Technical Threat (Westin Force #4) - Julie Trettel Page 0,26

from my pants.

I gulped hard. I had no idea what was happening to me, but I was growing harder by the second. When she gasped and her hands slowed, I knew she had noticed too.

I should have been embarrassed, but my body was on fire with desire, and I froze fighting against the aggressive need to pull her up and kiss her, then make her mine right there in the middle of that café.

“I’m so sorry,” she apologized.

Jimmy was laughing in the kitchen. “I’m already remaking. I’ll have it out shortly.”

I couldn’t speak but I did manage to nod. He was already off and moving to the rhythm of the kitchen.

“Just go back to your seat and I’ll have your food out shortly,” she said.

She wouldn’t look up at me, but I could see red burning across her cheeks.

It took a lot to walk away from her. My head was spinning and confused. I was still very much turned on and I had no freaking clue what had come over me.

I sat back down in the booth. I didn’t dare meet Nonna’s eyes. Without meeting her eyes, I could tell she was biting her lip and trying hard not to speak. She’d seen everything. Somehow that made it even more humiliating.

There was an awkward silence between us as we waited for our food.

I stared out the window to the house across the street trying desperately not to search out the girl who was flipping my world upside down with her presence.

I saw movement in the window. I should have run over and checked it out, but I couldn’t pry myself from that booth.

The bell rang but I didn’t turn to look.

The woman came over and set our heaping plates of food down. I took a moment to look her over. She was wearing jeans and Shay Vous tee-shirt. Her hair was thrown up into a haphazard bun and there were strands fighting to get loose.

She was nothing like the chic woman I’d been watching with infatuation through the window, and yet my fox and my body responded to her in the same way. He had never done that to any other woman I’d encountered before and now two in the same day. I knew I had to be going insane.

“Can I get you some refills?” she asked.

“Yes, please,” Nonna said. “Caleb, would you like another coffee?”

“Uh, no, thanks though,” I muttered.

When she turned to look at me our eyes met and locked. My entire world felt like it turned upside down. I looked away. It was too intense.

There was a red streak across her face. I had thought it was just her blushing from embarrassment before, but I could see it more clearly now. It was faint and covered with makeup, but I could make out a handprint on her cheek.

My fox snarled and surged forward. I took deep controlled breaths and fisted my hands. In my lap.

“Who hit you?” I asked through gritted teeth in a menacing voice I didn’t even recognize.

“Caleb,” Nonna admonished.

The girl froze and her eyes grew the size of saucers. She shook her head. “It’s nothing.”

I knew she was lying, and somehow, I knew that she knew that I knew it too.

Jimmy from the kitchen came out and when he reached out to get her attention, I wanted to rip his head off.

I was too busy trying to stay in control and not shift right there in front of everyone to hear what he told her. She dropped her book onto the table and ran for the kitchen.

My heart raced and I felt an obsessive need to follow her, but I fought against it.

Mate, my fox wailed in my head.

Susan

Chapter 10

“The school called. It’s Sage,” Jimmy whispered to me.

I was so single-mindedly focused on the sexy man before me that it almost didn’t register what he said.

“What?” I asked.

“It’s Sage. The school called and she’s sick and needs to be picked up. They can’t reach your mother.”

Sage was sick? She was a fox shifter. We didn’t get sick. My fear for her trumped the ridiculous pull I felt towards the man at table five.

“I need to go.”

I turned and ran to the kitchen.

“I already heard. I called Michelle and she’s coming in early to help prep for lunch. Things are already settling down here. Go. We’ve got your back,” Candace assured me.

I hugged her quickly. “Thank you.”

I didn’t look back as I ran out the rear door of the café and to my car in