4. Mack
MACK
She’s closing up.
I’m sitting on the floor between the shelves with my back against the poetry section, watching her move through the shop. She doesn’t know I’m watching. Or maybe she does, and she’s letting me.
She locks the front door. Flips the sign.
Dims the overhead lights until the shop is all warm shadows and the glow from the courtyard streetlamp coming through the front window.
She straightens a display, runs her fingers along a row of spines to make sure they’re flush, and tucks a bookmark back into the register drawer.
Every movement is small and precise and unhurried.
I got here an hour ago. Came in before her last customer left, picked up a book, did the bit. She played along. But the bit ran out fast today, and when the customer left and the shop went quiet, neither of us tried to start it up again.
I sat down on the floor because standing felt like too much, and she didn’t ask me to get up. She went back to her closing routine, I stayed where I was, and the silence between us turned into something I didn’t want to break.
She comes around the end of the shelf and looks down at me. “You’re still here.”
“I’m still here.”
She sits down across from me, her back against the opposite shelf, her knees pulled up. The aisle between us is narrow enough that if I stretched my legs out, my boots would touch hers.
“Can I tell you something?”
“You’ve been telling me things for three days.”
“Something important.”
She goes still. That careful look. The one that means she’s deciding how much to let in. Then she nods.
“I’m the oldest of four,” I say. “Two brothers, one sister. My dad worked pipeline, gone three weeks out of every month. My mom held everything together, but she held it together tight, and when things got tense I figured out early that if I said something funny, the room exhaled. Everybody relaxed. My mom’s shoulders would come down.
My sister would stop crying. It worked every time. ”
Ellie doesn’t say anything. She’s watching me with those amber-brown eyes without filling the silence or giving me an out.
“I brought it into the firehouse,” I say. “Every crew needs a guy who keeps things loose. I’m good at it. I’m great at it.”
I hear myself and I almost laugh, but I don’t, because she’s looking at me. I can’t hide behind the joke when she’s looking at me like that.
“There was a call last winter. Bad one. Afterward, one of the guys was sitting in the bay alone, and I went over and sat with him. Didn’t joke. Didn’t deflect. I told him it was a rough call and it was okay to not be okay.”
I stop. This is the part I don’t tell people.
“He looked at me and said, ‘I appreciate it, man, but can you get Holt?’”
The shop is so quiet, I can hear the courtyard streetlamp buzzing through the glass.
“He wasn’t being mean,” I say. “He just needed someone he trusted with the heavy stuff. And that’s not me. I’m the joke. I’m the comic relief. I’m the guy you want when you need the room to breathe, not the guy you want when you need someone to sit with you in the dark.”
Ellie is quiet for a long time.
“That’s not what I see,” she finally says.
“What do you see?”
She leans forward, and her knees almost touch mine.
“I see someone who sat down anyway. Who showed up when it mattered. Who’s sitting on my floor right now telling me something he doesn’t tell anyone, and he’s not making a joke about it.
” Her voice is low and steady, and it takes me apart.
“You’re not the exhale, Mack. You’re the person who noticed someone needed one. ”
I stare at her.
The grin is gone. I didn’t take it off. She did.
Nobody has ever said anything like that to me. Nobody has ever looked past the noise and saw what’s underneath it and made it sound like something worth being. She just did it in four sentences on the floor of a bookstore, and I don’t have a joke for this. I don’t want one.
I lean forward and kiss her.
Her lips are soft and warm, tasting faintly of the herbal tea she drank earlier. At first it’s gentle, almost careful—like we’re both testing whether this is real. Then she makes a small sound in the back of her throat and tilts her head, and everything ignites.
I slide my hand into her hair, cupping the back of her neck as the kiss deepens. Tongues touch, slow and exploratory, then urgent. She shifts closer.
I pull her nearer until she’s climbing into my lap, knees bracketing my hips as I lean back against the solid bookcase behind me. The poetry shelf digs into my shoulders, but I don’t care.
My hands roam over her back, down her sides, learning the shape of her through her thin blouse. When my thumbs brush over her nipples through the thin cotton of her bra, she gasps into my mouth. The sound goes straight to my cock.
Her hips roll forward instinctively, grinding against the growing hardness in my jeans. She doesn’t seem to realize what she’s doing, but I feel every slow, unconscious rub and have to bite back a groan.
I break the kiss just enough to rest my forehead against hers, breathing hard. “Ellie…we should probably stop unless you want me to take you right here on the floor of the bookstore.”
Her eyes are dark. “That’s exactly what I want,” she whispers. Her fingers are already tugging at the hem of my T-shirt. She pulls it up and off in one motion, tossing it aside, and runs her palms over my chest like she’s been dying to do it. “But you should know something.”
I freeze as her hands keep exploring, tracing the lines of muscle down my stomach. “What?”
“I’m a virgin.”
The words hit me like cold water. I glance toward the front of the shop, noting the dim courtyard beyond the window.
“Then we should go back to my place. Somewhere more comfortable?—”
“I’m glad you didn’t bail,” she says softly, relief clear in her voice. She leans in and kisses me again, slow and reassuring. “But I don’t want to go anywhere.”
I pull back just enough to meet her eyes. “Are you sure you want this? Here? With me?”
Instead of answering with words, she shifts back a little, reaches down, and unzips and unfastens my pants. Her hand slips beneath the band of my underwear and wraps around me, stroking with a tentative but eager grip. I groan, hips jerking up into her touch.
“Fuck, Ellie…”
I start unbuttoning her blouse with shaking fingers. She helps, shrugging it off, then reaches behind herself to unhook her bra. It falls away and she’s topless in the warm shadows, breasts full and perfect, nipples tight from my earlier attention.
I pull her back to me and kiss her hard, palming one breast while my other hand shoves her skirt up her thighs. I stroke her through the damp fabric of her underwear. She groans against my lips, hips rocking into my hand.
“Stand up for me,” I command.
She rises on unsteady legs, bracing one hand on the shelf for balance.
I hook my fingers into the waistband of her panties and slowly drag them down her thighs.
They catch briefly at her knees before sliding the rest of the way to her ankles.
She steps out of them carefully, breathing already shallow.
I slide down flat against the hardwood, the poetry shelf cool against the top of my head, and guide her back to me, hands on her hips, helping her straddle my face. Her skirt bunches around her waist as she lowers herself, knees settling on either side of my head.
She reaches up and grips the edges of the bookshelves above us, fingers curling tight around the wooden lip.
The moment my tongue slides along her slick folds in one long, slow lick, her thighs tremble against my ears.
I do it again, savoring her taste, and a soft, startled moan escapes her—low and breathy, like she wasn’t expecting the intensity of it.
I focus on her clit, circling it lazily at first, then sucking gently.
Her hips twitch, a small involuntary roll that presses her hotter and wetter against my mouth.
I suck a little firmer, flicking my tongue in tight strokes, and her breathing fractures into broken whimpers and soft, desperate gasps.
“Mack…” she breathes, the word shaky.
Her hips start moving more deliberately now—slow, rolling grinds that chase my tongue, growing bolder as pleasure overtakes hesitation.
She rocks against my face, riding my mouth with increasing urgency, her thighs tightening around my head.
Her fingers grip the shelf harder, knuckles whitening, the wood creaking faintly under the pressure as she holds herself up.
I groan against her, the vibration pulling a higher, needier whine from her throat. Her movements turn frantic—short, stuttering thrusts of her hips as she chases the edge. Her whimpers climb into soft, desperate cries that she tries to muffle but can’t quite contain.
When she comes, it hits her hard. Her whole body tenses, thighs clamping around me as her hips buck wildly against my tongue.
A sharp, broken cry tears from her—“Ah— Mack!”—her fingers gripping the shelves so tightly I hear the strain in the wood.
She shudders violently, riding out every pulse and aftershock while I keep licking her through it, gentling my strokes as she slowly comes down.
When her legs stop shaking, she lowers herself, sliding down my body until she’s straddling my lap again.
I shove my pants and underwear down to my thighs, freeing myself completely.
I grip her hips, guiding her until the head of my cock is notched at her entrance.
I nudge inside gently, just the tip, groaning at the tight, scorching heat of her.
She closes her eyes and sinks down slowly, taking more of me. Her face winces at the stretch, and I freeze, one hand moving between us to rub tight circles over her clit.
“Breathe, baby. I’ve got you.”
It works. The tension eases, and she starts moving, bouncing shallowly at first, then deeper, working me inside her inch by inch until I’m buried deep.
I lean forward and take one nipple into my mouth, sucking hard while she rides me.
The wet heat of her tight pussy slides up and down my cock in a rhythm that’s already driving me insane.
She gasps sharply, a broken little sound that turns into a throaty moan as she threads her fingers through my hair, holding me against her breast.
“Fuck, you feel so good,” I growl against her skin, flicking my tongue over her nipple before sucking again, harder. “So tight and wet for me. That’s it, baby—ride my cock just like that.”
I switch to her other breast, sucking deep and greedy, while my thumb keeps stroking her swollen clit in tight, slick circles. Her moans get louder, needier—soft, desperate whimpers that spill out with every bounce.
Soon she’s moving faster, bouncing harder, her full tits jiggling with every rise and fall.
Her skin is flushed pink and glowing in the low light.
Then she reaches up and cups her own breasts, rolling and pinching her nipples between her fingers as she watches me watching her.
The sight is so fucking filthy and beautiful I have to grit my teeth, fighting the urge to thrust up and come right then.
“Jesus Christ, Ellie,” I groan, my voice rough. “Look at you playing with those pretty tits while you fuck me. You’re gonna make me lose it. Slow down, baby.”
But she doesn’t slow down. Her hips roll and slam down with increasing urgency, her moans turning into high, breathy cries that echo softly between the shelves.
“Mack…” she whimpers, the sound growing higher, needier. “Mack—oh God?—”
Her rhythm turns frantic, her pussy clenching around me in hot, fluttering pulses. I can feel her getting close, and it’s taking everything I have not to explode.
“Come on, baby,” I rasp, voice strained as I fight to hold back. “Let me feel you come. Come all over my cock like a good girl.”
She shatters with a sharp, broken cry—“Mack!”—her whole body shaking as she clenches hard around me, pulsing and fluttering. Her hips stutter and grind as the orgasm rips through her, her moans turning into helpless, sobbing whimpers of pleasure.
The feeling of her coming so hard on my cock is too much. With a deep, guttural groan of her name, I finally let go. I thrust up into her, spilling deep inside her in hot, thick pulses, hips jerking as pleasure whites out everything else.
We stay locked together, panting, her forehead pressed to mine. Slowly, she collapses forward, her head resting on my shoulder, my arm wrapping around her back. The shop is dark and quiet around us, the courtyard empty beyond the window.
“You’re still here,” she says after a long silence.
“I’m still here.”
Her head is on my shoulder. My arm is around her. At some point we slid sideways, and now we’re lying on the floor between the poetry shelf and the literary fiction shelf, tangled together in the dark.