Page 65 of Beautiful Place By the Sea

I glare down at him. “I’m fine.” He’d already tried repeatedly to get me to do the lower shelves, but I don’t know if I can handle watching his extremely toned body while he cleans right next to me, so I told him I’d be fine on the stepladder.

He hands me the bottle wordlessly, and I almost fall again. I guess letting go of the bookshelf to turn and grab the cleaning solution wasn’t the best idea. My arms flail stupidly around in the air while I try to regain my balance.

Oliver must have the world’s quickest reflexes, because his hands are on my waist before I even know what’s happening. And thank God, because right after he grabs me, I lose my battle with gravity and fall backwards against his chest.

He lowers me to the ground with an amused laugh. “You’re fine, huh?”

I hate how good it feels to be held by him. I whirl to face him. “I would have been fine.”

He smirks. “What you would have been is laid out on the floor with a concussion.”

He’s right, and I know it, so I just say, “Fine. You clean the top shelves.”

We stand there staring at each other for a moment. His face is only inches away, and the image of his slight smile before he kissed me on Saturday night flashes through my mind. My heart starts galloping around inside my chest.

I don’t know what Oliver’s thinking about, exactly, but it looks like he’s blushing. He clears his throat. “I’ll, uh. I’ll dust the top shelves.” He crosses in front of me to climb the stepladder.

Let’s just say I don’t get much cleaning done after that.

Maisie asks us both to come in early on Wednesday to get ready for the reading, which is at noon. When I drop off my cardigan, she’s in the back chatting with the author, Sue Brinkman.

Sue writes children’s books about a teddy bear who has misadventures all around the globe. She’s got a bit of a cult following, so being able to book her when countless families are in town for summer vacation is a dream come true for Maisie. We’re anticipating a lot of sales after the reading.

Maisie introduces me to Sue, then tells me to go ask Oliver how I can help him get ready. I find him making coffee for a few middle-aged women who look like they fell asleep in the sun. I wait patiently off to the side to see what he needs me to do first.

“Here,” he says when the customers walk away, sliding a latte toward me.

“Oh.” My voice catches in my throat. “Thank you.” I try to smile, but it feels stilted because of how hard it is to breathe right now.

He quirks up a brow. “You okay?”

I nod, maybe a little too emphatically. “Fine.”

“Is this the same way you were fine yesterday?”

I glower. “Shut up.”

Oliver swings out from behind the counter, then closes the distance between us, shooting me a roguish smile. He leans forward, lips against my ear, and whispers, “Still thinking about my tongue in your mouth?”

My grip on the mug loosens and it slips out of my hands, shattering on the floor in a cacophony of ceramic and froth. The women with lobster tans turn around to see what the noise was.

I throw my hand over my face, which I’m pretty sure is the same color as their skin. “Oh my God,” I moan.

Oliver looks torn between laughing and consoling me, but instead, he jumps back to the espresso machine and grabs a few rags. “It’s okay,” he says quietly, handing me one. “I think that was my fault.”

I try to erase my mortified look and glare at him instead, but I’m guessing my expression comes across as a jumble of idiocy. “I don’t even have words.”

He’s wiping up the floor on his hands and knees, trying to gingerly sweep the broken mug pieces into a pile with his rag. I figure I should probably help, so I squat down and start running my cloth over the floor, too.

His mouth tips up on one side. “That’s a first.”

I raise my eyes to him, jaw dropping. “Are you kidding me?”

“What?” His eyes are full of mirth. I both love and hate how amusing he’s finding this.

I inch a little closer to him so no one can overhear. “First, you make me a latte, then you mock me, then you toss a provocative image my way and make me spill said beverage, and now you’re going to make fun of me further?”

“What I’m taking from this is that you find me provocative.”