Page 29 of Battle of the Bookstores

8

Ryan

I woke upthis morning with a hard-on and the remnants of a dream. The details were sparse, but the memory was more than enough to get me off before I had to get up for work.

In the dream, I was in the back room at the bookstore, only I was a werewolf, and I had Josie pressed against the shelves.

Her skirt was up around her waist—so unsophisticated—and her legs were wrapped around my hips. Dream Josie was warm and as tight as that perfect little bun on top of her head. I had an animalistic urge to devour her, to control her and make her mine. To show her who was the boss.

Then she reached up, removing the elastic around her bun so the dark waves of her hair cascaded down, releasing the scent of her floral shampoo. I loved seeing her unravel, shedding her prim and proper exterior. She was no better than me.

But then her eyes flew open, and whatever she saw in me made her shut down. Gone were the desperate pleas for me to go harder, faster, deeper—and in their place was the stuck-up ice queen I’ve come to know all too well. Dream Josie pushedme away, pulling up her panties and lowering her skirt, mumbling excuses about having to get back to her store. She had important, intelligent books to sell to important, intelligent people. She had to make money, so she could beat me and fire my staff and turn my bookstore into a cold, bleak literary hellscape.

That part didn’t feel like a dream. It felt like a premonition.

“Hey, Romeo, I think that one’s got enough tape on it.”

I snap to attention and glance down at the blind date book I’m wrapping in brown paper. Cinderella’s right—there are six pieces of tape where I only need one.

“Mind’s somewhere else,” I mumble.

Cinderella smirks as if she knows what I was thinking.

Her hair is now a vibrant green, like the M&M’s that were rumored to make you horny back in the day. Too bad there wasn’t another color that could turn it all off and stop you from thinking inappropriate thoughts about your newly sworn enemy.

The dream was confusing for more than the obvious reasons. I’ve never been into the paranormal stuff; I prefer stories that could really happen. Books where I can picture myself as the main character meeting the LOML, having that instant spark that makes people say, “When you know, you know.”

Although the last time I thought I “knew,” the other person didnot.I have no intention of getting myself in that position again, but I still love seeing it play out in fiction.

“Your mind’s been somewhere else a lot lately,” Cinderella says.

“There’s a lot going on,” I tell her. “With the store.”

“Mmm-hmm.” She narrows her eyes as she tapes a sloppycorner on another book. If only she paid as much attention to her job as she does to my personal life. “Things got a little heated with you and that Tabula girl yesterday.”

“Yeah, well.”

“It’s not like you to let someone get under your skin like that.”

She’s not wrong. When I’m around Josie Klein, I can go from completely fine to pissed to turned on in the length of a heartbeat. But I can’t explain why, so I shrug and say, “It’s not every day someone comes into my store and disrespects my customers and staff.”

This seems to satisfy Cinderella, who moves on to wrap another blind date book.

“Speak of the devil,” she says a moment later, nodding toward the front of the store.

Confused, I follow her gaze. Josie is standing outside, checking out our new display windows. She looks past one of the mannequins reading in a suggestive pose and her eyes lock with mine. I give her a wide, unabashed grin and wave because I know it will piss her off.

Her eyes grow as wide as they did in my dream, and she disappears again, back to the safety of her boring store and its vanilla window display.

“You want to bone her,” Cinderella says in a know-it-all voice.

“Do not,” I say, although it’s hard to sound convincing when the memory of my dream is so fresh.

Cinderella shakes her head. “I wanted you toreadenemies-to-lovers books, not find yourself in the middle of one. That’s what this reeks of. The two of you, pitted against each other, only then—”

“—only then the assistant manager gets back to work,” I say, handing her another book to wrap.

“I saw what I saw yesterday. And that’s how the story goes—one day you’re ripping each other’s heads off; the next, you’re ripping off each other’s clothes.”

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