Chapter 34 #2
“And you’ve been staring,” she managed, voice husky, trying to hold onto the scene even as her breath fractured. “Every time I ask you to reach the top shelf and your shirt rides up… you think I don’t notice how desperately you want to pin me right here?”
Something snapped in him—quiet, controlled, but absolute.
“I’m done wanting,” he said, and pressed two fingers inside her in one slow, inexorable glide.
She moaned, head falling back against the leather-bound spines, and the sound hit him like a fist to the chest. His whole body responded, blood rushing, skin tightening, every nerve lit up and roaring.
He was so hard it bordered on painful, straining against his jeans with nowhere to go, and the restraint of keeping himself in check while he took her apart was doing something to him he hadn’t expected.
It was agony. It was intoxicating. He never wanted it to stop.
Tyler held her there, his body caging hers against the shelf, his fingers curling deep, stroking with a patience that was its own kind of cruelty.
He could feel her trembling—feel her trying to stay quiet in the empty store—and some new, unfamiliar part of him didn’t want her quiet at all.
He wanted the sounds. Wanted to earn every single one.
Wanted to know that he—Tyler, the laid-back guy who never pushed, who always held back, who let life come to him—could make this brilliant, guarded, extraordinary woman lose control completely.
His other hand cupped her breast through her dress, thumb brushing the tight peak through lace before he tugged the cup down and rolled her nipple between calloused fingers—gentle pinches that drew whimpers from her throat.
Each sound she made went straight through him, stoking something hot and reckless in his chest. His hips pressed forward involuntarily, grinding against her thigh, and he had to bite down on the inside of his cheek to keep from losing himself before this even really started.
“Come for me,” he ordered. His voice was low and steady and left no room for negotiation.
She shattered. Her inner walls clenched around his fingers in fierce, rhythmic pulses, and Tyler felt every single contraction like it was happening inside his own body.
His jaw locked, his breath stalled, and for a moment, the pleasure of watching her come undone was so intense he thought he might follow her over the edge from that alone.
He held her through it, kissing her through every aftershock, tasting salt and wine on her lips, until she sagged against him, boneless and shaking.
His own body was screaming at him. He was trembling now too, not from effort but from the sharp want of desire. Every second of restraint had wound him tighter, and the need to be inside her had gone from urgent to unbearable.
He didn’t give her long to recover.
With hands that felt surer than they’d ever been, he turned her, guiding her until her palms flattened against the cool leather bindings.
He nudged her feet wider with his own. His chest pressed to her back, his mouth at her ear, and he could feel his own heartbeat hammering against her spine, giving him away completely.
“In the book”—his voice had gone somewhere deep and dark that surprised even him—“he takes her from behind. Hard. No mercy. Because she’s kept him waiting far too long.”
Robyn arched her spine, pressing back against him. “Then do it. Take what you’ve waited for.”
The permission unlocked something in Tyler he hadn’t known was there.
He shoved his jeans down, the sound of his zipper sharp in the hushed shop.
He hooked her panties aside and pushed in, inch by torturous inch, until he was fully seated, his forehead dropping to the back of her neck, his breath ragged.
They groaned together, the sound raw and echoing softly among the shelves.
And then Tyler stopped being gentle.
He drew back almost to the tip and drove forward in a deep, grinding thrust that pressed her harder against the books.
One hand slipped around to circle her clit to keep her teetering.
The other fisted gently in her hair, tilting her head back enough that he could press his mouth to her jaw, her neck, tasting the salt on her skin.
“You feel that?” he growled. “Every night I locked this place alone… every time I shelved your books and imagined bending you over them… this is what I pictured. You. Mine. Right here.”
He barely recognized his own voice. But Robyn wasn’t pulling away. She was pushing back, meeting every thrust, her fingers white-knuckled against the shelf.
“Harder,” she pleaded. “Make me feel it tomorrow. Every time I walk these aisles. Every time I sit at my desk.”
He gave her exactly what she asked for. Deeper. Rougher. The shelves rattling faintly with each thrust. He could feel her tightening around him, feel the tension coiling in her body, and he pressed his mouth to her ear one final time.
“Let go,” he commanded. “I want to feel what you wrote.”
She came apart with a sound that would live in him forever. It was fierce, broken, triumphant. Her body clenched around him in wave after wave, and Tyler followed on a guttural moan, burying himself deep, his release tearing through him like something had finally, finally been set free.
They stayed locked together, panting, his arms banded around her waist, her back against his chest, the books holding them both upright. The shop settled around them—the creak of old wood, the tick of a cooling radiator, the faint smell of paper and cinnamon and sex.
After a long, sated silence, Tyler pressed the softest kiss to the nape of her neck. The character fell away, it all dissolved, leaving just him. Just Tyler, sweating and trembling and so in love with this woman it terrified him.
“So…” he murmured, a shaky laugh escaping him, “did I do the scene justice?”
Robyn turned in his arms, still flushed, still trembling. She traced his jaw with her fingertips, and her eyes were so bright they looked like they held the whole damn bookstore inside them.
“Justice?” she said softly. “I think you just inspired the sequel.”
He kissed her, slow and deep, and smiled against her mouth. “Good. Because I’ve got notes on chapter two.”