We stood, gathering the empty containers. His hand brushed mine as we both reached for the same one, and a current ran through me at the contact.
The sales floor felt different when we returned. Quieter, maybe, or just more intimate with the storm howling outside and nothing but us and the twinkling Christmas lights and Vixen watching from her perch on the counter.
"Where were we?" I asked, checking the inventory list.
"Regular stock. Shelf D."
I nodded and moved toward the display, but my heel caught on the edge of the rug. I stumbled, and the box I'd been holding slipped from my hands. Condoms scattered across the floor—a whole variety pack, naturally.
"Oh my God." I dropped to my knees, scrambling to gather them. "I'm so sorry, I'm such a klutz—"
"Hey." Shep knelt beside me, his hand covering mine as we both reached for the same packet. "It's fine. Just condoms."
But when I looked up, his face was inches from mine. Close enough to see the flecks of gold in his dark eyes, the shadow of stubble along his jaw, the way his gaze dropped to my mouth.
"Flannery," he said, and my name had never sounded like that before. Low and rough and full of want.
"Yeah?"
"Would it be all right if I kissed you?"
My heart was going to break through my ribs. "Yeah," I whispered.
His hand came up to cup my face, thumb brushing my cheekbone. "Good."
The first touch of his lips was gentle, questioning. Like he was giving me room to pull back, to change my mind. But I didn't want to pull back. I wanted this—wanted him—with an intensity that shocked me.
I kissed him back, clumsy and inexperienced but trying. He made a sound low in his throat and deepened the kiss, his other hand sliding into my hair. His tongue traced the seam of my lips, and when I opened for him, the taste of him flooded my senses.
Nothing I'd read in all those romance novels had prepared me for this. The heat. The need. The way my whole body came alive under his touch.
When he finally pulled back, we were both breathing hard.
"Hypothetically speaking," he said, his voice rough, "what if someone—say, a lonely rancher with an adorable four-year-old whose favorite things are Story Time and horses—were to ask you out? What would you say to that?"
My brain had short-circuited somewhere around the moment his tongue touched mine, but I managed to process the question. He was asking me out. Shep was asking me out.
"I'd say yes," I whispered. Then, because apparently my brain-to-mouth filter had completely dissolved: "But you should know—I'm a virgin."
The words hung in the air between us.
Shep went very still. His eyes searched mine, and I watched surprise flicker across his features, followed by something darker, hotter.
"A virgin," he repeated slowly.
"I know it's weird. I'm twenty-six, I work in an adult boutique, I've read every steamy romance novel in existence, but I've never actually..." I was rambling now, my cheeks burning. "No one's ever made me feel safe enough. Wanted enough. I didn't want my first time to be with someone who saw me as a buddy or a pity date or the nerdy librarian who'd probably cry during sex—"
"Darlin'." He stopped my spiral with a finger against my lips. "Breathe."
I breathed.
"First of all," he said, "ain't nothing weird about it. Second, any man who treated you like a pity date was a damn fool." His thumb traced my bottom lip, and my breath caught. "And if you're worried about crying, I should tell you that making you cry—the right kind, from pleasure—is exactly what I want to do."
Oh.
Oh.
"I've thought about you for months," he continued, his voice dropping lower. "Watched you with those kids, seen how kind you are, how smart. How gorgeous. And finding out you work here, seeing you in this costume, knowing you're untouched?" His eyes locked on mine. "That doesn't make me want you less, Flannery. Makes me want you more."
