Face warming, along with a few less innocuous places, I turn back to the document, overrun by tracked changes. “I like to see my progress.”
“Nora,” he says. “It’s all progress at this point.” He reaches out to select the whole document, then hovers the cursor over Accept All Changes, his elbow nestling against mine on the wood laminate table. He looks to me for approval.
I nod, but he doesn’t move, and the light contact of his arm pulls all the nerves in my body toward that one spot.
Any second the walls will go back up, and I can’t take that. I thought about how to broach the subject for hours as I lay awake last night, and somehow, what comes out is still just, “I forgot to mention, last night I ran into your cousin.”
I say the word purposefully. Charlie glances away as he scratches his jaw. “Was he rescuing a kitten from a tree, or helping an old lady across the street?”
“Neither,” I say. “He was just shirtless and washing a car.”
“I hope you tipped him for his trouble.” His gaze comes back to mine, a crackle of electricity jumping the gap between us.
“Hey, buddy,” I say, “here’s a tip: put on a shirt. This is a family-friendly literary salon.”
The corners of his Charlie’s lips twitch as he stands and leans against the table, his eyes fixing on the window. “If you’d really said that, the ladies’ knitting club would’ve run you out of town. Shirtless Shepherd is a Sunshine Falls staple.”
I fight to keep my voice even. “I didn’t know he was your cousin. Or I wouldn’t have gone out with him.”
He looks away. “You don’t owe me anything, Nora.”
“Oh, I know.” I stand too. I can’t dance around it any longer — it’s not working anyway. I can’t do anything about the Libby piece of things, but this — this can be resolved. One way or another, the wall of tension is coming down today.
I take a breath and go on: “Especially if something’s going on with you and your ex.”
His eyes dart back to mine. “It’s not.”
“You saw her last night, didn’t you?”
His jaw flexes. “I was working. She just stopped by.”
I feel my gaze narrow skeptically. “For a planned visit?”
He shifts his weight. “Yes,” he admits.
“To buy a book?” I say.
His jaw tightens again. “Not exactly.”
“To hang out?”
“To talk.”
“As ex-fiancés so often do.”
“It’s a small town,” he says. “We can’t avoid each other. We needed to clear the air.”
“Ah,” I say.
“Don’t ah,” he says, sounding frustrated now. “Nothing happened between us, and it’s not going to.”
“It’s none of my business,” I say.
“Exactly.” Somehow this seems to make him more frustrated, which makes me more acutely, hungrily aware of the space shrinking between us. “Just like it’s none of my business if you date my cousin.”
“Whom I have no intention of seeing again,” I say. “And with whom I wouldn’t have gone out even once if I’d known he was your cousin.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Charlie insists.
“And you didn’t either, by spending time with Amaya,” I reply. We are either too good or too bad at fighting. We are viciously trading support for each other’s romantic lives.
He one-ups me with, “Shepherd’s a great guy. Most eligible bachelor in town. He’s perfect for your list, checks all your boxes.”
“What about Amaya?” I throw back. “How’s she measure up to yours?”
“Doesn’t make the cut,” he says.
“Must be a pretty long list.”
“One item,” he replies. “Very specific.”
The way he’s looking at me wakes up my skin, my bloodstream, my want. “Too bad it’s not going to work out for you guys,” I say.
“And I’m sorry to hear about you and Shepherd.” His eyes flash. “I thought you two had a nice time.”
“Oh, I did,” I say. “Just turns out a nice time isn’t what I really want right now.”
He stares at me, eyes blackening, and I hope I’m as legible to him now as ever, that he knows I’m done brushing off this thing between us. Scratchily, he says, “And what is it you want, Stephens?”
“I just . . .” Now or never. I feel like I’m readying myself for a skydive. “I want to be here with you and not worry about what comes next.”
He steps closer, my heart whirring as he invades my space. “Nora,” he says gently.
“It’s okay if you don’t want that,” I say. “But I’m thinking about you way too much. And the more space I try to put between us, the worse it is.”
His lips twist; his eyes glint. “So you’re trying to get this out of your system?”
“Maybe,” I admit. “But maybe I also just want something that’s easy for once.”
His brow lifts, teasing. “Now I’m easy?”
Yes, I think, to me, you are the easiest person in the world. But I say, “God, I hope.”
Charlie laughs, but it fades quickly and his gaze drops to the side. “What if I already know this can’t go anywhere,” he says, “no matter how much we might end up wanting it to?”
“Is there someone else?”
His eyes lift, widened. “No. It’s nothing like that. It’s just that—”
“Charlie,” I say. “I told you. I don’t want to think about what comes next. I’m not even sure I could handle that right now.”
He studies me, his jaw working. “Are you sure?”
“Completely,” I say, and mean it. “If you want, I’ll even sign a napkin.”
I’m not sure which of us started it, but his mouth is on mine, warm and hungry, his hands running down my sides and back up my front, taking in as much of me as he can at once. No hesitancy, no politeness, only want. My fingers twine into his shirt as he hauls me against him, closing every gap we can find.
Within seconds, he’s yanking my blouse out of my skirt and his hands are up the front of it, so perfectly rough and warm that the silk is unbearable by comparison. A desperate sound twists through me, and he spins us around, pushing me onto the table, hiking my skirt up my thighs so he can step in against me.
I pull him to me, arching into his touch. His fingers curl around the back of my neck and knot into my hair, his teeth on my throat.
“We can’t do this in a library,” I hiss into his mouth, though my hands are still moving, skimming up his back beneath his shirt, nails scraping his skin and leaving goose bumps.
He murmurs, tone chiding, “I thought you didn’t want to worry about the rules.”
“When it comes to public indecency, it’s less of a rule and more of a federal law,” I whisper.
His lips move down my throat, one hand sliding under me to tilt my hips against his, positioning his length against me. Oh, god. “That only counts,” he says, “if we take our clothes off.”
The sound I make couldn’t be much less sexy or more dying-feral-animal. “And to be clear,” I get out, “you’re okay with the fact that we’re working together?”
He kisses along my collarbone, his voice all gravel. “We both know you won’t go easier on me for it.”
“And what about you?” It’s completely absurd that I’m keeping up the charade of having a totally normal conversation while my palms are flattening on the table behind me and my body is lifting unsubtly, making it easier for his mouth to brush under the collar of my shirt.
“I have no interest in going easy on you, Nora,” he says.