“I’ll do that,” she lied glibly.
Shaking my head, I pulled out my phone.
Me: Did you send me a case of sports drinks or do I have a stalker who’s concerned with my hydration?
Lucian: I thought it would be more appropriate than flowers and candy seeing as how I’m only using you for your body.
Me: You better be stretched and warmed up for go time. I’m not slowing down if you pull a hamstring.
The author event was a rousing success. Or “arousing” success, which was absolutely the pun I was going to make in the library newsletter for the week. The readers were excited, the author sold out of all the books she brought, and we ran out of wine before anyone got too tipsy.
“Go on home, Sloane. You’ve been here since opening. We’ll handle the clean up,” Blaze offered. As board members, she and her wife, Agatha, spent almost as much time here as the employees.
“Are you sure? I don’t mind.” I had another hour before Lucian would arrive to delight me with his penis.
“Positive. I’m sure you’ve got a handsome someone waiting for you.”
She was fishing for information, and I wasn’t biting. “What about you and Agatha?”
“We had our celebratory Valentine’s brunch this morning, then changed the oil in the bikes.”
“And they say romance is dead.”
“Go on. Get out of here. We’ll lock up,” she said, shooing me away.
“If you’re sure. I’ll just run up and get my stuff.”
I’d have time for a quick shower and another run at my legs with the razor before Lucian showed up. I could also spend some time overthinking the lingerie I’d picked out.
I was so deep in my head that I was halfway into my office before I realized there was someone sitting behind my desk.
“Cheese and crackers!”
Lucian Rollins, in disguise in a ball cap and a black hoodie, looked perfectly relaxed sitting behind my desk reading a book.
He raised an eyebrow at me. “Exactly what kind of defense is that?”
I looked down and realized I was holding my hands up in a cartoonish Karate Kid posture.
“What are you doing here? If someone sees you, the entire town is going to know that we’re doing the horizontal mambo before we even get started! I’ve already had to deal with a Knockemout inquisition for the past week with everyone and their brother asking me who I’m sleeping with,” I hissed.
“I got bored waiting. I thought this might speed things along.”
From any other man, it would be a compliment, a statement about how much he missed me. But Lucian Rollins was accustomed to getting what he wanted when he wanted it. And he was using me for sex. Lucky for him I wasn’t about to take the time required to teach him a lesson in delayed gratification, because I was also using him for sex.
“Blaze and Agatha are locking up. So we can leave as long as you stick to lurking in the shadows, because I do not want to deal with questions about whatever depraved thing this is between us,” I explained.
“Get your things,” he said, rising from my chair. He closed my copy of The Midnight Library. I noticed my bookmark was still in place…and he was several chapters beyond it.
“Are you actually reading that?” I asked.
“I do know how to read, Sloane,” he said dryly. The amused yet dismissive way his voice caressed my name made me want to smack him in the face with the book. Conversely, it also made me want to take his pants off and use his cock until I couldn’t walk.
I was still debating between the options when he rounded my desk, fisted a hand in my sweater, pulled me to my toes, and kissed the ever-living hell out of me.
There was nothing romantic or sweet about the way his tongue invaded my mouth. The way it conquered me, forcing me to follow its lead. My nipples budded, and my sex actually trembled. I lost the ability to breathe.
It was a kiss filled with carnal promises that I couldn’t wait for him to fulfill.
He released me just as suddenly. “Let’s go.”
“Yeah. Let’s do that.”
It took us twenty minutes to make it to the parking lot. There were far too many patrons still lurking behind after the event. After I was stopped for the fourth time on the first floor, Lucian managed to slip behind the circulation desk and duck out the side door without being spotted. “Sorry,” I said when I found him leaning against my Jeep.
“You’re inconveniently popular,” he said.
“Where’s your car?” I asked.
“I had my driver drop me off.”
I reached around him to unlock the passenger door. “That’s awfully cocky of you to assume my blind hatred of you didn’t overtake my need for you naked.”
“I liked my odds.” With that, he took the keys from my hand, opened the door, and tossed my tote inside. “I’m driving.”
He had to push the seat the whole way back to accommodate his long legs, but he still managed to look comfortable, confident as he drove us back to my place. He asked me about the event and the author, and I did my best to answer, even though every sense seemed to be preoccupied with him. That full-body tingly awareness was even worse now that I knew what his body was capable of doing to mine. It felt like an electrical current charging my blood.
He pulled into my driveway, and I leaned over to punch the garage door opener. When we were officially alone and the door slid shut behind us, we exploded.
I released my seat belt half a second before he hooked me under the arms and dragged me over the console. I landed in his lap.
One inferno of a kiss and some dry humping later, he pulled back. “Go pack.”
“What? Why?”
“We’re not staying here.”
I thought of the can of whipped cream in my refrigerator. The two new lingerie sets I’d bought. “Why the hell not?”
“Because if we stay here, someone is going to knock on your door or look through your windows or see me naked when they deliver dinner. You have off tomorrow. We’re going to my place, where my neighbors know enough to mind their own business.”
“Your place?” There were six million things that could and would go wrong with that. First, I couldn’t kick him out of his own place when he inevitably pissed me off.
He didn’t answer me. At least not with words. Instead he yanked the neckline of my sweater down and buried his face between my breasts.
“A very convincing argument. I’ll pack.”
28
Put It on My Tombstone
Lucian
Ihate to admit it, but your place doesn’t suck,” Sloane mused over her pad thai.
We’d paused our sex marathon to refuel by eating Thai food naked in bed while watching Brooklyn Nine-Nine reruns. It was the most rom-com thing I’d ever done in my life.
I leaned over and stole some of her noodles. “I’m glad you approve.”
She was naked except for her glasses. She’d piled her hair on top of her head with a few efficient twists of her wrists and a flimsy elastic tie. With my thousand-thread-count Italian sheets draped over her, she looked both adorable and sexy.
The women I dated—or more accurately took to bed—didn’t do adorable. They were well-dressed, well-coiffed, and never seen in public in gym clothes. Sloane, on the other hand, had unironically packed pajamas with hearts. I couldn’t wait to see her in them…and strip them off her.
She twirled her chopsticks in a circle to encompass my bedroom. “It doesn’t feel like the lair of an evil villain. It’s more like the bachelor pad of a hot wealthy guy with no personality.”
The sly look she shot me did her in. We’d both gotten less insulting in the heat of the moment, which meant we had serious ground to make up when my cock wasn’t inside her, making her scream my name.
I dumped the food cartons on the nightstand and snagged her by the ankle when she tried to escape.
“You’ll pay for that.”
I anchored her knee between mine, tightened my grip on her ankle, and tickled the bottom of her foot.
Sloane shrieked and tried to wriggle free.