4. Juliette
— ? —
Juliette
Then, Six Years Ago
The library doors lock behind us with a sound that shouldn’t be as thrilling as it is.
“We can’t be in here,” I whisper, even though there’s no one to hear us, even though my husband bribed the same security guard from the night he proposed, even though breaking into this library after hours has apparently become a Dean family tradition.
“We’re patrons.” Zachary pulls me deeper into the stacks, his hand warm around mine. “Major donors. The endowment practically has our name on it.”
“That’s not how libraries work.”
“It’s exactly how libraries work. You pay enough money, they let you do whatever you want. That’s the whole system.”
“The whole system.”
“Capitalism, Jules. Keep up.”
He’s walking too fast, weaving through the stacks with the confidence of a man who knows exactly where he’s going, and I’m half-running to keep pace in heels that were designed for standing still and looking elegant, not for midnight library heists with my ridiculous husband.
“Where are we going?”
“You know where we’re going.”
I do. Of course I do. The poetry section. The same shelf where I kissed him for the first time, where he proposed, where everything in my life changed.
He stops in front of it, turns to face me, and his expression in the low emergency lighting makes my stomach flip.
“We got married,” he says. “Recently. You may remember it.”
“I was there.”
“In a church. In front of two hundred people. And I haven’t had you properly to myself since.”
“The honeymoon-”
“The honeymoon had your mother’s phone calls about the reception, and my mother’s emails about the foundation announcement, and that one afternoon where we actually managed to be alone in a hotel room.” He steps closer. “Which room service ruined at the exact wrong moment.”
“The fruit plate was very good.”
“Juliette.”
“What?”
“I don’t want to talk about the fruit plate.”
His hand comes up to cup my jaw, tilting my face toward his, and I should be nervous - we’re in a library, after hours, technically trespassing even if the security guard is looking the other way - but all I can think about is how he’s looking at me.
Like I’m the only thing in the room. Like I’m the only thing in the world.
“What do you want to talk about?” My voice comes out breathier than I intend.
“I don’t want to talk at all.”
He kisses me.
It’s not a gentle kiss. Not a sweet-newlywed, we-have-all-the-time-in-the-world kiss.
It’s a kiss that says he’s been thinking about this for days, maybe weeks - a kiss that backs me into the shelves and pins me there with his body and his hands and the focused intensity that made me fall for him in the first place.
His mouth is hot and open and starving. I taste the faint mint of his toothpaste and the sharper edge of want he’s been carrying across time zones.
My back hits spines of books; a few shift and threaten to topple. I should care. I don’t.
I should stop this. We’re in public - sort of. We could get caught - probably not, but possibly. This is wildly inappropriate behavior for a library, even one we technically helped fund.
I don’t stop it.
I grab his lapels and pull him closer, fisting the expensive wool until it wrinkles beyond saving. The solid heat of him presses me harder into the shelves, and goosebumps rise that have nothing to do with the library’s aggressive air-conditioning.
“That’s my wife,” he murmurs against my mouth, and the word wife does something to me.
It has done something to me every time he’s said it since the wedding - in the church, at the reception, to the customs agent on the way home from Bali.
He says it like it’s a prize he won. Like he still can’t believe his luck.
The reverence in it makes my throat tight with sudden, ridiculous emotion.
“We should go home,” I manage between kisses, even as my leg hooks around his calf to keep him exactly where he is.
“We should.” His hands slide down to my hips, gripping hard, and the possessive pressure sends heat flooding straight between my thighs.
“This is - there are security cameras-”
“Bribed the guard. Cameras are off.” He nips my bottom lip, then soothes it with his tongue, and I forget what I was objecting to.
“You planned this.” My voice comes out breathy. I can already feel how hard he is against my stomach.
“I planned this.” His mouth moves to my neck, to the spot below my ear that he’s already learned makes me forget my own name.
He sucks gently and my head falls back against the poetry.
“I flew home from Hong Kong early. I bribed a security guard. I am standing in a library after midnight in a suit that costs more than most people’s cars because I have not properly had my wife since our wedding and I am losing my fucking mind. ”
“You’re very dramatic.” I thread my fingers into his hair and hold him against my throat, chasing more of his mouth.
“I’m very desperate.” His hands slide under my shirt, warm and slightly rough against my bare skin, and I gasp before I can stop myself.
The contrast of cool library air and his hot palms makes my nipples tighten instantly.
“I’ve been sitting in meetings all week thinking about this.
About the way you smelled on our wedding night.
About how wet you got when I whispered filthy things in your ear with two hundred people dancing downstairs. ”
“About breaking into libraries?” I tease, but the words shake. Yearning and leftover wedding-night hunger twist together low in my belly.
“About you.” He pulls back just enough to look at me, and his eyes are nearly black with intent.
I forget how to blink. “About the way you looked on our wedding night when I finally got you alone. About the sounds you make when I get my mouth on you. About how perfectly you take me. I’ve been hard on three different continents remembering the exact face you make when you come. ”
“Zachary.” His name leaves me like a plea. My fingers tighten in his hair.
“About the way you say my name. Just like that.” His thumb traces my collarbone, then dips lower to brush the upper curve of my breast through the thin fabric.
“I’ve been thinking about it so much I nearly botched the Singapore deal because I couldn’t focus on anything except getting home to bury myself in my wife and stay there until neither of us could remember our own names. ”
“You should focus on your work.” I arch into his hand anyway, shameless.
“My work can wait.” His hand slides higher, cupping me fully, thumb circling my nipple until I whimper.
“This can’t. You can’t. Do you have any idea how terrifying it is to need someone this much?
I used to own my entire life. Now I just own the desperate hope that you’ll keep letting me have this. ”
A sound from somewhere in the building - a door closing, maybe, or a cart rolling over tile - and we both freeze.
His hand stops moving on my breast. My breath stops entirely.
We stand there pressed together against the poetry shelves, listening, waiting, hearts going wild in sync.
The risk sharpens every point of contact.
Nothing.
“We should go,” I whisper, even as my hips rock against him of their own accord.
“Probably.” He doesn’t move away. His thumb resumes its slow torture over my nipple, lighter now, teasing.
“Someone’s here.”
“The guard. He’s doing his rounds. He knows to avoid this section for-” He checks his watch without ever taking his eyes off my face. “Another twelve minutes.”
“You scheduled this.” A breathless laugh escapes me. The planning is so completely him I could cry.
“I scheduled this.”
“You scheduled sex in a library.”
“I scheduled fifteen minutes with Dennis. What happens inside them is between me and the poetry section and my ridiculously addictive wife.” His mouth returns to my neck, teeth scraping.
“I’ve been dying for you. Every night in those hotel beds felt like punishment.
I kept reaching for you and finding empty sheets and it made me fucking crazy. ”
“How much did fifteen minutes cost?” My hands are already shoving his jacket off his shoulders. It hits the floor with a whisper of expensive fabric.
“An amount I will not disclose, because you’ll do the math on what our entire marriage cost per minute and I don’t want to know the number.
” He helps me yank his tie loose. “Bermuda money, probably. Dennis deserves Bermuda. Dennis is the only member of my extended household who has never once given me unsolicited advice about how to keep you.”
“I scheduled making love to my wife in a library. There’s a difference.” He catches my face between both hands, forcing my eyes to stay on his.
“Is there?”
“The difference is I don’t have a word big enough for what this is yet.
” He kisses me again, softer this time, almost reverent, but the hunger underneath still vibrates through both of us.
“The difference is I’m going to spend the rest of my life finding places to make you fall apart, and this is where it started - where I first saw you between these exact shelves - so this is where I want to remind us both what we almost never got to have. ”
Another sound. Closer this time.
We freeze again. Zachary’s hand is under my shirt, my back is against the shelves, and we are absolutely going to get caught, and I should care about that but mostly what I care about is that he’s stopped touching me. The loss feels criminal.
Footsteps. Getting closer.
“Shit,” Zachary breathes against my mouth.
“I told you-”
“Shh.”