He Watches Me: The Seen Trilogy: Part One (9 page)

Michael joins the end of the coffee line, standing close enough for me to reach out and touch. He runs his fingers through his shaggy blond hair, takes his phone out of his pocket and stares down at the screen.

He doesn’t see me. My powers of invisibility hold. I exhale and my shoulders slump. I should feel relieved. I don’t. I feel disappointed.

Michael orders four organic ice teas, each one a different flavor. He pays more for those teas than I spend on groceries in a month, leaves a monstrous tip, and returns to the table. The ladies send him back to the counter for organic artificial sweeteners, stir sticks, and lids.

Finally, Michael settles into a chair, the wood slab seat sagging under his weight. He tips a dome-shaped container over his ice tea and empties a hive worth of golden honey into his beverage.

When he kissed me on Friday, he didn’t taste sweet. I sweep my tongue over my bottom lip. He tasted like beer and fried food.

Michael rumbles happily and leans back in his chair, the metal legs creaking a protest. He sips on his ice tea as the ladies chat.

I watch him covertly.

I see the way he takes care of his mother, adding the artificial sweetener to her drink, unwrapping the tissue paper around the bright red leather purse she’s purchased, retrieving the phone she drops.

I notice how she leans into him, how she gazes proudly at him when he isn’t looking, how she smiles at his jokes.

Michael’s mother loves him and he loves her. I drift closer to their table, secure in my invisibility, not as secure about my self-worth. I loved my mother and that love hadn’t been enough for her. After my father went to prison, she skipped town and never looked back, leaving her fourteen-year-old daughter to fend for herself. I did fend for myself because, as Blaine tells me, I’m strong, stronger than both of my parents.

Right now I don’t feel strong. I’m envious and lonely and needy. The cat woman looks up from her heavily sweetened pomegranate ice tea and meets my gaze. Her face contorts, her eyes appearing sympathetic, almost pitying.

I pivot on my heels and hurry out the door before she brings my presence to Michael’s attention. I might not know what else I want, from him or Blaine or anyone else. I do know I don’t want to be pitied.

About the Author

CYNTHIA SAX lives in a world filled with magic and romance. Although her heroes may not always say “I love you,” they will do anything for the women they adore. They live passionately. They play hard. They love the same women forever.

Cynthia has loved the same wonderful man forever. Her supportive hubby offers himself up to the joys and pains of research while they travel the world together, meeting fascinating people and finding inspiration in exotic places such as Istanbul, Bali, and Chicago.

Please visit her on the web at www.CynthiaSax.com.

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Also by Cynthia Sax

He Touches Me

He Claims Me

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Excerpt from
He Touches Me
copyright © 2013 by Cynthia Sax.

HE WATCHES ME
. Copyright © 2013 by Cynthia Sax. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

EPub Edition JULY 2013 ISBN: 9780062300300

Print Edition ISBN: 9780062300317

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