Page 25 of Lucky Haven

She nods. “Sure.”

And then I crush my mouth to hers.

Chapter Eight

Haven

After that night, when Cash gave me a blistering good night kiss, then hightailed it out of my apartment like his feet were on fire, everything is different.

I’m different.

And yet in some ways, we regress to Before The First Kiss.

Cash comes in the next day to return the thriller. He gives me a polite smile and asks if there’s any chance I could meddle in the holds to bump him up the list on his next must-read book.

“Absolutely not.”

“No special treatment for your favourite patron?”

But there’s enough emphasis on patron that it feels like a pointed reminder of our official relationship. I’m his librarian, nothing more. For his own reasons, all flirting is strictly book-related. And he’ll shamelessly hide behind that and pretend that we’ve never shared anything else.

By his metrics, we probably haven’t. Two kisses? A dinner and a wobbly drop-off after a night of drinking? For Cash Kincaid, that’s stranger level behaviour.

That they were the closest I’ve ever come to experiencing romance first hand…I’ll keep that shameful secret to myself forever.

And then I don’t see him again for days.

It’s hard, like it makes my chest hurt, and that’s very annoying. How dare he make me miss him when he doesn’t like being my friend like that?

A variation of that thought spins through my head multiple times a day.

I go out thrifting with Mercy the following Monday, one of my days off from the library. It’s a nice reprieve, but as soon as I’m back to work the next day, every free second is spent re-living the feel of his beard against my chin, his mouth, hot and wet, and the way his hands curved possessively against my body.

So easy for him.

Life changing for me.

What. A. Jerk.

I’m so tangled up in my thoughts about Cash and the kisses and him pretending that the kisses didn’t happen, that when the email arrives it takes me by complete surprise. I’d genuinely forgotten about the last harassing email the judgemental asshole sent me.

But as soon as it lands in my inbox, I know this one is from the same person.

From: faithfulwatcher2626

To: Haven Bingham

Subject: sluts don’t belong in the library

And there it is in the subject line, the whispers made explicit.

Shaking, I hit print on the email instead of reading the body of the message.

I grab the paper carefully, like it might be explosive and I tell my co-worker I need to take a quick break.

And then I run across the street.

Cash is under a car, all I can see are his long legs sticking out, but Riley takes one look at me and says, “Boss, you have a visitor.”