by Sarah Title
“When I was in Italy, someone told me to always order the house red because it was usually the best. Do you think that will work here?” Joanna said when they finally reached the bar.
“You were in Italy?”
“On tour.”
“Wow, I didn’t realize you toured internationally.”
“Don’t get too excited. It was the same as our tours here, before we got big. Crappy rented van, sleeping on people’s couches, that kind of thing.”
“But still.”
Joanna shrugged. “It was fun.”
“And the house red?”
“Always the best. Of course, I’m no wine snob.”
“Good,” Liam said, with what he hoped was not a ton of enthusiasm. He was the library director, and his pay was okay, but the idea of spending a high percentage of his disposable income on a glass of wine was not appealing to him. No matter how grateful he was to Joanna.
The Wine Bar was the only restaurant in Halikarnassus that had a dress code. No jeans, no hats, jackets and ties strongly suggested. So Liam, not wanting to cause a scene, wore a jacket and tie and non-jean pants.
Joanna . . . well, she wasn’t wearing jeans.
She was, however, wearing leggings with a hole in the knee, a very short black skirt, and motorcycle boots that, while kick-ass, definitely did not meet the unspoken sartorial criteria for the Wine Bar.
She looked really hot.
Not that Liam was thinking about that, of course. This was a professional obligation, a thank-you-for-your-service meal. He did question Toni about her choice of venue—he didn’t take any of the other volunteers out for drinks. But Joanna liked drinks, Toni explained, and she wasn’t a regular volunteer. She was a lifesaver. She deserved a fancy drink.
If Liam was a suspicious kind of guy, he might have thought that Toni was trying to set him up with Joanna.
Good thing he wasn’t a suspicious kind of guy.
Besides, even if Toni was playing matchmaker, Liam didn’t think his fragile ego could take another rejection from badass Joanna Green.
Despite how much that short skirt made him want to try.
Good thing this was work-related. Otherwise he would really make a cake of himself, as Georgette Heyer said.
“Thanks again for this afternoon.”
“Seriously, if you thank me one more time, I’m going to pour this overpriced glass of wine over your head.”
“Please don’t do that.”
“I won’t. It’s delicious.”
“I appreciate that.”
“Well, I’m a really good person, it turns out.”
“You keep saying stuff like that,” Liam said. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why should I be surprised that you’re a good person?”
“Wow. Maybe my reputation doesn’t precede me.”
“Oh, it absolutely does. Did you know I was encouraged to bar you from the library?”
“Dang.”
“I think that had more to do with the defacement of a book by Rush Limbaugh.”
“Oh yeah. I forgot about that.”
“What was it about? All I know is that, when you returned it, it could never be checked out again.”
“Listen, this guy was arguing that women shouldn’t play music, that they should just focus on being groupies. He was gross.”
“I know his work. He is gross. Still . . .”
“So I may have cut the page every time he used a misogynistic term.”
“Oh . . .”
“It turned into quite the beautiful snowflake of a book.”
Liam tried very hard not to laugh. Defacing library property was no laughing matter. But picturing young Joanna practicing civil disobedience with safety scissors . . . it was quite an image.
“I returned it,” she said.
“So I’ve heard.”
“Anyway, I don’t cut up library books anymore.”
“That’s what I told the person who wanted to bar you.”
“Do I want to know who it was?”
“Nope.”
“It wasn’t Granny, was it?”
“No, and if your grandmother had been there, she probably would have kicked this woman’s ass.”
“Kicked her fluffy butt.”
She laughed, and he did not point out that she looked beautiful when she laughed since she didn’t like that. He just admired her silently.
“Liam, what are we doing?”
“What?”
“This.” She waved a hand between them.
“I’m just thanking you for helping us out today.”
“Oh. So this isn’t . . . more?”
“Do you want it to be more?”
“No!”
Well, that was great for his ego.
She sighed. “Sorry. That came out wrong. I just mean . . . I mean, less than twenty-four hours ago you had your tongue down my throat.”
That was true. It didn’t sound quite so romantic when she said it, but technically, she was right.
“I was just following your lead,” he explained. “You didn’t seem to want to talk about it.”
“I don’t.”
So . . . no chance for a repeat performance, then.
“It’s just . . . I hate this place.”
“Yeah, it’s not great. A little too rich for my taste.”
“No, I don’t mean this place, I mean this town. Halikarnassus. I hate it.”
“So you’ve said.”
“And I don’t plan on sticking around. Once Granny’s better . . .”
“I know.” She’d leave town and never look back. It was a bummer, but it wasn’t the end of the world. Probably.
“Here’s the thing,” she continued, leaning over the table. “I . . . oh, God, okay. Listen. Don’t laugh.”
“Okay.”
“I want you.”
Well. He didn’t know why she thought he would laugh at that. Spit his wine out in surprise, maybe. But definitely not laugh.
“But I’m leaving.”
“O . . . kay?”
“So I don’t want you to get too attached.”
“Okay.” There seemed to be something wrong with his vocabulary.
“You seem like a nice guy, that’s all.”
“Thanks?” he said, because that sure didn’t sound like a compliment.
“And despite what people say, I’m not a total monster. I don’t want to hurt you. But . . .”
“But?”
“But I can’t get over this urge to climb across the table and jump you.”
“Check, please.”
“Liam—”
“Listen, Joanna. Listen to me. You’ve just said that you want me. That’s very convenient, because I am having a hard time keeping my hands off you. I understand that you’re not here to stay. I get it. I’m not trying to change your mind. But . . .”
“But?”
The bartender came over with his card. Liam signed the receipt, leaving way too much for the tip, but he did not care. He was on a mission.
“Let’s go.”
Chapter Eighteen
Joanna used to think Halikarnassus was a small town. The drive from the Wine Bar to Liam’s house was proving her wrong. It was taking freakin’ forever.
“I’m going to apologize in advance for the state of my house,” he told her. She watched his hands as he drove—how smoothly he held the wheel, the quick flick of the blinker. God, he even drove sexy.
“Cabinet doors ever ywhere?” she teased, mostly to distract herself.
“Didn’t you know that open cabinets are the latest concept in kitchen design?”
“Are they now?”
“Yes. And the doors look very good stacked in my garage.”
And then there they were, pulling into his driveway with the garage full of cabinet doors.
She did not give one iota of a crap about the cabinet doors.
As she followed him up the short path to his front door�
�watching his butt the whole time, natch—she tried not to think about how much she wanted this. It wasn’t like she’d never had sex before—ha—but she’d never felt such a specific attraction before. Like, if she couldn’t have Liam, she wasn’t going to bother.
That was undoubtedly going to be a problem. Then he fumbled his keys, and as he bent to pick them up, she decided she did not care.
“Just . . . I didn’t know I’d be having company,” he said before he opened the door.
“You’re making it sound like there’s a crime scene in there or something.”
“No, I cleaned up all the body parts. It’s just that bloodstains are hell on furniture, you know?”
“I do. Liam.” She leaned around him and pushed the door open. “I do not give a shit what your house looks like.”
He gave a weak laugh and held the door open for her.
Well, it wasn’t the neatest place she’d ever seen.
But it definitely wasn’t the worst.
And as she looked at the mess, she realized it was mostly records.
“What happened?” she asked, thinking he must have been robbed or hit by a flash tornado or something.
“I decided to rearrange,” he said, walking over to the shelves. He picked up a few albums and put them in a neat pile on the floor.
“I thought they were alphabetical?”
“Yeah. I thought it would be interesting to put them in chronological order, by release date.”
“Oh.” This man had a lot of time on his hands.
“The problem is, only the year is listed, so I had to look up each one to see the exact date to get an accurate picture of a year in records, you know? Then I found that some are reprints, and so the date on the sleeve is not the date it was—”
Because she did not care about how he organized his albums—or at least she did not care right now—Joanna stepped between Liam and his record collection, grabbed his tie, and kissed him.
It was just like she remembered, hot and sure. He took over almost as soon as their lips met, fisting one hand in her hair and tilting her back to get even deeper. She moaned into his mouth and held on.
“Hold on,” he said, his breath coming fast. “Let me make sure my bed is made.”
“Why?” she asked. “Aren’t we gonna mess it up?”
“I don’t want you to have a bad opinion of my housekeeping skills.”
“Liam, until a year ago, I essentially lived in a cargo van. I do not have high expectations for housekeeping. I’m just impressed that you have furniture.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah, baby. I just love that big, hard sectional.”
He tilted his head up and laughed. She leaned in and breathed. He smelled like oranges.
“Did you just sniff me?” he asked.
“Shut up,” she replied, and pulled his shirt out of his dress pants, and ran her hands over all that smooth muscle.
“Okay, forget it,” he muttered, and she squealed as she was lifted off her feet. He hiked up her skirt so she could wrap her legs around his waist, and then they were walking, her holding onto his shoulders, and maybe leaning in and smelling his neck a little more. Then she licked it, and she felt him lose his footing. Because she was a jerk, she licked him again, then grazed him with her teeth.
“Why are you wearing a tie?” she asked, and started pulling the knot free. She tossed it aside just in time for him to put her down on the floor of his bedroom.
The bed was not made. But it was big and Liam was reaching under her shirt and kissing her neck, so she did not care. She pushed him off, just for a second, so she could tear her shirt over her head. He grinned and grabbed her, but she held him off.
“Too much shirt,” she said, and started undoing his buttons. He worked on his cuffs, and once they were open he took over, and soon he was just Liam.
It was kind of like in her dream, except in her dream he was slick and shiny, and in real life his pecs were covered with a dusting of hair. It didn’t matter. He looked strong and defined, all those lean runner’s muscles, and she was so busy admiring them that she almost missed him pulling off his belt, then dropping his pants.
Oh, those runner’s legs.
He tilted his head toward her, and she realized that she was unfairly clothed, so she grabbed everything at her waist and pulled it down—skirt, leggings, panties. All of it. Then, just for good measure, she reached around and unhooked her bra.
“Holy shit,” he murmured and stepped closer. “I want to take it slow and savor all of this,” he said, running his hands over her shoulders, her hips, her breasts. “But I don’t think I can.”
She reached for the waistband of his boxers—which were plaid and very dorky—and shoved them over his hips. He hissed a little, but then his cock sprang free and she was too wound up to apologize.
He kissed her again, and she felt it in every inch of her skin, and he lifted her again, but this time he tossed her, right into the middle of his unmade bed.
She wanted to tease him, to scold him, but the look on his face as he loomed over her made her lose all interest in joking around.
“You look so serious,” she panted as his hands moved up her legs, between her thighs.
“I am seriously going to make you come,” he growled, and that made her breath hitch, and then his fingers moved and then he kissed her neck and she tossed her head back and shouted out his name.
She blinked, hard. “Whoa,” she said, because, whoa. “That was . . . Jesus, you really know what you’re doing.”
“Why does that surprise you? Never mind, I don’t care.” He kissed her again, and she felt herself melting into the bed.
But this was no good—he couldn’t do all the work. So she pushed and rolled until she was on top of him, pressing his erection against her belly. His hips jerked and he said “condom” and pointed desperately toward the nightstand, so she leaned over and opened the drawer and there they were, right on top. “Good Boy Scout,” she said, and tore the foil open with her teeth. He opened his mouth and said “Wha—” but before the word was finished she had him sheathed and positioned and she was sliding down, as slowly as her jelly legs would let her.
“Oh, God, Joanna,” he said, and it sounded like a prayer. That wasn’t right; she was no angel. But he put his hands on her hips and she started to move, and his hands moved over her breasts and she felt worshipped. She put her hands on that beautiful chest and ground against him. He grunted in response. She twisted her hips. He cursed. She put her hands next to his head and kissed him and they both gasped. His hands fumbled for hers and he twined their fingers together and she held on as they rode it out together.
* * *
She was out of breath. Totally winded. She needed to start working out if she was going to keep up with Liam. Not that she needed to keep up with him. She wouldn’t be sticking around long enough to keep up with him.
Don’t think about how you just had the best sex of your life with a librarian. That would lead to thoughts of doing it again, and tomorrow, and for many days after that. Many days from now, she would be gone.
But for now, she was here, and Liam was strong and warm and his arms were loose around her waist and his breathing was deep and even. He was probably asleep. He probably wouldn’t even notice that he was cuddling.
Chapter Nineteen
“Tell me something embarrassing.”
Liam started from his post-bliss blissing out. Something embarrassing? Like about how he was falling for her? Maybe that was just the sexual bliss talking. And it was talking loud, because he had no idea what she was talking about.
He felt her shift. He opened his eyes and found himself face-to-face with a mussy-haired, kiss-swollen Joanna and it was all he could do not to grab her and ravish her like in those old-school romance novels he got from interlibrary loan for Mrs. Wilson. Instead, he listened.
“There must be something wrong with you,” Joanna said, sliding a finger across his chest.
> There were many things wrong with him. He was a terrible listener. Or he had forgotten how to speak English. What was she talking about?
“You have your shit together. It makes me feel inferior.”
That got his attention. He started to sit up, but she put a gentle hand on his chest and he stayed down. She settled her head on his chest while her fingers continued their wandering. He put one arm behind his head and the other on her hip. He heard her sigh and felt her sink deeper into his side. He forgot all about her feeling inferior. He just loved this.
“There must be something wrong with you,” she said. “Tell me.”
“I can tap-dance.”
Her fingers stopped. Her head came up. “Really?”
“Not very well. Probably not at all anymore. But I used to take lessons when I was a kid.”
She snorted into his chest hair.
“Hey, my mom wanted me to.”
“Oh, so you didn’t have dreams of being a big-time hoofer?”
“You laugh, but look at Gene Kelly.”
“Yeah, Gene Kelly was hot, but that was, like, a hundred years ago. If I was a hundred years old, I would have hit it.”
“Or Channing Tatum?”
“Channing Tatum is not a tap dancer.” Pause. “Wait, can you dance like Channing Tatum?”
He lifted his arm and attempted a pop and lock robot.
“So . . . no.”
* * *
Joanna thought about the other guys she had dated. The last one, Troy, wouldn’t even get on the dance floor with her because he thought it was too . . . well, when he said what he thought it was, she probably should have dumped him right there. But she was determined to convince him that dancing could be sexy, that it could be like sex, but with clothes on and in public. No good. And Bobby, who got pissed when she even suggested going to see a touring musical with her. She told him she didn’t expect him to enjoy it, and she promised copious oral sex afterward. That was quite a blow to her self-esteem, that he would rather forgo blow jobs—plural!—than be caught in a dark theater watching a musical.