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Memories seemed to run through his mind. “I guess it’s the first book I ever read. I haven’t said no to a good story since. I never cared much for company; books were the only friends I ever needed.” His sweet grin returned and his words echoed in my mind. How strange that what he described was my life. Never surrounded by real friends but those that I collected from the pages of tattered paperbacks at the library. How I would hide, locking myself away from others so they wouldn't ask questions or scold me. I remember how characters and adventures became my pastime, how, while reading, I escaped to different worlds and left my sad existence behind.
    “I love it.” I traced his wrist with my finger. He was such a contradiction, so rough and then sweet. Edgy and intellectual. He was unlike anyone I’d ever met before. He drew me to him like a butterfly to brightly pigmented petals. I was helpless to his force.
    “I searched high and low for this edition. It was the same one I had as a kid. I didn’t realize it then, but this was a pretty pricey gift from Grandma.”
    “What happened to the one you had as a boy?”
    He shrugged, his eyes turning away. “Stuff gets lost with time.” He placed the book back on the shelf, then turned to me. I sensed something darker in his eyes, more that he wasn’t saying. “Let’s get to that training.” He winked and placed a palm at my back like a gentleman, guiding me down the stairs and leaving me feeling like I was walking on air. Did he make all the women he met feel this special? I hoped not. I wished selfishly that it was just me, but I knew it was too good to be true. He was too handsome, I was too chubby. Same old story. I just wished desperately that for once, life could throw me a twist. “We still use the Dewey system,” Maxwell informed me when we turned the corner into the dark library.
    His words pulled me back into reality where I needed money and this job to stay afloat on my own. I recalled the best I could how the Dewey decimal system worked as he scribbled a few numbers down on a sticky note and thrust it at me. “You’ve got two minutes to find this one.”
    My eyes widened for a moment before I accepted his challenge and headed off down the first row of books.
    “Gettin’ colder,” his amused voice called from behind me. I scrunched my nose and then took to reading the spines, heading in the opposite direction. I turned a corner and headed down another aisle before a whisper scared me out of my boots. “Hotter.” His breath sent shivers down the nape of my neck and I felt his chest pressing into my back. Jesus, how did he do that? One look, one word, and I was putty.
    I tilted my head, doing my best to ignore him and continue my finger-tracing across the spines as the numbers climbed.
    “Hotter.” His growl deepened and my knees nearly turned to jelly. I wanted to scream and batter on his giant chest. The incessant throbbing between my thighs was driving me insane. “Almost there,” he hummed and my clit burned and I thought he might actually be able to talk me to orgasm right there before his heavy hand landed on mine and stopped both our fingers on a dusty volume.
    “Madame Bovary?” I asked without thinking, only feeling him invading my space, my senses, my mind, and how much I loved it.
    “Not a fan of suicidal desperate housewives?” He chuckled and backed away again, leaving me reeling.
    I huffed in a breath, feeling arousal pulse through my veins and tighten the buds of my nipples under the soft cotton of my shirt. “I’m more of an Elizabeth and Darcy girl myself.”
    “Ah, a romantic. Of course you are. For a minute, I thought you might be a Sylvia Plath, but definitely an Austen. I see it now.” He pinched my chin between his thumb and forefinger before whirling away and stalking down the aisle. What the hell had just happened? “Opening time,” he called as I followed him. “We open promptly at nine, not a minute