Chapter Two
Sierra
T he library was familiar when I slumped back into my desk chair, its wheels squeaking beneath my laziness. I stared at the mountain of returns I’d been avoiding all morning before I went to that signing—the one I had to hype myself for months to even go to.
It wasn’t the books themselves that were the problem. It was me.
My fingers trembled as I reached for the first one, its cover worn soft from too many hands, but I froze when the phantom scent hit me again.
Leather. Cologne. Him.
I pressed my palms flat against the desk, trying to ground myself before I spiraled into full-blown panic mode. Breathe in, count to four. Hold for seven. Breathe out for eight.
But all I could see was him. His shadow looming over me, his voice a low, sexy growl that had vibrated straight through my ribs like I was a tuning fork made just for him. It both scared me and turned me on.
Lock the doors .
Eat something.
Good girl.
I nearly squealed at the memory, slumping deeper into my chair until I felt like I might slide off entirely. The clock on the wall ticked louder than usual, each second a metronome for the total delusional chaos in my head.
Connor.
He’d said his name like a secret, gruff and reluctant, as if letting it slip had cost him something. Like maybe he didn’t want me to know it at all, but couldn’t help himself anyway. My delusions were taking over now.
I traced the letters on a sticky note, my cheeks burning.
C-O-N-N-O-R.
I crumpled the note and tossed it into the trash, but the heat in my cheeks didn’t fade. Men like Connor didn’t exist in real life. Not for me, at least. Men like Connor were fantasies pulled straight from romance novels, brooding and beautiful and fictional .
They didn’t show up at book signings or carry boxes for anxious librarians who couldn’t even make eye contact without stammering like an idiot.
His friend was also that kind of man, even with his… interesting hat. He had wild, dark brown hair and the same dark sunglasses, though he seemed friendly, and I could see all the tattoos on his exposed knuckles and neck.
The bell above the door jingled. A regular shuffled in with her walker, her purse overflowing with romance paperbacks she’d probably read twice this month alone.
“Sierra, dear! Do you have the new release?”
“Not yet,” I answered, relief and disappointment tangling in my chest. “But I’ll put you on the waitlist?”
She tutted loudly, adjusting her rhinestone-studded glasses. “You look flushed, sweetheart. Are you coming down with something?”
Yes , I wanted to scream—a terminal case of delusion and hopeless romanticism. My nerves would take all day to recover .
The rest of my shift blurred into a haze of half-hearted small talk and increasingly ridiculous thoughts about Connor, thoughts I couldn’t seem to stop, no matter how hard I tried to distract. Every time the door opened, my pulse spiked, hopeful, then mortified when it wasn’t him.
Why would he ever even come here? Connor definitely didn’t just wander into libraries. He probably existed in gyms and parties, all sweat and crowds, not here. Not surrounded by dust and quiet, the kinds of places that brought me peace.
I was lost in thought when another patron’s voice boomed across the library, sharp and demanding.
My stomach clenched instinctively, the way it always did when someone raised their voice. I tried to focus on the returns cart, but my hands shook too much to grip the books properly, his voice threatening my thoughts.
By closing time, my nerves were singed, and my delusions had faded into something sadder, something closer to resignation than fantasy.
I locked up the library, triple-checking the doors like the sexy god had told me to, because who didn’t want to be his good girl?
The parking lot was empty as usual, so for one reckless second, I imagined him leaning against his bumper, massive arms crossed, sunglasses hiding eyes I’d never seen.
I’d climb that man to reach his lips.
The fantasy dissolved with the rumble of the usual motorcycle speeding past on the street behind, making me realize how embarrassing these thoughts were. I slid into the driver’s seat, gripping the wheel until my knuckles ached. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
He was just a guy. A scary, beautiful, inexplicably kind guy who’d probably forgotten my name already.
No, who’d definitely forgotten my name already.
But as I drove home, the streetlights blurring into golden streaks, I couldn’t stop wondering…
What would he do if I saw him again?
Would he stare at me with that same intensity, the kind that made me feel special? Would his voice soften if I told him I wanted to see his eyes?
I sighed loudly. I wish I’d gotten to see how he looked at me beneath those sunglasses.
I’m such an idiot.
My tiny apartment sat dark and quiet when I pulled into my parking spot, contrasting with the fantasies still swirling inside my head.
At least Toffee loved me unconditionally, or as unconditionally as I deserved when his food bowl was full and litter box was clean.
Inside, he greeted me with loud yowls and insistent rubs against my jeans until I finally plopped down on the couch with him sprawled across my lap, royalty demanding tribute.
I stroked his light brown fur absentmindedly while my thoughts wandered miles away, back to dark sunglasses and a growling voice telling me what a good girl I was.
The silence pressed in harder than usual tonight, the kind that made me feel small no matter how much space I took up. So, I let myself imagine it again.
Him. Me. This dimly lit room full of cheap furniture and cat hair, no matter how much I vacuumed. His hands, rough and large, tracing the curve of my waist like they belonged there more than anywhere else.
His voice, a growl softened by something warmer than fire, whispering against my ear, “You’re not too small for me, Sierra.”
I pressed a pillow over my face and screamed into it until my lungs burned because men like Connor didn’t want women like me, though I let myself pretend otherwise anyway.
I let myself believe I wasn’t too small for him.
Later that night, I sat cross-legged on my couch, staring at the notebook from earlier, its lines glowing faintly under the warm lamplight. Toffee kneaded my thigh with his trimmed claws, purring like a little engine .
He’d knelt for me.
The thought ambushed me for the seventeenth time since I’d gotten home. Connor, all six-foot-whatever of him, had dropped to his knees like a sinner at an altar, his thumb pressed to my pulse like he was taking communion. From me.
“Stop it,” I hissed at the notebook. It didn’t listen.
My frozen dinner spun lazily in the microwave, the smell invading my tiny apartment. Simple, unassuming, like me. Toffee head-butted my hand, demanding more attention.
My fingers still tingled where Connor had touched them.
Rough, callused hands against skin too soft to deserve them.
Men didn’t kneel, they didn’t care, and they certainly didn’t show up in parking lots smelling like leather and danger just to carry boxes for girls with frizzy hair and crippling anxiety.
When the microwave beeped, I ate standing at the counter, burning my tongue on plastic cheese. It was good enough for me.
My phone vibrated—a notification from the signing event page.
Someone had tagged me in a photo from it. I was half-hidden behind other people, my gaze focused on the ground. My heart thumped as I searched the picture for him.
He wasn’t hard to miss. A shadow in the background, sunglasses hiding eyes I’d kill to see, and muscular arms shoved into pockets encasing thick, powerful thighs.
Connor.
The name tasted dangerous, unlike my existence. I zoomed in until the pixels blurred, tracing the slope of his shoulders through his black hoodie. He looked like a god who’d gotten bored of heaven.
Toffee knocked over an empty water cup on the counter, and the sound jolted me back to reality, a reality where Connor wasn’t in my life.
I dumped my empty dinner carton and looked back at my notebook, which was still taunting me from the couch. Write something, it seemed to whisper. Be brave.
I dried my hands on jeans that had been worn hundreds of times .
His voice is thunder, low and rumbling, a warning of the storm to come. When he says my name, it sounds different. Special.
The ink bled into the paper, messy and defiant like my thoughts.
His hands could break me if they wanted to. But when they touched me, they were gentle.
That’s true. His fingers had spanned my wrist like he could snap it with a twitch, but I’d never felt safer in my life. He’d told me to breathe, as if he could read me perfectly, and it made my heart flutter.
He made me feel like something fragile and precious. No one has ever looked at me the way he did, like he was learning me better than I knew myself.
A sob clawed its way up my throat, sharp and sudden. Toffee froze mid-lick, his blue eyes flicking to me like he was annoyed, and I only loved him more.
“I’m fine,” I lied, swiping at my cheeks with my sleeve. “Just… tired.”
The notebook glared up at me, its pages filled with truths I couldn’t speak aloud.
Truths about how I’d replayed his voice, good girl , until it looped in my head.
About how I’d checked the library doors three extra times tonight, not because I feared intruders, but because some pathetic part of me wanted to be his good girl.
I buried the notebook under a pile of pillows on my couch and crawled into bed after going through my routine. Toffee settled on my chest, his purring weight a grounding force.
“A girl can dream,” I murmured, scratching idly behind his ears. I sighed, my eyes beginning to drift closed.
The night stretched on, and my dreams blurred into Connor’s face. His jawline, his mouth, and the way he’d told me to breathe like it was a spell meant just for me.