His mouth against her ear, words she felt more than heard.
"You've been thinking dirty thoughts about me too." His thumb pressed down, sliding against the wet lace.
His other hand fisted in her hair, tilting her head back so she had to look at him. His charm completely gone, replaced by something raw and wanting that probably violated his contract clause about "maintaining family-friendly appeal in public settings."
She should’ve felt shame. Should’ve felt exposed.
But all she felt was wanted.
"You know how hard I've been?" His thumb circled, pressing the lace against her in a way that made her breath catch. "Thinking about bending you over. Making you take it.”
April couldn't answer. Her brain put up an “Out to Lunch” sign and didn’t specify a return date.
Caleb's mouth found her ear, his breath scorching. "I've been thinking about this since the second I saw you. Wondering if you'd feel this good. If you'd be this wet for me."
His fingers hooked into the lace and pulled it aside. Then slid lower, teasing her entrance.
His hands on her bare skin. Cool library air against her thighs. The bookshelf hard against her spine. The absolutely insane reality that this was happening. That she was letting it happen, that her body was responding like it had been waiting for permission to stop performing wholesomeness and start being honest.
Caleb’s mouth found hers again, kissing her like he meant to remember it. His fingers kept moving, maddening circles that kept her right on the edge without pushing her over.
"God, you feel incredible," he murmured against her lips, then moved to her jaw. "So needy." His teeth grazed her earlobe. Her hands tightened on his shoulders.
"I'm going to fuck you against these shelves until you can't remember anyone's name but mine," he said, his voice rough. "Make you forget every mediocre fuck you've ever had. Until the only thing you can think about is how deep I am inside you."
His thumb found her clit again, pressing just right, and April made a sound that probably echoed through the entire library.
"That's it, let me hear you. “You're absolutely dripping for it, aren't you?" April's thighs were shaking. Then he slid two fingers through her folds, nice and slow, and circled her clit with he exact amount of pressure to make stars burst behind her eyelids.
The door opened.
They jumped apart.
The silk slithered down her thighs like it had never been raised at all—a magic trick in reverse, modesty restored by expensive fabric engineering. A cheap dress would’ve betrayed her—stayed bunched, damning. Only silk this expensive got to pretend it had manners.
But she couldn’t retreat.
April managed maybe four inches before her back hit the bookshelf again. Caleb froze mid-movement, the two of them caught in a tableau with absolutely zero room for plausible deniability, even with her dress back in place.
April's head snapped toward the door.
Arthur stood in the doorway, perfectly still. Perfectly composed. Assessing the scene the way someone might assess a structural flaw that required correction.
This was not how the protective-father-catches-girl-with-boy scene was supposed to go. In the movies, the father showed up before anything happened, cleared his throat meaningfully, and the boy stammered and apologized and promised to have her home by ten.
But Arthur wasn’t her father. He wasn’t even close. And he wasn’t looking at them with parental disappointment.
And this wasn’t a movie where tension reset once the lights came on. This was a seduction in a library, interrupted at the exact moment the wholesome script had been shredded and left on the floor.
His gaze flicked to Caleb first. Then to April, her flushed face, the hastily rearranged silk. Then back to Caleb. The man whose hands had just been somewhere that would get him blacklisted from every Heartland production in existence.
She expected fury. Shame. Moral outrage. Only Arthur didn’t move like a man scandalized. He moved like a man evaluating.
She waited for him to leave. To close the door. To do literally anything that wasn’t standing there, watching the oxygen thin.
Arthur’s gaze flicked once, clinical and assessing, and then his hand slipped into the inside pocket of his suit jacket.
April had braced for… what, exactly? A lecture? A restraining order? A calculator?
