“As I said before, let me be the judge of that.”
Something in his voice brought her eyes to his, and she realized how much she liked the kind, funny, family-oriented man she was getting to know. In the next breath, his gaze turned darker, hotter, drawing her in and making her want to move closer. He was casting a spell, hypnotizing her with his charms. She forced herself to remain still, because she had a feeling that once she gave in to it, there would be no turning back.
DASH HAD THOUGHT he’d wanted to earn that swoony look he’d seen at the jam session. But seeing her fight her desire was quickly moving to the top of his Must Have More list. He’d never had a damn list about a woman before, but he’d never met anyone like Amber, and he wanted to learn everything there was to know about her.
“Tell me about you and your dirty bookstore. When you were younger, were you a hide-under-the-covers-with-a-flashlight-reading-naughty-books type of girl?” He leaned in. “Or did you discover erotic romance through real life with some lucky guy first, and move on to books later? Because if it’s the latter, I sure as hell wish I had been that guy.”
She swallowed hard, her eyes widening innocently.
It was just the reaction he’d been hoping for, but it backfired. Images of her in erotic positions assailed him. He wanted to feel her supple body beneath him, touch her soft skin, taste her arousal, and hear her cry out his name in the throes of passion. His cock hardened with the thoughts, and he struggled against the urge to pull her into his arms and kiss her until they both got carried away and fulfilled all their dirty fantasies.
Amber drew her shoulders back, tilting her head with a surprisingly sassy expression, stirring him from his reverie. “It was both. I used to steal my mother’s romance novels and hide under my covers to read them, all in preparation for my wild college days. And they were wild,” she said seductively. “Filled with orgies, bondage, and taboo sexual encounters with my professors.”
Holy. Hell. “Really?” His voice came out rough with desire.
“No, you fool! Geez. Does every guy think women only care about sex?” She scribbled a note on the card she was holding and tucked it into a book.
“I didn’t say that. I was just joking around. Well, except for the part about being your first hands-on erotic experience. I would have liked to have been that guy.”
“What makes you think I have experience with that?” She was still smiling as she slipped a bookmark into the book and grabbed some tissue paper.
He liked seeing this playful side of her. “I just assumed that a beautiful, well-read woman like you would have already explored those areas.”
“How about you get those packages ready instead of assuming?” She handed him the book.
As he put it in an envelope, he couldn’t resist asking, “Does that mean I still have a shot at being the guy to show you the ropes?”
Amusement rose in her eyes.
“Yes, that pun was intended.”
She leaned against him this time, with a glorious, seemingly carefree laugh.
“A’right, sexy reader, time to spill. Have you always wanted to own a dirty bookstore?”
“A bookstore? Yes. Dirty? No. That came much later.”
“We’ll circle back to the dirty part. But first, why books? Have you always been a big reader?”
She finished the note she was writing, and as she tucked it into a book, she said, “I fell in love with books in elementary school. At first it was because they were safe. But I quickly fell in love with the escape they brought.”
“What do you mean by safe?”
She met his gaze. “They didn’t get me too excited or make me feel out of control.”
Ah, it was all making sense now. “Because of having epilepsy?”
She nodded.
“How old were you when you were diagnosed?” The second he asked, he realized he might be overstepping. “We don’t have to talk about that if you’d rather not.”
“I don’t mind. It’s part of who I am. I had my first seizure when I was eight. I was climbing the jungle gym when it hit, and I fell off. I was diagnosed shortly after.”
“That must have been terrifying.” He hated the idea of her suffering at all, much less as a little girl.
“I didn’t remember what happened, or understand what was going on, really. Not at first. But I could see how much it had frightened my parents and everyone else. Everyone treated me differently after that.”
He put his hand on hers, wanting to take her look of discomfort away. “I’m sure they were just worried about you.”
“Some, yes, but it was like everyone was living in fear of my next seizure. It took a while to get the medication right, and I had another seizure on the bus, which was embarrassing. After that, a lot of kids kept their distance, and that hurt. Now I understand that they were freaked out by the seizure. It scared them because they didn’t know what to do or how to help me, and I think they were worried that it might be contagious. Sable gave those kids a hard time.”
“She’s a tough cookie. She’s protective because she loves you. I get that. I’m the same way with my siblings.”
“I know. Don’t take this wrong, because I love Sable, and I love that she has always, unfalteringly, taken care of all of us. But all I wanted was to prove that I was no different from anyone else, and that’s hard when your older sister is scaring everyone off.”
“Did you ever tell her that?”
“Eventually, but that made her feel bad, and I hated that, too.” She gave a half-hearted shrug. “Anyway, I stopped doing things that could overexcite my body, and reading became my greatest escape. Eventually they figured out my meds, and I went years without a seizure. Then I had one when I was thirteen, and all that fear came rushing back.”
“Thirteen? Puberty?”
She blushed, nodded.
“Sorry. I read up on epilepsy after Sin told me you had it, and that seems to be a common time for changes.”
Disbelief rose in her eyes. “You read up on it?”
“Of course. I wanted to understand what you were dealing with.”
“That was nice of you.” She held his gaze for a moment, then focused on the note she was holding as she said, “Puberty is a common time for changes, which made it even more embarrassing. No girl wants people to know when her body is going through those changes, but there was no hiding it for me until they got my medications worked out again.”
“That must have sucked. Young guys can be jerks anyway.”
“None of them were jerks to me. They were nice, just uninterested. I don’t blame them. Being a teenager is hard enough—why add a girlfriend with issues on top of it?”
“Because she’s the hottest girl in school, and it’s just a medical condition, not something to be afraid of.”
“I think teenage Dash might have felt differently about that.”
“No way. Teenage Dash was super cool. You would have been into him.”
“If you say so.” She laughed softly.
He really liked that quiet laugh and the way it lit up her eyes, which he noticed were more green than brown and had flecks of gold.
“What were we talking about before I told you my life story? Oh yeah, the bookstore.” She handed him another book to put into a package. “I’ve pretty much always wanted to be surrounded by the magical world of books, and owning a bookstore became my dream. When I graduated from college, I took out a loan, which my parents cosigned for, and opened this store. I’ve never looked back.”