The Corruption of Mila by J.F. Jenkins Page B

was cute; I'd give her that, but maybe a little too cute. Where was the sexy fire? I shook my head and quickly typed in a response.
    'He's not my type. Pretty sure I'll burn up if I touch him. Too pure for my tainted soul.'
    Her comeback was immediate. 'Wouldn't hurt for you to try dating a good guy for a change.'
    I rolled my eyes and flipped my token to the green side, ready to eat, suffer through the awkward conversation, and then get back home to my hole-in-the-wall apartment. Jax turned his token over as well and we were bombarded by servers carrying meat from just about every animal on the planet, potatoes, and fried plantains. Yum! I filled up my plate and then sent them away. Being able to boss the servers around as I wanted definitely gave me a diva complex.
    “So you know Morgan through church,” I said in-between bites. “What else do you do besides work and church?”
    “Hike,” he said in-between bites of potatoes. He smiled too. “I'm big into the outdoors and nature. Electronics also interest me. I have a lab back home where I build robots and gadgets, that kind of thing.”
    “Which explains why you work at Gizmo Help.” Yeah, I was definitely right about the nerd thing. I could have killed Morgan for doing this to me. The things me and this guy had in common were probably limited to we both breathed air and converted it into carbon dioxide.
    He shook his head and took a bite. After he swallowed, he glanced my way, and then down at the table. He rubbed his hands on his pants, and I knew then that I intimidated him. Either that or something was making him a lot more nervous than he needed to be.
    “I don't work for the customer service department.”
    “And what do you do for them?”
    “Product development, advertising, PR, kind of a little bit of everything.” He shrugged.
    I blinked. “You do all of that?”
    “Yes.” He nodded rather slowly, and he refused to look at me.
    “You must be pretty well thought of there,” I said and went back to eating.
    He nodded again. “Yes, you could say that.”
    “No wonder you were able to get Morgan a job.”
    “It was the least I could do with how much she's helped me.”
    Awkward silence smothered us for at least five minutes. I caught some good gossip at the table next to mine from a group of ladies, and even though I wasn't hungry, I flipped my token over just to have the bustle of servers around me again. To say I was desperate to fill the gap in conversation was an understatement.
    Jax continued to eat, his brow furrowed slightly. I could tell he wasn't exactly enjoying the night either. “Do you want dessert?”
    “No, thanks,” I said. “It was nice to meet you, Jax, but I think it's safe to say the night has come to an end.”
    His blue eyes met the gaze of my dark ones. “Morgan told me I probably wouldn't fit your usual type, but she said that was a good thing. My social skills are a bit strange. Given the nature of my job, I make a good deal of speeches and I'm great with schmoozing, but I didn't want to schmooze you. Morgan said you'd be a great person to be myself and let loose with.”
    Not quite the info dump I was expecting, at all. He finally said something that was interesting at least. I leaned forward and forked a piece of spicy sausage. “So you're one of those guarded types.”
    “I kind of have to be, for obvious reasons.”
    “What obvious reasons are those? Your robot collection? It's different, unique, dorky even, but you confessed it pretty openly.”
    He shook his head. “You don't know.” He laughed. “Wow.” And his entire body relaxed. The tight, stiff, posture shifted to a slight slouch, and he had the tiniest of smiles on his face. That smile was sexy, but he also had a secret to keep me entertained with. Maybe Jax wasn't a boring doorknob after all.
    “I don't know,” I said. “But you've got my interest piqued, that's for sure.”
    He laughed, and it was a nice, genuine sound. It wasn't the awkward