Free Finely Disciplined Thoughts by Ashlynn Kenzie Page B

least.
    He passed on then. To engage others, for all I knew.
    Sky miles later, he returned with my favorite drink in hand, unbidden. And he said a curious thing: He identified me with the town where I live.
    Now, it is a small place. This was, then, no random conversational point that happened to include a well-known geographical location. This was, surely, no casual reference guilessly uttered to enhance polite conversation.
    This was a signal. He had gone a step beyond and he was publishing the fact.
    I was first surprised, then intrigued, and then set off-balance.
    Did he anticipate a reaction? And, if so, what did he hope it might be?
    Suddenly I was reduced to an emotional age much younger than my parents could have biologically credited.
    I offer this information not so much because it has overwhelming relevance to my story — although I recognize it was not wasted in setting the scene — but, rather, as a second explanation for the fact I was still breathing normally.
    For, once again, my attention had simply been diverted.
    Others whose job was to see to my comfort came and went, politely and without connection, throughout the flight.
    And then it was he who was moving toward me once more, at long last — a simple drinks cart, stacked high, obscuring most of my view as I tried in vain to search his face and read his expectations, so that I might fulfill them precisely as a good girl should.
    Aware that he might glance my way and take note of my confusion and its resulting tension, I lowered my gaze hurriedly to the book whose theme I could no longer recall.
    And suddenly he was beside me in the close confines of the cabin. Had I first turned my head and, then, leaned forward only inches beyond a hands-breadth, my face would have brushed against the fabric-draped, flesh-covered, boned ridge below his waist. As it was, when I had accomplished the first movement with grace, I began an upward sweep of my eyes instead.
    His face, of course, was my ultimate sighted destination. It would tell me, surely, if I should be silent. If I should be haughty. If I should be innocent. If I should be appalled. If I should be amused. If I should be engaged.
    The rich potential for communication died a quiet death, however.
    Because as I raised my gaze, my eyes, my brain, my heart and every nerve ending in my body took full notice of the inch-wide, supple, buttery-leather black belt riding masterfully just above the subtle male curve of his hip.
    And I literally could not breathe.
    Had he pushed the fully-laden cart far away, slowly unbuckled the strap, drawn it with full authority from the wide black loops, doubled it over with a firm plan in mind, kissed it down across my thighs and then ordered me — in measured tones — to rise and stand in the plane’s aisle and offer my bottom cheeks to its stinging embrace, I could not physically have breathed a word — either of protest or acquiescence.
    But he did none of those things.
    He placed a drink on my tray and silently moved on instead.
    And I never saw him again.
    Except in my mind.
    It is there that two images — blended — are a constant.
    One is of his belt that took my breath away. And does, even yet.
    But this is the revelation: the other is of his hand … and it is the truly enduring and powerful one.
    I cannot fully, or even adequately, describe his slender fingers or the firm palm or the finely-boned front feature by feature, line by line, curve by curve, skin tone by skin tone for you. But I can tell you this … although I cannot determine with precision the moment I knew it first: His hand was beautiful.
    And it is the beautiful hand, I know now in principle, which is essential to winning my highly disciplined heart. The hand that brands me must be a work of art.
    For discipline delivered by an ugly hand would be for me, quite simply, a very ugly thing indeed.
    

    

     

A Matter of Good Taste
     
    Chocolate. It melts so sweetly in my mouth. A warm, sweet, lazy