Page 26 of Fireworks
She let out a half-hearted huff. “So we’re even?”
“Getting there.” He leaned closer, and her breath hitched. He was going to kiss her, lips inches away, hand reaching—
For a cardboard box behind her.
Embarrassed, Eiley tried to budge, but only served to stumble over the unending obstacles around them. He grabbed her elbow with perfect ease before she could fall, but her attention was no longer on him.
It was on the books she’d tripped over.
Harper’sbooks.
The Lost Princesshad been stacked aside in preparation for next week’s event, but the flood had sent them toppling so that not one had stayed dry. Eiley knelt, tucking her bottom lip between her teeth as she opened the first cover. The pages were warping already.
“Everything okay?” asked Warren behind her.
“Harper’s books. She’s going to be devastated.”
His body shrouded hers as he bent to pick up a copy, eyeing the title and then flipping to the back cover, where gossamer wings bordered the blurb. Harper’s gorgeous author photo, taken in the woods among spring bluebells, had smudged to something unrecognisable.
He opened the book at a random page, a furrow of concentration on his face as he read, and Eiley felt her breath hitch. He lifted a brow. “Shouldn’t she be writing under a pen name or something? This is pretty raunchy.”
Eiley snatched the book back. “It’s the twenty-first century. Women aren’t ashamed of their sexuality anymore, and they certainly aren’t ashamed of writing something this …all-consuming. I’d like to seeyoutry!”
As she stood, her foot slipped on a stack of strewn bookmarks and she yelped, reaching for something to hold onto. She found him – or, rather, he found her first, that hand returning just south of her lower back with much more pressure. Her fluttering chest pressed flush against his, and she felt every hard muscle tense in his shoulders as she steadied herself against him.
Too close. Too much.
He was all she could feel: leg woven around hers to keep her from tipping, wide, brown eyes all she could see. Every rise and fall of his breath provided a rough caress against her nipples, even through the thick knit of her jumper, and she imagined him thrusting her against the wall and kissing her until all of her anxiety and frustration dissolved. Imagined hiking her legs around him, desperate to remember what hungry, abandoned pleasure felt like.
The shock of the image left her frozen. Where had it come from? She hadn’t even wanted that with Finlay, their lovemaking quick and simple and often only ending with one of them climaxing because she’d been too shy to tell him that she wasn’t done.
“Told you it’s full of safety hazards in here,” he murmured. She realised he hadn’t lethergo, either, though her stability had returned.
“Yes, and I so appreciate the constant reminders,” she somehow managed to quip shakily.
At her tailbone, his fingers curled, and her core with them. Her underwear was already dampening, embarrassing proof of just how unused to being touched she was, even like this.
“I have a theory,” he said, eyes falling to her lips.
“About … what?”
“I think you quite like giving me a hard time.” His voice grew low, serrated, each word penetrating the heat between her thighs.
“What gave it away?” She was too dizzy to wonder if her sentences were coherent. Every fibre of her shouted to pull away, remember herself, and yet she couldn’t force herself to. Just for a moment, she liked the way he allowed her to forget the world. Liked the way it felt to be the centre of his attention, too. This stockroom might have been a page in one of her books for all the ways she wanted to absorb herself in it.
His knuckle trailed from her hip to the side of her breast, teasing. “I think what you need is an outlet for all that fire inside you.”
“I … I don’t know what you mean.” She was gasping like a fool, using the shelf to keep her upright when his arms didn’t feel like enough.
His nose touched hers, leaving her trembling. She could smell coffee on his breath, feel the way his shirt moulded to his broad chest. And, as her finger slipped against the cotton, the way his nipple had pebbled, just like hers.
He tilted, turning them both so her back pressed against the shelves. His thumb found her chin, setting another cluster of sparks free. “I thought you said women aren’t ashamed of their sexuality.”
“We’re not,” she whispered indignantly.
“So prove it.”
“I … I can’t.” Because her heart wasn’t just pounding with anticipation, but fear, too. She couldn’t trust this man. He didn’t want her. He just wantedsomeone.
