“How? What?”
The door bangs shut and I scream as I whirl around, mace at the ready. But not ready enough for what’s blocking my only escape route.
It’s just light enough to make out the green of his skin on his bare, hulking shoulders. Golden scales shimmer across his biceps and chest, then frame his muscular abs down his sides. I swallow hard as I jerk my eyes back up to his face. It’s cast in dark shadows but there’s something protruding from his head on either side, jagged and sharp.
“Wh…who are—”
He charges and I press the button to release a spray of peppery aerosol with another scream. He smacks my arm away and then his hand is around my throat. I let out the last of my air as my back hits the wall and I wince my eyes shut, not wanting to see my demise. I claw at his hand and face, kicking his shins as I squirm, but he doesn’t budge.
“Where,” he asks, his voice like a low roll of thunder. Something out of a storybook and not real life.
I take a breath, finding his hand caging my throat isn’t cutting off my airway, but is definitely strong enough to lessen the blood supply to my brain, because the next words out of my mouth are “Where what?” instead of “I’m calling the police.”
God, Randy is probably the police, too, and he’s on vacation.
“Where is my treasure?”
The deep tenor of his voice strikes like a hammer on hot iron in my lower belly. He has an accent that’s vaguely Scottish, and I must still be lying in bed at the hotel dreaming because that’s sexy as hell instead of terrifying.
I open my eyes and look up at the face of my aggressor only to have the wind knocked from me again in a breathy huff. A full bottom lip, the top one revealing just a hint of fang-like incisors. High cheekbones with glimmering gold scales that frame his angular jaw. Pointed ears, long black hair, and horns…broken horns on his head.
He’s gorgeous. Green skin and all.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! Get ahold of yourself!
“What are you doing in here?” I ask, my voice trembling like my stomach.
He leans in and his upper lip pulls back in a deadly grimace. Those teeth could bleed me dry. “My treasure. What have you done with it?”
“What treasure?” I ask.
“My Dick,” he seethes.
My eyes involuntarily drop between us until they rest on the thick outline of him sheathed in shadows. Glimmers of golden scales reflect the minimal illumination coming from the long hall to the front of the store, highlighting ridges of what looks like armor along his shaft and a big knot—
“Answer me, pink flesh,” he snarls, jostling me against the wall.
“What?” I whimper.
My brain is addled from the strangest yet most enticing cock I’ve only barely glimpsed.
There is, without a doubt, something wrong with me.
“Where is my Dick?”
I laugh nervously because what else can I do? I certainly can’t tell him it’s between his legs. But then it hits me. Of course he’s not asking about his penis.
He’s talking aboutMobyDick.
“The book?”
“Did you destroy it?”
I balk, disgust shooting through me at the thought. “No, of course not!”
He sighs with relief. “Where is it?”
“Where are my special editions? Did you rip off their covers, too?” I ask, emboldened by my outrage. To think, he’d damaged those other books…
