two
Charlie
I'mreorganizingtheromancesection for the third time this morning because I absolutely cannot stop thinking about Marshall Le Croix.
He's nothing like the men in my books. They're all polished billionaires in thousand-dollar suits or rakish dukes with perfect hair and impeccable manners. Marshall looks like he could build an entire house with his bare hands and then kill someone with the leftover lumber if they pissed him off badly enough. He's got scars on his knuckles and eyes that see far too much, and when he used that commanding voice yesterday, something inside me just melted.
"Alphabetical, Charlotte," I mutter to myself, shoving "Bound by the Bratva" back where it belongs between "Boss" and "Breaking.”. “You have a master's degree in library science."
I moved to Darkmore three months ago to escape Dylan - my ex who liked to make me feel small in all the wrong ways. He controlled what I ate, who I talked to, how I dressed, when Icould see my family, what books I was allowed to read. Nothing was ever good enough. I was never good enough. The library here is my sanctuary, my safe space. Mrs. Henderson retired and they desperately needed an assistant librarian. Perfect timing. Perfect escape.
And I've been carefully curating what I call the "special collection", aka spicy romances for the more adventurous readers. I keep them in the back room, far away from the regular romance section where our more conservative patrons might stumble across them and have an actual heart attack.
Which is where I am when Marshall Le Croix walks in at exactly 7 PM.
"You're here," I say, and immediately want to kick myself for how stupid that sounds.
"Said I would be." He's wearing dark jeans and a flannel shirt that makes him look like a sexy lumberjack. He looks around the back room with those observant eyes of his, taking in my carefully organized shelves. "This your secret stash?"
"It's not secret! It's just... curated. For specific patrons who appreciate the genre and request more explicit content."
He pulls out a book at random, reading the spine slowly. "Training His Baby Girl." His eyebrow raises in a way that makes my stomach flip. "Very specific genre indeed."
"That's actually quite popular! The power dynamics are very well written and the character development is actually quite nuanced for the genre and the author does an excellent job of—"
"You've read it." It's not a question. It's a statement of fact.
My face burns hot enough to set off the fire alarm. "I have to know the collection. It's part of my job."
"Which one's your favorite?"
The question hangs between us like a live wire, dangerous and crackling with electricity. I can't answer. Can't tell this intimidating mountain man that I lie in bed at night readingabout rules and structure and dominance, touching myself while imagining someone calling me "good girl" and meaning it.
"We should start our book club," I say instead, my voice coming out higher and squeakier than normal. I hold up our matched books like shields between us. "You got 'Her Daddy's Rules' and I got..." I unwrap mine with trembling fingers. Oh god. Oh no. "Her Mountain Daddy.”
"Read it to me."
"Excuse me?"
"Book club. That's what we're doing, right? Read it out loud so we can discuss it."
My hands shake as I open to a random page, praying it's not a sex scene. Of course it's a sex scene. Of course it is. The universe hates me.
"'You're mine, little bunny,'" I read in my professional librarian voice, the one I use for children's story time. "'Daddy's going to take such good care of you. Daddy's going to make you feel so good.' His hands slid down her body, rough and possessive and—" I stop abruptly. "I can't read this out loud! This is completely inappropriate!"
"Why not? You've clearly read worse. That whole shelf over there is daddy kink and power exchange."
"How do you possibly know that?"
"I can read, Charlie. Half the titles have 'Daddy' in them, and the other half have words like 'Master' and 'Sir' and 'Claimed.' Doesn't take a genius to figure out the theme."
He's moved closer now, crowding me against the shelf without actually touching me. Not threatening, just overwhelming. Present. Taking up all the air in the room and making it hard to breathe, hard to think.
"Is that what you like?" he asks quietly, his voice dropping an octave into something rough and intimate. "Someone to setrules? Take control? Make all the hard decisions so you don't have to?"
"It's just fiction, it doesn't mean anything."
"Charlie." That voice again, the one that makes my knees weak and my brain short-circuit. "Tell me the truth."
