Page 6 of The Hitman's Forbidden Obsession

“H... Hi,” I manage. Oh great. Now I stutter.

He offers his hand. “I’m Dante.”

My name’s stuck somewhere behind my teeth. His hand is large, calloused, warm. I hesitate a second too long, caught between the instinct to keep hiding behind my crossed arms and the overwhelming need to feel him.

I give in and take it.

His grip is firm but careful, like I’m something fragile. His thumb brushes over the back of my knuckles.

And he doesn’t let go.

Tingles shoot from my hand straight up my arm, scattering into my chest like fireflies. My whole body is suddenly aware of him. How close he is, how he smells like spice and something darker. Masculine. Unapologetic.

I try to breathe. Try to remember my own name. Try not to think about how badly I want to know what that voice sounds like when he’s whispering filthy things in my ear.

He finally releases my hand, but his eyes don’t stray. Not once.

“I’m Avery,” I say eventually, my voice quieter than I mean it to be,

His smile deepens. “Avery,” he repeats, helping me to realize just how much I like it when he says my name.

And now I’m wondering what it would sound like if he groaned it against my skin.

No. Nope. This is a library. I am a librarian. This is not an appropriate place to give in to the kind of fantasies I want to have about this man.

I clear my throat and glance down, suddenly feeling overwhelmed by the huge mountain of a man standing in front of me.

“Can I help you find something?” I ask, because apparently I’ve forgotten how to speak like a normal person and that’s the best I can do. “In the library, I mean.”

He doesn’t answer right away. Just watches me like I’m the only person in the room with him right now.

Then, softly, he says, “You’re beautiful, you know that?”

My brain short-circuits. There’s no way he just said that. Not to me.

My first instinct is to laugh, except nothing about his expression says he’s joking. No smirk. No hint of irony. Just steady, matter-of-fact confidence, like he’s saying the sky is blue, or the earth is round.

I shift my weight, suddenly fighting the urge to run off and find a place to hide. Although, the truth is, there is nowhere else I would rather be, even if his attention is intense enough to leave me more than a little flustered.

“Thank you,” I murmur, and the next words fall out afterwards even though I don’t mean them to. “But you don’t have to say that.”

“I’m not the kind of guy who says things he doesn’t mean,” he replies, completely unbothered. “And I don’t lie. Especially not about something this obvious.”

I blink up at him as my brain takes a few seconds to catch up to what he’s saying.

One corner of his lip quirks upwards into a small grin that should not be as sexy as it is. “You walk into a room and light it up. You smile, and people lean in. You’ve got that quiet glow people notice. Including me.”

Okay, so apparently I’m going to die here. In the picture book section. At the hands of the most confident, infuriatingly attractive man alive.

My cheeks are burning. My heart is racing. And he’s still just watching me, like my flustered reaction is his favorite thing to witness.

I try to laugh it off. “Do you always come on this strong?”

His eyes flicker with something. Amusement maybe. Or hunger. “No. Never. But then I’ve never met anyone as breath-taking as you before now, either.”

A soft whimper escapes, and I quickly clamp my lower lip between my teeth to prevent any more from following it out.

His eyes widen slightly when he hears the noise, his nostrils flaring. Oh. That look in his eyes is definitely hunger. That’s all too obvious now. And he’s looking at me like I’m the sweetest dessert.

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