“You really get on my nerves, sexy librarian,” I said under my breath.
“Excuse me?”
“I said I didn’t want anything.” Except for her to look at me properly. And if she smiled and played nice, I’d even ask her if she wanted to have coffee some time. “Thanks. It’s my bedtime, and I gotta get going. I need my beauty sleep.”
Okay, that got her to turn and look.Now, be a good girl and give me a smile. It’s not so hard. Stretch your lips and giggle a little. Just like everybody else.
She cleared her throat, her brows forming a line behind the glasses frame. Then she went over to her desk, bent a little but not enough to show me her perfect curves again and handed me a laundry bag. “Here you go. Thank you so much for bringing back the dress.”
Merda. Nothing at all? Twisting my lips, I grabbed the bag. “That was a joke, by the way. You know the beauty sleep part?” It was my bedtime, though. After finishing with my clients and the revue, it was almost dawn. That was when I hit the gym and got my workout done. Then I slept the day off to get ready for the next night.
“Oh. Sorry. I didn’t get it.” She sat on her chair and started to fumble around some papers on the desk. “Is there anything else I can help you with, Mr. Zappa?”
Seriously? Dismissing me again?Lady, look at my sweatpants like any normal woman and swoon and melt at the size of me that is fucking hard for you. Damn, I should have worn the gray pair today.
“Wait…I know what’s happening here. You think because of the beauty sleep thing I’m gay.” I flashed my stage smile again. “I’m not. There might have been this one time when I—”
She raised a hand between us and pushed her glasses up to meet that fucking frown again with the other hand. “Whatever your sexual orientation is, Mr. Zappa, it’s none of my business. I’m not sure why you’re sharing this private information with me.”
“That makes two of us, um… What’s your name again?”
“I never gave it to you, but it’s Brighton.”
“Oh so you own this place? Brighton Press.” Why was I still making small talk, trying to stay as long as I could with Lady Brighton here? I should just drag my ass out, go home, feed the dog, give my bed a bear hug and forget I’d ever been here.
“It’s my husband’s, but I run it now.”
I looked around the office. The walls were brick. The desk made of glass. The chairs simple but the pink cushions looked comfortable. Books and paper stacks everywhere. It was kinda small but cute, cozy. On the ninth floor of an elegant ten-story building, and it had an excellent view of the whole city from the one window there was. “I’ve never been to a publishing house before even though I’ve lived in Manhattan for twenty years.”
“So you were born here.” She wasn’t asking. She was assuming.
“No. Why would you say that? Do I look twenty to you?”
She just shrugged.
Hmmm, so she wasn’t acknowledging me and was dismissing me because she thought I was too young for her? Like how old could she be? Thirty? Thirty-five? So what? “I’m twenty-six, babe.”
She stopped whatever she was doing with those papers and glared at me. “I said my name was Brighton.Mrs.Brighton.”
I don’t get this woman.“Well, the lack of a wedding ring on your finger and that part of the conversation I’ve overheard before that not so gentleman left your office beg to differ.”
Stupid word vomit. Why was I being an asshole now? She was trying to convince me she was married when she was a sad widow desperate for some good loving she hadn’t received in three years. So she wasn’t into me. Not the end of the world. I had literally a hundred women that were. Every night. Fuck, they paid to see me dance at the club and for the pleasure of my company.
Why the fuck did I care about callingMrs. Brightonon her shit or changing her mind to make her see me like every other woman did so much that I was an asshole about it?
Maybe because she was the first person in ages to look at me differently. Or not look at me at all. Maybe because I wanted to prove something to myself. Or maybe because I was really an asshole.
Still, I was approaching this whole thing wrong. If I wanted to pique her interest, I should charm her like I did with any client, not be a dick to her.
But how when my tools—my face, my smile, my body, my dick, which was sad and flat now—that always scored with ladies didn’t seem to grab her attention? Could she be a lesbian, you know one of those that pretended their whole lives to keep appearances? Now that she was a widow, the sexy librarian would explore that forbidden side and bump pretties with another girl.
My tongue darted to lick my lip as I pictured her being naughty in the sack, naked with another girl, taking off that ugly bra and—
“Do you have a habit of eavesdropping, Mr. Zappa?”
“Nope!” Neither did I have the habit of undressing women I’d just met in my head, picturing them naked with other girls and getting hard to it. Cazzo. I was hard again. “I… You were yelling, and that man didn’t seem to be so nice to you, so I was paying attention at the end, in case you needed help.”
“Oh. Do you always do that with women you haven’t even met yet?”
