Page 13 of Fate, Interrupted
“Damn straight it is.”
He unlocks the door, positions the sandwich board and comes back in, shooting the lock behind him. I watch his hand close around the lock. Those fingers again. I look away.
He moves through the space behind me—not aimlessly, he doesn’t do anything aimlessly—but with the same attentiveness he brought the day he walked into the shop. I glance back once and find him at the staff picks wall, head tilted, reading the handwritten recommendation cards I write myself and change every two weeks because I have opinions and a platform for them.
“You write these,” he says. “I don’t mean write them by hand. That’s obvious. But you think them up, not your employees.”
“Every one.”
He reads for a moment. I watch him without being obvious about it, but I’m fairly certain I’m being obvious.
“You recommended the same author three times,” he says.
“She deserves it three times. Her books are amazing. I’m showing restraint.”
His expression softens, brief and genuine, before he seems to realize I’ve seen it. I tuck it next to the others I’ve been collecting without meaning to.
I move to the casement windows in the reading nook and crank them open to let the morning air come in before the day heats up properly. Toss the candle burned down to nothing in the trash. I’ll need a new one. Note it on the small pad by the register. All of this is completely normal, and I’m doing it while being acutely aware of where Silas is always standing in relation to me.
He stops near the front window, looking at the shop the way people do when they think no one is watching them look—taking it in rather than browsing it. The shelf arrangements, the handwritten signs, the way the morning light is coming through the glass and hitting the display table.
“You changed these titles,” he says, nodding at the feature table. “Since the last time I was in.”
“I move it every two weeks. Browsers stop seeing things that don’t change.”
He looks at the table for a moment. Then at me. “What are you reading right now?”
“Why?”
“You work in a bookshop. I’m curious what you actually choose for yourself.”
“That’s a very personal question for someone who came in before we’re open.”
An inkling of a smile plays across his lips. I can tell he’s in a teasing mood. My heart rate speeds up. I’ve always been a sucker for a man who makes me laugh.
I’m also a sucker for a man built like that. I’m trying not to think about every inch of his hard, naked body on top of me. Of his knees parting my thighs and what the head of his dick feels like right at my entrance. My pussy clenches hard enough that I shift my weight. I switch the fan on and hope it works on cooling down my flushed face. I’m not sure what’s going on with me, but I need to get new batteries for Brutus before I implode. Because if this guy is going to keep coming around, I’m not sure I can restrain myself. I redirect before I completely lose my train of thought.
“Do you moonlight as a PI? You’re very inquisitive for someone who came in for an engine manual.”
“I came in for reading material.”
“So you say. You came in because the door was open, and you stopped.” I look at him directly. “Same reason you’re here this morning.”
He holds my gaze across the shop. The door is locked behind him; I’m in front of him, and I become sharply aware of how little space remains between us and how neither of us is moving to increase it.
“Do you always open alone?” he asks.
“Most mornings.”
“And you take the safety of it seriously.”
Maybe it’s because Silas asked instead of telling me what I should do.
“Yes. I do.”
He nods once. The line between his brows eases. A warmness fills my chest at the idea that he is concerned about my personal safety. Normally that would bother me, but the same sentiment that used to get under my skin with my last boyfriend, Lance, would send my independent hackles up. What’s going on here?
“I’m about to open,” I tell him, picking up my coffee. “Meaning technically, you’re still early.”
