AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I sputtered. “What does that have to do with anything? Of course I’m attracted to you, because I have terrible taste in men, but that hardly means that I like you. How could you say that to me? You wear that nice suit and combed your hair, but your manners are even worse than mine. You must have been raised by trolls.”
His smile melted away. “Ah. Manners. I’m sorry. I was only joking. Your friends are so delightful when they talk about your tastes to a complete stranger. I thought I was following in the same vein, but I must have misread the cues. I apologize.”
I felt my cheeks burn. Of course, he’d been joking. No one tells someone that they’re biologically attracted to someone. That’s the sort of thing I’d say. This whole situation was impossible. I should just throw a death spell at him and be done with it. But outside where it wouldn’t hit any of the customers. Except that he was a patron, and he had just saved my life, and I had sushi in front of me to eat.
I took a large bite while I studied him. “Why are you stalking me?” I finally blurted out. Yes, this thing called civility was working marvelously.
He raised a brow and sat back. “Why would I stalk you?” He became extremely still, holding every muscle twitch and breath so that he could react to whatever I did with his unnatural speed and strength. He was so dangerous.
“Obviously, you’re desperately in love with me. After all, I’m gorgeous and a librarian. When in the world has such a fascinating contradiction been put before a man?” I stood up, gripping the edge of the table. “You should leave.” Because I was too stressed out and couldn’t kill him, no matter how dangerous he was to me and to the world. If he didn’t leave soon, I’d say something even worse than admitting that I was attracted to horrible men in general and him in particular.
He rose slowly, studying me with dark eyes growing darker and darker. “You are indeed a fascinating contradiction. I make you nervous, but is it because you are afraid of your own attraction to things you can’t control, or is it because you’re afraid that I’ll uncover the contradictions you haven’t let the world see?”
The silence stretched between us, silence and something else, an awareness of that moment of impact when he’d brought my whole body and soul awake in a breathtaking, terrifying moment.
“I brought your drink,” Anna said, jolting us out of our locked gazes. She thumped the table with her tray of two shots of freshly juiced greens. She’d completely forgotten his cranberry juice, but hopefully he wouldn’t take it personally. She really did have the worst memory in the world.
He took a moment to shift his attention from me to her, then took the drink from her hands with a slight bow. “Thank you. I would love to stay, but it seems that I’ve offended your sweet Libby.” He returned his focus to me, and I could feel the weight of it, the intensity of his attention. “Enjoy your evening, Miss Morell, and be sure to look both ways before crossing the street.” He drained the glass, gave me a polite nod and then walked out with the ease of someone who had somewhere to go but could take his time getting there. He looked good, far too good for how bad he was.
I waited until he was outside before I started putting sushi in my face like a barbarian.
Anna watched me eat with some concern before she absently drank the green elixir she’d brought for herself. She made a face after the first sip and then the singers around the piano started howling, ‘Sweet Caroline.’ The Cat’s Pause always had such ambiance.
“What did he say?”
I winced and stuffed two sushi rolls into my mouth. The chewy texture was close to perfection. Who needed a man when they could have sushi? “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Did he ask you out?” she asked, frowning. “What did he do to offend you?”
She’d bought me sushi when I was late, so I should definitely tell her what she wanted to know, but instead I stood up. “It’s been a long day. I’m going to take the rest of the sushi with me. You’re a lifesaver, you know that?”
She pointed at me. “Your lifesaver is wearing a three-piece suit. I wonder what he keeps so buttoned up and layered over with good manners. If you don’t tell me what he did, I’m going to assume it was assault and arrange a hit on him.” She said it with the most serious expression, but a hit from her would probably involve sending Peter the squirrel to fill his pockets with nuts and hide his keys.
I sighed heavily. “He just said that he knows that I’m attracted to him, only he was joking, and I didn’t realize he was joking, so I admitted it.”
Her eyes widened. “You are? I thought you hated him.”
“I don’t know him well enough to hate him, yet, but my feelings are steadily growing. I can’t believe I said that. I need to take conversation coaching or something.”
“Hm. I don’t think they have those, but if they do, sign me up. Still, he’s very nice to look at, and he did save your life.”
I shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. Nothing today changes what I knew from the first moment I saw him.”
“That you’re attracted to him,” she said, nodding wisely while her eyes shone with amusement.
“That he’s a monster with an agenda, and I will do everything in my power to avoid him and his kind.”
“When you say, ‘his kind,’ you sound awfully prejudiced.”
“I’m a simple librarian. I love sushi and I hate monsters. In that order. I’m not a public figure who needs to promote healthy race relations. I’m a realist who intends to live in peace until I die of old age in my sleep. In the stacks.”
I walked away from her, breaking out of the sushi bar and into the darkness, all alone, with my sushi, exactly how I wanted to be.
Chapter
Four
When I got to my apartment, eighth floor of the Lydian, I stopped at the open door. I hadn’t left my tiny apartment unlocked, much less open. Had there been a fire, or a broken pipe that the manager had repaired? I sniffed, and the scent was of jasmine and fireworks, but more chemical residue than fire.
