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Awesome.
"Please tell me you aren't the super-spy genius my aunt told me about," I groan.
"Super-spy genius?" He cocks a brow and chuckles.
"You are, aren't you?"
"No," he says, slowly gathering up the books I dropped. I think he does it more to avoid looking at me than anything. He's buying himself time to think through his answer. "Technically, spying entails gathering intelligence or information in secret, generally without permission. My clients pay me very well to hack into their shit."
I groan again, burying my face in my hands. He's definitely the super-spy Aunt Ophelia told me about. And she definitely left out all the juicy bits of information. We are so discussing her gossip when I get home today. If she's going to do it, she should at least be good at it!
"I showed a bazillionaire tentacle porn," I mumble. "I am so getting fired."
"Baby," Finn laughs. "You aren't getting fired."
I peel my hands away from my eyes to peer at him over the top of them. "I'm pretty sure that if we had an employee manual, this would be item number one on the Do Not Do list."
"I think this might be the first time an employee manual ever needed an item for this situation, pretty baby," he says, and then immediately grimaces. "Shit. I'm not helping, am I?"
I shake my head.
"How about I make you a deal?"
"If it involves forgetting this ever happened and never speaking of it again, sold!" I cry.
He laughs loudly. "Fuck, you're cute."
My eyes nearly pop out of my head.
"I said that out loud, didn't I?" He cocks his head to the side and then shrugs. "Fuck it. It's true. You're cute as hell, Scarlett Crawford from Gatsby Books."
"Um, thanks," I whisper, not sure what else to say.You make my girly bits happyis probably overkill, right? Right. There's a reason I prefer men in dirty books to real men. I don't have to talk to men in dirty books. Words and I aren't friends, especially when I have to speak them to men. I'm not shy. I'm just…a mess. I've been a mess my entire life.
When I was a little girl, my mom swore I'd grow out of it. Except, I never did. I was shy and awkward all the way through high school. I've also been curvy my whole life. I promised myself that college would be different. And then my mom and dad died when our house burned down my freshman year, and I found out that I was adopted. They never told me. Trying to deal with losing them and process the fact that I was adopted at the same time made me feel alone in so many ways. I withdrew from college for the semester and kind of shut down for a while.
By the time my best friend, Natalia, dragged me back into the land of the living, an entire year had passed. I threw myself into getting my life and education back on track. And then into starting my career at the library. There's always been something to throw myself into other than dating. Like Aunt Ophelia. As soon as I got settled at the library, she got sick. So now I'm here taking care of her. And I'm as curvy and awkward as ever. Books I understand. Men? Well, men are harder to figure out.
I think I want to figure out Finn though. Something about him soothes me and makes me ache at the same time. Talking to him is mildly terrifying and equally as exhilarating. I don't want to flee to the backroom and hide. I want to stay right here. No one ever makes me feel that way.
"What's your deal?"
"You sell me every board book you have about princesses; I'll make the tentacle porn disappear," he negotiates. "No one will ever know it happened."
I eye him skeptically. "You want board books on princesses?"
"My friend's baby girl is obsessed with books and princess shit," he says with a shrug. "I need to win her first birthday so I'm her favorite."
"You need to win her birthday?" A smile tugs at my lips, his confession tugging at my heartstrings. This ridiculously hot man is trying to win a little girl's birthday to be her favorite. Oh, my goodness. I am so giving Aunt Ophelia an earful when I get home today! She left out all the juicy parts about this man.
"It'll piss my brothers off."
I have a feeling his brothers don't have anything to do with it, but I don't say that. Instead, I point out where the stack of books in his arms belongs, wait for him to deposit them safely on the shelf, and then lead him to the children's section. It might be my imagination or wishful thinking—both, probably—but I practically feel his eyes locked on my ass as we dodge between shelves and displays of books.
"These are all the board books we have in…. Oh," I whisper when I turn and run right into his broad chest. I take a quick step back, tripping over the thick rug Maddie placed on the floor for the kids to crawl around on.
"Shit," Finn growls, grasping me around the waist.
He yanks me forward, causing me to topple into him. I land against him with a little cry of alarm that quickly fades to a soft moan as his arms close around me in the world's greatest hug. He smells like expensive cologne and leather. It's a deadly combination.
