shuffle into the row behind her and sit heavily down onto
the fold-out auditorium seats. She turned reflexively to see
who was causing a commotion and showing up to the first
class fifteen minutes late.
When she turned around, she felt her heart skip a beat.
The man behind her was… she was at a loss for words
on how to describe him.
He had a thick mass of dark brown hair that almost
looked black, swooping across his head and propping up a
pair of retro sunglasses. His face was manly and angular,
with a jaw-line that looked sharp enough to slice paper and
a layer of stubble on his chin that Sandra thought probably
felt like sandpaper. The mere thought of his stubble
touching her caused her to blush, and the pencil she was
twirling fell out of her hand, landing at his feet.
Her eyes followed it down, seeing how he seemed to
fill the worn t-shirt he was wearing with lean muscle, his
tanned skin sporting tattoos on almost every visible
portion of him. His jeans were worn at the knees and cut
wide to accommodate the wide black boots on his feet.
As she reached for her pencil he bent over swiftly and
picked it up, handing it to her. She looked up and into his
eyes; they were grey. A hypnotic grey. Grey the color of
the sea after a storm. He looked like he could be 20 years
old or a hundred; there was a wisdom in his eyes she had
never seen before, and also a glimmer of mischief and
rebellion.
“Here you go,” he said, as he handed her the pencil,
which she retrieved with trembling hands.
His voice was deep, gravelly; like he’d smoked a pack
of cigarettes and sung at a rock concert, but there was
something else in it that she couldn’t place.
He reminded her of James Dean. Or the Marlboro
Man. Decades worth of cool all rolled into one incredibly
sexy package.
And speaking of package… as her eyes drifted back
down, she felt her cheeks flush red with blood as she