Fan the Flames (5 page)

With all of those thoughts running around in his head, how could he put a plan together to get Ja’Nael looking in his direction in the way he wanted her? He was at his best when life was exciting and spontaneous with plenty of thrills mixed with the dangerous need to seek out more.

Chapter Eight

Lying in his bed, Brody tapped his long fingers against his abs, wondering why he wanted Ja’Nael to accept a date with him so badly. He hadn’t laid eyes on the curvy beauty in years, but she still had the ability to capture his attention as she did so long ago.

When he had first seen her, she had been a shy, withdrawn eighteen-year-old girl, trying to stay strong against his brother’s verbal insults. Over the years things had changed, and she had grown into this strong, self-confident woman who wasn’t falling for any of his flirting techniques. Women in the past had given him their numbers with him only giving them a smile or wink. Yet, Ja’Nael blew them off as if they meant nothing to her, which spurred him on even more. He wanted her.

He wanted her to smile at him as if she was interested in what he had to tell her. He craved the freedom to kiss her and run his hands over her perfect ass anytime he thought about it. Something about the way she looked at him with those big, brown eyes of hers made him fall for her even more. He wasn’t use to being the one doing the chasing. It was a different and new feeling for him, and he couldn’t think about anything else most of the time but making
her
his woman.

He wasn’t the only one being drawn in by Ja’Nael’s aura. Reid fell under her spell as well, and he wasn’t known to open up to strangers as fast as he had done with her.
S
urprisingly
, Ja’Nael found a way to win him over.

Tonight, instead of getting a second book read to him, Reid wanted to tell him about everything he had done at preschool and how he loved going outside for recess. He fell to sleep with Ms. Haughton’s praises still echoing inside his bedroom.

Brody couldn’t help but wonder if Ja’Nael would ever give him the time of day. He could be wasting his energy on her for naught, but he knew she was hiding how he affected her. He noticed at the pharmacy earlier how her eyes lingered a little too long on his body. Yeah, she felt it! Yet, it was obvious she wasn’t about to make the first move. She might not take his flirting seriously, so he had to prove to her that he wasn’t kidding.

Glancing over to his side, he looked at the phone number for Ja’Nael he had taken off the contact list he found in Reid’s backpack. For the past forty-five minutes he’d wrestled with calling her and giving it another try to see if she would be interested in going out on a date.

Hell, he could even take an offer of only having coffee. At least that would be the first step in the right direction. He couldn’t believe how much she captivated him. There was just something about the way she walked with this confidence that drew his eyes to her every single time. He never had a stomach for insecure or needy women on his arm. Even his uniform wasn’t a factor to get her to agree to something more than parent and teacher with him.

Half the females in Market were turned on by the mere sight of him in his uniform and went out of their way to flirt. Her ability not to see him as a good-looking guy wearing a uniform made his interest in her spike. He craved to strip away the distant front she gave him today. He could tell there was more to her than she presented to him.

For the few minutes Ja’Nael took to address him instead of Reid, he found the conversation funny and very stimulating. Most of his buddies at the station loved a good body mixed with a pretty face, but he needed something more going on upstairs, and Ja’Nael owned that qualification hands down.

Good conversation was what stimulated him to keep pursing a woman now that he had gotten a few years older, so Ms. Haughton better watch out!

Stop thinking about it so much and call her. Do it now before it gets too damn late!

Brody reached for the phone and dialed the numbers that he had already rememorized. He waited while the phone rang. One…two...three times...

“Hello,” Ja’Nael answered in her smooth, sexy voice.

“Ja’Nael,” Brody said, sitting up on the bed and fixing the sheet across his waist as his cock jumped at the sound.

“Yes, who is this?’ she asked hesitantly.

“I’m sorry. It’s Brody Wagner.”
Great! Scare the shit out of her before you can out her out on a date.

“Mr. Wagner, is everything okay? Is there something wrong with Reid?”

“No, Reid is fine. He’s asleep. He couldn’t stop talking about how much fun he had at preschool with you. I think he’s more excited about seeing you tomorrow than going to the park afterwards.”

“I’m pleased he had such a good time. I was concerned at first that he might not move way from the window, but he did. I think he liked talking to Mason since they both like Superman.”

Enough about Reid. He had to get this conversation back on him or this phone call would have been for nothing
.

“I have to be honest about the reason I called you. It didn’t have anything to do with Reid,” he confessed. “I’m calling to see if I can talk you into going out on a date with me.”

Brody heard Ja’Nael sigh in his ear and got the feeling he wasn’t going to get the answer he wanted.

“Mr. Wagner, I don’t think going out on a date with you is a good idea at all. I’m Reid’s teacher, and those lines shouldn’t be crossed. You shouldn’t call me anymore unless it has something to do with your nephew. Have a good night, and I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said, hanging up before he could stop her.

“Fuck,” he cursed under his breath. He tossed the phone down next to him on the bed then ran his hand down his face. He couldn’t believe she turned him down. Damn it! Ja’Nael didn’t even think about his dinner invitation for a second before blowing it off.

However, he wasn’t bothered by her lack of enthusiasm in going out with him because the chase was on. He didn’t get dejected easily, and rejection had never been a word in his vocabulary.

Just talking to her for those few minutes made him feel exhilarated and it wasn’t a feeling he experienced that often unless he was fighting fires. To get that from just a short conversation with a woman wasn’t something he was going to ignore. She might be a little feistier than the females he was used to dealing with. It just went to show, Ja’Nael was the spicy he had been missing in his dull, boring routine of a life.

Smiling to himself, Brody picked up the phone and laid it on the nightstand. As he was reaching to turn off his light, he heard his bedroom door opening and a second later, Reid’s tiny head peeked around the door before he came into the room. He was holding his favorite stuffed owl and rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand.

“Uncle Brody, I had a bad dream,” he said. “Can I sleep with you?”

Reid had gotten pretty good at sleeping through the night by himself in the last six months, so something must have triggered the nightmare. Brody knew not to ask him about it tonight or neither one of them would get any sleep.

“Sure, you can,” he answered, waving his nephew toward him. “Come on and climb in.”

Running across the room in his footie Superman pajamas, Reid crawled in bed next to him and snuggled underneath the cover. Brody watched as he got comfortable before he finally turned off the lights and slid down on the mattress.

He couldn’t afford to stay up any longer since he had to get up at five o’clock to get Reid ready for preschool. Besides, why would he be upset by the thought of seeing a gorgeous woman five days a week? Ja’Nael knew she had another admirer besides his nephew because he just called her and asked her out on a date. So, he had to do something big to make Ja’Nael see him as more than Reid’s uncle and Timothy’s brother.

Chapter Nine

Walking around her classroom the next morning, Ja’Nael opened the windows with one hand while holding her cell phone against her ear with the other one. Kelcie had called her about ten minutes ago, getting on her for not signing up for the dating website. She wouldn’t be able to get her off the phone until she gave her the truth.

Her best friend could tell just from the tone of her voice that she was lying to her. It was a very freaky trait to have.

“I told you yesterday that I wasn’t sure if I was going to sign up for that thing or not. I mean, how would it look? I just got this new job and I started searching for available men on the internet?”

“Come on, plenty of people do it. I checked the site last night, looking for you, and came across five teachers who worked there and one of them was a man. So there,” Kelcie tossed back. “You aren’t going back to that little back-woods town and fall into your old ways. I won’t allow it.”

Before she could say a word, Kelcie went on. “Ja’Nael, you told me enough about your past that it didn’t take me long to figure it out. Live a little. Try to see things my way for once. You can’t stay single forever and make your world about teaching. You need a life outside of those four walls.”

Moving away from the windows, she walked across the room to her desk and opened the drawer to pull out her class list and placed it on top. “I do have a life. I may not be as outgoing as you, but I’m not lonely.”

“Stop lying to me. You need a hot guy to date, or at least get lost in for a few weeks. I’m not taking about marriage here, but what’s wrong with dating for fun?”

“Nothing is wrong with dating for only a good time, but I don’t want to find him on a www.SingleTeachers.com dating website either. So, why would I waste my time doing something so out of my character?”

“God, you don’t have to put your entire life story along with a picture,” Kelcie sighed in her ear. “All you have to do it just use your name and hometown. I mean, give the guy something to work with.”

“Girl, you know how I feel about putting stuff on the internet. I can’t agree to use my name. It’s just sounds so dangerous. I might get a crazy person.”

“Ja’Nael, live a little and do one thing out of character. If you don’t like what happens after a week or two then close your account down, but at least try. What will it hurt?”

“All right, I think about using my real name but I won’t post a picture no matter how many times you might ask me,” she said.

* * * * *

Pressing his back against the cool wall outside of Ja’Nael’s classroom, Brody couldn’t keep the anger from rushing through his entire body. He must have misunderstood what Ja’Nael just told the person on the phone. How could she be thinking about going on a dating website when he was right here in front of her? He didn’t like the thought of her blowing him off for no good reason, but she would embrace spending time with a stranger.

Well, he wasn’t going to let another man move in on the first woman he had been interested in since Reid was born. No, he would find a way to block any other man from being his competition when it came to getting Ja’Nael’s undivided attention. He
wanted
her, and he wasn’t a man to ever back away once he set his sights on something.

She possessed the most perfect body he had ever laid eyes on. The mere suggestion that another man might get to touch her didn’t sit well with him. He would keep checking the stupid website to figure out which profile was hers because he
doubted
Ja’Nael would be outgoing enough to upload a picture of herself. He smiled, thinking of a way of getting a chance at Ja’Nael.

“Uncle Brody, what are you smiling about?”

Brody glanced down and spotted Reid standing directly in front of him. He had left him outside with Mason and his father, so he could play on the playground for a few minutes. He wasn’t about to pull him away from his growing friendship with the other little boy.

“How did you get here? Where’s Mason and his father?” he demanded.

“I wanted to come inside, so Mr. Dexter brought me to the door and watched while I ran down the hallway to you. I had a lot of fun on the swings. Have you seen Ms. Haughton? Did you give her my present? Did she like it?”

“Take a breath and calm down,” he said on a laugh. “I haven’t spoken to your teacher yet. I was waiting for you so you could do it.”

“Really?”

He loved how his nephew’s face lit up with excitement before he raced into the classroom. “Hi, Ms. Haughton,” Reid said.

“Good morning, Reid,” Brody heard Ja’Nael reply before he pushed his body away form the wall and sauntered into the room.

A sexy pair of brown eyes watched him as he walked closer to her. If Ja’Nael thought he was going to flirt with her like he had done in the past, she was in for a big surprise today, because he was going to play it cool and calm until he made his move.

“Nice to see you again, Mr. Wagner,” she said, watching him closely.

“You too, Ms. Haughton.”

Brody desperately tried not to notice how the red dress hugged all of her curves, making her body stand out even more. It was a very modest dress; she wasn’t showing any skin, yet its simplicity made him want to unwrap her like a present on Christmas morning.

Walking past her, he went over to the hook with Reid’s name on it and hung the backpack up along with his jacket. He slowly pivoted to find her still watching him. He could tell she was waiting for him to bring up their late-night phone conversation, but he wouldn’t do it. Not when he had bigger and better things planned for her.

“Did Reid tell you that he had a surprise for you?” Brody asked, closing the distance between them.

“Yes, he did. He wants to show it to me after you leave.”

“Well, I better get out of here.” Bending down, he gave Reid a huge hug. “I don’t have to tell you to be good, do I?”

Reid shook his head. “I will. I’m going to have a lot of fun because Mason and I are going to sit next to each during lunch.”

“That’s great, buddy,” Brody said then stood back up. He gave Ja’Nael one final look before spinning on his heel and walking out of the room. He didn’t have to look back at her because he felt her gaze on him the entire time.