The air in the car should have cooled without the heater running, but little sparking shocks of electric heat crackled between them. “Want to come inside and find out?”
In answer, he opened his door. She left her laptop bag on the floorboard but brought her purse, then went on to unlock the front door with all the casualness she could muster. He stood close enough for her to feel the heat radiating from his body, but not improperly close, and that distance made her heart pound.
Once inside, she snagged a stack of encyclopedias waiting to be reshelved, then led him to the staircase spiraling up to the reference section and unhooked the dusty velvet rope holding the brass Staff Only sign. He followed her up the tight spiral, then into the darkest corner of the building.
“Very librarian,” he said, looking around, but his voice had dropped a register.
“Very practical,” she replied. “My office windows overlook the parking lot, and the rooms in the basement lack ambiance.”
She turned her back on him and set the books on a low shelf and turned on one of the desk lamps illuminating a section of shelving. Without turning around, she turned the books spine out and examined the labels. Behind her Lucas stood quietly. She thought about her skirt and cashmere cardigan over a silk blouse. She even wore a strand of pearls and her brown suede heels. Moving very slowly, she selected the first two books from the stack and turned to shelve them.
Lucas was right behind her. She hadn’t heard him move, not a rustle of denim over the beating of her heart. He leaned his body weight against hers and swept aside her chin-length hair. It slithered back, obscuring the kiss he pressed into the skin between her collar and hairline.
“Damn,” he growled.
She gave a hiccupping little laugh that cut off abruptly when he repeated the motion. This time he gathered the strands into his fist, then used the pressure to tip her head forward.
Oh. Oh oh oh. The pressure of his knuckles against her skull was an erotic contrast to the teasing, testing brush of his lips against her nape. Hard against hard, soft against soft, the primitive possession of his fist in her hair. His mouth worked over the sensitive patch on her nape, first hot and gentle, then with a scrape of his teeth.
Her hands trembled as she slid one book, then the second, into their proper places, and if she took a minute to double-, then triple-check to be sure they were correctly shelved, well, she was a conscientious librarian.
Lucas turned his head and set his teeth into her nape. She gripped the shelf until her knuckles turned white while sparks skittered along her nerves. Her jaw slackened and a very faint moan sounded in her throat.
“I should . . .” she said weakly.
“You definitely should,” he replied.
The laugh edging its way up her throat belonged to another woman. “There are more books to put away. . . .”
With one last hot kiss to her nape he stepped away enough for her to pick up the smaller stack, double-check the spines, then walk to the next row. Lucas leaned against the end of the shelf, watching her.
This time he touched her first, reaching out to trail his fingertips down the length of her arm. “Soft,” he said quietly.
She hummed her agreement, then tucked her hair behind her ear.
He stroked the collar of her silk blouse with the back of his index finger. “Warm and soft.”
The nerves in her throat tingled a proximity warning. When she nodded, her hair slid free from her ear, against her cheek. She slid the last book into place, then startled when his index finger rose to push the hair back from her cheek.
“Hot and soft,” he said as he tucked the strands behind her ear again.
Heat flared stronger in her face. “I can’t help it around you,” she confessed.
“I can’t tell you how hot that makes me,” he said.
His finger followed the curve of her jaw to her chin, then tipped her face up to his. For a long moment, his mouth hovered over hers, parted lips to parted lips, nothing more than breath shared before he increased the pressure. The noise she made when his tongue slipped between her lips to slide against hers was positively decadent.
When they broke apart, she was gripping the edges of his shirt in her fists. Without breaking eye contact, he brushed his fingertips against her collarbone, then set his fingers to the buttons of both shirt and sweater.
“Pearls,” he said, eyeing her necklace nestled at the base of her throat.
“Cliché,” she replied.
A low, rough laugh that cut off abruptly when he saw her lacy bra.
“Skin oil is good for them,” she said as he kissed and licked his way down her throat. “I wear them often. They were—oh—my grandmother’s . . . oh.”
He wrapped his arm around her hips and bumped her back against the shelves.
“No!” she gasped. “They’re not secured—!”