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Logan leaned forward, his eyes flashing. “If you really think—"
Slade pushed between us, holding out his arms. “Whoa. I think that’s enough arguing. We all made it out okay, and we got what we were searching for, so I think we should call that a win and stop making a pissing contest out of it.” He aimed a hard look at Logan and then reached to take my hand. “Come on, Maddie. Let’s take a little walk and give this guy time to cool off and figure out where he misplaced his gratitude.”
Part of me didn’t want to leave without finishing the argument, but a larger part realized it would probably never be finished. Logan was never going to give an inch of ground or admit that I’d been anything other than an idiot. Fine. I could use some space from him too.
I stood up and followed Slade out of the room without a backward glance. The door thumped shut behind us.
There wasn’t much of anyone around to notice our exit. It was coming up on closing hours, the sunlight dwindling beyond the library windows. Only a few students remained up at the tables near the front, across from the checkout desk where a lone librarian remained on duty. The area at the back near the Vigil office and the rows of bookshelves was totally quiet.
Slade kept walking, guiding me between two of the shelving units where the sound of distant turning pages was even more dulled and there was no one around at all. He dropped his voice low. “Don’t listen to him. He’s just in a mood.” He stroked his thumb over the back of my hand and offered a sly smile. “I happen to think you’re one of the strongest and most capable women I’ve ever met—and that those features are incredibly sexy.”
A blush singed my cheeks. I turned to face him, suddenly lost for words. Why was it that his flirty comments and the intensity in those dark eyes could leave me tongue-tied and flushed like a preteen with the world’s biggest crush?
“Is that supposed to be a pick-up line?” I said, aiming for a teasing tone and not sure whether I landed it.
Slade chuckled. “Let’s just call it the truth. But I can find other ways of complimenting you if you’d prefer a little more variety. Hay una fiesta en mi corazón y tú estás invitado.”
My breath caught in my throat at the poetic lilt of the Spanish words. “What does that mean?”
He waggled his eyebrows. “Isn’t the mystery part of the fun?”
I raised my own eyebrows right back at him. “You could have called me worse things than Logan did and I’d never know it.”
Slade placed a hand over his chest as if I wounded him. “I would never call you anything insulting.”
“And how can I be so sure about that?”
He shifted closer, forcing me to lean against the books behind me. His hand reached past me to rest against the shelf next to my arm while he pinned me with his gaze. My lower belly pulsed at his proximity, the scent of cinnamon reaching my nose from his breath.
His voice was a soft murmur now. “I might say that you’re deslumbrante or absolutely impresionante, but I would never call you something that didn’t fit.”
My whole body was flushed now. “What do those words mean?”
He leaned forward, his lips a mere centimeter from mine. “I’m saying that you’re breathtakingly beautiful, Piccolina. You’re a masterpiece. I want to worship and appreciate you. I want you to forget about Logan for a little while and see how much you’re worth.”
I couldn’t think of a time in the past few weeks when Logan had been farther from my mind. It was just Slade and me, standing face to face with a chemistry I couldn’t deny. I didn’t need or want to think about Logan. Only Slade. Why the hell shouldn’t I pursue what we both obviously wanted?
I closed the last short distance between us and pressed my lips into Slade’s with an intensity that he matched immediately. As he pressed the entirety of his body against mine, pinning me against the shelves, I wrapped one arm around his neck. He captured my mouth completely, every movement of his lips stealing more of my breath, until I felt as if I were drowning in him in the best possible way.
Slade smiled into the kiss, running his tongue over the tips of my teeth. He tightened his grip in the back of my shirt and ran his other hand slowly up and down my thigh. Sparks spread across my skin, and a little gasp escaped my mouth.
“The sounds you make are delectable,” he whispered, and trailed his lips down my throat. His path of kisses seared across my neck and over my shoulder to the neckline of my shirt. I arched into him automatically, an ache of need pulsing between my legs.
It’d been a long time since I’d hooked up with anyone—a long time since I’d wanted to this much. I had the urge to drag him straight back to my dorm room, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to push him away in order to do that. The magic he was working with his mouth on my skin felt way too good.
He followed my shirt’s neckline until his lips grazed my cleavage before claiming my mouth again with a heated passion that had my toes curling. His hands skimmed down my sides from my chest to my hips and then back up, dipping beneath the fabric of my shirt. The swipe of his thumbs over my belly provoked another soft noise from my throat.
My hips swayed toward him of their own accord and brushed against the bulge behind his slacks. My heart skipped a beat knowing how turned on he was by our collision, my panties dampening even more than they already had before. Then his hands closed over my breasts, and I had to swallow a whimper.
He worked over my curves with assured skill, tweaking my nipples until I was trembling with the jolts of bliss. My eyes slid closed, my lower lip clamped between my teeth as I struggled to hold back my sounds of encouragement. Then he dipped his fingers right beneath the cups of my bra to fondle me skin to skin, and an audible breath shuddered out of me.
“Just like that,” Slade murmured, sounding a little hoarse, as if the gesture had affected him as much as it had me. As he kept caressing me with one hand, he eased the other down between us to the waistband of my pants. “Oh, Piccolina.”
Everything about this—his skillful touch, the cinnamon flavor of his mouth as it devoured me whole, the sound of his voice to my ears—felt like an erotic fantasy that I’d never dared to consciously consider. The sensations swept through me, tearing me away from my physical reality and placing me only in his arms.
I quivered as his hand lowered inside my pants, sliding over my panties and rubbing a finger along the most sensitive part of me. The way his fingers worked, there might as well have been no barrier between us at all. He massaged my breast and swept his tongue across my bottom lip in tandem, and oh God, I didn’t want this to end. All I wanted was to be consumed by Slade every way he would offer.
A distant thud from the other side of the library jarred me out of my blissful daze. My gaze darted to the end of the shelving unit, with a hitch of my pulse as I thought about how public this encounter was.
