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He clenched the door’s arch to keep his hand away from her. She looked so small peering up at his towering body. He could easily pick her up and have his way with her, if she’d let him.
“Not what you were expecting,” she said.
Fionn’s deepening voice betrayed his parching thirst for her. “No, actually. It’s not. It’s better.”
In the long, rectangular room stood two suede armchairs with high backs. They occupied most of the floor along with a pine coffee table. At least, he presumed it was pine. It was hard to tell for the high piles of National Geographics covering it, recognised for their yellow borders.
Áine’s hand brushed over the furthest armchair. It was distinguished from the other by the absence of buttons pressed into its once cream fabric. Now it had black ring stains where they had been.
Most miraculous of all were the books, stacked from floor to ceiling along the built-in shelves decorating three of the four walls, the fourth having an old black fireplace. The books filled the room like a deity, smell eminent—musty but unlike the foyer, colourful—but not bright like the rainbow, and seasonal—but not bound to one alone.
He inhaled the room, raising his chest to maximum as he allowed each story to fill his nostrils. Then he released his breath, none the wiser to their tales and fables but certainly happier.
It reminded him of evenings spent in the library when the heating had been switched off at home. The library had become one of the few places he felt safe after his mother passed, and yet, he spent many a day there hating her for leaving him behind. She who was meant to protect him from things like hunger, loneliness, and cold.
Now all he did when his mam came to mind was love her. Love her and love her and love her . . .
In imitation of stiffened cardboard, Áine had leaned herself backwards into the furthest armchair until dropping her hands on the armrests, legs out straight as if she were poorly demonstrating a gymnastics trick. Then she dropped with a dusty thud, pulling her legs into a Sukhasana position as shefought the chair for a cosy spot, an act that pried out her tongue just a fraction.
Seeing this had Fionn reimagining himself thumping her against the wall. This time with both her legs hitched in suspension to raise their mouth’s parallel. And beneath, his dick to the seam of her wet underwear.
He tilted his head back, hands squeezing against the timber frame as he found himself unable to suppress a stifled groan.
I have to kiss her.
“So, do you like it?” she asked, seemingly too consumed by her gift to notice his frustration and longing. “I know I didn’t decorate the fucking room or write any of the books, but I mean do you like that I brought you here?”
Understanding her question and how she’d thought of him in such a kind manner, it still wasn’t enough to give him the right answer. And he really wanted it to be right.
Finally coming all the way into the room, his fingers ran over the row of brown-weathered spines at his eye level. “I do. It’s beautiful, and I think you’re very good for showing it to me. If I had a room like this, I’d never manage to leave it. They’d use my bones as bookmarks.”
“You can bring some to Perth if you have the space.”
He spun to her, feeling chronically bashful. “Ahh, Jesus. No, I couldn’t!” No sooner had he said it before realising this contradicted his earlier thought of pride and receiving what he considered charity over what was a gesture.
“Yes you fucking can!” she cheekily countered with just as much force, her body near leaning out of the chair before immediately settling again. “I encourage it! There are absolute classics in this room. They might as well go to someone who appreciates them. What good is a book not read?”
What good is a chance not taken?
Fionn had dealt with the consequences of that before. And yet, he wasn’t sure he had the ability to not repeat history. Or which side of the world the chance was on.
“All right. All right. I’ll do as I’m told and take one or two with me in the morning.” He grinned at how that seemed to please her before asking one of his bi-monthly thoughts, “Do you ever wish you could use the term ‘avid reader’ when describing yourself? I feel like I want that. Not for a Tinder bio or anything like that, in case you’re wondering. Iamsingle.”
A smile brightened her round face so beautifully he worried he might need to sit, so no wasted purpose would be given to bodily function when he wished to devote all energy into simply looking at her. Look at her during the moment it became clear; she still liked him too.
“You thought I was wondering if you were single?” She sang the words with a teasing nature he walked straight into.
He retaliated, his jaw tensing for his own disposition to be overconfident in situations like this. “I did actually, yeah. It wouldn’t be the craziest thing for you to wonder about, Áine.”
“Oh, so you think all my anterior thoughts to that one were crazy? What a dirty stereotype of women you have there.” Her plump smile grew wider again, and this time he did sit from the sight of it. His head pressed against the chair, straining his Adam’s apple as he followed the run of wooden beams above.
Fionn rated her incredible. The way she procured the upper hand with such ease. In fact, she was so good at it he masochistically wished she roasted him for longer, so all his insides would become succulent for her appetite alone. He believed he’d even crawl to her if she asked it of him now.
But she didn’t. Instead, a furrow claimed her brows. Not in a bad way, but more so a remembering. “So why can’t you consider yourself an avid reader?”
The answer came easy to Fionn: “I feel a bit fraudulent as a lover of literature, stigmatised by the parameters of . . . of you know, societal expectation as to what constitutes an avid reader. I know it sounds needlessly fancy putting it that way,” he drifted, getting embarrassed by himself.
“There’s nothing wrong with using bigger words Fionn. You’re just talking. I’m not sitting over here thinking,Jesus this lad is really trying to show off. I like hearing you talk.” There was force in how she said it.
