Wordless (Pink Sofa Secrets Book 1)

by Mel Sterling

  Getting a rental car, gonna see Eckhart in Portland first. Already got your lat-long plugged into the GPS.

  Okay. I'll find a place to leave a key and text you back later.

  Gard actual out.

  Jack laughed silently at the screen. Once a Marine, he mused, always a Marine.

  Roger that.

  At the desk, Lexie was sorting through a clanking ring of brass keys. He knew that ring. A couple of times, when Ben had not been in the shop, Jack had helped Horace unchain and move one of the store's rolling ladders from its resting spot to a new location. Most of the day, the ladders were locked to the side walls with links of brass chain and decorative old padlocks, items Horace scrounged over the years from the antiques sellers up and down Main Street. Each one had a different, heavy key. Horace called the ring his "chatelaine." Over the weeks he'd spent in the store, Jack realized Horace had chosen the locks and their chains to compliment the ladder hardware, the decorative brackets at the top where the ladders fitted to the brass rails that attached to the heavy built-in bookcases.

  Jack wondered if Lexie would replace the padlocks with a more modern set, all keyed alike for simplicity. He hoped she wouldn't. The padlocks were awkward, but still beautiful and functional, a lot like the books themselves. Horace's store was a love letter to days gone by, a sanctuary and a shrine. Yet amongst the monolithic shelves, rolling ladders and leather spines was the modern world, peeping through in independent press editions and avant-garde verse, wireless internet access and computers. The past anchored the store, but glimpses of the future would let it soar if Lexie could maintain the delicate balance Horace had tended as assiduously as a garden.

  He looked back at the tablet, where the messaging window was still open. He toggled it closed and stared at his manuscript again, rereading the latest paragraph. He half heard his own words in his head, and half heard Lexie as the ladder rumbled along its track before giving a click when she put her weight on a rung. The soft sounds of books thumping and sliding on shelves followed, and Lexie's murmurs as she read titles or authors to herself. The bell over the shop door rang as the one remaining customer left with his sack of books.

  The bookstore settled into a perfect afternoon, as far as Jack was concerned. If he owned the place, this was the kind of moment he would freeze in time. He'd lock the door, just for a few minutes, to bask in the fusty quiet with pools of sunlight on the floor near the front windows, Melville drowsing on his perch there. Even the telephone cooperated, silent in its cradle.

  Jack's deep breath of pleasure turned into an alert inhalation when he heard Lexie make a sound somewhere between a grunt of effort and a growl of irritation. It only took a moment to hurry into the aisles and find her.

  She was perched on a rung above the midpoint of the ladder, one leg pointed out like a ballet dancer's for balance, as she leaned the opposite direction to put a hefty coffee table book on an upper shelf with other overstock. She had a poor grip on the book, and as Jack entered the aisle, she set it with a heavy thump on a shelf below the one she had intended it for. She was overbalanced, leaning too far. Jack hastened to the ladder, stepping beneath it so that he was in the angled, constricted space between the ladder and the shelves, and reached up to catch hold of the leg she had dangling in midair.

  Lexie gave a startled squeak and scrambled to grasp the ladder with both hands, eyes wide, leg returning to the ladder. Jack shifted his grip, arms outside the stiles of the ladder, and clutched her thighs to steady her.

  "For crying out loud, Lexie!"

  "You're going to make me fall!"

  "Just hold still—"

  "Let go, Jack!"

  "Not until you've got both feet on the floor. You're a hazard."

  "I was perfectly fine until you grabbed me!" She stepped hastily down a rung, two, and a third, before she froze. Jack watched her realize that all she had succeeded in doing was to settle her upper thighs and the lowest curve of her hips and buttocks fully into Jack's hands.

  Yes, Jack thought. A more than perfect moment in Horace's bookstore.

  He lowered his gaze politely to Lexie's shoes a rung or two below, but did not miss the sight of his own chambray-covered arms disappearing beneath her pleated plaid skirt. There were tights between his hands and her skin, but he could feel her muscles and her warmth.

  Lexie drew a long, slow, and very ragged breath.

  Jack told himself to focus on keeping her steady on the ladder, not to notice his palms were cupping the backs of her legs, his thumbs on the sides of her hips right where she was probably ticklish and sensitive. He told himself twice. In the end he ignored his own advice and looked up at her, to where her face was framed by the stiles and two rungs, just barely above level with his.

  Maybe she hadn't noticed where his hands were.

  This close, he could have counted her eyelashes, every hair in her dark, straight brows. He saw the intricate modeling of her right ear, masked by a curl or two. He saw the way her throat worked as she swallowed. That only led his gaze to the alluring hollow where tendon met collarbone, and a faint shadow in the neckline vee that hinted at the curves below, which only made him wonder how her breasts would feel cupped in his palms the way her buttocks were.

  It was an endless chain of wonder. All softness and sleek muscle and warmth, and his body responded immediately and strenuously, the flesh at his crotch snapping to attention like a salute.

  His gaze jerked upward again, snagging on the sweep of her jaw, that sweet, small ear, and the soft lips, moistly creased. Her blue gaze roamed his face. He could almost feel her attention grazing over his afternoon stubble, catching on the tiny rough flaws left from who knew what—shaving, sports, childhood accidents, traces of teenage acne—until she reached his mouth.

  While she watched, the tip of his tongue came out to wet his lips and he heard himself saying inanely, "You weren't fine. You were overbalancing. The ladder could have shot out from under you."

  "The ladder has weight-activated brakes, it doesn't work the way you think." She met his gaze at last and Jack knew she had been aware of his scrutiny. Her eyes weren't merely blue. There were petals of gray here and there, lightening the darkness of her gaze, and while he stared, the pools of her pupils widened. She caught her bottom lip between her teeth.

  Their faces were almost at the same level, with hers just slightly above his. Her flesh felt like it was steadily warming, even through the fabric of her tights. His hands hadn't moved, not an inch, not even a twitch. Nothing to alarm her, right? Except he was all but grabbing her ass, and his hands were under her clothing. Jack wasn't letting go, even now that she was steady and still, both hands and both feet securely placed.

  "You should be more careful. Send Ben up the ladders."

  "It's a job to be done and I'm capable."

  Jack wondered if she could feel exactly how tautly he was holding himself, how still. How much he hungered to trap her mouth with his, let his hands free to roam the flesh he had hold of, even with the ladder between them. He caught a betraying slide of her gaze, the merest flick, down to his mouth and then back.

  Jack closed his eyes, just for a second.

  It was her moment—she could break free of this entire insane situation if she wanted; he wouldn't stop her. Just one big step back and down—she might stumble, but she'd be away, he'd let her go.

  "Alexia," he breathed.

  "Lexie," she corrected. "How many times do I have to tell you, I've never liked—"

  Jack's eyes were still closed, but his head was moving, mouth lifting, and she must have let her head droop just that necessary distance, through the ladder, to let their lips meet. He had good aim, he thought, even with his eyes closed. His nostrils flared as he breathed her in. He heard her own deep inhalation. It made Jack feel very odd to know she was smelling him, experiencing him in touch and smell and now taste as well. At first it was the merest brush of his mouth against hers, then his head pulled away and his tongue slipped out again
to wet his lips once more, revealing his own tentativeness in this intimate, constrained world made of shelves and ladder and books and hands and mouths. He returned for a second brush, not as light as the first. She smelled of soap and skin and cloth and coffee. His lips grazed slowly across her own, inch by inch. First her lower lip, then her upper, tiny soft tugs that never involved teeth or tongue, yet still communicated his utter participation in the moment.

  The kiss was so different from the other night, when he'd kissed her in the back room. Then, he'd been reacting from adrenaline and concern, and a need to convince Lexie of the rashness of her actions, that she had to take more care in what seemed to Jack like dangerous situations. That disturbance had boiled up into his emotions. But this kiss, separated by the rungs and stiles of the ladder—here they were meeting as equals, exploring a mutual attraction. The kiss was just as exciting, but in a whole new way. This kiss felt like it could lead to more than just a hasty clinch in a little-used aisle. This was the kind of thorough exploration that led to the slow peeling away of clothes and a languorous afternoon spent ignoring responsibilities or deadlines.

  The two of them truly were the only people in the world. His breath hitched in his throat, and he could tell from the touch of her mouth alone that the sound—his own commitment to the moment—pleased her. His lips stretched in a slow smile. The nibbles continued. He reminded himself he was wooing her, taking things slowly, respecting boundaries, for all that this was essentially a public display of affection.

  Jack craved so much more. He wanted to wind his arms around her, mold her body close against his, have her arms twine around his neck again. But the ladder was between them, so aside from the slow roving of his mouth and the warmth of his still-unmoving hands and the mingled rush of their breath, he had nothing but his own fevered imagination, images bursting like fireworks in his brain.

  And of course, in the best Hollywood romantic comedy tradition, that was when the brass bell above the shop door tinkled.

  Lexie flinched, her head jerking forward. In that instant, too many things happened. With her startled, gasping flinch came the flood of Jack's response. A sharp increase in the kiss's pressure, a parting of both their lips, the slide of tongues, an undeniable urge to taste her as deeply as possible. At her hips, his hands clenched. For a moment he knew what it could mean to hold her, mold and guide and shape her flesh, even with the ladder between them.

  He was too late to stop the tiny, thwarted groan that slipped out, even as his eyes flicked open and found her gaze upon him. Had her eyes been open the entire time? What had she seen, with that dark, wide blue gaze?

  "Customer," she gasped. Leaping backward from her perch, she trod on a book lying on the floor ready for shelving. She twisted her ankle, but didn't pause.

  Jack turned to the shelf just inches behind him and rested his forehead on the spines of the books there. He'd been on the scenes of a hundred disasters, but his body's response to Lexie's nearness was a force of nature he'd never contended with. He took long, slow breaths, waited for his dick to quiet down, and finally pushed the ladder back where it belonged in the corner a couple of shelves away. Lexie stood at the cash register, staring intently at the screen in front of her, not looking at him as he returned to his chair, there to sit and smolder like a banked coal, and wait for his chance to touch her again, later that evening when he walked her home.

  Because yes, he was walking her home, and if he could wangle an invitation inside, he damn well would. A kiss that hot demanded an encore somewhere more private. Someplace with a sofa or better yet, a bed. A bed like Lexie's, deep with blankets and pillows and sheets soft against their naked skin.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  FOR THE REST OF that afternoon, Lexie felt as if she had been plugged into an electrical outlet. She could not stop thinking about kissing Jack. For a few minutes, she'd forgotten to brood over what had happened at her house last night, whether or not it had really happened, and whether or not she should report her concerns to the police. It simply made no logical sense to her that someone would be stealing books already packaged for shipping, and that lack of sense was what made her doubt her own mind. When she added in the distraction of Jack and his incredible, sensual, lingering kisses, Lexie realized she was unfit for coherent thought until she could get her emotions under control. Every sense seemed heightened; everything she touched was an all-new tactile experience. Every slightest sound Jack made imprinted itself on her ears and echoed through her mind.

  In her younger years her family had called similar sensations a crush. But this was different. This was the mature longing of a woman for a man, not a girl for a picture of a cute boy from a teen magazine. Jack, unlike the teen idols, was within reach. This was dangerous.

  She wanted to grab for it with both hands. That's what made it different. She wanted to throw away all the safety and predictability of her old accountant's job, disregard everything the numbers might tell her, and race after this fresh, new thrill.

  Instead, she obeyed the dictates of common sense, trying her best to ignore the static interference Jack's mere presence in the store now generated. She was glad to see Cyril, the open microphone host, when he arrived a few minutes early to help set up the chairs. Not far behind Cyril was Morgan le Fay with her sorcerer's staff. Lexie even felt glad to see her, though she would be careful not to let the woman buttonhole her in any aisle with only one exit.

  Gilly turned up on schedule with the refreshments. This time Ben was not working the event, and unless he came in off-schedule and off the clock, Gilly would have to find her own seat for the evening, assuming she wanted to hear Q recite whatever indelicate nugget of tormented sexual tension he had up his sleeve.

  "I've heard from about fifteen attendees via phone or email," Cyril mentioned, opening folding chairs. "We usually have more than that turn up. Not everyone wants to read."

  "We'll start with two dozen chairs, how does that sound?" Lexie wheeled an empty display table to the back of the event area, where Gilly stood waiting with the coffee carafe and a covered plate.

  "This open mic has just gotten more popular in the last year. It's kind of…cool. These guys are really serious about their poetry." Gilly set down the cookies and the carafe. "I'll be right back with the cups and napkins."

  Meanwhile, folks trickled in. Lexie and Cyril stood talking quietly about the evening's schedule near the music stand Cyril brought for the poets to read from. Poet after poet signed their name to the reading list. Morgan le Fay, after divesting herself of two or three scarves, a shawl, and her staff, came forward.

  "Oooh, my favorite spot is still open." She signed her name with a flourish at spot thirteen and gave Cyril a throaty laugh that was probably intended to be wickedly sexy. Lexie saw that her name was Susan Smith, hid a smile behind her hand, and looked up to find Jack leaning against the end of the Rare Books aisle, arms crossed, head tilted, watching her.

  The expression on his face could only be called hunger. Lexie's mouth was suddenly dry, and there seemed to be no air in the room. She stared for a moment, feeling her face going pink and then red. She knew if she spoke a single word, she would stammer. Her vocabulary had fled, leaving nothing but a breathless "Jack!" in its place. Turning in confusion to Cyril, and then to the room at large where the chairs were filling steadily, she swallowed hard and hoped her blush was receding.

  "Did you want to sign up to read, Lexie?" Cyril asked, holding out the pencil to her.

  "Me?" It came out a squeak. She cleared her throat. "Oh, good grief, no."

  When Cyril blinked, a little hurt, she cleared her throat again. "I mean, I'd much rather listen. Stage fright. Maybe another time." She fled to the refreshments table, where Gilly didn't need any help, but Lexie pushed the paper coffee cups an inch to the right and back the same inch to the left just to give herself a moment to recover. When she glanced toward Rare Books again, Jack was no longer there staring. She sighed with relief.

  Melville chose t
hat moment to emerge from the cash register counter into the crowd of poets, sauntering toward his cat tree. The tabby made sure everyone in the crowd had a chance to pet him as he strolled past. Lexie shot the cat a sour look. He liked everyone but her, yet she was the one who fed him, brushed his coat, cleaned his litterboxes and made sure he was healthy and comfortable.

  A few more poets came in and took seats. Gilly sat in the back row, her arm draped over the seat next to her. Holding it for someone. Ben, perhaps coming in for the event, though he was not on the clock? Before many more minutes had passed, Lexie saw the intended seat-mate: Q, tonight bearing the demeanor of a dissipated, louche young Bohemian. He gave Gilly a dreamy, distracted smile as he sat down. His tilted beret never moved, despite being perched on lank, fine hair.

  Cyril got the open microphone rolling with his usual welcome speech and a poem to prime the pump. As the first reader was announced and headed for the music stand, Lexie went to the back of the crowd and sidled into the stacks, half in, half out, where she wouldn't be noticed if she chose to slip away to the cash register desk or to the sorting table to price and shelve books. Jack was nowhere to be seen. She wondered if he had decided not to stay for the event, despite its prime people-watching and his vow to walk her home.

  But if he'd gone, why hadn't he stopped to say good night? Why hadn't she noticed him leaving?

  She backed up a step, putting a hand on the bookcase behind her, resting the tips of her fingers on the spines of the books there.

  Her hand was taken, and brought to a rough cheek. A pair of very warm lips pressed the center of her palm. She caught a sharp breath, glad for the woman at the podium reading aloud.

  A furtive glance over her shoulder confirmed it was Jack, but she had known that anyway from the jolt in her pulse. He took the half step needed to slide an arm around the front of her waist and draw her back with him into the stacks. She went, because making a fuss would draw the attention of everyone in the room, but also because she wanted to. She wondered if he was about to stage a repeat of the kiss from earlier in the day.