“Grandma…”
She waved her hand impatiently. “I know. I know. Luther had to find you; it was part of your destiny after all. I just wish that I could have kept you sheltered from it.”
Cassie hurried to her side and hugged her gently. “I know grandma, but there are things in life that we cannot predict, or avoid.”
Cassie thought over her words, starting slightly as she realized that they could apply to her situation with Devon. She could not have predicted his arrival, and she was beginning to feel that it would be easier to stop a locomotive than to continue fighting her strong attraction to him. Fear and excitement tore through her; she trembled with anticipation at the same time her mouth went dry with dread. If she did this, there would be no turning back, but she wasn’t sure that she wanted to turn back anymore.
“When did you get so smart dear?”
Cassie blinked as she was brought back to the present. “A wise person raised me.”
Her grandmother’s face lit with her smile, her eyes twinkled with love. “And don’t you forget it. Now hurry up, get going, Chris had a rough night.”
“Yes,” Cassie agreed.
Cassie kissed her cheek again, squeezed her hand, and hurried out of the house. The day was bright and warm, the chill of fall hadn’t settled in completely, but the leaves were beginning to change. Cassie glanced up at the clear sky, eagerly inhaling great gulps of fresh air as she tried to steady her tingling nerves and pounding heart. She had a feeling that after today there would be no turning back. That today would either be the day that everything changed, or everything remained the same for good. She no longer knew which one she wanted more.
***
Cassie sat stiffly at her desk; her shoulders ached from her ramrod position. But it was impossible to relax, not with him only mere feet away. In fact, as long as he was near, she was pretty sure that she was never going to relax again. Not after that dream. Unwillingly, she pressed her fingers to her mouth. She could still recall the heat of his lips against hers, the hard stroke of his tongue, and the press of his solid arms wrapped tightly around her. He had made her feel so safe and protected, and whole. It had been the strangest most realistic dream ever, and she desperately wanted to know what the real life experience would be like.
She had to force herself not to look at him, not to cast surreptitious glances his way. Not to stare at him. Not to relive every moment of pleasure he had given to her last night. It was impossible.
She clenched her hands tight. Her nails dug into her palm, her knuckles ached from the force of it. Her pen was clasped so tight that she feared it would snap. Her body crackled with electricity. Her pulse pounded in her ears, her heart slammed rapidly against her ribs.
She hadn’t heard a word Mr. Maddox had said since class started. Unwillingly, her gaze drifted slowly over to Devon. He was sitting casually in his desk, his long legs stretched before him as he stared straight ahead. Those hands that had touched her so reverently last night were splayed before him, the long fingers lying upon the desk. Though his posture was relaxed, she sensed a current of tension and power just beneath his smooth surface. The power that ran through him seemed completely out of place for a normal teenage boy in history class.
She was completely confused by him. Baffled by everything that he represented, though she didn’t know what that was.
Seeming to sense her focus, he turned slowly toward her. She knew that she should look away, that she should be embarrassed to have been caught staring, but she couldn’t break the magnetic pull he radiated. Her fingers twitched, they longed to touch him. It took everything she had not to reach across the short distance between them, and seize him.
He didn’t look away from her as he leaned slightly forward, shifting with an easy grace. His emerald eyes burned with intensity, and a hunger that left her breathless. The slow ripple of his muscles made her mouth go dry as her body erupted with tingles of electricity. She felt like a volcano bubbling beneath the surface, ready to explode in a torrent of molten lava that would certainly destroy her. But she was certain that for a few brief moments she would enjoy being buried beneath the heat.
Her world, her entire being, was focused upon him. She needed him. The strange thought, and the absolute certainty that accompanied it, left her shaken and frightened. But this time, she could not bolt, and she could not run. She could not turn away from him in order to do so.
Somehow, she didn’t know how, but her pen was no longer in her hand, her hand was no longer clenched, and it was no longer upon her desk. Her hand was now in the middle of the aisle, reaching toward him.
She blinked, snapping out of the brief trance that had enshrouded her. Her face flamed red, heat burned down the back of her neck as the realization of what she had been doing crashed over her. He did not grin at her, did not look at all disgusted by her strange behavior as he leaned even closer.
She wanted nothing more than to reach toward him again, to feel him, but she could not bring herself to make such a forward gesture once more. She could not believe she had done it in the first place. It was not within her to make the first move, especially not with someone that she didn’t even know, and who now probably thought that she was crazy. The few boys she had dated had always approached her first.
The loud ringing of the bell caused her to jump in surprise; she knocked her forgotten pen to the ground. Cassie groaned, disgusted with herself, and the entire situation. She needed to get her act together before she completely lost it. She couldn’t continue to let some stranger disturb her life in such a way. She couldn’t afford to be so badly distracted, so completely out of whack with her reality. People would get hurt if she was.
She shoved her book into her bag and bent over to retrieve her lost pen. But it was no longer where it had fallen upon the ground. Instead, it was held in a long fingered, strong hand that she recognized instantly. Her gaze traveled slowly from the hand, to the man now kneeling before her. His bright eyes clashed with hers. There was a fierce need radiating from him that caused her toes to curl, at the same time that fear tore through her. There would be no going back after this. If she took that pen from him, if she touched him, she knew that nothing would ever be the same again.
She could not move; she was frozen in place like a deer trapped in the headlights. A small smile curved the corner of his hard mouth; a twinkle of amusement lit his eyes. Anger spurted through her in the face of the challenge he seemed to radiate, he was daring her to take the pen back. Taking a deep breath, Cassie steeled herself. She was probably overreacting anyway, nothing was going to happen.