Page 27 of Not As Advertised

As she continued to study the map, a fellow attendee sent an appreciative glance at Abbie. I settled for a warning glare. When the other guy lifted his gaze off her body and saw my face, he startled but then gave me aWhoops, sorry, mankind of shrug.

Though I couldn’t claim Abbie as my own, I took an unhinged amount of pleasure in being the man by her side. For today, I could indulge in the fantasy that she was mine to care for.

Returning my attention to Abbie when I realized she hadn’t replied to my earlier question, I tried again. “Abbie?”

I allowed my hand to gently clasp the smooth skin of her elbow. I rubbed my thumb across her forearm, realizing how completely inappropriate I was being but not able to stop the motion once I got my hands on her skin.

Fuck. She felt amazing. Warm and soft. I wanted to touch her all over.

At the contact of my skin on hers, she whipped her attention from the map up to my face, cheeks turning a gorgeous shade of pink.

And still, I didn’t drop my hand. I let my thumb make a couple more passes against the top of her forearm before slowly dragging my hand away from her elbow. Each of my fingertips grazed her skin at an excruciatingly decadent pace.

Her tongue came out to swipe between her lips. Fuck, she was as affected by this as I was. I needed to get a grip before I got hard in the middle of muppet-mayhem here. What the hell was I thinking?

“What? I’m sorry?” She looked at me with a dazed expression.

“I said, where are we going first?” My voice came out in a rasp. So much for hiding my arousal from her.

Abbie closed her eyes for an extra second, perhaps trying to wipe the last couple of minutes from her mind. Lord knows I was currently tunneling deep inside for a fucking shred of common sense.

“Huh? Oh, right. This issoexciting! It’s hard to decide. Just look at everyone. They all look incredible.”

The return of her enthusiasm cooled my heated blood enough for me to clear some of the fog of my desire.

“Yes. The setup is impressive. But I asked what you wanted to see first?”

“Oh, right! I realllllly want to see the vendor stalls because they’ll have so much hard-to-find stuff. But there’s also Artist Alley. How cool would it be to get an autograph from an uber-talented manga artist?”

As her voice rose in excitement with each syllable, my chuckle broke free. She was adorable. Her endearing nature brought back my need to see her happy, helping me to shelve my baser needs for the moment. Thank fuck.

“Whoa. Okay, look, you have four days, remember? Just pick something, and then we’ll go to the first ticketed event.”

“Okay, vendor hall first! I really want to see all the neat stuff. Plus, there’ll be tons of manga there that’s hard to get in bookstores or online, and I know it’s going to take me forever to choose.”

Drawing in a deep breath, she nodded to our left with one more glance at the map. “Okay. Then let’s head this way…”

Her palpable excitement had her moving quickly through the crowd.

It took serious concentration to weave my way through the crowd and keep my eye on Abbie at the same time.

According to the map, the route Abbie followed to get to Artist Alley was more convoluted than necessary. We just “happened” to walk through way too many vendor aisles and the Maid Café before we reached our first stop.

I was unused to free time and struggled to stand still as Abbie contentedly browsed the tables filled with piles and piles of books.

The urge to pull out my phone to check work emails was strong. Being idle made my skin itch. Not wanting to think about why I couldn’t just settle my mind, I randomly picked up and flipped through books at the table where I stood a couple of stalls away from her.

I’d always prided myself on my intelligence, whether street smarts or business acumen, but it took me longer than it should have to realize manga books read right to left. I randomly picked up and put down books, giving Abbie space to look around without feeling like I was standing over her shoulder.

It must have been the third or fourth table of my unfocused browsing when I fanned through the pages of yet another title, and my eyes noted what was on the page.

The heat built at the back of my neck when I realized the images I was looking at were suddenly a lot less family-friendly. I angled the book slightly to the side to get a better look at the couple engaged in some pretty hot sex, if I was being honest. How did they…? Nope, I didn’t need any more material for my Abbie fantasies. My mind was depraved enough on its own.

My gaze whipped up to the stand employee, who just smiled at me benignly, before I snapped the book shut again.

There wasn’t a prudish bone in my body. But I felt shocked to find intimately detailed sex scenes just feet from some more well-known series I could vaguely remember being a movie or show on one of the streaming services.

Still not wanting to rush Abbie, I hesitantly picked up another book. I almost didn’t open it, but I couldn’t imagine they’d all be like the last.

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