Was he answering my unspoken question? If he could read my mind, he’d know I was a naughty librarian with an ache between my legs ready and willing for him to ease it. Just once, then I’d go back to my vibrator Slave. Just once, then I’d forget all about the niggles in the back of my head that reminded me he wasn’t even old enough to legally drink.
The doorbell rang, and the sexual spell broke.
“Pizza,” I announced, because apparently I liked to state the obvious when I was turned on enough to implode.
He dug in his back pocket, his gaze glued to the wooden flooring on the way to the front door.
Good God, what just happened? Hadalmosthappened? I swept the hair off my heated neck so I could cool myself enough to think. I was in D.C. for one reason and one reason only—my dream library internship. The letter detailing my duties didn’t mention fornicating with my childhood friend’s younger brother. Pretty sure I’d remember if it had. I couldn’t allow him to ruin my focus of turning this internship into my dream job. I couldn’t allow him to seduce me to sleep with him, because despite what my hormones said, I was more than some random conquest. Unlike him, I respected myself too much to sleep around. I had Slave, which was more than enough to get me off every time. And who knows? Maybe Sam sucked in bed.
But holy hell, I sure doubted it.
We ate in silence during the next zombie episode, the awkwardness between us like a thick rope pulled tight. But the tension gradually eased when the smell of gooey cheese faded and Sam picked up my book again. He read while I watched body fluids squirt from orifices they had no business squirting from. I kept my feet on the floor, away from his toe-warming jeans, but I stole glances at him every once in a while just to see him turning the pages. Watching him read was almost as hot as the power of his gaze.
While the credits rolled on the second episode, I caught him looking at me, too, and not just at me, but through me, as if he could sense everything I kept hidden.
“I’m not sorry for stalking you at the library yesterday,” he blurted.
“Really?” I narrowed my eyes. Some of our conversation topics caused me whiplash with the speed in which he jumped into them.
“But I should have told you who I was,” he said.
“Yeah, that would’ve been really nice before you cornered me against the bookshelf.”
A slight smile turned up those lips. “I didn’t hear a lot of complaining.”
I glanced away, shaking my head at the couch cushion instead of him because it wouldn’t judge me. That whole thing in the library had been a moment of weakness, and unless you counted entire large bags of peanut M&M’s, I didn’t have very many of those. With my dream internship beginning tomorrow, I vowed to behave myself. I needed to consider my life goals, attempt to make Mom and Dad proud for once, and Sam... Well, there just wasn’t room on the agenda for a broken heart. Because honestly, what else could a guy like him give me that I couldn’t give myself?
He closed the book on the phone bill and posted his elbows on his knees, and something in that pose conveyed that things were about to get philosophical. “I think you liked the whole stranger-danger thing, though. Or maybe it was the verypubliclibrary.”
“Okay, well I wish I could say it’s been entertaining,” I said, dipping my head so my hair fell in my face. “But it’s past my bedtime.”
“It’s two o’clock in the afternoon.”
“Yeah, well...yeah.” For someone who had never earned anything below a 4.0 grade point average, I was exceptionally fluent in awkward nonsense.
He looked at me with his whole face grinning, and I had to get out of there quick or he would engage me in a frank discussion about things I didn’t want to talk about. Not today. Not in my lifetime.
I pushed to my feet, ready to leave him for the safety of my bedroom, when the doorbell rang again.
“More pizza?” I asked.
Sam shook his head, that same amused glint in his expression lighting the room brighter than it already was. He should really have a warning label attached to him.
“Saved by the ding-dong,” I breathed and stepped toward the front door.
Outside, a delivery woman shoved a heavy basket of fruit wrapped in red crinkly plastic into my arms. “Sign here,” she ordered, and because I had no more arms left, I took the pen she handed me and blindly scrawled my name somewhere behind the basket.
“Have a very fruity day,” she said, and by her sarcastic tone, I wasn’t convinced I would.
“Thanks. You too,” I called after her.
After juggling the basket inside and to the kitchen, I found a card taped under a white bow.
Paige,
I heard you were back in the city.
Talk soon.
