He stood rooted to the spot as she whispered the last few words with him. A rivulet of tension rippled up his spine, and his cock rose to full attention, reacting to her soft-spoken voice. Her acceptance of what he’d created made a cold, dark place in his heart crack open and let in a little light.
She turned her luminous blue-green eyes on him and her smile lit the room. “It’s perfect. I want it.”
* * * *
Jayne sat at the library checkout desk the day after her visit to Seth’s tattoo studio and pulled the photocopy from her purse. She recalled again his searing blue gaze when he’d made eye contact with her after showing her the design. As he’d read the lines of poetry to her, she’d felt like a magnet being drawn to steel.
He was like a Greek god with his intense features, the strong black slashes of his eyebrows, over eyes that seemed to see inside her, and kissable lips that were bracketed by a jet-black moustache and goatee. Her heart was moved once again as she gazed at the drawing after checking to make sure no one else would see.
It’s perfect!
Jayne fought the prickle of tears as she read the beautiful script again. The roses, in various stages of blooming, were delicate with just a hint of blush to their tips. She hadn’t been sure about a colorful design and knew this fit the bill perfectly. A secret thrill went through her at the thought of having Seth’s hands on her body in such an intimate way. That he was so intensely handsome, and yet seemed interested in a studious wallflower like her, blew her mind.
Since meeting Seth, her cousins, Grace Warner and Charity Connors, had filled her in on his status. Grace described him as a bit of loner, but had been hasty to clarify that he wasn’t antisocial. She’d also told Jayne about Seth’s part in helping to rescue Lily Cook, when she’d been abducted by her abusive ex-husband. If it hadn’t been for his quick thinking, Clay, Del, and local law enforcement might not have found her until it had been too late. “Hero material” had been the expression that Grace had used. Maybe that was one of the reasons Jayne trusted him with such an extensive tattoo design.
The scope of the tattoo was large enough to be intimidating but not so much that she was having second thoughts. This tattoo was just for her to enjoy. The part of the design that covered the expanse of her abdomen didn’t even concern her. She could never have children, so she wasn’t worried about the tattoo being harmed by pregnancy and stretch marks. And being a thirtysomething virgin confirmed that she might well be the only one, besides Seth, who ever even saw it.
As a library patron walked past the checkout desk, she folded the drawing and slid it back into her journal for safekeeping. Rowena Booker, the elderly assistant librarian, was on an errand, so Jayne was posted at the desk, eating her lunch while she worked on the story she’d begun writing the day she’d met Seth. It was old-fashioned to write by hand but Jayne didn’t mind. She drifted away into the storyline, the scratch of her pen on the paper the only sound in the otherwise quiet library.
…Riveted by his blue gaze, Alissa teetered on a precipice, on the verge of finally giving in. Stephan’s broad shoulders vibrated with tension beneath her grip as he waited for her answer. Dusk settled across the horizon outside her bedroom window, as storm clouds gathered in the distance. If she gave in to him, would he cherish her? Or would he be gone at the first hint of trouble on the ranch?
“Alissa, if you say yes, there’s no going back. You’ll be mine from this point forward. I keep what is mine. Are you sure?”
His deep voice was a sweet caress against her throat as he pressed the hot, hard ridge of his denim-covered cock against her trembling, untouched, but embarrassingly damp flesh. Instinctively, she could tell by his soft groan that the wait for her response was an agonizing one.
What about love?
She wanted more than just protection from her late father’s enemies. She wanted more than just help with the ranch.
As if sensing her hesitation, Stephan breathed slowly and withdrew his bodyweight from her pelvis, where he’d had her pinned to the bed. “Alissa, are you afraid? Honey, I wouldn’t hurt you for the world, but it may hurt this first time.” The sincerity in his blue eyes made her heart lurch with need for him.
“But you said—”
“I know what I said. You’ll be mine from this point forward. Mine to love and take care of, make love to.”
“You love me?”
“With every fiber of my being, honey. I want you forever, not just for tonight.”
With a hitched breath, she tugged clumsily at the button of his jeans. He sat up, kneeling in front of her, as she gazed hungrily at his handsome form. Black, curling hairs covered his chest and made a steadily narrowing trail down past his navel to the hard, thick length of his erection, which jutted out as he lowered the zipper on his fly.
Heat flushed Alissa’s cheekbones as she looked her fill at Stephan’s enormous cock for the first time. Would it fit? Even as she contemplated this, her untried flesh quivered with some heretofore unknown need for him.
In seconds he had his jeans and shirt off. Stephan’s smoldering blue gaze traveled up her naked body, searing her with his stare as much as he did with his flesh.
He settled within her arms. The sensual smile on his face was made rakish by his neatly trimmed moustache and goatee, which tickled as he brushed his lips against hers. His slow, sensuous kiss was echoed with the rhythm of his hips as he rocked against her mound. Her juices wet the hot, steely hardness of his member. She gasped as the blunt head of his cock brushed insistently at her virgin entrance.
Tilting his head, he deepened the kiss and lifted her thigh around his hip as he gripped her derriere with the other. His gaze met hers and he—
“You’re not going to believe this, Jayne!” Rowena whispered in a dramatic tone, practically in Jayne’s ear.
Jayne nearly came out of her skin. She dropped her pen, and fumbled the book, trying to close it as she adopted a nonchalant pose. Her body pulsed with arousal that brought a wave of heat to her cheeks. She’d never experienced making love for herself, but she was about ready to come all the same. She now had a good understanding of the term “cockblocked.”
“Oh! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to surprise you.”
Jayne laid her hand over her journal on the desk. “It’s all right. What’s the matter?”
“Daisy just called and said that she’s in the emergency room with a broken ankle. She was changing a light bulb at home and fell off her stepladder. She can’t come for Kookie Kid’s Klub!”
Oh, crap!
Rowena continued in a more subdued tone, “The kids have already started arriving. What should we do?”
There was no way Jayne would cancel one of her new summer projects for the Divine Memorial Library. Between fifteen and twenty kids showed up every Friday afternoon for Kookie Kid’s Klub, which was a half hour spent in making a simple craft and storytelling time and then free time in the kids’ department of the library for the rest of the afternoon. The project had received coverage from the local paper and support from various businesses that donated supplies for the craft projects. Now the young librarian who read to the children and helped them with their little crafts wasn’t coming and might not be there the following week either. There was only one thing to do.
“I’ll handle the kids if you can stay at the checkout desk. We can do this, Rowena.”
Jayne hoped she sounded more positive than she felt. The kids had taken to the extremely gamine Daisy from the very first Friday that Kookie Kid’s Klub had opened. They hung on her every word and listened to all her instructions at craft time. Jayne couldn’t boast of the same gift with children, although she also hadn’t given it a try because Daisy had piped up and volunteered for the task as soon as Jayne had announced it earlier that spring. Jayne had always pursued quieter, less public pursuits.
She steeled her resolve, thinking she could just add this to her list of things she did in the name of seizing the day. Her cousin Grace would be
so proud.
As if on cue, the first of several groups of moms with kids filed through the door and made their way into the kids’ department to wait for the event to begin.
“Are you sure, Jayne?” Rowena asked cautiously. “I could read to them, and…and…” She did an admirable job of keeping the terrified tremble out of her voice.
Jayne smiled at the elderly part-time librarian, who would be in over her head with that many rambunctious, noisy kids. As she rose from the seat, she said, “It’ll be fine. I’ll get everything set up.”
“All right, dear. But if you need my help, you know I’ll be right here,” Rowena said as she filled the seat Jayne had just vacated, relief evident in her posture.
Jayne rushed to the meeting room and rummaged through the craft closet, looking for the items needed for today’s craft, and located the storybook Daisy was reading aloud from each week. The theme for that summer’s club was Knights, Castles, and Dragons.
* * * *
Church bells a few blocks away chimed one o’clock as Seth parked his Harley outside the Divine Memorial Library, not kidding himself about the little wave of anticipation that centered in his chest. He was excited about the prospect of seeing Jayne, if only for a few brief minutes.
He reached in his leather saddlebags and retrieved the library books he’d checked out the day he’d met her and walked up the sidewalk.
The air-conditioning was a welcome relief from the blistering heat as he breezed in through the automatic sliding doors. The library was quiet, except for a sweet sound that was music to his ears. He followed Jayne’s voice to a large meeting room, off the central corridor that led into the library, and found her, perched in a small chair, surrounded by a large number of children, from toddler age on up to elementary school ages, all of whom were paying rapt attention to her story.
Hello, beautiful.
She was dressed in a teal-blue silky shirt that covered all her gorgeous pale skin but clearly accentuated her curvy body. The artist in him liked how the shade contrasted with her own coloring. She’d swept all of her wavy mahogany hair up into a loose knot at the back of her head, leaving tendrils loose here and there in a way that made him want to release the knot and see it fall around her shoulders.
She was scheduled to have her first tattoo session the following day. He’d worked on bare skin for years, but the thought of working on Jayne’s ignited his libido in a way that no other woman ever had. His hands shook just thinking about it.
She spoke in a funny character voice as she told the story of a dragon searching for his home. He smiled as she switched to a different character voice and he leaned against the doorframe to listen for a minute.
As she held the book up for them to see the picture, she glanced up and saw him. He couldn’t take his eyes off of her as her eyes glowed with welcome, her cheeks a soft shade of rose. He listened for a minute until she tripped over her words and he realized he might be making her self-conscious.
She nodded when he gestured with his thumb that he was going into the library and then he slipped away to return the books that were due back that day. He visited the art books department again and found several books that he’d been interested in but forgotten about. His meeting with Jayne that first evening at the library had distracted him.
“Did you find everything that you needed, sir?” the elderly librarian asked from behind the desk as she took his card and checked his books.
He replied to her, not even sure of what he said as he listened for Jayne’s voice, wondering if she was through with story time yet. The librarian spoke of the weather and who-knew-what-else as she stacked his books neatly and handed them to him. He thanked her when she was done and went in search of Jayne.
Outside the meeting room, he looked over the heads of several moms with strollers who stood around the doorway and smiled as Jayne reached the crescendo of the story.
“…and he spread his magnificent, sparkling dragon wings and soared into the sky!”
All the children gasped in wonder as she showed them the picture and cheered for the dragon who’d found his home. All the children converged on her at once, chattering about the story. She happened to glance up as she hugged a little girl with blonde ringlets and grinned at him. It was obvious the children loved their beautiful storyteller and he couldn’t blame them.
There was no way he’d get a word in edgewise with that crowd. He had an appointment in less than twenty minutes, so he pointed at his watch, indicating that he was pressed for time. She waved with regret in her expression, and nodded as she moved the group of kids toward tables set up with some kind of craft. At least he’d gotten to see her. He’d have to be happy with that.
* * * *
Jayne watched with disappointment as Seth turned toward the main entry and left. A soft sigh escaped her. Bye, handsome. I want to kiss you…all over.
She noticed that several of the moms who had brought their kids to the club were craning their necks as they watched him walk away. Jayne felt a little streak of possessiveness when one of the moms made an obviously complimentary remark about Seth’s handsome face or muscular physique to the others.
With Kookie Kid’s Klub done, she returned to her desk, trying to remember what she’d been working on before Rowena had come in with Daisy’s bad news. Something niggled at her subconscious as she discussed sending a small bouquet of flowers to Daisy to wish her well. She gasped as her heart jumped up into her throat.
My book! Where is it?
Placing her fingertips on the now-cleared desktop she’d been sitting at, Jayne asked, “Rowena, what happened to the book with the red paisley cover that was lying here earlier when I got up?”
Rowena clamped her mouth shut and rolled her eyes back and forth as she searched her memory. Under other circumstances, her expression would’ve been comical. A troubled expression crossed Rowena’s face. “The last time I saw it was right before that attractive young man with the long black hair came to the counter. My goodness, I may be an old lady but he was quite handsome, except for all those scary tattoos. Why someone would want to do that to themselves is beyond—Oh, my. Jayne, I think I may have accidentally sent it home with that young man. Were you saving it for someone?”
Jayne prayed for a hole to open in the floor and swallow her as a cold chill swept over her. The book had her journal and her stories in it, including the story that featured a handsome cowboy matching Seth’s description and a virginal damsel in distress who, prior to the interruption, had been just about to give up “the goods” to said cowboy.
“Jayne? Are you all right? Were you saving it for someone else?” Jayne’s cheeks bloomed with heat as Rowena’s innocent question called to mind the erotic fantasy she’d had about Seth that had inspired the story. In her fantasy, she’d done exactly as her damsel in distress had been about to do. “Jayne, honey? You’re awfully pale. Come sit.” Rowena patted the chair back and guided Jayne into it. “I’m sure the other patron will understand and wait for him to return it.”
“The book was my journal, Rowena,” Jayne said weakly.
My stories. My journal, including everything I wrote about July 4th. Oh, stupid woman! To leave your private journal out like that! You deserve to be embarrassed!
“Oh, Lord have mercy! I’m sorry, Jayne! Oh my goodness!” Rowena turned six shades of deep red and sounded mortified as she flapped her hands and apologized. “Check your desk, and your purse! Make sure you didn’t put it in there for safekeeping.”
Their search turned up nothing. It was indeed gone and in the hands of the last man on earth she wanted reading it.
“Is your name and phone number inside it?”
Nausea coiled in the pit of her stomach. “No, just the date I started it.”
“Can you call him and explain? Call him before he has a chance to even open it and maybe he’ll do the chivalrous thing and respect your privacy once you explain the situation.”
Rowena was right. Seth was a
decent guy. She’d call him and explain the flub to him. She had a feeling that he’d never knowingly invade her privacy. She wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt as she pulled her phone from her purse. Rowena wrote down the phone number they had on file for Seth in the library computer system and gave it to Jayne before she slipped into one of the empty meeting rooms.
The call rolled to voice mail as she swung the door closed, feeling bad for poor Rowena, who looked very guilty.
“Hi, Seth. It’s Jayne Sheridan from the library…”
Chapter Two
Seth entered the dark house and laid the stack of books on the coffee table before going into the kitchen. His stomach grumbled as he peered into the refrigerator and decided on a rib eye. While the cast-iron skillet heated, he nuked a potato and chopped vegetables for a salad.
His phone chimed in his pocket while he had both hands busy, searing the steak in the blazing-hot skillet and removing the potato from the microwave. Deciding to wait until after he’d eaten to check his messages, he loaded his plate and got a beer from the fridge.
The ten o’clock newscast kept him company, as he sat on the couch and relaxed while he ate. He’d had appointments that afternoon in Morehead at Jim Durbin’s tattoo studio, Desired Ink, and had gotten home later than he’d anticipated.
He’d hoped to call a certain sexy librarian that evening, but now it was a little late to do that. She’d probably be getting ready for bed right about then. He imagined her brushing out her long reddish-brown hair, standing nude before her mirror. He laid his head on the back of the couch and smiled as thoughts of her brought warmth to his chest. She certainly was different from the women he’d grown accustomed to in his travels.
He sorted through each book in the pile as he finished the last succulent bite and then laid the plate aside on the coffee table. His hand stopped on a smaller book with a red paisley cover. This one didn’t look familiar. It had a delicate, if well-used appearance, and wasn’t one that he’d placed in the hands of the elderly librarian working at the checkout counter. He wasn’t sure where it’d come from.
Heather Rainier Page 2
