Chapter 4
Vanya
The aisles close in as I allow this little spitfire of an archivist to haul me away.
Books loom over us like silent, observant monks. The air is thick with dust, the scent of brittle paper, and something sharper.
Paige Kisner’s fear.
Her determined grip squeezes my arm, her fingers digging in more forcefully than they have any right to.
I could break her grasp with barely any effort, but I’m enjoying granting her this illusion of power. A little too much, based on the way my pants grow tighter in the crotch.
I let her march me out of sight, behind the shelves. Let her keep believing she’s in control.
Paige yanks us both to a halt and rears back toward the shelf behind her, as if the wall of leather-bound volumes might offer her backup.
She takes a deep breath and lowers her voice. “What do you want with that book?”
We stand just shy of touching. The days-long mask of composure she’s worn slips, leaking off her face with every rise and fall of her chest. Running on adrenaline and instinct, she’s beautiful, and the flush along her neck draws me in. My lips ache to trace the skin that hides under her collar.
Patience.
I flick my gaze around the shadowy stacks. “I have to say, I’m a little more curious about why you dragged me back here.” The strange acoustics soften my voice. “It’s a bit unorthodox, isn’t it, Ms. Kisner?”
“Don’t start lecturing me about what is and isn’t unorthodox.
You’ve been playing games since you walked in.
The forms, the staring, stealing my pen.
” Her voice stutters for a beat before the words steady.
“Then you start chatting up my staff about a particular book, from a particular collection, and you don’t even try to go through me. ”
I lean in just a hair. “I missed the memo where I needed your direct permission to engage in small talk.”
She doesn’t squirm under my scrutiny, just glares at me with those blue eyes. When I inch even closer, her chest rises and falls faster, and her pupils dilate in the dark.
As her throat works on a swallow, I fantasize about that luscious mouth working over my cock.
My pants grow even more uncomfortable, so I force the thought aside. “Your staff looked happy to be of service. And if you’ll recall, I did ask you. When I first got here, in fact. If you’d helped me then, I’d probably be long gone.”
“That’s not the point.” Paige waves her hand between us like she’s slapping away a fly. “What’s your real interest in that book? And spare me the ‘research’ bit. We both know you’re not an academic.”
Blyat.
How’d she figure me out? And when? She’s had days to confront me…
The charm offensive I opted for with her staff pushed her to escalate things rather than run off to hide.
Time to swap masks. If the curious researcher didn’t work, perhaps the heartbroken stranger will.
I let the change play across my face. Nothing that reads as vulnerability, because she wouldn’t buy that. I just soften my eyes and pitch my mouth down a little.
I rest a hand over my heart. “It was my grandmother’s.”
Suspicion narrows her eyes. “What was?”
“The book I’m hunting down.” I brace my shoulder against the shelf, my posture open in a defenseless gesture.
The move causes my arm to brush hers, which prompts heat to shoot straight to my groin.
“She used to read me bedtime stories. Since coming to America as a teen, I lost most of those memories. That quote I gave you is one of the only things I remember.”
Laced with a nugget of truth, the lie sounds smooth. My babushka from my legally adoptive family did lose books while moving. Her entire collection of American romance novels disappeared between Chicago and Miami. Pretty sure my dedushka had something to do with that.
Paige rocks back on her heels, inching farther away from me.
I sigh. “I heard you have a large collection of older Russian books, and I hoped maybe…”
“You thought her book might be one of them.” Paige’s tone softens.
I nod. “It would mean a lot to be able to read those stories one more time. A reminder of where I came from.”
I spy a flicker of sympathy in her eyes.
Hook, line, and sinker.
Stories of childhood, grief, and searching for a connection to lost family rarely fail. Most people bend in the face of that sort of thing.
Just as I open my mouth to ask for the book again, her expression shifts, her lips pursing. She looks so fucking kissable, I have to count to five to get a grip on myself.
“If it really means that much to you, surely you remember something else. What’s the title? The plot of the story? What color was the cover of this oh-so-important book from your childhood?”
Shit.
Is this woman heartless? My grandma stories always work.
Fine. I’ll do this the hard way.
I drop the mask, my mouth thinning into a rigid line before my lips curve in a menacing smile. As I close the minuscule distance between us, the heat of her body sears against mine.
She sucks in a breath through her nose but doesn’t glimpse away. While admirable, her determination won’t get her anywhere.
I cup her jaw and bring her face to mine, forcing her to meet my gaze. “I don’t know the cover or title, but you’re going to help me find it anyway. You know exactly which book I mean. Don’t you, Paige?”
Her pulse leaps under my thumb where I press against her throat. Her tongue flicks out, wetting her dry lips.
Ah. Her body language tells me she’ll crumble.
I lower my mouth to hers, claiming her lips with a hard, unyielding, and possessive gesture.
She whimpers into my mouth, half in protest and half in surrender, but doesn’t attempt to escape.
A spark rushes through my nerves, tingling down my legs. Though I did this to seduce her, now I want to continue for my own sake. To see just how far I can go.
She smells of lilies and parchment and dust, and her skin is soft and smooth beneath my fingers. Despite how tightly she keeps herself wound, I can sense the cracks in her armor and how the edges of her control fray.
I’m going to unravel her, starting with her hair.
With my free hand, I find her bun and pluck out pin after pin.
Each one falls away, tinks softly on the marble floor, and leaves her hair loose. A curtain of pale blond ripples over her shoulders, releasing the heady scent of argan oil and rose hips. I twist my hand in the strands, testing the weight, letting the tresses slide like silk through my grip.
I would happily drown under these waves, with the scent of flowers swirling around me like a tempest.
With a sigh, she plants her palms flat on my chest. She pushes against me, and then immediately contradicts that resistance by grasping the front of my shirt.
I maneuver her wrists above our heads, pinning them to the shelves with one hand. The books shift and settle around us, old paper rustling in futile protest.
I wrap my other arm around her waist before yanking her flush to me.
Her lips part, not surrendering but daring, like she’s telling me, Do your worst.
That’s exactly what I do.
I deepen the kiss, my teeth scraping her soft, plump lip.
Her raw gasps suggest I cut through to whatever she thought she had safely tucked away. Not the quiet, prim observer behind the desk, but propriety with teeth. A blade taped inside a Bible.
I press my advantage. After removing my arm from her waist, I splay my fingers over her breast. She arches into my palm, her rock-hard nipples writing a silent confession in braille. My slow, ruthless thumb circles until she shivers against me.
She’s been so restrained, so locked behind some wall, but I knew better. She’s just aching to be pulled from beneath her prim and proper facade.
I can do that. Release the creature lurking beneath her surface.
I’ll seduce her, bring her to her knees, and then get what I need.
She wrenches her mouth from mine, panting for breath. “Stop.”
Despite her protest, her hips buck forward, grinding against my tortured dick.
My lips trace the line of her throat, finding the hammering pulse just beneath her skin. “Your mouth says to stop, but your body clearly wants to keep going.”
Today, her cardigan-and-blouse combo reveals more skin, her collar framing her clavicles. I nip the place where her neck meets her shoulder with enough pressure to leave a mark. When she cries out, I’m pretty certain every patron in this library can guess what we’re doing.
“Shh. We don’t want to get caught, do we?” I brush a soft kiss to her jaw. She quivers against me. “Quiet now, Paige.”
She bites her lip on another moan, her eyes wide, like she’s surprised by the creature that lives within her.
I understand the clash. The war between need and restraint. Drawing that out of others is when I do some of my best work.
But Paige is stubborn, so when I release her wrists, I expect the fight to spread from her mind to her body.
Instead, her hands tangle in my hair as she drags my mouth back to hers.
That’s all the permission I require.
This time, she doesn’t hold back. She bites, claws, and kisses me with a kind of hunger that tastes like payback. Like she’s trying to reclaim the ground she just lost.
My hand finds the bare skin under her blouse, and her hot waist trembles under my touch. When I rake my manicured nails along her ribs, she shudders. So responsive. Almost as if no one’s ever stripped her down to the nerves before.
Pride explodes in my mind at the idea that I might be the first.
Which is…wrong.
Sex is just part of the game. Sure, I could take a more violent route, but completing a job with a little flirting and a decent fuck is a much easier, cleaner, and more pleasurable strategy.
This is only a means to an end.
Get close, get the book, then get out.
But she kisses me so frantically, like if I let her, she’ll drink me whole.
Heck, I’d let this woman consume me completely for the chance to keep hearing her sexy little noises and feeling her body quiver under my hands.
With a rush of clarity penetrating my foggy mind, I somehow know that, if this continues, I’ll be the one who falls. Who loses all sense of self and gives in to the mounting desire.
That revelation nearly throws me off.
I’m supposed to be the tempter here, not her.
I pull back to glimpse her blown pupils and verify that I’m not losing my mind. This is the same acquisitions curator I’ve been stalking for the last near-week, right?
She’s Paige Kisner, Senior Archivist, but also…not. Panting in the dim light, she’s a different woman altogether, one with full lips and wild hair that tumbles to her waist like a curtain. Someone fierce with desire has replaced the tidy version of her.
Charm wasn’t effective, but she’s ripe for seduction.
This will work better than I ever imagined.
She wants me. And with a little distance to breathe, I see my own reaction was just a fluke, a physical response to the intensity of her desire.
That makes sense. I can use this.
I study her flushed face. “Tell me about the book, Paige.”
Her eyes flicker. Desire wars with suspicion as she tries to catch up to the sudden shift. “I don’t…”
I wind my fist around her hair again, tilting her head back. I plant my mouth to her throat, nipping at the delicate skin. “Don’t lie to me.”
Her breath hitches. “We have thousands of books. How could I know which one you want?” Her voice shakes, the muscles in her neck vibrating.
“You’re the boss.” I tease her while my free hand traces over her stomach.
“Dr. Abernathy is the boss.”
“You know what’s hidden in these walls better than he does.”
She tenses beneath my touch but doesn’t disagree. Still, wariness rises in her expression, muddying her lust and breaking my spell.
Her eyes narrow, her lips tight at the corners. “Why do you care so much about the book? I know it’s not nostalgia. Be straight with me.”
I answer by kissing her. My hand travels down to the edge of her skirt, my fingertips slipping along her thigh. She jolts, and her whimper shoots electricity straight to my groin.
I could lose myself here. In this heat, in her abandon, in the way she unravels at my caress. Forget the book, the job, everything but her coming apart in my hands.
Dangerous, and you know it.
My feelings shouldn’t matter.
In this moment, though, with a ferocious Paige open underneath me, nothing else does.