by Mel Sterling
All Jack did was stand with her back pressed against his chest, her right hand still held up against his cheek. The fingers of his left hand spread over her stomach. His hold was light. She could break free at any moment, but she stood there, focused on the part of the crowd she could see, hearing but not processing the words of the woman at the podium. Words didn't matter right now, not when Jack's lips were nipping at the base of each finger of her right hand, cruising the lines of her palm and moving on to the tender skin of the inside of her wrist.
Lexie leaned her head back against his chest, fighting the urge to turn in the circle of his arm and twine her own arms around his neck.
In the audience, there was a burst of applause, then Cyril's voice again, introducing the next reader. Jack pulled her another two steps back, and now she could only see one half of the back row. Gilly sat there, hands in her lap, but the chair beside her was empty again. Was Q reading? …no, it was another female voice.
The tip of Jack's tongue found her pulse in her wrist. His breath was warm on her skin, and slightly quickened. He turned his head and said in her ear, "I keep thinking about kissing you."
There wasn't a sound she could make that wouldn't be a moan or a gasp, so she nodded jerkily.
"Is that agreement?" His breath tickled her neck and made goosebumps rise all down that side of her body. He nuzzled behind her ear and her knees buckled. She would have slumped to the floor had Jack's encircling arm not tightened to support her.
"Please," was all she could manage, in a hoarse whisper. She didn't dare clear her throat again; someone would look at the two of them.
"I want to please you," Jack murmured. "Please you—and then please you again. And again."
She was reminded of the evening he'd brought them Chinese take-out, then kissed her senseless. Hadn't he said something about spending a day in bed, with just coffee and her? She tried to stop her mind from rabbiting after that thought, but it was useless. She began to turn in his arms, ready to reach up with her fingers to stop his lips from devouring her own, when a noise from the other side of the bookcase made them both freeze. The soft thumps were immediately recognizable—someone was taking books from the shelf and sliding them back. Lexie stiffened, and Jack, understanding, moved away.
She was pathetically grateful to him. It took a moment to steady her legs, but then she walked casually to the back of the aisle and peeked around the end of the bookcase.
Q was there, holding a fat hardcover, and his head swiveled toward her, much like a praying mantis's might. In fact, he looked a great deal like one of those insects, long-legged, thin, angular, with a three-cornered smile right at her.
To get to the shelf where he was browsing, he would have passed behind where she and Jack were standing so close, probably when Jack's head was bent to hers. She hadn't the slightest doubt he'd seen them. She hoped he hadn't heard Jack's husky declaration, but from Q's slow, knowing smile, was quite sure he had.
She nodded at him, turned on her heel, and went along the back of the stacks, stepping past the chained library ladders, and sat in the chair at the cash register desk.
It was several long minutes before her pulse settled down. She kept a wary eye on Jack, and another on Q, who occasionally sat in the chair Gilly saved for him, but also roamed the store. It was impossible to tell whether Q simply had a very short attention span, was browsing for books to buy, or just working out his fidgets while he waited to read his latest opus. Lexie managed to catalog another two dozen books into the store system while the poets read, one after another. Jack eventually chose a seat at the end of a row, where he was still in her direct line of sight.
It was finally Q's turn. Lexie paused in her work to listen. The young man's voice was sonorous and deep, out of proportion to his slender, esthetic frame. Gilly listened with a rapt expression as Q intoned, "For lo, I am the secret longing, the longing, the longing. Longing to be told. Longing to be. Longing. Show me your secret, Rose, my rosy secret, my longing. I long. I am long. I am your secret."
Jack turned his head and looked right at Lexie. There was the smallest half smile on his lips, and he gave her a sly wink that at once made her pulse leap and her heart laugh. She ducked her head to hide her grin.
Not much later, the open mic wrapped up for the evening. Morgan le Fay trailed out, trilling, "How about a dram of absinthe for the night's work? Who's with me for a taste of the green fairy, la fée verte?" She swept several poets in her wake as Cyril and Jack put the folding chairs away. Lexie rang up a few last-minute sales. Gilly cleared the coffee things—the cookies had all been eaten—and came back to help tidy. She put a book on the desk and patted it with her hand. "Can I borrow this one, Lexie? It sounds really good."
Lexie checked the book over. It was secondhand, and she nodded. The bar code reader took its inventory number, and she processed it in the system as an inventory reduction, no sale. Gilly smiled and bounced back to The Cup with the book, locking the connecting door behind her. A moment or two later Lexie saw the last dim lights in The Cup wink out, and heard the alley door slam.
Cyril and Jack leaned on the desk. "What else can I help with, Lexie?" asked the open mic host.
Lexie glanced around the room. Melville was still on his perch, eyes glowing—at least the fickle beast hadn't slipped out with the crowd. "I can't think of anything, Cyril. Thanks for another good night."
Cyril swept her a courtly bow. "It is I who should thank you. See you in two weeks?"
"Of course." She smiled. The poets were a good-hearted, earnest and supportive crowd, regardless of what she thought of their literary merits.
"Coming?" Cyril said to Jack. "The crowd's gone across the square to McIver's, want to join us?"
"I'm staying to walk Alexia and Melville home. Thanks, though. Maybe another time."
"I know some of the group would really like to talk with you. We were hoping you'd read some of your work tonight."
Jack smiled, with a self-deprecating shrug. "I'm here at Horace's Books most days, nothing to stop them coming in if they'd like."
Lexie wondered what the poets had in common with Jack that they'd want to quiz him about, but he was already walking Cyril to the door, and the poet pulled on his jacket and settled a tweed cap on his head. At the front of the store he gave Melville a rub behind the ears, then went through the door with a cheery good night.
Jack flicked the knob lock and turned to Lexie. "I am long," he intoned. "I am the secret."
"Stop it, you're awful."
His eyebrows went up into wicked peaks, and his dark eyes sparkled. "Show me your secret rose."
Lexie colored. "Don't be rude. I'm fairly sure there was a comma in there. Rose is a proper name."
"That's the magical thing about poetry. So open to interpretation. Especially Q's poetry."
She snorted, running the cash register's closing reports while she began counting pennies from the till. "He saw us, you know. There's no way he could have missed us."
"We weren't doing anything wrong."
"I know…it's just…public displays of affection in a place of business—I just…" She flashed to the earlier kiss, when she'd come hastily down the ladder and Jack's hands had been up her skirt as a result. If someone had seen that…well. It didn't bear thinking about. No one had seen, and it wouldn't happen again, and that was that.
He nodded. "You are professional to the bone. But now I'm going to walk you home, and I would like a good night kiss at your door." He came to lean on the counter again. "How about it, Alexia Worth? A kiss under the porch light?"
She looked up at him from where she was counting dollar bills, and could not help but smile. "Maybe. But not if you keep calling me Alexia."
Jack was really starting to like these nighttime walks from the bookstore to Horace's—Lexie's, he reminded himself—house. Tonight Melville seemed to be in the mood for a stroll, taking his time, dawdling along in the darkness, sniffing, pausing to stare after some unseen something i
n the hedges and grass along the way. Jack and Lexie followed, fingers entwined. The tabby's white socks and pale scut guided them along the sidewalk, but otherwise the striped cat blended into pools of shadow between porch and streetlights.
Jack couldn't stop rubbing his thumb over the back of Lexie's hand. He had to settle for that one small touch for now. She'd stopped him from following her into the stacks and pinning her to a bookcase for a kiss or six as she was making the last sweep through the store for missed cups or napkins, putting roofed books back where they belonged. He didn't mind the slow walk, no…but he was really looking forward to reaching the house and claiming his reward of a goodnight kiss.
The gusty wind varied, first pushing them from behind, then sneaking from the side. Jack glanced up and down the street to be sure it was safe for the tabby to cross. The breeze carried the scent of crushed leaves and smoke. Someone nearby had burned leaves earlier in the day, and the charred ashes still exhaled the distinctly seasonal fragrance. Leaves swirled thick in the gutters, rustling and flickering with shadows in the streetlight. Melville spooked at their motion before leaping over the pile against the curb, and Lexie squeezed Jack's hand.
"Thanks," she murmured.
"Anytime." From the corner of his eye he saw Lexie's skirt flare and subside in a gust. He'd be lucky to get any sleep tonight, possessed as he already was by the thought of his hands under that skirt earlier in the day. Though he knew she didn't wear skirts to drive him nuts, they certainly worked on him like aphrodisiacs. He'd spent the afternoon with a semi-hard, grateful his bluejeans weren't a fitted cut. Only Lexie's ferocious professionalism had stopped him from begging her to lock the front door—just for five minutes, or maybe half an hour, or the rest of the afternoon—so they could get to know each other better with hands and lips.
If he was honest with himself, it was Lexie's very unapproachability that drew him. She was so self-contained, so independent. A challenging nut he longed to crack, to see what passion was trapped within.
Or maybe it was just his foolish fantasies about librarians who took off their glasses and shook out their hair to become sex goddesses. Lexie could have doubled for a sexy librarian any day. Certainly he'd started associating the smell of old books with sexual arousal, as if he were a hopeless teenager crushing on a pretty teacher and getting turned on by the smell of chalk dust and blackboard erasers as a result.
Still—he could think of far less appealing places to make love than Horace's bookstore, or that slippery pink horsehair sofa in the back room.
Lexie stopped, tugging at his hand. They were only two houses away from her own. "It's not a race, Jack. The house will still be there in five minutes, and there don't seem to be any thugs loitering in the hedges tonight."
He realized he'd sped up, outpacing her shorter stride. His anticipation had been rushing him on, urging him to the porch. "Sorry." He felt sheepish now, and callow. A real one-track wonder.
Melville scooted ahead and Jack saw his white socks vanish up the steps of Horace's house. "He's hungry," Lexie said. "A perpetual condition with that cat. He acts like I never feed him."
A few moments later they were mounting the same steps. Lexie worked her fingers free of Jack's in order to unlock the door. She turned the knob and Melville shot through the door before it had opened more than a few inches. Jack caught her elbow before she could follow the cat, and she turned to look up at him, her face a little tired, but still pleasant. He wasn't ready for the day to end.
"Want me to check the house for you? Make sure no one's lurking inside?"
She smiled. "I'm sure it's fine. No need."
Jack moved a step closer, and now Lexie tilted her chin up. She really did seem tired, and the murmur of "Invite me in" died on his lips unspoken.
"You're waiting for that kiss, aren't you?" she asked softly.
"I could take a raincheck. It's late. You're worn out."
"Poetry can do that to a person." She shook her head. "They're a really nice bunch of people. I know their enthusiasms are as valid as anyone else's. I just don't happen to share them."
"Novelists aren't any better, once you get to know them."
"How about journalists, like you?"
"Worse. Much, much worse."
"Worse how?"
"Always asking uncomfortable questions and trying to sneak off to the john when it's their turn to buy a round."
That got a genuine smile, and instead of trying to cram more useless words into the moment, Jack simply reached for her and fingerwalked her close enough to kiss. Her fatigue made her pliant in his grasp this time, without the buzzing tension caused by the possibility of a customer interrupting them. While he missed the spice, he liked even more the way she melted against him, her softness curving into his chest and arms, her head falling back into the cup of his waiting palm.
There was trust here.
The thought filled him to bursting, an unfamiliar heat in his chest, and its twin echo in his cock. He had to restrain himself from squeezing her too tightly in the excess of emotion, and satisfied himself with burying his lips at her throat. The hitching gasp she gave as he nibbled a path up from her collarbone was the sexiest sound he'd ever heard. Once again he fought the urge to ask her to let him come inside. If she let him in the house, he felt sure he could sweet-talk his way into her bed.
But he would be pushing her.
What of trust, after that?
He found her lips with his. His tongue swept them apart easily, and he half-lifted her against him with a hand at her buttocks, hips pressed close. She gave a slow wriggle that did nothing but inflame him, and her arms went up around his neck. She was up on her toes. He liked the feel of her body in his arms, her balance completely dependent upon the support of his embrace.
He could scoop her up, sweep her through the half-open door, carry her upstairs. The two of them would land in a happy, sexy, tangled heap on her lacy bed and—
Melville yowled behind her. The cat had come back to the porch, demanding to know why the food was late again.
Lexie started to laugh, helplessly, mid-kiss. Their teeth clacked together, and a moment later he let her down to her feet and pressed his forehead to hers.
"Dratted lecturing cat," he muttered.
Her eyes brimmed with laughter. "Always hungry. Always. Do you want to come in?"
His fingers clutched reflexively at her waist. "Do I ever," he breathed. "You have no idea." At her startled blink, he shook his head. "You're tired. So, much as I'd love to come and tuck you in, and me in with you, I'll say my goodnight here. You've got a starving cat to feed, and I've got a walk home in this funny little town's sweet night."
When the door closed behind Lexie, Jack went slowly down the porch steps, hands in his pockets. He didn't go far, just to the shadow of an oak on the lawn of the house next door, where he waited until he saw the light go on in her attic bedroom. All was well, then. He headed back the way they'd come. He was neither sleepy nor eager to get home to his room above the co-op, so when he got to the corner where a left would take him to Horace's Books and a right would take him to the studio, he crossed the street to the brick-paved town square and found McIver's, where the poets had gone.
He pushed open the door in a gust of autumn wind, and there they all were in the pub's warm wood-paneled gloom. Cyril and the woman who carried a rune staff, the college kids who were still exploring in verse the intensity of their new feelings of independence, several of the others. Gilly wasn't there, nor that oddball Q, but that was all right, too. Someone saw Jack hesitating just inside the door and their circle opened for him, warm smiles, welcoming words, and a creaking little rattan cafe chair that he straddled. A pint of whatever was on tap appeared a moment later, and he lifted it to the group.
Funny little town indeed, but it was charming him. It was new and strange to think of Camden and its residents as home and friends, but that's what was happening. He wasn't ready for it. Someone leaned across the table with a q
uestion about what it was like to be inside the raging vortex of a forest fire, just him and his camera and only one way out and no time left…and Jack settled in. He wished he could call Lexie at home and ask her to come join the group, but it was selfish. He wanted to see her face as he told the exciting tales of some of his most dangerous assignments, wanted her sitting beside him, riveted. Wanted to impress her with his bravado and genuine bravery.
Show off, he chided himself, but kept talking.
CHAPTER EIGHT
WHEN LEXIE ARRIVED AT the bookstore the next morning, Jack was already standing at the connecting door to The Cup with two cups in his hands. Melville headed straight for the front window where a bar of sunlight lay across the display, parked himself on a double stack of hardcover mysteries by a local author, and commenced a leisurely bath. Lexie gazed heavenwards, asking what she had done to deserve a cat who showed his butt to all the passers-by. Then she turned to where Jack stood looking as hopeful as a retriever with a ball in its mouth, and opened the door. Why not? At least Jack was presentable at the table near the window, unlike rude Melville. She had to open the door at some point, and it wasn't like she wasn't happy to see him. Maybe too happy.
"English breakfast black tea with a splash of elderflower flavoring Gilly wants someone to guinea pig for her," Jack said, pushing a cup into her hands and bending down to press a kiss on her mouth.
"Oh no you don't—" she began, the knee jerk reaction of "No public displays of affection" beginning its refrain. But he already had, and she'd tipped her head to accommodate him, as if this kiss was both expected and welcome. Now here she was, trying to keep in mind she was holding a cup of hot tea, while he plundered her mouth with his and his breath rushed across her cheek. He'd obviously been sipping his own coffee. She tasted vanilla and cinnamon on his tongue.
"I mean it," she said, when he lifted his head.
