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“Okay, what’s next?” Vincent asks, pushing the empty cart up to the desk and pausing in front of it.
“Closing time!” Mrs. Potter announces, pushing away from the counter and grabbing her coat and purse from the drawer. “You two kids have fun!”
She gives me a wink and then rounds the counter, stopping in front of Vincent.
“Don’t forget what I said about the sturdiness of the A-B shelf in the children’s section,” she says in a loud whisper, rising up on her tiptoes to pat him on the cheek.
I groan, dropping my head into my hands as she makes her way across the room and out the front door, the bells above it chiming loudly.
“So, what all does closing up entail?” Vincent asks as I open the top drawer and pull out a set of keys.
“Nothing but locking up, taking a trip around the library to make sure everyone’s gone, then turning off the lights,” I tell him as he holds his hand out over the counter.
I drop the keys into his palm and watch him walk over to the door and lock it, coming around behind the counter and setting the keys on top of it. He grabs my hand and tugs me towards him.
“Come on, I’ll help you look for stowaways,” he says with a smile as we begin walking through the library. “So, tell me how it is you started running this place.”
A smile lights up my face as we check behind doors, under tables and walk up and down every aisle.
“Well, obviously I love books. When I was in high school and wanted to get a job just so I had enough money to buy more books, this was the only place my dad approved of,” I tell him with a shrug. “He’s a little overprotective. My mom died when I was a few years old. She worked at a bank that was robbed. When she refused to give the man any money, he shot her in the chest.”
“Jesus, Belle. I’m so sorry,” Vincent says quietly as we move to the nonfiction section.
“It’s fine. I was young, and I don’t even remember her. Sometimes, I don’t know what’s worse—knowing someone and having all sorts of wonderful memories of them after they’re gone, like the way they smelled, the sound of their voice and what their smile looked like, or not having any of those memories at all and having to pretend,” I explain. “I guess that’s where my love of books started. I liked to read books about children with mothers, wanting to know everything about what it was like to have someone braid your hair, help you pick out clothes, teach you how to put on makeup, and all that other stuff.”
We walk over to the science fiction section and I continue, with Vincent’s hand still wrapped around mine.
“My dad did the best he could, but I never quite got the hang of clothes and hair and makeup,” I say with a laugh, pointing at my messy bun and strands of hair falling all around my face.
“I think you got the hang of it just fine,” he says quietly as we pause by a bookshelf and he looks down at me.
His words warm me up from the inside out, like he just told me I was the most beautiful woman in the world.
“Anyway, as soon as I started working here, I knew this is what I wanted to do with my life. My dad sacrificed everything, working seven days a week, twelve hours a day at the steel mill for as long as I can remember so I could get a bachelor’s degree in business management and my master’s in library science, which I just completed last year. And I’ve been running the library since then. It kills me that I might not be able to save this place.”
Vincent reaches up and cups my cheek with his palm, rubbing his thumb back and forth under my eye.
“If anyone can do it, it’s you.”
We stand for several quiet minutes, Vincent with his hand on my cheek and me looking up at him, until I can’t take it anymore. I lift up on my tiptoes, link my fingers together behind his neck and pull his face down to mine.
As soon as our lips touch, I forget about all my problems. His mouth is magical and should have a hundred books dedicated to the way it moves against mine. The kiss starts off sweet and slow, but I don’t want sweet and slow anymore.
I tentatively slide my tongue across his bottom lip and a groan rumbles through his chest. All of a sudden, his arms are wrapped around me and he’s lifting me up.
“Wrap your legs around me,” he says against my mouth.
I do as he says, locking my ankles together behind his back and wrapping my arms tighter around his shoulders as he moves forward a few steps, until my back is up against the end of a bookshelf and he’s pressed right up against me, between my thighs.
