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Her cheeks burned red.
I smirked. “Happy to know I don’t have anyone tied up in my basement?”
Awkwardly clearing her throat, fighting a smile, she lowered her hand to her lap. “Yep.”
Laughing, I straightened up and gripped either end of the bar before me. “If I’d tied anyone up, I promise it was ‘cause they asked for it.”
That’d been a risky thing to say. But judging by the smell that drifted up from between her legs and the speed her heart picked up to, I assumed it wasn’t the wrong thing to say.
Her cheeks burned brighter as she reached for the Pepsi instead of the vodka cranberry.
CHAPTERFIVE
BROOKE
Iwasn’t sure if it was that game, the flirting over the bar top, or the fact that Declan had offered to eat off a man’s hand for grabbing my ass, but finding Misty sort of… Drifted from my mind?
Don’t get me wrong—I wasn’t done looking for her. But it was past midnight, and there weren’t many stones I could flip over with the information I had in the dark.
To be honest too, it’d been a long time since I’d done this. Not only since I fantasized about ripping off the clothes of a man—a real one, not the fictional ones in my books—but since I held an in-depth conversation with anyone who wasn’t my sister.
When you spend most of your time in a library with signs posted for silence everywhere you look, you don’t have much time for banter.
We practically had to yell over the jukebox as we talked, but our laughs broke through the noise. Both of us held our drinks as more of an ornamental display than the thrill of getting drunk as we got to know one another.
Declan had asked what I did for a living, and when I said I was a librarian, he laughed.
“Hey, I worked hard for my position,” I pouted. “I was in school for five years, and—”
“No, no.” He laughed again, smile widening. “No, I’m sure you did. I wasn’t laughing at you.”
“Then what were you laughing at?”
“Myself. I thought teacher. Librarian’s more fitting though.” His eyes slid down my body. “I take it you didn’t come straight from work?”
“I was off today.” I laid my cheek in my hand, elbow propped against the countertop, eyes holding his. “Why do you ask?”
“Just couldn’t see anyone getting any reading done if you were walking around in that.” He traced his tongue along his lips, gaze sliding to mine. “Sorry, was that too forward?”
“Huh.” I leaned in slightly, fingers lifting over his against the countertop. “That depends. Are you just trying to compliment me?” I cupped my palm around his and lowered his hand to my thigh. As his rough fingertips grazed the inside of my knee, tingles spread through my belly further south. “Or are you trying to bring this a step further?”
He glanced at his hand, then found my gaze.
Those brown eyes swirled with gold reminded me of the rays of the sun shining through a crystal of dark amber. His lips were like two crescents curved into the perfect pout. I wanted to feel them against mine. I wanted to…
Declan released his drink and reached up for my neck. I expected him to come right in for the kiss, but he only stayed like that for a moment. Fingertips grazing my neck, thumb sliding along my jaw, watching the quiet gasp I took in at his touch.
Only then, once he realized I wasn’t pulling away, once he was sure I wasn’t only teasing him, did he tug my face into his.
As his firm lips molded into mine, his fingertips slipped just a bit closer up my thighs, and warmth spilled from inside me.
The tingles of anticipation coiled into shivers of yearn as my hand found his waist. My fingers traced along his strong abdominals through the thin gray fabric, and that anticipation returned.
It’d been a while, but I wasn’t a stranger to casual sex. Still, most of the men I’d been with weren’t much different than me. Book nerds who spent their evenings reading.
Declan clearly spent his with weights, doing pull ups, refining all of his beautiful muscles, and…
More. I wanted more.
