Page 3 of A Kiss to Remember
How else could he describe the desperation that had him sitting in his car with an anxious stomach and a numb ass?
Damn, this was humiliating.
Yet, he didn’t drive away from his parking space outside the Rose Bend Public Library, where he waited for Remi Donovan to emerge after locking up for the day. Maybe he’d missed his calling. He should’ve become a private investigator instead of a wealth manager. Uncovering Remi’s work schedule had been ridiculously easy. All he’d had to do was sit in one of the library’s reading nooks on one of the Thursday and Friday afternoons he visited Rose Bend. Soon enough, he’d overheard Remi, a coworker—a tall, lanky Black man who seemed to own an amazing number of DC shirts and Converse—and their supervisor discuss work schedules.
He shifted in the driver’s seat of his Mercedes-Benz S-Class, fingers drumming restlessly on his thigh. If his colleagues in Boston could see him now, their laughter would threaten the buttons on their three-hundred-dollar shirts. After the humor passed, they’d just stare at him, bemused, and offer to escort him to the nearest high-end gentleman’s club.
As if staring at another woman’s body could possibly substitute for a certain five-foot-nine frame with gorgeous, natural breasts that would fill his big hands. And a wide flare of hips that never failed to draw his gaze when she strode around the library. And an ass that, by all rights, deserved its own religion.
Fine. He might be a little preoccupied with Rose Bend’s beloved librarian.
The librarian whose mouth he claimed for all to see in the middle of the day for his own selfish reasons.
And try as he might—and he did try because he wasn’t a prick—he could only rummage up the barest threads of remorse.
Because even though desperation had driven him to that circulation desk with the request of a kiss, desire had chosen her. The need to finally discover if that lush, ripe mouth would taste as good as it promised had won out. And at that first press of lips to lips...
His fingers fisted on his thigh, and he slowly exhaled. Lust tightened inside him... One move and he would snap. As if even now, he dined on that sweet, butterscotch-flavored breath. Licked into the giving depths of her mouth. Twined around that eager tongue. Swallowed that little, needy sound.
“Shit.” He shook his head.
Reminiscing about this afternoon wasn’t what he’d come here for. Wasn’t why he’d set up a stakeout in front of the library. That kiss had beencataclysmic, but, in the end, it’d only been the impetus for a plan he needed one Remi Donovan to agree to.
That’s all she could be to him—a coconspirator.
He’d learned his lesson the hard way with Tara. If he wanted to do casual friends-with-benefits relationships, he’d have to keep that in Boston, not here in Rose Bend, where the town was too small and everyone knew everyone’s business.
Especially when the woman was the daughter of his mother’s neighbor and friend.
Yeah, not his brightest moment.
The door to the library opened, spilling a golden slice of light onto the steps before it winked out. He opened his car door, stepping out to watch as Remi appeared, closing the large oak door and locking it.
He stared. Openly. Even though she wore a cream-colored wool coat against the night air, he could easily envision the dark green dress beneath that caressed every wicked curve. Another thing he liked about her. She didn’t try to conceal or downplay the gorgeous body God had blessed her with—she worked it. And damn if that confidence wasn’t sexy as hell.
Not here for her sexiness, he sternly reminded himself.Get on with it.
Firmly closing his car door, he rounded the hood.
Remi’s head jerked up, her eyes widening as she spotted him on the curb, near the bottom of the library steps.
She didn’t move down the stairs. A tight, almost-tangible tension sprang between them. It vibrated with the memory of that conflagration of a kiss. Of the need formorethat sang in his veins.
A more he had to deny.
Christ. He tunneled his fingers through his hair. She’d been a beautiful distraction before he’d touched her, before he’d learned the butterscotch-and-sunshine taste of her. But now? Now that he knew? He was finding it difficult to focus on anything else.
He’d graduated from Boston University with a bachelor’s degree in business administration and he’d gone on to acquire his dual degree, an Executive MBA in Asset Management. But at this moment, he’d become a student of Remi Donovan. And he wouldn’t be satisfied until he earned a PhD.
“I’m sorry for just showing up like this,” he said. “But I didn’t have your phone number. And showing up during your workday again didn’t seem like a good idea.”
“No.” She finally spoke in a husky tone more appropriate for a sultry siren in an old black-and-white film noir than a small-town librarian. “That definitely wouldn’t have been a good idea. As it is, my supervisor is contemplating tacking your picture to the bulletin board with Not Allowed scrawled across the top. I’m not sure if I’ve successfully convinced her you didn’t accost me.”
He winced, only half exaggerating. “God, I hope she doesn’t resort to that. The library is one of the few places I can actually find some privacy and quiet.” He frowned, thinking of Tara hunting him down earlier. “Well, it used to be.”
She arched a delicate eyebrow, descending a step. A spiral of gratification whistled through him at that small movement toward him.
“Last I heard, you have a very nice home at the edge of town with plenty of space and, I would imagine, privacy.”
