by DJ Jennings
Jonah gave her a confused look. “But I’m in summer school.”
“Oh. Right.” Jack smothered an amused grin with one big hand as Mara’s inner world turned into confetti. “Bye, Jonah.”
“Bye,” he said faintly as he ran out the door to his bike.
“Cute kid,” Jack said.
“Yeah.” Why are you here? she wanted to ask, holding the box of chocolates and feeling guilt. The unanswered text from Jack blinked in her head like a neon sign of fail. Why hadn’t she at least been polite and turned him down nicely? It’s not like this was ever going to work. She was just a librarian and he was a doctor and—
“How’s your head injury, Mara?” Sharon asked amiably as she strolled behind the counter, her arms loaded with books. Her eyes were like a hawk’s, moving from Mara to Jack.
“Head injury? I don’t have a head injury!” Mara protested.
“If this is the doctor you were telling me about yesterday, then you must have a head injury for not answering his text.” She shook her head and made a tsk tsk tsk sound.
Jack’s grin widened. He looked damned near predatory.
And Mara was the prey.
She’d read more than her share of steamy romances over the years. In fact, she was in charge of buying them for the entire library system for half the state. And all those years of reading about throbbing manhood and wet folds and flushed skin and heated glances had never—not once—prepared her for the fact that reality was one thousand times more intense than anything she’d ever read.
Jack’s eyes on her—and only her—were like being inches away from the sun.
She was about to burst as emotion raced through her, heat and ecstasy setting her on fire. How could she feel so much, so fast, for a man? Most of her life had been spent suppressing these feelings. She could fit them into a neat little box and tape the sides shut. No man before Jack and since Derek had triggered anything like this inside her.
And from the look on Jack’s face, he felt the same.
Mara opened her mouth to apologize for not answering his text, but he started to speak first.
“You free for dinner tonight?” Jack asked.
Five different women within twenty feet of him gasped, “Yes!”
He ignored them. Sharon laughed and nudged Mara gently. “Answer the man.”
I did, she thought faintly. Didn’t I? Isn’t my body screaming yes yes yes?
“Yes,” she finally answered, using her mouth. “Yes. I get off at nine.”
“And ten, and eleven, and twelve,” Sharon muttered. “Looks like you’re getting off quite a bit tonight.”
Mara’s turn to elbow her friend.
Jack smothered a grin and looked at the giant old-fashioned clock above the library desk. “That’s in forty minutes. Mind if I just sit down and read a book while I wait for you?”
Will you do it naked? she thought.
He bit his lower lip and cocked an eyebrow. Then he reached for Fifty Shades of Grey, plucking it out of her hand. Jack turned away, giving her the perfect view of his muscled ass, covered in jeans that fit like someone’s wet dream about how a man’s behind should be displayed when clothed.
She could hear the collective sighs of the female patrons—and a few men—as he walked over to a comfortable, overstuffed leather chair and settled in, a half grin tickling his lips.
He opened the book and began reading.
“My God, he’s all man. Hell, that’s like two men smashed together. And he’s your date?” Sharon murmured, standing behind Mara, her hand on Mara’s shoulder. “You must have done something amazing in an earlier life to get this kind of karma.”
“He was the doctor who treated me after the untrained shifter attack the other day.”
“I figured that out,” Sharon said, a touch of sarcasm in her voice. “You don’t routinely have men saunter in here who look like they could win the Highland Games with one arm tied behind their backs. He looks like Paul Bunyan’s bastard son. What kind of doctor is he?”
“He... I... I don’t know. He never mentioned his specialty,” Mara said, absentmindedly mixing children’s books with cookbooks as she tried to pretend she wasn’t paying attention to his every move.
“Orthopedics,” Jack called out.
“Shhhhh,” Mara said instinctively.
He hunched his shoulders apologetically, a shock of dark hair sliding over his brow. He looked adorable in that moment, boyish and sweet. “Sorry!”
“Why orthopedics?” Sharon asked him, turning away from Mara and walking over to Jack. Great. Now her best friend and her hot date were going to have a deep chat about bones.
Jack’s smile was friendly as he looked at Sharon. Dimples. Oh, sweet merciful creator, the man had dimples.
He held up his arms and pointed at himself. “Look at me. If ever there was a body designed to put bones where they’re supposed to go, this is it.”
“So you know how to position someone’s body perfectly,” Sharon said, her expression neutral. Mara knew exactly what she was hinting at and felt her heart speed up at the innuendo.
Jack looked right at Mara as he answered Sharon’s question.
“You might say that’s my life’s work. And I’m the best at what I do. Always. Satisfaction is my number one priority. You give me a body, I know exactly what to do with it.”
Chapter 8