“Double stuffed!” Hannah giggle-snorts and claps a hand over her mouth.
Heat rushes to my cheeks. What can I say? I’ve got an unfulfilled double-penetration fantasy, a stack of monsterfudger books, and a drawer full of toys. Knowing Luke has two dicks is positively panty melting.
“Kidding aside, you need time off,” Autumn says. “You need to have some fun.”
Hannah nods. “You could do those dance classes you keep talking about. Isn’t there a studio only one town over?”
“Funny you should say that…” I try to smile, but it feels more like a grimace, so I take another gulp of my drink. “I actually took a dance class this morning, only not exactly on purpose.”
“How can you do anaccidentaldance class?” Kayla’s face crumples in confusion, and she tosses a piece of cereal into her mouth, biting down with a crunch.
So I tell them all about Luke flying me to his library, how it reacted to me, changing the colors of the trees to match my pink dress, and how that swell of magic sparked my own. “All the books in the room rose into the air, including the new romance book I just started reading. My magic kind of”—I set down my cupcake to make a swirling motion with my hand—“sucked us into the book. Suddenly, we were the main characters, trapped in a scene, unable to get out.”
Gasps from around the room, everyone leaning forward. “What did you do?”
I describe the way Luke tried to break us out of the dance studio. “But each time we went right back to where we first entered the scene. We were totallyGroundhog Day-ed.”
“IsGroundhog Day-ed a verb?” Naomi teases, having a degree in English.
I give her a small smile. “It is now.”
“How did you get out?” Violeta asks.
“I had the idea to complete the scene like it is in the book, and it worked. We learned a really basic waltz, just like the main characters do, and bang—we were back in the real world.”
“Your power sounds amazing!” Naomi reaches over and snags an orc romance off one of the display tables. “Can yousend me into this book? There’s a scene where the heroine gets to ride a unicorn that I’d love to compare to the real thing.”
“Maybe? I don’t know. But I do know that I can’t risk it.” My mouth does that sheepish smile-grimace thing again. “We got back to the real world, but my romance book is still floating in the air of Luke’s library, and it won’t let us touch it. So even though we got out of the scene, we didn’t break the spell. Luke thinks we might get sucked back into the book at any time.”
“What will break the spell for good?” Hannah asks.
“I have this gut feeling that we’re going to have to act out the entire book.” I lick a bit of buttercream frosting off my cupcake, letting the sweet butterscotch flavor be a needed comfort.
“So it’s a fun book with a few dance lessons.” Violeta offers an encouraging smile. “No biggie, right?”
“Well…” I bite my lower lip. “It’s kind of a spicy book.”
“How spicy is spicy?” Autumn asks.
My cheeks flare with fire, offering all the answer any of them need.
“Oh, girl!” Jasmine gives a rich chuckle. “I guess that’s one way to get your dragon. You two sure have been dancing around each other long enough.”
Everyone laughs.
I shake my head. “I don’t want to force him or anything. Consent is sexy.”
“I don’t think that’s going to be a problem.” Autumn sips her drink, grinning at me over the rim. “I’ve seen the way he stares at you.”
“Don’t you mean glowers?”
“Nah, Autumn’s right,” Hannah says. “You need more practice reading resting grumpy face. Luke’s got it bad.”
I hope they’re right, but I don’t feel it. If he’s been staring at me, it must be because he’s been thinking of hiring me to catalog his library, nothing more. No, all I feel from him now is a need to fix this. “If this is my magic, I need a way to control it. Trapping people in novels that take place over months without being able to get them out?” A shudder ripples through me as my tummy twists. “That’s a total no-go.”
“The thing I don’t get,” Kayla says, “is if you need to act out the entire book to complete the spell, why did it let you out when the dance lesson ended?”
“I don’t know.” I shrug, suddenly hating the indecisive shoulder movement. I’m a librarian. I’m supposed to know how to find the answers to questions. “I still want to figure out how to break the spell. Sending people into books could be a lot of fun, but only if I can control when to pull them out.”
