even that could have been okay—could have been tender and sweet and worked beautifully to lure her closer.
But he’d gotten his arms around her and her mouth under his and that sweet body pressed close against him…
He’d lost it. Lost every last shred of control.
The bald truth was that he’d seriously underestimated the power of his own lust for the shy browneyed librarian with too much money and an adopted family he despised.
It was funny, really—though he wasn’t laughing. A royal backfire of his basic intention: he was supposed to seduce her.
Not the other way around.
At six that evening, they sat at the kitchen table, reading—or at least, Katie was reading. He knew it because he kept sneaking glances at her and losing his place in the thriller that should have been holding him spellbound—or so it said in the cover notes. As “taut” and “edge-of-your seat” as the book was supposed to be, he kept having to go back and read the same paragraph over and over again.
Katie, though…
She seemed to have no trouble at all with her concentration. She’d laid the heavy volume she’d chosen open on the table, rested her forearms on the tabletop and bent her brown head to the page. She’d barely budged from that position for over an hour. He knew. He’d timed her. Occasionally, she’d catch her soft bottom lip between her teeth, worry it lightly and let it go. Sometimes she smiled—just the faintest hint of a smile. As if what she read amused her.
Justin scowled every time she smiled like that. He wanted her to look up and smile at him, damn it. But she didn’t.
And he ought to be glad she didn’t look up. If she caught him scowling at her, he’d only lose more ground than he already had.
And what the hell was his problem here, anyway? He was getting way too invested in this thing with her. She had nothing to do with the main plan and if she never let him get near her again it wouldn’t matter in the least.
So why should he care if she smiled at him or not?
He decided he’d be better off not thinking too deeply on that one.
Luckily for him, he’d just looked down at his book again when she glanced up and announced, “You know, when we went through the cupboards in here yesterday, I noticed some cans way in the back.”
There was something in her tone—something easier, a little more friendly.
His pulse ratcheted up a notch and he quelled a satisfied smile. Better, he thought. Now, don’t blow it…
He shut the battered paperback without marking the page. Next time he picked it up, he’d have to start over, anyway. “Yeah,” he said, sounding a hell of a lot more offhand than he felt. He gestured toward the cabinets on the far wall. “In the bottom, on the left.” He started to rise.
“No. I’ll look.”
He sank back to his seat and she got up and went over there, leaving him debating whether to follow her. He decided against it. She was loosening up a little. Better let her get looser before he got too close.
She went to her knees, pulled open the cupboard and stuck her head in there. He looked at her backside. Great view. Even with the ugly baggy sweater and too-loose frayed corduroy pants.
“Yes,” she said, her voice muffled by the cabinet. “Here they are.” She pulled her head out and craned around to grin at him. “Lots of soup, but I see some canned fruit, too.”
He got up, after all, and went to stand over her—just to be helpful. She passed him the dusty cans and he set them on the counter above the cabinet.
“That’s it.” She shut the cabinet doors and stood to read the labels. “Vegetable beef, chicken noodle, cream of asparagus, pears, applesauce…” She gave him a pert look. “Justin. Not a single can of cream of mushroom soup. And no peaches.”
Absurdly pleased that she’d remembered the details of his childhood ordeal, he allowed himself to chuckle. “That’s a relief. I admit I was getting worried.”
“No need to.” She brushed his arm—the lightest breath of a touch. Beneath the green sleeve of his sweater, his skin burned as if she’d set a match to it.
Their eyes met. Zap. His heart raced faster and the air seemed to shimmer around them. Damned amazing, her effect on him.
Katie smiled wider, a nervous kind of smile. Yes. She was trying. She wasn’t cutting him out anymore. “So…soup with your sandwiches?”
He nodded. “Vegetable beef—unless that’s your favorite?”
She admitted, “I have this thing for cream of asparagus.”
“Well, then. Looks like we both get what we want.”
Katie went to get ready for bed at ten. Justin said he wanted to read a little longer and then he’d be in.
She knew it was only a pretense. In the hours they’d sat reading, he’d hardly made it through the first few chapters in that book of his. No. He was being thoughtful, giving her a chance to get ready and go to bed in private.
In the ladies’ room, she rinsed out her underwear and hung it over the stall door. She washed up and dressed for bed in a wrinkled old pair of red flannel pajamas—thanks, again, to the bags of clothing in the storage room.
She looked at herself in the mirror over the sink and scrunched up her nose at what she saw. Tomorrow, if they were still stuck here, she would have to wash her hair. Maybe she could find some bath towels in the rummage sale stuff—or if not, well, she’d work it out somehow. And really, Justin didn’t need to be sitting in the kitchen pretending to read, respecting her need to keep her distance from him after the kiss that had gone too far out in the shed.
“Stupid,” she muttered to her own reflection. “I’m being stupid about this and I need to stop.” There was nothing alluring or lust-inspiring about the sight of her in flannel pajamas. They buttoned up to here and bagged around her ankles. If Justin saw her getting into bed in them he would not be the least tempted to make mad, passionate love to her.
Truly. In pajamas like these, she was safe from the potential to have sex of any kind.
She peered closer at herself, craned her head forward so her nose met the glass. The question was, why did that depress her?
Oh, come on. She knew why.
Because there had not been nearly enough sex—of any kind—in her life.
“I, Katherine Adele Fenton,” she whispered, her breath fogging the glass, “am a cliché. I’m right out of The Music Man. I’m Marian the librarian—hiding in the stacks, waiting for some cocky con man to show up and let down my hair for me.”
Really, it had to stop. She owed it to librarians everywhere, who, she knew, were a much more outgoing, ready-for-anything bunch than most people gave them credit for.
She pulled back from the
