“It’s the next one down, I think.” I turned right as the shelves broke and saw the table where I’d spent so many hours. “This is it. The plants section.”
“Why spend so much time here?”
“It was a reliable babysitter.” I trailed my fingers over my desk, searching for the thumb tack embedded in the underside of the wooden table. It was still there, fourteen years later. I glanced up at the shelves and couldn’t stop my grin when I found what I’d been looking for.
Among the books on plant biology of the Amazon was a deliberately misplaced copy of Schaechter’s Mechanisms of Microbial Disease. I slid it out to reveal my hidden stash.
I couldn’t believe it hadn’t been discovered: emergency stationery supplies.
“I hid this here just in case I ever forgot stuff from home. Mom would drop me off before her shift in the nail salon started at eleven, and if I forgot any of my stuff there was no hope of going home to get anything. I’d be stuck for hours without being able to write or—”
Andrew rested his head on my shoulder, his hands on my waist, looking on as I rummaged through my rainbow pencil tin. It even had the basketball keyring I’d been keeping for my first apartment. “How old were you when you used to come here?”
“My first time, I was about ten, I think. And then at fourteen, Mom let me stay home by myself.” I took the keyring out of the tin, dropped it into my pocket, and shut the case. “I think I’m going to put it back.”
“In case you ever turn up without stationery supplies?” He kissed my neck, once, twice, pulling me closer.
“Or in case some other kid does and finds it.” I kind of liked the idea that the secret would remain until someone else picked up the baton.
“You’re lovely,” Andrew said, kissing me again.
He spun us around so my back was against a shelf of books and pressed his lips against mine, prizing my mouth open and slipping his strong tongue inside. His lips were soft and insistent as he woke my lust from its short nap. I reached around his neck, sinking into his kiss when he slipped his hands up my shirt.
I stepped to the side. “Andrew. What are you doing?”
He silenced me with a kiss, sliding me back in front of him and snaking his fingers into my bra. “You like it when you think someone might see.” He pressed kisses up my neck and then found my mouth. He pushed his hands over my ass, pulling at my skirt, hiking it further up my legs.
I pulled away. “Andrew,” I whispered and pressed a short kiss to his lips. “We can’t make out in a library.”
“There’s no one here,” he said, his fingers finding their way under the hem of my skirt and into my panties.
My head tipped back against the books and I shifted involuntarily, giving him better access. He took full advantage and shoved two fingers right inside me.
I gasped, falling forward, my hands braced on his shoulders. “What are you doing?”
His fingers started to twist and turn, his thumb rubbing and pressing against my clit. Would it be obvious what he was doing if someone turned down this row of books? I burrowed my face into his neck, concerned that I wouldn’t be able to control the sounds that came out of me if he kept this up. And we both knew he wasn’t going to stop until he’d made me come. It was almost as if he felt my orgasm belonged to him now. He controlled it. He decided when I climaxed, and how often. There was nothing for me to do but give in and enjoy it.
An echo of people’s voices not far away made us freeze. Shit. If they hadn’t already heard us, maybe we were about to be caught. Yes, we were in some obscure section of the library where I’d sat for hours on end without ever being disturbed, but there was a first time for everything.
“Shhh,” Andrew whispered, his fingers starting up again, despite the nearness of the voices. “Be very still. Very quiet.”
Jesus. Was he serious? He was going to try to make me come with people a couple yards away? What would they do if they saw me like this? Mouth open, breathing labored, legs quivering from Andrew’s touch, barely able to stand.
He upped his pace, circling and pushing, rubbing and pressing. I wasn’t going to be able to take much more. “You want me to stop?” he whispered, his lips so close they grazed my ear.
The voices had faded, but I didn’t know if they’d just been drowned out by the thumping of my heart in my chest and the pounding blood in my ears. I gripped more tightly onto his shoulders. “No,” I said through my short breaths. “Make me come.”
We locked eyes as he pushed up further, his fingers deep inside, his knuckles finding my folds. He rocked his hand back and forth, pulling my climax from me. A mixture of shock and pleasure spun up my spine and Andrew’s face split into a small, proud smile as he held me through the orgasm silently tearing through my body.
Andrew maneuvered me into one of the old familiar chairs to let me recover. “You should check your phone,” he said as he scanned the bookshelves. “It went off when we . . . When you were coming around my fingers.”
I shot him a warning glance. He needed to lower his voice or we were going to get arrested. “My cell rang?”
He shook his head. “Just vibrated.”
Thank Jesus I hadn’t been so drunk on lust for Andrew that I hadn’t heard my phone go off in a library. I pulled out my cell but there were no new messages and no missed calls. “Must have been your phone,” I said. “Nothing came through on mine.”
“I just checked mine—”
“Shit, it must be the Goode phone.” There was only one person who had that number.
I scrabbled through my purse and pulled it out. There it was: a missed call and an email. “What does he want?” I asked, Andrew’s head peering over my shoulder.
“I suggest you open the email.”
I took a breath and opened it, scanning it as fast as I could. “Lovely to meet you, yadda yadda, lunch, yadda yadda . . . loved your ideas about Verity. Could I put another offer on the table? I want you to come to work for me—What?”
“Shhh,” Andrew said from behind me. “We’re in a library.” He straightened and I turned around to face him. He shrugged. “Well, at least he liked you.” He pulled the phone out of my hand and read the message in full.
“He wants to discuss all possible options with you at breakfast on Monday.”
“This is a disaster. He was meant to like me enough to sell his company to me, not give me a job. I’m going to reply.”
He pulled the phone away before I could take it back. “No, you’re not. Not yet anyway. We’re going to take a breath and figure out our next move. No knee-jerk reactions. This is too important.”
He was right. We needed to keep a cool head, and I was still reeling from my orgasm. Andrew balanced out my impulsive side, but despite what others might think, he had a wild side of his own. I’d never be able to look at New York Public Library quite the same again.
Thirty
Sofia
Not even the devil himself was more terrifying than my mom if she thought her daughter was disrespecting her. “We have two minutes to finish this,” I said, hopping from one foot to the other. “My mom will never forgive me if I’m late. I’ll get a lecture about how I was brought up, and then she’ll start asking me how many times I’ve been to mass since I’ve been in London. That will snowball into how I could have saved money on a hotel if I’d stayed with her, and before you know it, the whole evening will be wasted.”