Black (3 page)

In an effort to distract myself, I went to the only bookshelf in the room, small and neat, with many older editions. One looked especially old, and I pulled it off the shelf. I was surprised to find it was a worn, illustrated edition of
Winnie the Pooh
. My fingers slid across the timeworn pages and traced the delicate etchings.

“Winnie the Pooh and gang?” I questioned when I heard him approach behind me.

“It’s a favorite. My grandma gave it to me as a kid. I’d get a flashlight and blanket and hide out in the garden reading this book.” He took the book from my hands and flipped a few pages. Memories seemed to run through his mind. “I guess it’s the first book I ever read. I haven’t said no to a good story since. I never cared much for company; books were the only friends I ever needed.” His sweet grin returned and his words echoed in my mind. How strange that what he described was my life. Never surrounded by
real
friends but those that I collected from the pages of tattered paperbacks at the library. How I would hide, locking myself away from others so they wouldn't ask questions or scold me. I remember how characters and adventures became my pastime, how, while reading, I escaped to different worlds and left my sad existence behind.

“I love it.” I traced his wrist with my finger. He was such a contradiction, so rough and then sweet. Edgy and intellectual. He was unlike anyone I’d ever met before. He drew me to him like a butterfly to brightly pigmented petals. I was helpless to his force.

“I searched high and low for this edition. It was the same one I had as a kid. I didn’t realize it then, but this was a pretty pricey gift from Grandma.”

“What happened to the one you had as a boy?”

He shrugged, his eyes turning away. “Stuff gets lost with time.” He placed the book back on the shelf, then turned to me. I sensed something darker in his eyes, more that he wasn’t saying. “Let’s get to that training.” He winked and placed a palm at my back like a gentleman, guiding me down the stairs and leaving me feeling like I was walking on air. Did he make all the women he met feel this special? I hoped not. I wished selfishly that it was just me, but I knew it was too good to be true. He was too handsome, I was too chubby. Same old story. I just wished desperately that for once, life could throw me a twist. “We still use the Dewey system,” Maxwell informed me when we turned the corner into the dark library.

His words pulled me back into reality where I needed money and this job to stay afloat on my own. I recalled the best I could how the Dewey decimal system worked as he scribbled a few numbers down on a sticky note and thrust it at me. “You’ve got two minutes to find this one.”

My eyes widened for a moment before I accepted his challenge and headed off down the first row of books.

“Gettin’ colder,” his amused voice called from behind me. I scrunched my nose and then took to reading the spines, heading in the opposite direction. I turned a corner and headed down another aisle before a whisper scared me out of my boots. “Hotter.” His breath sent shivers down the nape of my neck and I felt his chest pressing into my back. Jesus, how did he do that? One look, one word, and I was putty.

I tilted my head, doing my best to ignore him and continue my finger-tracing across the spines as the numbers climbed.

“Hotter.” His growl deepened and my knees nearly turned to jelly. I wanted to scream and batter on his giant chest. The incessant throbbing between my thighs was driving me insane. “Almost there,” he hummed and my clit burned and I thought he might actually be able to talk me to orgasm right there before his heavy hand landed on mine and stopped both our fingers on a dusty volume.

“Madame Bovary?” I asked without thinking, only feeling him invading my space, my senses, my mind, and how much I loved it.

“Not a fan of suicidal desperate housewives?” He chuckled and backed away again, leaving me reeling.

I huffed in a breath, feeling arousal pulse through my veins and tighten the buds of my nipples under the soft cotton of my shirt. “I’m more of an Elizabeth and Darcy girl myself.”

“Ah, a romantic. Of course you are. For a minute, I thought you might be a Sylvia Plath, but definitely an Austen. I see it now.” He pinched my chin between his thumb and forefinger before whirling away and stalking down the aisle. What the hell had just happened? “Opening time,” he called as I followed him. “We open promptly at nine, not a minute earlier. I may not find you on my doorstep tomorrow, so I’d recommend you not be early again,” he said before the soft snick of the old latch gave and he twisted the sign to say open.

He was maddening, frustrating. Sharp-tongued and sexy as hell. One minute he was undoing me with his words, the next he was all business. I couldn’t quite put my finger on him.

A wry smile turned my lips as I followed his hulky body to the circulation desk, eager for more of his kind of training. Maxwell Black was unexpected and that made everything more exciting.

Five

Maxwell

I checked the Rolex at my wrist before taking long strides to the front door, flipping the closed sign for lunch break, then turned to the pretty girl at the circulation desk who, despite my best efforts very early this morning, had left me with a raging hard-on half the day. And we still had a whole afternoon to go.

Elle’s eyes arched in surprise before a flirty grin spread across her face. I found a barrel of laughter tumbling from my chest before I could even think. Just when I thought she was naive and innocent, she taunted me with that sexy curve of her jaw and the cute button nose.

“Looks like you’ve got something on your mind,” I said when I reached her at the desk.

“Don’t I though.” Her eyes gleamed and my dick twitched. I wanted to taste her lips. I wanted to take my time and taste every inch of her until I found the folds of her soft pussy and could bury my face in her. I wanted my teeth nibbling on her turned-on clit, her scent washing over me, embedded in my skin.

“Anything I can help with?” I leaned closer, saw her eyes dilate before her shoulders relaxed and her lips pressed forward, so fucking close to mine I had to stop myself from closing the distance between us and finding out what she actually tasted like.

“I hope so,” she purred in such a sexy way I was sure she’d done it before. Fooled some other poor asshole into falling for her before she walked away, that sexy giggle and round ass headed for the horizon.

I licked my lips, my eyes riveted on hers. “Why don’t you tell me what it is?” I drawled, falling a little further into her Lolita charm.

She sucked a lip between her bottom teeth like a minx before leaning in closer, her lips hovering at my ear so close I thought my dick might burst my fucking zipper. I pressed my hips into the cold wood, begging for relief. I’d need to fuck something soon. With a hint of vanilla and strawberries floating around me, her lips landed softly at the vein that throbbed at my neck and she whispered, “I was thinking…” My heartbeat pounded, rapping at the cage of my chest to escape. She was kissing me. Her fucking lips were on me. My eyes fell closed and I rooted myself to the spot. A woman’s lips hadn’t touched my skin in years.

Her soft lips parted before her nose trailed up the skin at my earlobe and she hummed, “I was thinking…food.” She said the last word before dragging her teeth across my earlobe, sending lightning bolts and thunder straight into my balls.

“Fuck,” I growled, my fists clenching at the lip of the counter as I struggled for strength.

“Something on your mind?” She stood from the chair, crossing her arms with a smile. Chestnut waves fell over one shoulder, curling around her breasts and highlighting her deep cleavage.

“I’m going to need to get you out of that shirt. Soon.” I leaned across the desk, my eyes riveted on her tits as I spoke. I didn’t give a fuck if I scared her; let the angry snarl and the bite in my words turn her on or send her running. I had nothing to lose. I’d locked myself up in this place for almost a decade, and still she was here, not running from me. “You don’t know who I am, Elle. Touch me like that again and you may not like what I do.” My eyes danced up the deep neck of her shirt—one I was sure she’d worn for me, accentuating all her soft dips and curves.

“I am sorry.” Her gaze cast from my eyes, to the scar that slashed my right cheek, then down to the ground. Jesus Christ, I scared her. She was a timid little thing and all I wanted to do was fuck it right out of her. I didn’t want her to be scared of me; I wanted her to feel safe, wanted, and beautiful. I stepped back and took a long look, taking in all her beauty.

“Lunch time.”

Six

Elle

“Hope you like noodles,” Maxwell boomed as he pulled takeout containers from the bag. “I do, thanks for asking.” No one, other than my mother, had thought of feeding me before. My mind wandered to the motel room where I was staying and the junk food I was rationing. Money was so tight and the idea of splurging on something like a warm meal just wasn’t worth it.

His eyes darted to mine. “I hope you’re not one of those salad-type girls, I hate that. It always makes me uncomfortable.” His voice was authoritative and firm. I smiled at his words. One look at me and you would know salad wasn’t exactly what I was consuming.
 

I twirled a forkful of lo mein. I took a bite and tried to chew through my smile. Not only did he send my stomach into a twist, but apparently, his favorite takeout food was rather messy to eat. I prayed I didn’t look awful eating. Some women knew how to make anything sensual, I just prayed I didn’t have food all down my face and clothing. I was already at a disadvantage with my size sixteen hips and soft belly. I didn’t want him to think less of me.

Maxwell’s eyes traced up my body, lingering at my waist and the swell of my breasts, as if he actually liked what he saw before twirling a long forkful of his own noodles, and then standing. “I told you earlier, tangle with me and you may not like the result, Elle.”

My heart thumped as my eyes wavered on that jagged slice on his cheek before I turned away, both on edge and turned on. He stepped up to my chair, his thick frame towering over me, my eyes directly in line with his bulging manhood. It made my core twist with want, and to my embarrassment, my throat made a sound similar to a groan.

“Eyes up.” His heavy hand yanked on my chin with only a little bite of warning before he let go and fisted at the back of my shirt. Before I knew what was happening, it was over my shoulders and the cool breeze was bristling my bare skin. I sat before him in a plain white cotton bra and feeling the warmth of his gaze
. Everywhere.

I squirmed and swallowed, my eyes drifting down to the outline of the hard erection just inches from my lips. I licked before his arm was suddenly around my waist and he was pushing me up on the small table we’d been eating at. It wobbled and crashed, a takeout container of noodles falling onto the chair, but he didn’t care.

“Been dying to taste you,” he growled as his nose ran up my body, across the indent of my navel, and between the concave of my cleavage. He reached my lips and pressed the fork with noodles there, encouraging me to bite before he took a bite with me, our tongues twisting together with the noodles before he nipped and pulled away. Some sort of ramped up, sexualized version of
Lady and the Tramp
.

Oh my.

I squirmed and swallowed with aroused dread when his head darted between my legs and his heavy hands pulled apart my thighs. Jesus, I’d dreamed this. This moment right here,
 
only he was naked and entering me. Was I ready for that? For
him?
 

“Watch me,” he ordered.

And I did. I watched, riveted, as his tongue darted into my navel and swirled, tasting me.
Oh...my...gosh.
He was going to make me come. My first orgasm was going to be on a break room table with takeout containers instead of candles. I wiggled again, feeling him nestled between my legs when his palms tightened at my thighs in non-verbal warning.

“Too fast.” His dark eyes held mine with an intensity I’d never seen. He scared me, surprised me, terrified me. He was like an animal. He continued his assault on my senses and licked his way up my sternum, under the curve of one breast, stopping to bite at the flesh peeking out at one side, before curling a tongue under one bra strap and teasing it with his teeth.

Take it off, please take it off,
I moaned wantonly in my head, my insecurities preventing me from saying the words out loud.

“Not yet,” he admonished as if hearing me. “Savoring you.” His fingertip darted between my legs and rubbed at the seam that covered my wet core. A deep rumble emanated from him and sent my nerves pulsing with raw, hot arousal. “So eager, though,” he commented, then continued his attack up the curve of my breasts and across my collarbone before he found my lips. I sighed, not knowing what to expect next, knowing he could do anything to me right here and I’d let him. I was powerless to him, and I found myself liking it.

In the next breath, he covered my mouth in a kiss. He tasted like Thai spice and leather, dark and heady, all consuming and overpowering. My hands instantly found his bulging arms beneath the fine thread of his vest. He turned me on, he loved my body, and
I
drove him to his knees with desire.

My hips bucked and rocked against his straining erection as I silently begged for more of him, feeling desperate, feeling like we’d taken forever to get here, even though it surely hadn’t been long enough. But living a lifetime without the person you were put on Earth to be with felt like a lifetime too.

Seven

Maxwell

I yanked away, my body panting as I felt the last vestiges of my control trailing from my brain and landing at my angry cock. I couldn’t do this, wasn’t ready, not yet. Too soon. Back off.
You’ll hurt her.

The demon in me roared, begging for release, but I couldn’t let him harm her. Couldn't let
me
harm her.

So I turned and walked away, straight out of the break room and into the library. I sped up the stairs and headed for the cold shower, where I’d only just been this morning after beating off with her scarf, and now here I was again. My finger smelled of her sweet nectar, the taste of her strawberry scent on my tongue.