Banshee Seduction (Montgomery's Sin Book 1)

by Diane Saxon

  “There were probably around three hundred texts sent out this morning, sir.”

  “He’s a dick.”

  “He’s a moron.”

  “He’s a moronic dick.”

  She slapped herself on the forehead to stop the unwanted voices making rude comments. Really, it wasn’t like her at all to react to someone with such viciousness. Awkward customers were not unusual. She was careful to keep her emotions under control. Normally her inner bitches kept quiet unless really riled, but she was still overwrought from the events of the previous evening, and the man in front of her seemed determined to rub her the wrong way. She just hoped her spiritual sisters didn’t express themselves through her mouth. She tightened her lips to ensure nothing bad escaped them as she waited for his reply.

  His pursed mouth barely moved. “Well, there’s no need to be rude.”

  Surprise widened her eyes, and she hoped he hadn’t been privy to her thoughts. “I apologize.”

  The voices in her head wailed, desperate to escape and show their support, but she battened them down as he gave her a penetrating glower, as though he expected something more from her. Uncomfortable with the intensity in his eyes, Ginny tried to avoid his glare.

  He tapped his fingers and pinned her with a direct stare, his thick black brows pulled down over his slitted eyes. “What are you waiting for?”

  His unbelievable impoliteness startled her. She clenched her teeth and tried to smile at the same time. It wasn’t going to be a good look, but she was hardly in a beauty competition. She was just trying to keep the raging hags inside under control before they spit obscenities at him. As mildly as she could, she addressed him while women screeched in her brain. “Your name, sir.”

  “Ah. Henri D’mon.”

  With a sigh of relief, she turned, located his book on the hold shelf, and placed it on the counter, convinced the small polite smile on her face would melt his mean heart.

  Wrong. He leaned forward, snatched the book from the counter, and without a backward glance, strode out of the electronic doors, virtually knocking over an elderly lady in the process.

  Ginny groaned and glanced at the clock.

  It had been a long day already. She blew out another weary sigh. No chance of grabbing a coffee anytime soon, and the lunchtime closure seemed a million hours away.

  “Miss?” Oh God. The perky young voice filled her with dread.

  “Yes?” She turned, but no one was there. Ginny glanced both ways—no one.

  “Miss?” Tiny fingers held onto the edge of the counter, and Ginny cautiously peered over. A small girl stared up at her with huge brown eyes full of soft appeal, and Ginny’s banshee heart melted—a little.

  “I want a book.” The cheerful young voice raised her spirits. The day was not yet lost.

  “Lovely. What book would you like, sweetie?”

  “A book with a kitty on it.”

  “Aaaw, kitties.”

  “We love kitties.”

  “Show the sweet girl the kitties.”

  What was wrong with them? One poor night’s sleep, and the spirits couldn’t keep their opinions to themselves.

  “A kitty.” She forced a smile, pleased the tiny sweetheart responded with her own gap-toothed grin. She could help the polite darling. She could find her a book with a kitty. Despite the terrible night and the awful start to the day, she could do this. It could only get better.

  Happier, Ginny came from behind her counter, held out her hand, delighted as the trusting child slipped her small hand into Ginny’s, and they wandered along to the children’s section.

  To bring herself in line with the low-level shelves of children’s books, Ginny squatted and brought her face almost to the height of the child’s. Genuine amusement lifted all of Ginny’s spirits as the girl hunkered down in an imitation of her while she pondered with great seriousness the choice before her. Ginny reached out and selected a book. “This one?”

  Owl-like eyes blinked with innocent confusion. “I don’t think so, but can we read a bit of it?”

  Her banshee heart swelled with affection for the darling little girl. “Of course.”

  She moved over to the short desk and risked getting her plump backside stuck in the bright green plastic seat. She shuffled as the child settled with ease into the vibrant red chair next to her. Delighted with the upward turn of her day, Ginny flicked through the pages of Sweet Little Kittycat while the child traced the pictures with her delicate forefinger. Pleasure came in the most unexpected packages.

  A few pages in, the girl surprised Ginny as she closed the book, stood, and wandered away. She studied the shelves once more, picked up another book, and brought it over.

  “Maybe this one?”

  Her sweet smile and huge brown eyes tugged at Ginny’s heartstrings. They flicked through another book, and then another, until a neat stack balanced on the edge of the table.

  Ginny glanced at the clock. Twenty-five minutes they’d been looking for a kitty book, and still they’d not found the right one. As she turned back, a lady peered over the top of the short bookcase display, her big round eyes a familiar brown.

  “Sonia. It’s time to go now. Say thank-you to the nice lady for looking after you.”

  Momentarily stunned, Ginny blinked at the other woman. “I wasn’t, I was just…”

  As Sonia ran to her mother, whose arms were laden with volumes of erotic romance, Ginny realized she’d been had. Babysitter, while mommy sought out peace and quiet. It had been a while since she’d fallen for that one. It wasn’t the first time; it probably wouldn’t be the last. It came in all different guises.

  She sniffed and raised her eyes heavenward as she watched the pair disappear around the corner of the bookshelves. Her brain hummed with sympathy and then slid nicely into a screech when she stood, the green chair adding insult to injury by adhering to her backside. Bent at the waist with her bottom sticking out, she cast a furtive glance around. Tiptoeing with tiny footsteps in a full circle to make sure she wasn’t being watched, she ducked under the level of the short bookcases and hoped no one saw her bent over with a garish plastic chair stuck to her butt.

  She grasped the arm of the chair and tried to heave it off, huffing out desperate breaths. She paused and raised her head above the parapets for a quick scan of the area to check she was still alone. The heat of tortured embarrassment flooded her. The one time being a fireball would have been useful, and she couldn’t do it.

  Assured she was still alone, she ran around in a tight circle, trying to grab the chair leg to give her more leverage. Sweet heavenly chiming bells, she must look so stupid, like a dog chasing its own tail. If anyone saw her…

  She tried to sit back down, but the flimsy front legs of the chair buckled under her weight, and she was unable to get the right angle to plonk it on all four legs together. If she wasn’t careful, she would end up with an embarrassing injury. Heat flushed through her as she peered over the fixtures once more; her rounded rump fixed firmly in the seat felt like it might just be swelling.

  Mortified, she covered her face with her hands for a moment to try and center herself, but all she could see were the headlines of the newspaper article that would be written about her. She remembered the one about the man getting stuck on his toilet seat. Firefighters had been sent in to rescue him. At least her butt was covered, but she’d never live down the humiliation.

  At the end of her patience, she reached around with both hands. With the strength of a thousand banshees, she managed to pluck the seat off her backside and slap it back on the floor.

  She raised her hand, smoothed back any rebellious tendrils from her sleek blonde hair, and took a calming breath. She wanted to kill someone.

  From the moment she’d met the stupid, irritating player the night before, nothing had gone right for her. All he’d wanted was a quick tumble, yet she couldn’t rid herself of the thought of him and the feel of his solid-as-steel muscles as she’d leaned on him in the alleyway. The
temptation just to go with the moment had almost overwhelmed her, and the nags in her head had given no support. All they’d done was screech with frustration for the rest of the night. Damnable man made her crave something that simply wasn’t going to happen.

  Her mind insisted on dwelling on the hunk. He’d been big. Really ridiculously big for her. They were never a good match anyhow, so she and her wailing banshee buddies had just better forget him.

  Emotionally exhausted, she wandered back to the central desk. It appeared the library, in her absence, had emptied.

  Grateful for a moment’s peace, Ginny spotted a paperclip that had slid under her keyboard and ducked her head to reach for it.

  “Ma’am?”

  “Yes?” With her head tucked under the counter, the security tag ribboned around her neck slipped neatly between the counter and the keyboard rack and became trapped. Having experienced it before, she dipped down low to loosen it, this time without success. She gave an insistent tug.

  “I need a book.”

  “Nice voice.”

  “Lovely voice.”

  “Hmmm, sexy.”

  “Deep and sexy.”

  Ginny raised her head and fell into the beautiful aquamarine depths of Matt Dane’s eyes.

  Breathless, she opened her lips and took several attempts to speak while he leaned on the counter to watch her. A quirky smile played across his mouth, and the raging madams in her head fell into dumb silence.

  His eyes crinkled at the edges, and as she straightened, so did he. He deliberately kept his face on a level with hers until she reached the extent of the ribbon tethered around her neck and it jerked her to a halt. Feeling foolish, she swallowed and nodded like the brainless bird she had become because he’d stolen her voice. He smiled, and she couldn’t help dipping her gaze to stare at his beautiful mouth with his even white teeth and firm lips. When he smiled, the top one remained straight and dipped inward slightly so she wanted to grab him and nibble on it.

  Rich and famous he might be, but you couldn’t buy sex appeal. He’d been born with it.

  She fluttered her eyelashes as she forced her gaze away from his mouth and back to the soft jade of his stare.

  Without breaking eye contact, she gave a subtle yank on the ribbon. Perhaps he wouldn’t notice it was trapped. The security tag remained wedged, and her efforts were all for nothing. What would he think if she simply face-planted the desk and remained there until he’d gone? Surely it couldn’t get any more awkward.

  He reached out, and her mind emptied of all thought. His long fingers stretched toward her breasts, and her mouth went dry. Heavens, he was going to touch her breasts, and she wanted him to. The voices in her head didn’t so much screech as purr in pleasurable anticipation.

  “Yes.”

  “Oh yes.”

  “Please, do it.”

  “Do it. Yes, yes, do it.”

  Close enough for his face to almost touch hers, his smile widened to create deep laughter lines on either side of his mouth. A mouth she’d already kissed and had a desperate desire to kiss again.

  With a loud click, he sprung her free. Her neck jerked, and she shot upright, gasping as molten heat suffused her with what she imagined was a bright unattractive puce as she realized he’d had no intention of sexual contact.

  She stared at him. Confusion washed over her normally active brain to drown out all intelligent thought.

  “A book,” he repeated, and she nearly curled into a ball of overheated shame. Why would he make a sexual approach? She was a librarian, for goodness’ sake, in a library, and he was there to collect a book.

  It was obvious he didn’t recognize her from the nightclub. She couldn’t look more different from the way she had in Montgomery’s Sin with her heavy, red-framed glasses covering half her face, her hair scraped back in a torturous bun, and her boxy gray suit doing nothing to accentuate the curves she’d had on display the night before.

  She stretched to her full height, gave her jacket a firm yank into place, and plastered a strained smile on her face in a vain attempt to be all business while the man who insisted on haunting her dreams stood in front of her and tempted her to drool.

  “Yes, sir. What book would you like?”

  His mouth twitched, and the desire to grab him escalated. Those gorgeous firm lips were such an enticement. Luckily for him, the library provided insulation against the raging banshees in her soul. Small murmurs escaped them, but their frenzied screeching remained under control. It was the only place she could come for peace and quiet. Luckily too for the library, she was unable to self-combust within its boundaries. All those dusty books would be ash. Some higher power had decreed her flammable qualities and inner tormenting voices were doused temporarily in their presence. That’s why she worked there, for the protection of herself and others. Or else the officious twerp from earlier would have been barbecued ribs.

  Matt’s small cough jerked her wayward attention back to him, and the voices sighed in unison.

  “I don’t know what it’s called.”

  “Okay.” She touched her fingertips to her hairline to pat the beads of sweat that had started to form and noticed the amused twitch of his eyebrows, the tiny quirk at the corner of his mouth. She would have considered him observant—except he didn’t know it was her. He was probably well aware of how he affected every woman he met and used it to his best advantage.

  With a sigh, she tried again. “ISBN?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Publisher?”

  “Nuh-uh.” He leaned on the desk and brought his face closer to hers. Amusement crinkled his eyes. Her pulse rate went into overdrive, and her breath hitched. Unprofessional in the extreme.

  “Author?” The word exploded in a labored gasp from her lips. She had no idea if she would survive the encounter. What cruel form of torture had been sent to plague her now?

  “I’ll know it when I see it.”

  He cupped his square chin in his hand, and she fancied she saw a golden swirl pass through the deep ocean green of his eyes. She resisted leaning in closer to check, but his move did nothing to slow the pace of her heart or reduce the heat lower down.

  She couldn’t help the impatience tingeing her voice—impatience with herself and the effect he quite obviously had upon her. In all honesty, for the sake of her sanity, she needed to get rid of him. “Subject matter?”

  “Sex.”

  Dear Lord. Legs weak with lust, her knees almost buckled under her as his grin spread wider. That one word had rolled out of his mouth like smooth, mellow, honeyed whiskey. If she stopped breathing, she’d be unable to talk, and she really needed her voice. She tightened her lips, pushed her glasses back up the bridge of her nose, and gave her avid concentration over to the computer screen.

  “Sex…hmm, let me see now.”

  With a businesslike tap on the computer keyboard, she turned the screen for him to see and pressed the Enter key. Thousands of book titles appeared, and she obligingly scrolled through. She needed him to go. He was melting her like a hot flame on soft wax.

  “Care to choose one?” Pleased with the sharp tone in her voice, she waited.

  He studied the screen carefully as the titles flashed by, his brow pulled low, making puzzled seem sexy. He lifted his hand, paused, and then pointed a long finger at the screen.

  “This one.”

  Quick as she could, she whipped her finger off the mouse and pulled her hand away, only to see hundreds more titles flash up the page in rolling succession. “I think I missed it.”

  His smile turned to a huge grin, and his eyes glowed with a mischievous light. With the same finger, he reached out to tuck a loose tendril of her hair behind her ear. His touch sent goose bumps chasing down her neck; his sexy smile fried her brain cells and thickened her tongue.

  “No, I think you got it.”

  He pointed back to the screen, and there was the title.

  How to Apologize to the Opposite Sex for Being a Comple
te Ass.

  She peered closer, and the subtitle jumped out at her.

  An exploration of the fifty most common mistakes a man makes in the sexual mating dance.

  With a slow turn of her head, her gaze met his smoldering green one, and her knees gave out completely, leaving her with no option but to lean on the counter, bringing her head closer to his. The smile dropped from his lips, and his gaze skimmed over her face. All it would take was for one of them to lean in, and their lips would touch. Heat spread from her core; anticipation burned her.

  Her eyelashes fluttered downward, and she dabbed her tongue out, parting her lips to touch it against her lower one. The gorgeous hunk in front of her took a small breath in, and she waited for him to make a move.

  “Ma’am?”

  They leaped apart as the strident voice intruded on the moment, grating its way through her consciousness. If she could have zapped the man with a fireball, she quite possibly would have.

  Mr. D’mon was back, tapping his fingers impatiently on the counter in expectation of her immediate attention. She pulled herself upright and tugged her suit jacket back into place as though the giant had already had his hands on her and mussed her up. Shame he’d missed the opportunity.

  “Yes, sir, how can I help you?”

  “This book you gave me.”

  “Yes?” Tone sharp, she stared hard at the man, desperate not to listen to the whispering wraiths in her mind who encouraged her to twist his head off his neck and eat it. It wasn’t something she would do, but it wasn’t unheard of in the banshee community, and it appeared her banshee half was getting a stronghold.

  “It’s the wrong one.”

  She whipped her security tag from around her neck, unwilling to make the same mistake in front of the miserable man, and gave Matt an apologetic smile as she flicked her card across the keycard reader to scan the book.

  “It’s the one you ordered, sir.” She really tried not to sound impatient, but she wanted him gone so she could smooch the big guy. Just a touch of the player’s lips to hers would let her know if she’d overreacted the night before. Had she truly been so attracted?