wanted to know her. And this wasn’t the normal desire to just throw a woman into my bed. I wanted to take my time, savor her. Study her. I snorted, closing my eyes. I should know better. That never ended well.

My thoughts went immediately to Katie, and all those warm fuzzies Shelby brought about shriveled into a dried out raisin. I pushed my ex out of my mind. Shelby wasn’t Katie—I mean, I barely knew Shelby, but Katie would have never been caught dead in a thrift store T-shirt. She’d be in pearls…and demanding that I buy her the matching earrings.

That same twitch in my eyebrow that always surfaced with memories of my ex was back, and I rubbed a chilled hand over it to stop the convulsions.

I forced my eyes open to focus on the woman on the screen. The woman that was nothing like Shelby, and she clearly wasn’t doing it for me. I slammed the laptop shut, dick still in hand, rock hard with thoughts of the girl downstairs.

My phone buzzed, and I gave up, zipping up my pants and reaching for my phone. Great, just great. I had thirty minutes to get to my community service. “Hey, Buddy, you wanna go tutor some kids for me?”

He whimpered, burrowing his nose deeper into a pillow, and I sighed. “Yeah, me neither.”

…

I pulled into a pothole-riddled lot in front of a simple concrete building. Checking my phone once more, I made sure it was the correct address—and unfortunately for me, it was. Where the hell was I? Because I was pretty damn certain my life was at risk simply in the walk from my car to the front door. Most of the kids who came here probably walked from their homes, or even took the bus. It was hard to imagine, and I swallowed as I tugged the heavy door open. A plump woman smiled at me from behind a plexiglass window.

“Hi there,” she said with a welcoming grin.

I nodded, hesitating before moving up to the counter. “Uh, hi. Tate Michaelson. I’m here for, uh”—I cleared my throat, lowering my voice a touch—“community service.”

She nodded, flipping through some papers. “Yes, right. We got your paperwork this morning. Come on back.” She hit a button under the desk, and the second door buzzed loudly. I slipped through, following the woman to a large room. There were several crappy circular tables spaced through the middle, and a handful of students sat quietly working. They ranged from young—maybe nine or ten—up through high school age. Around the edge of the room were rectangular tables holding a few ancient looking desktop computers, which hummed loudly, whirring as though the technology was straining to stay alive.

“Your mom mentioned that you have a knack for languages, right?”

I nodded, turning my baseball hat around so that it was backward. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“That’s great. We have a lot of high schoolers who need help with their level one Spanish classes. What else do you excel at?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I always liked science, I guess.”

“Great.” She made a mark in her notebook and handed me a stapled packet of papers. “This was faxed over from the courthouse this morning. You’ll need our director or assistant director to sign off at the beginning and end of every shift you make. They’ll record your hours, and at the end of each week, we will fax it in. Make sense?”

“Yep.” I glanced around the room, already incredibly bored with the process. Shit, this was gonna be a long few months.

“Great—I’ll grab one of the program managers to get you situated and find you a mentee for your time here. Have a seat.” She gestured again to the table, and I sank into a plastic bucket chair. The dingy gray carpet was stained beneath my feet, and several holes had worn away in patches across the floor. There weren’t a whole lot of volunteers there. About fifteen kids in all, and maybe half as many adults. What did that mean? Would I be stuck with more than one kid at a time? Jesus, I dropped my face into my hands and rubbed my fingers across