Chapter 23
MILES
“Last one here,” Booker said as he turned away from closing the door behind Seth, who’d told him he’d already arranged for a professional to clean up tomorrow and warned Booker not to start tonight.
“What’s that look for?” I asked. It wasn’t a bad look, but there was something about it. Distant, but not cold. The look of someone remembering a good day.
“Just thinking of something Seth said a while back,” Booker said, closing the distance between us and indulging me when I tugged him closer for a kiss, letting both hands fall on my hips as he teased the seam of my mouth with his tongue.
He pulled back after a heartbeat, waited until I made a sad sound, and then laughed as he kissed me again.
“You still have a gift to open,” I murmured against his lips.
“Now?” Booker asked.
“Now,” I said, completely failing to hide a smile.
I’d expected to be nervous when we got to this part, but I wasn’t. The thought of Booker opening that bag filled me with nothing but excitement.
It took a gentle nudge to get him to go behind the bar and grab the bag. He slit the tape with his pocket knife, put it away carefully, and then, finally, peeked inside.
Then looked up at me.
Then looked into the bag again.
“There’s a note,” I said, nodding to it. “Since you look confused.”
I licked my lips as he extracted the note from the bag, the first twinge of nervousness getting to me. Not nervousness for myself—I was so sure I wanted this and I was so sure I wanted it to be with Booker—but that he might not want...
“Happy Birthday Book,” he read aloud, and then looked up at me again, smiling. “I love when you call me Book,” he said softly.
“Will you read on and put me out of my misery?” I asked.
Booker turned back to the note obligingly. “I know you’ll wonder if I really want to do this or if I’m only saying so because we’ve been celebrating and maybe I’ve had a drink or two but I made this decision days ago. It’s okay. I’ve been fantasizing about how much I wanted—”
He paused there, clearing his throat. My heart stopped beating until he continued.
“—how much I wanted you to fuck me,” he read on. “This is just my awkward way of asking.”
I bit my lip as he looked at me again, so hopeful my chest hurt.
I did want it. I wanted Booker. I wanted everything and now that I was sure of all that I didn’t want to wait anymore.
“You don’t—”
“I want to,” I interrupted. “Fantasizing, Book. I’ve been fantasizing about it. I’ve never done that before in my life.”
“I’m honored,” Booker said, extracting the bottle of lube and box of condoms from the bag. “And glad you brought your own supplies, because it’s been a while.”
I beamed at him, nervousness falling away and being replaced by a warm, fuzzy feeling that welled up from the pit of my stomach.
“Then why are we still waiting?”
I started laughing when Booker picked me up to carry me upstairs and didn’t stop until he pinned me to the bed, and only then because I couldn’t laugh and kiss him at the same time. I wanted to kiss him just a little more.
“You sure about this?” he asked, pulling back to look at me.
I pulled him down to kiss him again, messy and filthy and perfect. Licking my way into his mouth, nipping at his lower lip just to feel him shiver. Exactly as I’d imagined this would go.
“I’m sure,” I said, anticipation coiling in my gut. I’d done my research, I knew what to expect, but there was no substitute for experience. This was as much my reward for getting through the past few days and saving the library as it was Booker’s birthday gift.
“Because you don’t have to,” Booker responded, voice rough but serious.
“I know,” I said, confident that if I wanted to tap out at any moment, there’d be no argument. I couldn’t imagine wanting to, but I trusted Booker. He’d never hurt me. “I want to. I want this, and I want it to be with you. This is so much more for me than it is for you, you have no idea.”
“Oh, it’s for me, too,” Booker said, brushing his thumb over my lower lip. “But we could wait until I can do it—“
“Right?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.
Booker nodded, eyes softening with uncertainty.
“This is right,” I said, catching his lips again for a heartbeat, rubbing the tip of my nose against his. “I don’t need it to be a whole big thing. I just need it to be you. Please, Book.”
“That’s cheating,” he said.
“You love it.” I grinned up at him.
“I do,” he agreed. “I… I’m gonna make this good for you, okay? You’ve gotta let me do that, at least.”
“I know you will,” I said. “That’s why I keep wanting to have sex with you. It’s always good with you.”
Booker sighed, but the look on his face said he wasn’t annoyed at all. It said he thought I was incredible, the best thing he could possibly look at. I didn’t know what I’d done to earn that look, to earn it being directed at me again and again, but I never wanted it to stop.
“You done your research on this, Mr. Librarian?” Booker asked, resting his forehead against mine.
“Obviously,” I said. “Theoretical and practical.”
I’d managed to find time, in the rush, to not only discreetly visit Otter Bay’s very own adult store, but have a helpful conversation with Emily, who worked there and had recommendations and tips.
I’d come out with my very own dildo in a rich emerald green swirled with gold shimmer that I could honestly have displayed on my coffee table.
I’d showed it to Joel, who’d approved of my sense of aesthetics and my bravery regarding size.
Honestly, it hadn’t felt all that brave once I’d gotten into it. Imagining it was Booker had helped a lot.
“Practical,” Booker repeated, voice spiking half an octave. “Gonna want to hear about that. Maybe a demonstration.”
“Later,” I said.
“Later,” Booker agreed, kissing me for about a thousandth of the time I wanted him to kiss me for. “Gotta get started on all these buttons,” he added, flicking open the first one on my sweater vest. “Could be here all night with you.”
“Maybe that’s why I have so many buttons,” I said, sharing a smile as he glanced up at my face again.
“I’d take my time with you anyway,” Booker said, eyes flicking from my face down to the buttons again.
And then he made good on that, careful fingers working their way through my sweater vest buttons one by one between pauses for soft kisses that lasted just long enough to make me want more.
I got this, now. I got why people liked it. I was never going to be the kind of person who could just pick up any stranger and enjoy this, but I more than understood the appeal of sex now.
As long as it was with Booker.
“Thinking?” Booker asked, spreading my vest open. I shivered as his broad, warm hands slid firmly over my belly and up my chest, thumbs circling my nipples through my shirt.
“About how much I like this,” I said, already a little breathless. “With you.”
I loved the way Booker’s eyes crinkled when he smiled. “Feeling’s mutual.”
That earned me another kiss, longer this time, Booker’s weight pressing down on top of me. A reminder of how good that was, how safe he made me feel.
He kissed his way down my body as he opened each of my shirt buttons, skimming his knuckles over my belly as he tugged the tails out of my pants. Two, three kisses to my stomach, and then I burst into laughter as he blew a raspberry against the sensitive skin there.
“Sorry,” Booker said, grinning up at me.
He wasn’t sorry at all.
“Wouldn’t want this to start feeling serious,” he added, dipping the tip of his thumb under my waistband and running it back and forth. “Looks like you’ve got something there for me.”
I laughed again as Booker unbuttoned my pants and pulled down the zipper, relieved to have the pressure off.
He hummed, shoving my pants down out of the way then bending down to kiss my stomach again, all along the waistband of my underwear. I squirmed under him, laughing again at the tickle of his beard against sensitive skin.
“Haven’t done this in a while,” he murmured, looking up at me. “Might take me a second to remember how.”
I wanted to ask what he hadn’t done, but then he was pulling my underwear down with his teeth and my command of language packed up and left to take a vacation further south.
The next thing I knew, Booker’s hand was curled around my hip, pinning me to the bed, and I looked down just in time to watch him lick a thick stripe along the underside of my cock.
If I’d made the sound I made in front of anyone else I might’ve died of embarrassment. The room spun around me as I recovered from the shock, chest heaving as I panted for breath.
Booker chuckled, eyes glittering up at me.
“Been a while?” he asked.
I shook my head, breathless. “I’ve… I’ve never…”
That only made him smirk, a look I could’ve gotten very, very into.
“Kinda thought not,” Booker said.
“This is meant to be for you,” I protested weakly.
Booker’s smirk widened. “Trust me,” he said. “It will be.”
And then I had to bite down on my hand to muffle a whimper as he licked me again, swirling his tongue around the head of my cock, a jolt of arousal so hard it hurt making my head spin.
Booker paused, reached out for my hand, and pulled it down to himself, kissing it and then guiding it to his head. “Pull my hair if you need to,” he said. “But let me hear you. No one else will. Just me.”
A moment later, Booker’s lips were sliding down the length of my cock and I didn’t care what anyone heard as long as he kept going.
My fingers tightened in his hair and the sheets, thighs parting further to give him all the access he could want, back arching as far as it could while half of Booker’s weight was on my hips and I couldn’t really move.
His mouth was warm and wet and soft and like nothing I’d experienced before, tongue stroking me as he bobbed his head up and down.
I already knew I loved the way he felt on top of me, but really being pinned down was a whole different kind of hot. I was trapped under him, at his mercy—but it was fine, because I trusted him. If I tried to get up, he’d let me go.