Page 22 of Honeyfires

It wasn't accidental. I knew that. She knew I knew that. We were both pretending not to know it together, which was its own particularly pleasurable exercise.

"You're not eating," she observed.

"Neither are you."

She looked at her sandwich like she'd forgotten it existed, then back at me. "I'm not hungry. Not for food, anyway."

I stared at her.

"Vera."

"Yes?"

"You can't just say things like that in a public café."

"I'm simply being honest." She took a sip of her water, and I watched her swallow in a way that was distinctly unprofessional of me. "You said you appreciated the clarity."

"The clarity is going to give me a medical episode."

"You're a firefighter." She set the glass down. "Trained for high-pressure situations."

"Not this particular high-pressure situation, no. This one was not in the manual." I leaned back, arms crossed, studying her across the table with what I hoped came across as composure. "You're enjoying this."

"Tremendously." She propped her chin on one hand. "I find that I enjoy most things that make you look at me like that."

"Like what?"

"Like you're trying very hard to remember where you are." She picked up her water glass, watching me over the rim. "It's extremely flattering."

I said nothing. This was a deliberate choice. Words, at this particular moment, felt inadvisable.

"You came to my library with the intention of seducing me," she said very matter-of-factly, setting the glass down. "I have been successfully seduced. Congratulations."

I laughed. "Is that right?"

"It is. I've been keeping track of the evidence." She ticked it off on her fingers. "The book you were holding upside down. The way you leaned against the shelf. The fact that you asked me to lunch and have been looking at my mouth for the last forty-five minutes." She folded her hands. "The data is very clear."

"Library science."

"Library science." Her eyes found mine and stayed there, calm and blue and bottomless. "So. You gonna do anything about it?"

Something shifted in the air between us. Not a question, really. More like a door she was offering to open, handle extended, and the only question was whether I'd take it.

"There are a lot of things I could do about it," I said very carefully.

Her lips parted slightly. "Like what?"

The café was doing its charming café thing around us—the scrape of chairs, the hum of an espresso machine, a couple at the corner table sharing a dessert—and I leaned forward, closing maybe two inches of the space between us, and watched her breath catch.

"Well," I said, keeping my voice low, "I could start by telling you what's going to happen when I take you home."

She went very still. Her knees bumped mine under the table. Definitely not accidental.

"And what," she said, with remarkable composure, "is going to happen?"

I held her gaze for a long moment.

"You're going to let me be in charge," I said. "And you're going to find out that you like it."