3. Esme
Three
Esme
I wake up soaked, with the sheets twisted around my legs, my tank top stuck to my back, slick between my thighs, and my whole body throbbing like I ran a marathon in my sleep.
For a second I don’t even know where I am in this new apartment, new city, new ceiling I don’t recognize…
Then the dream comes back and I want to fucking die.
Him, Sven Greymark. Of course it’s him. The giant green alpha who runs my new library, the one people are scared to make eye contact with, except in my dream he wasn’t scary at all, in my dream he was on his knees at the foot of my bed with my thighs over his enormous shoulders and his mouth, God, his mouth, those tusks dragging up the insides of my legs, that low rumble vibrating against me while he…
“Nope.” I sit straight up. “Nope, nope, nope.”
I met this guy yesterday. I said two words to him. He said one word to me, Welcome. And my traitor brain took those two syllables and built an entire X-rated movie starring my new boss’s face buried between my legs.
I flop back against my pillows and stare at the ceiling.
My heart’s slamming, my clit is still throbbing, and I do the math on how unprofessional I’m being right now.
I haven’t even finished my orientation. I don’t even have a badge yet.
And I’m lying here sweating through my sheets over my scary boss like a damn horny high school girl.
I could take care of it. My hand’s right here, and the throb is right there, insistent, embarrassingly so.
But I don’t. Because if I come right now, it’ll be to Sven’s memory.
His veiny, corded forearms, his bulky shoulders, fantasizing about grabbing on to his horns while I ride his face, his tusks grazing my flesh…
and that feels like a line I do not wanna cross, like if I do that there’s no going back, and I am going to be normal about this alpha if it kills me. So help me God!
I drag myself out of bed and into a cold shower. That doesn’t help…
By the time I get to the library, I almost feel okay. Almost. I had to change my underwear before leaving the house, but we’re not gonna think about that… I got coffee, put on a nice cardigan, wore my glasses, and gave myself a stern look in the mirror: do not not think about the boss’s tusks!
So I walked in here ready to actually start the job I uprooted my entire life for.
And the job, it turns out, is great. Janey takes me around the floor.
She shows me the catalog system, the hold shelves, the workroom with the laminator everyone fights over, the kids’ wing that’s going to be mine to run, bright and low-shelved.
She introduces me to the regulars. A patron comes up with a lost-card situation I fix in about ninety seconds, and Janey looks at me like I performed a minor miracle.
“Oh, you’re good,” she says.
“Thank you,” I beam at her, her praise landing warm in my chest. And standing in the middle of my new floor with a happy patron and a kids’ program to set up, I start feeling better.
I don’t see Sven all morning. I tell myself I’m not looking for him. But every time I hear someone approach, my stupid heart picks up, and each time it’s just another colleague or a patron. And I’m a little relieved, and a lot disappointed…
Then, a little before eleven, I’m at the front desk sorting through holds, when the atmosphere in the vast open space changes.
It’s like the air goes still. And then he’s just there, on the other side of the desk.
Big and tall and fucking beautiful, blocking out the light…
and my body starts tingling from head to toe.
“Ms. Williams.” His voice rumbles through me. Low and gravelly.
He’s looking at me with his dark eyes, his strong jaw set. I crane my neck to meet his intense stare.
“Mr. Greymark.” I almost sound normal. “What can I do for you?”
I wait. He stands there, this mountain of a male; something flickers across his face, and then he says, gruff, almost like he’s mad about it: “There’s a coffee place across the street.” I raise my eyebrows. “It’s better than what we have here.”
I blink. “Okay?”
“I’m going.” Another beat, and I swear to God his jaw works like he’s bracing. “You should come. So you know where it is. For when you need good coffee.”
And… oh. Oh.
He’s asking me to coffee. The scary boss is standing at my desk, being weird and stiff and gruff and asking me, in the worst, most awkward way a seven-foot-tall alpha has ever asked anybody anything, to walk across the street and get coffee with him.
James, the librarian working the other end of the front desk, has stopped pretending to scan things. He’s openly staring at us now.
“Sure,” I hear myself reply with what I know is a big, goofy grin. “I could use a good coffee.”
My stomach melts when his frown relaxes a bit at my words.
“Good,” he grumbles.
The walk across the street is the longest twenty yards of my life.
The second we step out of the library, people fucking stare.
A woman coming up the steps actually stops walking.
Two male trolls outside the hardware store next door go quiet.
A huge Minotaur across the street straight-up nudges the person they were talking to.
It feels like the whole block just stopped to watch the scary orc walk outside with the new girl.
But Sven doesn’t seem to notice or care. He just walks next to me, shortening his enormous stride to match my pace without me having to ask. He’s close enough that I can feel the intense heat coming off him.
When we get to the door of the coffee shop, his hand comes to the small of my back in the barest of touches, just guiding me inside, his palm is so huge that it almost spans my entire back, and I feel that shit fucking everywhere!
Heat spreads up my spine and my breath catches.
Meanwhile, he holds the door with his other hand, and I walk under his arm into the coffee place, feeling completely out of sorts.
The place is really cute; it feels warm, set up with exposed brick and cozy decor. Sven follows me to the counter with his hand still on my back, and when he drops it, I immediately miss it. Fucking pathetic…
“What would you like?” he asks.
“Oh, you don’t have to…”
“Esme.” It’s the first time he’s used my name, and the sound of it in his raspy voice stops me dead. It’s like a caress, a kiss, a hug, something warm and tender, and filthy all at once… “Get whatever you want.”
I gulp, nodding like a rag doll. Then I order a vanilla latte with an extra shot of espresso.
Of course, Sven orders a black coffee the size of my head, and after a pause he adds in his gruff tone: “and one of those.” He points to the pastry case at a flaky, buttery, glazed thing that looks freaking delicious.
“For you,” he adds when I look up at him.
“Oh, I don’t need…”
“You looked at it.”
Oh, right… I did. I looked at it for half a second, and this huge, terrifying, supposedly stone-cold alpha clocked that brief glance and bought me the pastry without missing a beat… Something in my chest goes warm and stupid and dangerous…
We stand by the counter while they make our drinks, and we’re close…
He’s so big that any space around him feels small, and I’m almost tucked against him without even meaning to.
And, fuck me, this close his scent is fucking everything, cedar and smoke and that dark, warm thing…
No AC, no open library floor or vast conference room, just him, filling my head until I have to remind myself to breathe through my mouth.
“You’re from California,” he says gruffly. And I realize the poor bastard is trying to make small talk.
“Yes, Oakland.” I smile up at him, wrapping my hands around my warm drink.
“That’s far. You have friends here? Family?”
I look up at him, still grinning, and shake my head.
He nods once. “Moving somewhere alone. Starting new. That’s brave.”
Wow, nobody’s said that to me. Not my family, not my friends.
Everyone said, are you sure? And that’s so far!
But this terrifying guy I just met yesterday realizes this is the bravest, scariest thing I’ve ever done.
I have to look down at my coffee so my face doesn’t do something embarrassing.
Like smile so big my cheeks hurt. Spoiler: I already am…
“Thanks,” I mutter.
He just nods, and we drink our coffee by the window with the whole town pretending not to watch us through the glass. We’re both quiet, and it’s the least quiet silence I’ve ever felt in my life; my body’s humming, every place his arm almost brushes lighting up like a live-wire.
When we walk back to work, his hand finds my back again at the curb, then it drops when we reach the library steps.
He looks at me for one more second with his deep brown eyes, and I think for one insane heartbeat that he’s going to say something, do something… But then he just nods, turns, and walks back inside.
I stand on the steps holding my latte and the pastry I didn’t ask for, with the whole block still sneaking looks at me, wondering, What the hell just happened?