Too Hot to Print

by Stephanie Bond

  Worries descended on Henry like a sudden headache. He pulled a hand down his face. Had the sex been as earth-shattering for her? With her quiet occupation and cardigan sweaters, Gabrielle struck him as someone who didn’t date a lot. What if she read more into their tryst than just a hookup? What if she turned out to be some kind of stalker?

  The inevitable awkward morning-after scene began to take on menacing proportions. Henry bypassed the champagne and reached into the liquor cabinet to pour himself a shot of whiskey. He tossed it back, telling himself he was letting his imagination run wild.

  But there was something about this woman that scared him, dammit.

  The bathroom door opened and Gabrielle emerged, looking like a Greek goddess with her dark hair once again piled on her head in a fancy twist. She wore black bikini panties and a black bra that, despite offering full coverage, was sexy as hell.

  She flashed him a smile, then sat on the edge of the bed and began to put on her black pantyhose. He watched her, fascinated how she scrunched the fabric, then inserted her dainty foot and pulled them up her shapely legs. She stood and reached for her dress hanging over the valet stand.

  And suddenly it dawned on him that she was dressing in preparation to go.

  Despite his previous concern, panic blipped in Henry’s chest. “You’re leaving?”

  She nodded as she shrugged into the dress and tied it around her narrow waist. “I have some work to do tonight and I need to feed my cat.”

  “You have a cat?” he asked, just to prolong the conversation.

  Gabrielle smiled as she stepped into high heels. “Mellors.”

  “Mellors…from Lady Chatterley’s Lover?”

  Her smile widened. “Yes.”

  The woman was certainly a romantic…although she must not have been moved by his performance if she was in such a hurry to leave.

  She picked up her purse. “Thank you, Henry, for a lovely evening.”

  He followed her to the door, feeling like a puppy. A few minutes ago he’d been worried she was going to latch on to him. Now he was afraid he’d never see her again. There were so many things they didn’t get to do to each other, and for each other. It was only Tuesday…he still had two evenings in Atlanta before heading back to Dallas Friday.

  “Gabrielle, can I see you again before I leave town?”

  In the doorway, she turned back, then bit her lip. “Let me think about it,” she said, then gave him a fluttery wave and disappeared.

  Henry felt as if he’d been side-swiped.

  Gabrielle maintained her composure until the elevator doors closed, then she collapsed against the wall, limp from physical release…and mental anguish. From what little she knew about Henry Wells, he was everything she wanted in a partner: intelligent, masculine, and physical, yet tender. She’d had to get out of there before she succumbed further to his charms. At the end of the week, Henry would be going home, or traveling elsewhere, to new “adventures.”

  And she’d still be here, watching TV with her cat.

  Gabrielle pulled out her phone and texted Cassie. On my way home, safe and sound.

  A white lie. At the moment, she didn’t feel very safe. In fact, she felt very much in danger of falling for the handsome stranger.

  Chapter Eight

  “Those kids are driving me crazy!” Gabrielle said to Lewis of the line of children running through the main floor of the library, laughing and yelling.

  Lewis frowned. “What’s with you? You’ve been on edge all morning.”

  Gabrielle sighed, massaging her temples. “Sorry. I didn’t get much sleep last night.”

  “Thinking about that big, strapping cowboy who came in here yesterday looking for you?”

  She glanced sideways at her coworker, thinking he’d never let her live it down if he knew what she’d done with that big, strapping cowboy. Or how she’d lain awake all night thinking about what she’d done. Everywhere she looked, she saw and felt Henry Wells. Her body was pleasantly sore in places she’d forgotten about, and all of her senses seemed to be heightened.

  Including her hearing. She glared at the shrieking children, wondering where their parents were. “I’m putting a stop to this right now.”

  Gabrielle walked out from behind the counter, snatched a copy of Old Yeller by Fred Gipson from a cart of returned books, then made her way to an open corner of the library and lowered herself onto a foot stool. She opened the book to the first page, cleared her voice…and began to read.

  One by one, children in the library came to investigate, then planted themselves at her feet. Even the boisterous group of kids disbanded and came to sit and listen. She read for a half hour, and when she closed the book, the children protested.

  “Come back tomorrow and I’ll pick up where we left off,” she promised.

  When she walked back to the desk, Lewis was smiling at her. “I’ve never seen anything like it—you were like the Pied Piper. Those kids were riveted.”

  “Apparently people like being read to,” she said with a shrug.

  “You certainly have the voice for it,” Lewis said.

  Gabrielle pursed her mouth. She’d left the poetry books with Henry, and some part of her had hoped he’d bring them back today. But in hindsight, that smacked a little of game-playing. Hadn’t she told the women in the book club that they needed to take ownership of their sexual fulfillment?

  She picked up the phone and dialed Henry’s cell number. He answered on the first ring.

  “Hello?”

  Just the sound of his voice sent goose bumps over her arms. “It’s Gabrielle.”

  “I hope you’re calling to tell me that we can see each other tonight.”

  “I am,” she said.

  “Good. I kept the room at the Belvedere. See you at seven o’clock?”

  She smiled into the phone. “I was thinking six.”

  His sexy laugh rumbled over the line. “See you then.”

  Gabrielle tried valiantly to read from the poetry book she held over Henry’s shoulder. Her concentration was being tested by the eight inches of hard cock stretching her feminine limits as they rocked together sitting face to face, legs and arms intertwined.

  “Don’t stop,” he urged in her ear. “Keep reading.”

  “This one…is called…Quenched.”

  “Mmm,” he murmured, then pushed his thumb against her clit in small circles.

  A ripple of pleasure stirred a deep, warm pool in her stomach. Gabrielle sighed into his neck, but forged ahead.

  “I believe…I am…sated

  and then…you walk…into the room

  and do…something sexy…like

  push your hair…out of…your eyes

  or…poke out…your tongue…in thought

  or…wrinkle your brow…in concentration

  or…s-smile at s-something s-silly…you thought of

  and…I want to…put you…on a platter

  and…feast on you…until I am sated again…for now…”

  Gabrielle dropped the book and sank her nails into the corded muscle of his back as her body began to buck. “Are you going to come with me?” she gasped in his ear.

  “Right behind you,” he murmured.

  Her head fell back as the spasms took over her body. Liquid fire spread through her midsection and surged out to her extremities as the muscle contractions strained her body to the brink of exhaustion. True to his word, Henry climaxed soon after, stirring the depths of her as his thick erection pulsed and expanded to release his warm seed.

  As he nuzzled her neck, Gabrielle fought against the sadness hovering around the edges of her heart, marveling that a few seconds after reaching such incredible physical heights, she could be dashed to an emotional low.

  I don’t love this stranger, she told herself stubbornly. I can’t…

  “Will you come back tomorrow night?” he whispered in her ear. “We can have one last night together.”

  No, no, no…. “Yes,” she murmured.
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  “Yes,” Gabrielle cried.

  Henry’s tongue was buried in her slick folds, licking and probing her, drinking her juices. When he took her engorged clit into his mouth and suckled it, she felt dizzy. She’d never known such extraordinary pleasure. She was boneless and completely at his mercy as he coaxed her orgasm to the surface with a rush of pounding blood. “Yes…yes…Henry…yessssss!”

  It was, she thought distantly as her body came back to earth, fitting that their last night together would be an out-of-body experience.

  Henry had never taken so much pleasure in pleasing someone else. Gabrielle seemed to have a limitless well for experimentation, and he loved watching the myriad of expressions that crossed her beautiful face when she climaxed.

  Although it was rivaled by the expression on her beautiful face when she took his cock in her mouth. Henry sighed as her silky lips encompassed the length of him, and gave in to the ecstasy. A fitting end to their last night together. The woman was so extraordinary, she could almost make a man think he could be satisfied with one woman the rest of his life…

  Almost….

  Chapter Nine

  “The end.” Gabrielle closed the copy of Old Yeller and cast a smile over the standing-room only crowd of children and parents that had gathered as word spread during the week about the “Reading Lady.” “Thank you very much for coming. We’ll start a new book Monday.”

  A smattering of applause broke out as she stood and made her way back to the Information desk.

  Lewis was clapping, too. “Amazing, Gabrielle. You’ve single-handedly boosted foot traffic by over twenty percent.”

  “Thanks, but I can’t take credit for the idea,” she said, thinking of Henry with a pang. Last night—their last night together—had been incredible…and incredibly sad. She’d longed to ask him if he had a girlfriend or a wife waiting in Dallas. And if not, if he’d like to continue their relationship somehow. But when she looked into his eyes, he’d seemed distant, as if he was hoping she wouldn’t ask questions, wouldn’t tarnish the memory of their time together by expecting it to be more than it was. For the past three nights they’d been running on adrenaline, their sexual encounters no doubt heightened by the happenstance of their meeting and the clandestine nature of their relationship.

  In other words, it wasn’t real.

  So she’d dressed, said a breezy goodbye, and wished him a safe trip back to Dallas.

  Gabrielle glanced at her watch. His plane was leaving in a hour. She still held out hope he would come by the library to return the two poetry books so she could see him one last time. Maybe he would ask to see her again.

  She walked to a return cart to leave the copy of Old Yeller, but stopped when she saw the two slim volumes of poetry she’d checked out stacked on the cart among other volumes. She pulled out the books and walked back to Lewis. “Did you see who returned these books?”

  He shook his head. “That group came from the drive-through drop off bin.”

  Disappointment stabbed her. So Henry had returned the books in a way that guaranteed he wouldn’t run into her.

  “Are you okay?” Lewis asked. “You don’t look so good.”

  She touched her forehead. “A slight headache is all. I’ll be fine.”

  “If you need to go home early, I’ll cover for you,” he offered.

  Home—to her cat and bad daytime television and a long, lonely evening stretching ahead of her…and into the foreseeable future. “Thanks, but I’m fine to stay until we close.”

  Stung by Henry’s decision to avoid her, Gabrielle tried to put it out of her mind the rest of the afternoon, instead focusing on ways to promote and develop a reading aloud program, where patrons could walk into the branch any hour of the day and sit in on a reading. The branch’s director had already approached local celebrities about making guest appearances. The idea was generating excitement during a time when libraries in general didn’t have much to celebrate.

  But when she and Lewis left that evening, Gabrielle could feel the pull of melancholy on her limbs, like the day after meeting with members of her beloved Red Tote Book Club. Only this was much worse.

  Because she would likely never see Henry Wells again.

  “Feel better,” Lewis said, then veered off in the opposite direction.

  Gabrielle looked to the winter sky to see a white ribbon of plane exhaust snaking through the clouds. Henry had already landed in Dallas. He was probably on his way home to…not a cat, she guessed. In hindsight, she was glad she hadn’t asked him about a significant other. Deep down, she didn’t want to know.

  She preferred to think of their time together as special…proprietary…extraordinary.

  After buttoning her navy blue sweater higher on her neck against the chill, Gabrielle rode the escalator down into the Marta station where she swiped her card to go through the turnstile, then walked down a short flight of stairs to the train platform. She glanced at the faces of people standing around her, but everyone either looked over her or through her. She was, it seemed, invisible.

  After a few days of staggering sex with a handsome stranger, her life was officially back to normal.

  The northbound train roared into view and slowed to a stop. When the doors opened Gabrielle moved forward with the crowd, chose a seat, then pulled the romance novel she’d been reading from her tote. The tasseled bookmark gave her bittersweet pang when she remembered Henry retrieving it and returning it to her.

  She picked up reading where she left off and was soon immersed in the characters’ stories. The heroine was finally coming around to the idea that she might be falling in love with the hero, but the hero was fighting it all the way.

  Someone settled in the seat next to her, crowding her. Gabrielle squashed a flash of irritation and shifted away from the passenger, rereading the last paragraph.

  “That must be some book,” a deep voice remarked.

  Gabrielle’s body recognized Henry’s voice before her mind processed the information. She jerked her head around, and her lips parted at the sight of him, so big and handsome in his nice suit. “What…how…I thought you were going back to Dallas.”

  “Changed my mind,” he said. “Changed my mind about a lot of things.” From inside his jacket, he removed a paper copy of The Jackal by Frederick Forsyth.

  “You’re conceding the value of old-fashioned paper books,” Gabrielle said, her heart pounding.

  He nodded. “And the value of a woman who moves me like no one ever has.”

  Gabrielle wet her lips. “Is there…another woman…in the picture?”

  He shook his head. “Absolutely not. I’ve always traveled light.” He sighed and moved his face closer to hers. “Until now. But I need to know how you feel about that.”

  Gabrielle closed her eyes briefly, and when she opened them, he was still there. Wonder welled in her chest that a chance meeting had led to this moment. Inexplicably, she knew that Henry was her match in every way. “I feel grateful,” she said, not caring if she overplayed her hand.

  His relieved smile was poetry to her heart. He picked up her hand and lifted her ink-smudged fingers to his mouth for a kiss. “Good. Because I’ve arranged to extend my stay in Atlanta.”

  A smile curved her mouth as she leaned closer. “For how long?”

  He put his lips on hers, then murmured, “Indefinitely.”

  CHANCE MEETING

  I saw you first, lover, before you saw me.

  I watched you move without knowing that my eyes were upon you.

  I studied how you walked and sat and stood up again.

  I saw you smile at babies and old women.

  I looked on while you picked a flower and twirled your hat.

  I loved you, lover, before you even turned my way.

  -The End -

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-5080-6

  Too Hot to Print

  Copyright © 2010 by Stephanie Bond, Inc.

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