Teach Me To Live (Teach Me - Book One)
Read Teach Me To Live (Teach Me - Book One) Online
Authors: Alannah Carbonneau
Teach Me Series: Book 1
Teach Me To Live
Copyright 2015 © Alannah Carbonneau
All rights reserved including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual events, persons living or dead, or places is purely coincidental. This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Cover Art Created by Kari Ayasha with Cover to Cover Designs
Formatting: Integrity Formatting
This one is for you, Cindi. Always inspiring heart hugs. XO
Other Books by Alannah Carbonneau
Slamming my folder closed I stared for a moment at the grains of the table positioned along the wall of the signature coffee house. Within the pastel pink folder was the weight of my future. It was a future I felt no excitement for. A future I had little choice but to accept.
Feeling a desperation I had been trying to keep dormant under lock and key suddenly flare inside my chest, I swiped the folder from the table and darted across the coffee shop to the door. The door was my escape. If I could only get to the door . . .
My heart beat wildly in my chest. I swear I could feel my pulse knocking against my neck and breast. Its persistence was annoyingly painful; like horse hooves beating against a soft ground. Air caught in my lungs, snagging in my throat—and I just needed to get to the door! My vision blurred. My palms were clammy with sweat. As I reached out to grip the door, my hand slipped.
I stumbled and my folder fluttered to the tile floor. I felt like a tragedy on the big screen playing out in slow motion. Pathetic.
The weighted contents of my folder spilled from the pastel pink covering—exposing the source of my anxiety to a six-foot-two, dark blue jean and black t-shirt, tattooed hunk of a man. Just great. Just flipping great! This was exactly what I needed—to spill my terrible future and all the fears that went along with it, at this man’s feet. Just—
great!
My mouth opened as my lashes fluttered upward over the long length of dark blue jean legs, black t-shirted torso, and colorful tatted arms. Then my eyes slammed back down to cool against the not nearly as intimidating tile of the coffee house floor.
Oh, my goodness—my parent’s would send me to prison just for talking to this guy.
Frantically, I reached trembling fingers to grasp the loose paper from where it rested an inch away from his booted foot. My pulse was still pounding too hard, and too loud, in my chest. I watched a tanned hand with long fingers beat me to the pick-up. Holy Jeez! Even his hands had tattoos staining the skin. Swirls and designs I was too distracted to actually study traveled over the length of his strong fingers.
Strong fingers? What in the world was wrong with me?
Those
strong fingers
lifted the paper from my sight. Blood rushed behind my ears and my vision blurred around the edges. I grappled at the frayed edges of my groomed control.
My future. He has my future in his hands. What would he do if I told him he could keep it? Would he take it and run? Would he leave me to a moment, just a moment, of peace?
“The University of Alberta,” his voice was deep and melodic. There was a captivating edge to the warm rumble of his words. For a moment, I forgot my panic. The man soothed me. I know, me, Miss Prim and Proper, was soothed by a tattooed mass of a man. How irritatingly ironic. “You’re a smart girl.”
I frowned, unnerved by the sudden wave of comfort in this very uncomfortable situation. I didn’t have to think on it long, because as his words registered, so did my initial panic. Was he asking me if I was smart or presuming I was brainy because I had an application I completely intended, to at some point in the near future, sign away the next four to six years of my life?
God, it was like a prison sentence.
Slowly, my eyes lifted from the black leather of his boots to his dark blue jeans. They lingered there for only a moment on a thick black leather belt. A shiny obsidian oval belt buckle decorated the leather. In very small silver letters it read,
size matters.
I knew I should look away, but before I knew it, my eyes were trailing up a very defined torso. My head tipped back from where I remained on my knees on the hard tile, to look up into his face.
My heart stopped pounding altogether for about two-point-five seconds. And then it resumed at breakneck speed.
This man was—
wow.
And I do not use
wow
lightly.
His jaw was strong and square. Firm full lips that were currently quirked up in a half-cocked grin complimented him perfectly. He had cut cheekbones, a straight nose, and stunning deep blue eyes that were framed by the longest ebony lashes I had ever seen lining a mans eyes. Those deep blue eyes were glimmering with curiosity. And they were trained solely on me.
“Um,” I tried to recall his question or statement. “I suppose. C-can I please have my paper?”
He tipped his head to the side. His eyes peered right into my own and I felt, as silly as it was, that he was able to see right into the very center of my soul. “Do you actually want it?”
Holy crap balls of ice and fire!
He
could
see into my soul. I mean, he had to be looking straight into the sheltered, but jagged edges of the real me, to have asked such an expertly loaded question. And he was bang on the money too. Hell to the
no
I did not
actually
want that paper.
I wanted to tell him to burn the damn thing. Throw it off a bridge. Bury it in a deep grave. Or, better yet, tear it to shreds. I really didn’t care what happened to the paper, as long as I didn’t have to take it back. I didn’t want it.
But I didn’t say any of that. Speaking those words would have required a nice big set of lady balls this girl definitely does not have.