That’s exactly where I was when he walked in. I was laid back in one of the armchairs in the back of the store, snuggled up between towering shelves full of adventures, reading a romance that had me contemplating how much easier life would be if I could just fall madly in love with Charlie and let him sweep me off my feet. Then the bell over the door sounded and my fantasy was shattered.
Charlie was in the back helping one of the many, many, many girls who came in looking for books on fishing and football and camping and cars every day. They never bought anything, but they seemed to need a lot of assistance determining that whichever book they had in hand wasn’t for them. Since he was still very wrapped up in his current engagement, I begrudgingly laid my book down on the coffee table, open to the page I was currently reading, then got up and walked to the front of the store. If I was lucky, this wouldn’t take long, and I’d be curled up with my newest book boyfriend again before too long.
As I rounded the final shelf between me and the door, his back was to me, but every thought I had of returning to my nook dissipated in an instant. Before I ever saw his face, something about him gripped me. My heart contracted almost painfully, my throat and mouth went suddenly dry, and a cold sweat broke out on my brow and upper lip. I was breathing fine but for some reason still felt like I couldn’t catch my breath. All I could see was the back of a gray hoodie, filled with broad shoulders and a muscular back and topped with tousled, wavy, almost-black locks.
I was intrigued, more by my visceral reaction to him than by the guy himself. Or at least that’s what I thought, but as he shifted, something about the way his body moved made my breath catch. Audibly.
Fuck. I ducked back behind the shelf, praying he hadn’t seen me ogling him from behind a bookshelf because that was absolutely the most pathetic thing anyone could ever witness.
The doorbell sounded again, and hoping he had looked toward the sound like a normal person, I peeked around the corner again. He had turned to look at the girl who’d walked in. She was dressed in similar clothes—dark jeans, black hoodie zipped up over her slight but muscular form—and walked straight up to him. Figures. Not that it would matter, but still… figures.
They chatted quietly for a moment, then he nodded and headed to the back with the girl on his tail. I followed but stayed out of sight, observing them through the gap in the hollow shelves between the tops of the books and the next shelf. They’d stopped in the section marked paranormal studies and raked over spine after spine. Not finding what they were looking for, they headed to religion and philosophy next, then to the section on the occult, which no one ever visited.
I kept my distance, making sure I was close enough to be available if they needed help—and to spy like an awkward creeper—but not close enough to intrude. Or get caught. They headed suddenly back my way to the section of collectibles. The antiques and rare books were locked in a glass case, spines visible, but they had to be taken out if anyone wanted to look at them, and no one but employees were allowed to touch the books. I stepped out from my current hiding place and started to move in their direction.
His hoodie was hanging open, and he had a fitted black tee beneath. My eyes quickly refocused from the shirt to the way it clung to his broad chest and draped a bit in contrast around his abdomen. Muscular arms and shoulders were visible through the slim fit of his hoodie, and I followed the curves and planes up past his neck to his square jaw, covered in the tiniest bit of stubble, and his perfectly formed, rose-colored lips. I also had a sneaking suspicion I’d been reading too much romance lately.
The girl whispered something in his ear, then headed toward the back of the store on her own. He huffed a single, exasperated laugh and said, “Hurry it up! We’ve got somewhere to be!”
That accent… Oh, my… I was a sucker in every way for a British accent. I wasn’t studied enough to know the names of the different accents, but his was smooth and subtle, and the silky growl of his voice just added to the effect. His face soured as he looked back at the books and ran his hands through his perfectly tousled hair. Something about that action, his look of defeat, the worry clearly outlined on his face… I wanted to make it better, so before I could rethink it, I headed over.
“Hi. Can I help you find something?”
He barely looked at me from the corner of his eyes as he dismissed me, “No, thank you. I just…” His voice trailed off and he did a double take—the first I’d ever seen in real life—as he really caught sight of me. Bright, sky-blue eyes met mine as his head snapped in my direction, and strange look clouded his features as the rest of him followed and he turned to face me fully.
That’s when I realized I’d been staring. Was still staring, actually. Stop staring, Dani.
“Hello,” he said, breaking the trance his eyes seemed to have placed me in.
My God, they were blue.
“Um, hi…” Other than the ‘hello’, he didn’t respond, or answer my question. He just stared at me with this intense look on his face. It got a bit awkward after a moment, so I cleared my throat, which seemed to have suddenly closed up, and tried again. “Is there something I can help you with?”
His eyes cleared, and he looked at me like he was seeing me for the first time. He straightened up and glanced back to the bookshelf then refocused on me. “Yes, actually. I think maybe you can.”
There was something about the way he said it, the way he raised one eyebrow, that seemed less than appropriate for a bookstore. But given what I’d been reading when he came in, I was willing to forgive him.
He smiled widely at me, and I couldn’t stop the smile I gave him in return, or the blush that colored my cheeks as I averted my eyes.
“So, what is it that you need help with?”
“Right to the point. I like that in a woman,” he said with a smirk, and if I blushed any brighter, my face was going to start to glow. His grin widened as he continued, “I’m looking for something very specific for a project. I’ve been hunting this really old book on Demons and Demonology, and the last person that seems to have owned it says they sold it to this bookstore. I can’t find it, but is there a way you could see if it is in fact here somewhere, or who might’ve purchased it?”
“I can verify if it’s here now or if it was at some point. If it’s been purchased, I can’t give you the buyer’s information, but I can contact them on your behalf and see if they’d be interested in selling it. Honestly, we don’t get a lot of valuable old books in here, though, so I wouldn’t get your hopes up.”
“Well, at least I’ll get to hang out with you in the meantime. So, either way I guess it’s time well-spent.”
My knees wobbled a bit, almost buckled, and he reached out to steady me, but I stood strong. I’d read enough to know to be suspicious of any man who dripped charm the way this guy did, but that didn’t stop me from enjoying it. His face and demeanor seemed so sincere, but I was well-aware that I wasn’t exactly experienced with the opposite sex and couldn’t really trust my own judgements.
“Follow me.” I turned and headed to the front of the store, but I could feel him there, a presence behind me at the forefront of my awareness. I wasn’t really sure what I was doing, especially since I was fairly certain he was here with his girlfriend, but my hips seemed to have a different point of view and swayed a little extra as I headed up front.
At least they did until I caught sight of Charlie. He was at the back of the store in the center aisle where he could see the front registers, sandwiched between Darla, a cheerleader from my old high school he’d been helping to begin with, and the girl in the hoodie that had come in with… I should probably ask this guy his name, but Charlie was looking at me like he might set the whole room ablaze with only the power of his mind if I showed even the slightest interest in the guy behind me, so I decided it would be better to wait. Just for good measure, I smiled at Charlie. There was no need to cause a bunch of drama and hurt my friend for some guy I would never see again.
I stepped
behind the counter and the mystery man stepped up next to me rather than across the counter, careful not to cross the employees only line. His nearness sent a tingle across my skin that made me shiver, and I could feel the heat of his body as I woke up the resting computer and navigated to the inventory search bar.
“Okay, what am I looking for?”
“Mother of Monsters: The True Story of Lilith and Her Children.”
“Lilith? Like, from the bible?”
“One and the same.”
“Okay…” I said, typing the title into the search bar. When that didn’t return any results, I typed Demons into the subject search. That returned two hundred and thirteen results from our inventory. “Okay, it wasn’t under the full title, which means it might have been entered wrong. This might take a minute to weed through.”
“No problem. Take your time.”
“So, what kind of project are you working on?”
His eyebrows pulled inward. “I’m sorry?”
“You said you needed it for a project…”
“Oh, right. Philosophy class at KCU.”
“Oh, yeah? That’s where I go to school. Small world, I guess. Oh! I think I found it. Yeah, here it is. Mother of Monsters: The True Story of Lilith and Her Children. The author’s name and the title were switched.”
“Brilliant! Any chance it’s still here?”
“Unfortunately, no. It was sold six weeks ago. So, all I can do now is contact the buyer on your behalf and see if they’re interested in selling or not.”
His eyes closed and he released a forceful breath, then slammed his fist down on the countertop. “Damnit!”
It surprised me, and I jumped a bit. I tried to cover, but he saw.
“I’m sorry,” he said, looking stricken. “I’m so sorry. I just… I really need that book. I’ve been looking a long time. Is there any way you could ring the buyer now?”
“Like, while you wait?”
“Please?” The puppy dog eyes were overkill, but combined with the effect his voice and his accent were having on me, I couldn’t say no.
I was also hyper-aware of Charlie in the back, still fending off rivalling advances from both girls and attempting to stare daggers at the guy next to me at the same time. Why? Who the hell knew, but I was ready to be done with it, so I nodded.
“Yeah, I’ll call him, but if he’s not there, all I can do is leave a message and email him. I can’t work miracles.”
“Oh, don’t sell yourself short, love. You have no idea what you might be capable of.”
A shiver traversed my spine as he spoke. It was like that feeling you get when you’re reading and you’re absolutely certain the passage you just read is foreshadowing some impending horror. I shook myself out of it, writing it off as part of whatever weird reaction this guy was causing.
“So, do you want me to give them your information, or would you prefer the store to do the brokering?”
“Hmmm… Sounds like a creative way to get your hands on my number,” he purred, and I blushed in places I wasn’t aware could blush. “And my name, which you haven’t found a smooth way to ask yet.”
“Excuse me?”
He smiled again, but I didn’t. I didn’t care what reaction this guy was causing or how hot he was—and wow he was—I didn’t play this game.
With the most blank expression I could muster, I simply said, “Okay, so we’ll broker then. If he’s not available, I’ll leave a message and you can leave your info with Charlie before you go.” I turned and walked away, but not before I caught his gaping jaw and wide eyes. Served him right. Hot or not, you don’t get to be a dick.
My back tingled where I could feel his eyes boring into me, and when I turned to peek over my shoulder, I found I wasn’t wrong. I caught his gaze… and the appreciative look on his face. He didn’t look away when he caught me watching him watching me, only tilted his head and held my gaze. It was bold, and his ego definitely needed deflating, but it was also refreshing. I was so used to Charlie pretending not to be interested, pretending not to be noticing or watching me, that seeing someone who so blatantly didn’t give a shit he’d just been caught red-handed ogling made me feel sexy, stronger somehow, and braver than I ever had.
Then, as I turned back, I caught a glimpse of the girl in the hoodie. She had turned away from Charlie and was looking at the guy behind me. I turned enough to see him give her a nod. She nodded in return then thanked Charlie and headed toward the front. What were those two up to?
As I reached the ‘Employee Only’ door, I saw Charlie staring at the mystery man with a scowl that could’ve skinned the poor guy alive. He glanced at me, and in the second our eyes met, his face showed nothing but pain, and I felt suddenly guilty. Guilty for being attracted to this stranger, guilty for feeling good about his attraction to me, and guilty for the strength and courage I’d found in the glance of a stranger rather than in the thousand glances of my dearest friend.
I felt like a traitor, and that made me angry.
I shoved through the door, and once I was on the other side, I leaned back against it and took a deep breath. Why was I letting this guy fluster me? He wasn’t hotter than Charlie—few people were—but I didn’t react this way to Charlie. Life would be easier if I did. This guy had an effect on me I didn’t really understand and I kind of wanted to explore.
But I wouldn’t get the chance. I realized with plummeting hope that I would never get to explore that feeling. I might never feel it again. When he left, he would take it with him. I was suddenly heartbroken at the loss of something I hadn’t known I wanted or needed—or even known existed—before fifteen minutes ago.
As I managed the strange feeling of loss, the door behind me pushed suddenly forward, shoving me away from it. I stumbled forward, righting myself as Charlie’s head popped through.
“Hey, what are you doing?” Charlie asked, looking at the side of the door that I’d just been leaning against.
“Huh? Oh, this guy is looking for a book we sold a while back. He wants me to see if I can broker a deal between him and the guy who bought it.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet he does,” Charlie said, stepping the rest of the way into the narrow hallway and closing the door behind him.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Oh, come on,” he said, stepping forward, crowding me for the second time that day. “You can’t tell me you don’t see what he’s doing. Sending his little friend to distract me while he hits on you.”
“Well, first of all, he wasn’t hitting on me.”
“Bullshit! He was checking out your ass the whole way to the register! And the whole way in here!”
“Second of all,”—I continued as though he hadn’t interrupted me—“why would they need to distract you for him to do so? And third, why would it even matter if he was, Charlie?” I stared him dead in the eyes as I spoke, challenging him to say it, to speak up and say his piece instead of avoiding it like we always did. He wouldn’t. I knew he wouldn’t. But he had no right to speak to me the way he just had, and I was not above bullying if he was going to be disrespectful and irrational.
I was right. He averted his eyes and stepped back. “I don’t know. I guess it doesn’t. Do whatever you want. Just pretend I’m not here,” he said with a smile, pulling back and letting the door swing closed behind him.
I didn’t know exactly why, but I was furious. I suspected it was for a lot of reasons, but all that mattered at that moment was that I was, and I needed a target. A target I didn’t have other than to direct it at Charlie in his absence. So that’s what I did. I fumed at him through the closed door and forced the tears threatening to fall to stay put.
I headed back to the office and kicked on the computer, pulling up the book info and purchase history. I dialed the customer’s number, and when he answered, I was shocked.
“Hi, Mr. Ross?”
“Yes, who’s this?”
“Hi, this is Dani from Bookworm, the bookstore in Sunset.
You purchased a book here six weeks ago. Mother of Monsters: The True Story of Lilith and Her Children. We have an interested party in the store, and I’d like to see if there’s a deal to be brokered—”
“Do not call here again. And if I were you, I’d make it a point to avoid anyone looking for this book.” He hung up.
I pulled my head back and stared at the phone. This day just kept getting weirder, and what the hell just happened?!
I shook my head and took a deep breath and shoved this latest weirdness into the vault in my head that was currently containing this shitstorm of a day. Then I put the phone back in its cradle and headed back to the front of the store. Now to explain this to…
Damnit, I still didn’t know his name.
I pulled the door open and walked back out into the store. Charlie was behind the counter, checking out some books for Darla as she checked him out in return. Hoodie-girl was nowhere to be seen and neither was hoodie-guy, at first. Charlie caught my eye and nodded toward the armchair I’d been reading in earlier. I headed back there, and sure enough, there was hoodie-guy. He was seated on my green armchair with his legs spread and his elbows on his knees as he leaned forward, deeply immersed in…
“My book!”
As he glanced up at me with one eyebrow raised and a spreading Cheshire cat grin, I realized my mistake. He would never have known whose book it was, but I had to open my big mouth, and now he was looking at me like a starving predator who smelled blood.
He looked down at the book appreciatively and then back at me as he stood. “Your book? Hmm… I would’ve pegged you for an Austen girl. Bronte, maybe.”
“Well, I guess you can’t judge a book by its cover,” I said jokingly, trying to distract him. I was unsuccessful.
“Very nice. So, you like this stuff? Monsters and mayhem? The battle between good and evil? Sinners and saints and the pleasures of the flesh?”
“Who doesn’t?”
“Ha!”
He laughed so loudly I worried Charlie would come back here snooping, and he didn’t know what kinds of books I read either. Figured it was better not to give him any more ammo.
Dark Prelude Page 3
