Page 53 of Desperate Haste

“Reese knows it’s yours, I’ll bring you back here to grab it before the day is over. Besides”—he wraps his arm around me tighter and presses his lips to my temple—“I’m going to make you wait until tonight to be reminded of just how good I can make you feel.”

I shove him off of me playfully and give him a smirk. If only his words weren’t so true, I wouldn’t find him so annoying. He reaches across where I stand to open the passenger door and waves an arm to signal me to get in. When I’m safely inside and buckled, he leans in where I’m sitting and kisses me. It’s soft and short, but somehow still impactful on my heart. Like a stamp with his name written all over it claiming me as his.

“Let’s go, princess, your kingdom awaits.”

* * *

When we pullinto the parking lot, I can’t believe where he’s taken me. I haven’t been to one since I was a little girl but walking into the old, lofted ceiling building, I feel my heart grow and feel more at home than it has in a long time. I practically grew up in libraries and collected books like people collect coins or playing cards. But as I got older, and busier with life and work, I had less and less time to read. Hell, Bailey spent more time with my book collection than I did when we were still living together. But being here, and the fact that he brought me here, meant a lot.

“Malcolm, I don’t have a library card,” I try to interject as we walk in.

“Well lucky for you, they give those out for free.” He winks at me. “And if they don’t give them out to people like you—you know, the really pretty kind—you can borrow mine.” He flashes me a worn out plastic card with the label nearly rubbed off.

He points me to the romance section, assuming that’s where I want to go first since that’s all I have on my shelves at home, and follows behind me like a guard dog. I study the spines of all the stories waiting to be read and wish more than anything that I had the time to read even one of them. When I glance over my shoulder to look at him, his eyes aren’t on the books, but on me. With his hands tucked behind his back, his head is tipped to one side and his lips are pulled back into a smirk that might just be recognized as a smile. The way he’s looking at me rivals that of someone studying fine art.

“You look happy,” he hushes, trying not to disturb the other people enjoying the space.

“Iamhappy, thank you for bringing me here. I don’t know why but I kind of forgot libraries existed. How did I forget libraries existed?” My words come out just as stunned as I feel. HowdidI forget libraries existed?

“The downside of getting older, I assume. I only started coming here when my need for more books became too expensive of a habit to keep up with. I only get my books second hand or here now.” He looks around the shelves like they are his old friends before looking back at me. “I’m going to wander and see where I end up. Meet at those tables in thirty?”

I look in the direction of his eyes and nod. Before he leaves me to the books, he leans in and kisses me on the cheek. “Have fun with the books. If you don’t come out at our agreed upon time, I’ll send in a search party.”

Forty-five minutes and one searching tattooed man later, I have a stack of books sitting on the table in front of me. Knowing I won’t be able to read them all before they have to be returned, I start to work my way through the stack to decide on which one I’m bringing home with me. Malcolm sits across from me in a chair, leaning back on two of its legs, and has a paperback folded in half in one hand, reading it while peering at me every so often.

“You know, youcanjust take them all home with you?” he reminds me, peering over his glasses which he placed on his strongly sculpted face at some point while we were apart. “They let you do that.”

“Shut up, I know they do.” I sigh, rolling my eyes at him. “But I can’t, I won’t have time to read them all before I have to bring them back. That’s why I normally just buy my books, there’s no deadline when you buy them. Just a never ending list of books you’ll probably never read.”

“Then pick your favorite and start reading it now while we’re here. If it catches your attention, keep it. If not, move on to the next one. Simple.”

Simple, unlike my feelings about whatever is going on between us. I want nothing more than to pretend like I don’t have deeper feelings for him than I do, but then he goes and does shit like take me to the library and let me sit and stare at books for as long as I want while he reads some book about how the telephone was invented. Who the fuck reads that kind of book anyway?

I do as he suggests and start at the top of my stack. Flipping to the first page, I begin to read. When I get a few pages in and find myself looking at my table mate more than the book itself, I close it and move on to the next one. When the same thing happens with the second book, and the third, I decide the books aren’t the problem.

“You’re distracting me,” I whisper, leaning across the table.

“How is that even possible, I’m just sitting here reading?” He leans forward, bringing his face closer to mine.

“I don’t know, it’s something about your face, it’s distracting.”

“That’s not distraction, that’sattraction,” he teases with a cocky grin.

“Or annoyance,” I quip, sticking my tongue out at him like I’m five.

“I can give you a much better place to stick that tongue, princess.”

I roll my eyes at him again and take the first book in my hands. “This is the book I want. Do you want to stay here and read or go back to my place?”

“Iamgetting kind of hungry…” he whispers but the tone of his voice tells me he isn’t hungry for food.

We get up from the table and he walks me to the information desk where I proudly get myself a brand new library card at the ripe age of twenty-nine. Who knew a small plastic rectangle could make a person so happy? I have to stop myself from jumping up and down as I use it to check out the book that I hold carefully in my arms on the way back to his truck. When we make it back to my car, which is still parked in the parking lot of the training center, I jump out and head towards my place with him following behind me in his truck. Once upstairs and in my condo with the front door closed and locked, I hardly remember the title of the book or what it’s about as he pushes me against the wall and steals my breath away as his lips crash into mine.

And once again, I break my rule of one and done.

27

MALCOLM

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