Page 2

“Ok, ok. Stupid question. Of course you were.”

“Good girl.”

I nearly spit out my coffee—one of the many things Nolan and I had in common, being able to drink caffeine at night—at that.

“What? Isn’t that what your heroes say?” he nodded to my book.

When I stopped laughing, I answered. “Yeah. But not like that.”

His brows raised.

“It’s a sex thing. They say it as praise kink. Like when. . .” Oh geez. How the hell did I explain it to someone who never read a romance book in his life? Or any book, for that matter. Which was one of the things we definitely didn’t have in common. I’d had my nose in a book since middle school and Nolan had been avoiding them for even longer than that. “Never mind. Did you eat yet?”

“Not unless beef jerky counts. Why?”

I grudgingly admitted defeat. “No way I’m getting any more customers tonight. Besides, I’ve been craving a chicken cheesesteak. Any interest in KC’s for a late dinner?”

Before I even finished the question, Nolan headed to the back room. James jumped onto my lap.

“Where did he go?” I asked, petting his head with one hand and opening my book with the other.

The story of my life … finishing a chapter when I had other things to do. But there was something about the lure of the page, the characters in a romance, especially, that felt safe and exciting all at once.

“And so it seems we will have a bit of fun here in,” he waved his arms around him, “Stone Haven.”

Lawrence ground his teeth. “Fun? If you call the murder of an innocent woman⁠—”

“Innocent?”

Kenton lifted his chin. “She is Maiorium,” he repeated. “And for that, she can not be allowed to live.” He lifted his glass. “A toast to our little secret. And to Alessandra Fiore’s last days on earth, poor thing.”

He downed the rest of his drink, stepping around Lawrence and gripping the railing of the second-story balcony.

“Have fun attempting to save her.”

And just as Lawrence turned to walk away after muttering a curse under his breath, he added. “I hope you have better luck than you did in Caltabellotta.”

He wasn’t surprised when Lawrence pushed him from the balcony. Indeed, he allowed it. And laughed the entire way down to the ground despite the risk of discovery.

Taunting him had been worth it.

“Figure out why he’s tempted yet?”

I jumped at the sound of his voice, startling James who bounded off my lap. Closing the book, I stood up.

“I already know that. It’s on the back cover blurb.”

Nolan scrunched his nose, reminding me of the skinny basketball player who asked me for help writing a paper in seventh grade. We’d been inseparable since, although Nolan was no skinny seventh grader anymore. He’d filled out in all the right places since then … a brown floppy haired, hazel-eyed hunk who was as reliable now as he’d always been.

“Where’d you go?

“Dumped my coffee. If I knew you’d be willing to close up early, I’d be at KC’s with a beer in hand already. I knew you’d go back to the book. Sometimes I think you like them more than real people, my little bookworm.” He winked and flipped the closed sign. “Let’s go baby.”

Baby. He’d been calling me that for years, and I still smiled every time. He also had cleaned up the coffee station and stacked the romance display I’d been reorganizing … quietly tidying the shop while I’d been lost in my book.

“Thanks.”

“Anything to get out of here sooner,” Nolan put his still-wet rain jacket back on. “Please tell me you have an umbrella somewhere.”