Book Lovers(32)

“I’d also accept a sworn affidavit that we’ll never speak of this again.”

“After the way you disparaged my last contract? I don’t think so.”

When we reach the front steps, I slide off Charlie’s back and try to pull my dress back into place, which is a struggle because I didn’t do an amazing job of keeping the umbrella over us, and we’re both fairly drenched, my dress plastered to my thighs and bangs stuck to my eyes.

Charlie reaches out to brush them away. “Nice haircut, by the way.”

“Straight men love bangs,” I say. “They make women approachable.”

“Nothing more intimidating than a forehead,” he says. “Although I sort of miss the blond.”

And there it is: that mushroom cloud of want low in my belly, a twinge between my thighs. “It’s not natural,” I announce.

“Didn’t think it was,” he says, “but it suits you.”

“Because it looks vaguely evil?” I guess.

He splits into a rare, full grin, but only for a second. Just long enough to send my stomach flipping. “I’ve been thinking.”

“I’ll call a news crew immediately.”

“You should scratch number five.”

“Number five?”

“On the list.”

I palm my face. “Why did I tell you about that?”

“Because you wanted someone to stop you from going through with it,” he says. “The last thing you need is to get mixed up with someone who lives here.”

I drop my hand and narrow my eyes at him. “Do they eat outsiders?”

“Worse,” he says. “They keep them here forever.”

I scoff. “Lasting commitment. How terrible.”

“Nora,” he says, tone low and chiding. “You and I both know you don’t want that epilogue. Someone like you—in shoes like that—could never be happy here. Don’t get some poor pig farmer’s hopes up for nothing.”

“Okay, rude,” I say.

“Rude?” He steps in closer, the searing fluorescent light over the door casting him in stark relief, etching out the hollows beneath his cheekbones and making his eyes gleam. “Rude is declaring the entire dating pool of New York City tainted just because you managed to pick four assholes in a row.”

My throat warms, a lump of lava sliding down it. “Don’t tell me I hurt your feelings,” I murmur.

“You of all people should know,” he says, gaze dropping to my mouth, “we ‘surly, monochromatic literary types’ don’t have those.”

In my head, Nadine Winters’s voice is screaming, Abort, abort! This fits into no plan! But there’s a lot of rushing blood and tingling skin for the words to compete with.

I don’t remember doing it, but my fingers are pressed against his stomach, his muscles tightening under them.

Bad idea, I think in the split second before Charlie tugs my hips flush to his. The words break apart like alphabet soup, letters splintering off in every direction, utterly meaningless now. His mouth catches mine roughly as he eases me back into the cottage door, covering my body with his.

I half moan at the pressure. His hands tighten on my waist. My lips part for his tongue, the tang of beer and the herbal edge of gin tangling pleasantly in my mouth.

It feels like my outline is dissolving, like I’m turning to liquid. His mouth skates down my jaw, over my throat. My hands scrape through his coarse, rain-soaked hair, and he lets out a low groan, his hand trailing to my chest, fingers brushing over my nipple.

At some point, the umbrella has clattered to the ground. Charlie’s shirt is plastered to him. He palms me through my damp dress, making me arch. Our mouths slip together.

The last dregs of beer and gin evaporate from my bloodstream, and everything is happening in high definition. My hands skim up the back of his shirt, fingernails sinking into his smooth, warm skin, urging him closer, and his palm moves to the hem of my dress, shucking it up my thigh. His fingers glide higher, sending chills rippling over my skin, and something like Wait just barely, half-heartedly slips out of me.

I’m not even sure how he heard it, but Charlie jerks back, looking like a man freshly out of a trance, hair mussed, lips bee-stung, dark eyes blinking rapidly. “Shit!” he says, hoarse, stepping back. “I didn’t mean to . . .”

Clarity hits me with a cold-water shock.

Shit is right!

As in, I don’t shit where I eat. Or kiss where I work. It’s bad enough that in a year and a half, everyone I work with is going to think of me as Nadine Winters—I don’t need to add any more potential fuel to my reputation’s funeral pyre.

He says, “I can’t really get involved—”

“I don’t need an explanation!” I cut him off, yanking the hem of my dress back down my thighs. “It was a mistake!”

“I know!” Charlie says, sounding vaguely offended.

“Well, I know too!”

“Fine!” he says. “Then we agree!”

“Fine!” I cry, continuing recorded history’s strangest and least-productive argument.

Charlie hasn’t moved. Neither of us has. His eyes are still inky dark and hungry, and thanks to the light bulb over the door, his hard-on might as well be in a display case at a particularly lascivious museum.