Chapter 4 Gavin
FOUR
GAVIN
Fuck.
She wasn’t wearing a bra.
The moment I stepped inside, it hit me like a punch to the gut. That sundress was softer, thinner, lower-cut than usual—delicate little blue flowers scattered across pale cotton like something out of a dream. And judging by the tightness in my jeans, my cock took notice. Immediately.
The sight alone was enough to hammer away every bit of calm I’d managed to wrap around myself this morning.
But what had me skirting the very edge of my self-control—really testing the limits of my goddamn willpower—was when we started cleaning up some of the recent inventory she’d never even had a chance to unbox before the monsoon.
She turned and bent to reach for a stack of water-warped boxes, her arms stretching out in front of her, delicate fingers curling under damp cardboard.
The light caught her just right—gold filtered through the windowpanes, casting soft shadows along her body.
The cotton of her dress clung to her skin like it had been made to highlight every dip and curve.
And then there it was.
The curve. The bounce. The goddamn outline of her nipples pressing against the fabric.
My mouth went dry.
She didn’t even know. Or maybe she did.
Fuck me, that’s even worse.
That was dangerous. That was temptation in its most innocent wrapping.
Exactly the kind of thing I couldn’t let myself think about, and yet—here I was.
Hands twitching. Jaw clenched. Every bone in my body hummed with a restraint I hadn’t had to use in years.
I tore my gaze away and forced myself to focus on the mess around us. On the damage.
The bookstore looked … bad. There was no other word for it.
Shelves leaning sideways like drunken soldiers.
Pages curling like burnt leaves. A once-perfect romance display now soaked, with the covers of its books warped into waves.
Some had split open entirely, their spines cracked, deteriorating before our eyes, leaking pulp.
It smelled like wet paper and ruined dreams.
But even here, even now, nothing in this wreckage commanded my attention the way she did.
She knelt in front of one of the soaked boxes, her back to me. The hem of her dress lifted just enough to reveal the soft pale skin at the back of her thighs. A place I had no business looking.
But Jesus Christ, I looked.
I couldn’t not.
My jaw locked tight, molars grinding, the muscle ticking at my temple.
Every instinct screamed—
Go to her.
Help her.
Touch her.
Not just out of care, but want. The kind that had nothing to do with being a decent man and everything to do with wanting to pull her into my arms and wreck her a little bit, just to see what she’d sound like falling apart in my hands, my mouth, my bed.
Jesus.
She had no idea.
No idea what she was doing to me.
Or maybe she did. Maybe she felt it, too.
The pull. The heat. The way the air between us had grown so thick, I could barely breathe through it.
She was twenty-seven. Smart. Sweet. So fucking soft.
Everything I shouldn’t want. And everything I did. Badly.
And I was old enough to know better.
She stood slowly, brushing her hands on the front of her dress—that fucking dress—and looked up at me with those big brown eyes, like she hadn’t just set me on fire. Like she hadn’t just lit a match and left it burning in the middle of my chest.
“You okay?”
No. I’m not fucking okay.
“Fine,” I said. Flat. Too quick. The word scraped past my throat like sandpaper.
She tilted her head slightly, the motion so damn gentle it made something in me twist. “You sure? You look …”
Like I’m imagining you on your knees, at my feet, calling me Daddy?
Like I haven’t gotten laid in three goddamn years and now all I can think about is the way your nipples are poking through that fucking sundress?
I cleared my throat, swallowing the filth of my thoughts. “Just focused. Let’s keep going.”
My voice sounded distant to my own ears—gravelly and thin.
I turned fast, sharp, the movement covering my tracks. I busied myself with cords and switches and outlets, the low whirl of the fans dulling the edge of my pulse.
I needed my hands full. Needed distance. Needed something—anything—to anchor me before I fucked this up.
Because if I wasn’t careful, I was going to cross a line I could never uncross.
And if she wasn’t careful?
She’d find out just how filthy a man twenty-five years her senior could be when he finally stopped pretending he didn’t want the pretty little thing right in front of him.