The SEAL's Rebel Librarian

by Anne Calhoun

  She pulled off her helmet and shook out her hair. “I am one with my bike,” she proclaimed, then laughed out loud.

  “You look good out there,” he said, booted feet braced on either side of his Duc. “Comfortable. Confident.”

  “Thanks,” she said, then turned to look over her shoulder at her rear end. “Did I tear your sister’s leathers?”

  “No,” he said.

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’ve been staring at your ass in those pants for the last two hours,” he said. “You didn’t tear them. Keep them. Rose isn’t riding right now, and you’ll need them until you buy a set of your own. Let’s get you some city riding experience.”

  She slipped her slacks and sensible librarian shoes into her backpack, then followed him from the air strip’s entrance to the highway, then into town. People stared from the windows of their cars as they waited at stoplights; another rider on a Suzuki speed bike lifted a hand in greeting. They roared through the college’s main gates and down the tree-lined drive to the library parking lot.

  Never in her life had she been this cool, or this happy.

  “My knees are jelly,” she said when she swung off the bike and pulled off her helmet.

  “You’ll get used to it,” he said, keeping his bike idling, his helmet on. “You’ll get yourself home okay.”

  It wasn’t a question. “Yes,” she said, self-conscious about the stares coming her way, knowing she couldn’t do anything more intimate than say thanks. “I just … I couldn’t have gotten over that hurdle without you, and Keenan. Thank you.”

  His visor hid his face, but he reached out and patted the Duc’s scratched gas tank. “I knew you could do it,” he said. “See you around.”

  Fumbling with her helmet, she bounded up the stairs to the library’s staff entrance, her legs both wobbly and supercharged. But the thing that stuck in her mind as she keyed into the building was the way Jack’s hand didn’t shake when he patted the gas tank.

  Chapter Six

  She was lit up like a city at night, her legs wobbly on the stairs to the library’s employee entrance, feeling both inordinately proud of her motorcycle gear, and terrifyingly exposed. The helmet banged against the doorframe on her way in, making everyone seated in the shared office space look up.

  So much for avoiding attention.

  “What on earth?” Carol said, her eyes widening.

  “Hi,” she said with a quick glance at the clock. “I’m not … I’ll tell you later, after I get changed.”

  She ducked into the bathroom, banging her elbows and knees on the tiny stall as she shimmied out of the tight leathers and into her slacks. Her blouse, fortunately, was a forgiving polyester blend, but the scent of leather and sweat and skin was unmistakable. She scrubbed her fingers against her scalp to give her helmet hair some lift, then peered at herself in the mirror.

  She looked like she’d just had sex. Amazing sex. Heart-pounding, multi-orgasmic sex. Same flushed cheeks and throat, same bright eyes, same obvious but inexplicable energy vibrating in her skin.

  The bathroom door opened and one of the work-study students walked in, her quick gaze taking in Erin’s face and hair, the helmet at her feet, the leathers neatly folded and tucked into her backpack. “Wow. Was that, like, you I saw riding up with what’s his name, the SEAL guy who’s lurking all mysterious and broody in the psych classes?”

  She should have frozen. She should have lied. They were in a relationship, which was expressly forbidden by the school’s code of conduct. She should have felt ashamed, threatened, exposed.

  “Yes,” she said simply. Chin lifted, gaze direct. It wasn’t about truth or lies. It was about claiming who she was becoming. “That was me.”

  The student nodded, then slung her backpack down on the floor. “Cool,” she said, and walked into a stall. Erin bolted the second the door closed, shoving her backpack and helmet under her desk, then turned to Carol. “I bought a motorcycle,” she said.

  “You did?” Carol said, eyes wide.

  “A Ducati Monster 696.”

  “Nice bike,” Terry the bearded electronic collections librarian said, peering around from behind his wall of monitors. Erin stared at him, because in the six months he’d been working at the library, he’d said not a single word not related to the job. “New?”

  “A couple of years,” she said. “It’s in the lot.”

  Just like that, everyone who wasn’t working with a student crowded back through the door and down the stairs to the parking lot to cluster around Erin’s new bike.

  “Wow,” Carol said.

  “Who put the scratches in it?” Terry said, fingering the gouge in the paint.

  “I did, about two hours ago,” Erin admitted.

  “Keep the shiny side up,” he said sagely.

  “Working on it.”

  “I didn’t know you knew how to ride a motorcycle,” Carol said.

  “I learned,” Erin said. “The state offers beginner rider courses. Some dealerships give you a discount on a bike afterwards, so the course basically pays for itself when you buy a bike.”

  “What did Jason think about this?” Carol asked.

  “He thought it was a stupid idea to invest in an expensive hobby that would probably get me killed, or worse, permanently disabled.”

  “Good thing you divorced him,” Terry said, hands in his pockets, rocking back on his heels. “That’s a sweet bike.”

  The work-study student opened the door and leaned out. “Uh, I’ve got a printer issue in here?”

  Erin sighed. “I’ll take care of it.”

  * * *

  She floated through the first part of her shift. She taught a student to use EBSCO; she fixed seven printer jams and one wireless router problem. She said good-bye to the day-shift librarians, and watched the reading room slowly empty out as students went in search of dinner. Slowly, ever so slowly, the routine dampened the adrenaline rush and her body settled down, her heart rate approaching normal, the color fading from her skin. But she couldn’t deny the spring in her step, the new, proud tilt to her head, the smile that broke across her face every time she looked out the tall windows and saw her Duc waiting in the parking lot.

  There was a dead period in the library around the time when the dining hall was open, students taking a break before transitioning from the class day to evening study hours. She picked up her phone and sent Jack a text.

  Eat dinner or take my bike for a ride?

  She could hear the rough amusement in his response. Tough call. Come down to study room 4W and I’ll help you decide.

  Guiltily she looked around the room. Carol was taking her shift at the circulation desk. Only one earnest student sat at a table in the main reading room. The library was as empty as it would ever be, and if anyone could keep them hidden, it would be a Navy SEAL.

  She snagged her backpack from under her desk, shouldered it, and walked up to Carol. “I’m taking my dinner break now.”

  “A student just asked me to text her a copy of the book she needs,” Carol said, idly clicking through Overheard in the Library on Tumblr.

  “The call information?” Erin said, arrested mid-stride.

  “No, the whole book,” Carol said brightly.

  “You’re all over that, right?” Erin said, and pressed the button for the stacks.

  “I’m so all over it,” Carol said.

  The cement walls and florescent lighting of the stacks felt oppressive after a morning spent in the sunshine, the wind a physical presence against her body. She made a careful round of each floor of the stacks, checking study rooms, the rows and rows of shelves, all the while remembering how riding the bike was like sex with Jack, a push and pull, a way of testing herself against something stronger, more powerful, something that challenged her to go beyond what she was capable of, even beyond her dreams.

  But this was getting dangerous, in a way she’d not expected. Relationships with a student were clearly forbidden, but Jack was no
ordinary student. He was, she thought as she walked a slow circle of the third-floor stacks, no ordinary man.

  4W was in the far corner of the bottom floor of the stacks, a study room largely ignored thanks to its out-of-the-way location and inability to get Wifi or cell service. Only the most desperately introverted undergrads found their way there. She peeked through the rectangular safety glass inset and saw Jack, long legs stretched out in front of him, typing away at a laptop. He looked up and beckoned her in.

  “Hi,” she said. “I didn’t know you were coming back to the library today.”

  “This paper won’t write itself,” he said. “How are you doing? Sore?”

  She pulled out one of the awful plastic chairs clustered unevenly around the table and sat down, wincing. “I didn’t notice how sore I was until I spent an hour in the chair at the circulation desk.”

  The lazy smile he gave her didn’t quite mitigate the sharp look in his eyes. “C’mere,” he said, holding out his arm.

  She winced as his forearm tightened around her hips, just above the tender spot where her butt hit the tarmac, but didn’t let that stop her from straddling his lap. “I really, really shouldn’t do this,” she murmured against his mouth.

  “I shaved hoping to tempt you into doing exactly this,” he replied.

  He wasn’t kissing her. His hands gently kneaded the tops of her buttocks, then moved lower, finding the deepest aches and pressing into them. An unexpected heat flared low in her sex, kindled by the warm look in his eyes, his clean-shaven jaw, his full lips she’d never seen quite so exposed before.

  And, if she were truly honest about what she felt, the thrill of the hidden and the danger of being caught.

  “This isn’t like me,” she said, making herself a liar by bracing her elbows against his chest and stroking his hair, his ears.

  “What isn’t like you?”

  “Thinking with my body, not my mind.”

  He captured her hand, now resting against his neck, her thumb on his pulse, and kissed her palm. “How do you feel? Right now. What’s your body telling you at this very moment?”

  She tipped her forehead to rest against his, closed her eyes, and sank deep inside her skin. Her body was talking to her, the message subtle but insistent in a way it hadn’t been before she bought the Duc. The pain flaring with each gentle curl of his fingers against her bottom only added to the clamor. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “The signals are so mixed. I should be terrified. I should be in pain. All I am is turned on.”

  She breathed the last word into his open mouth, his lips plush and resilient against hers, while her fingers stroked the ruthlessly shaved skin of his jaw. Her index fingers brushed the corners of his mouth as she kissed him, his tongue flickering out to taste hers, then lick the tips and suck them into his mouth.

  A beat of pleasure pulsed through her, lingering in her nipples, her sex. His gaze met hers unashamedly as he bit down ever so gently on the pads of her fingers. “What’s your body telling you, Erin?”

  She paused for a split second to consider the messages dancing along her nerves: arousal, desire, excitement, and a connection she could no longer deny. She was falling for Jack, and falling hard. Her heart all but stopped when this fact burst into awareness in her brain, her stomach doing a slow loop. She’d already broken one promise to a man, a big promise. A “love, honor, and cherish until death do us part” promise. But the promise she’d made to herself was just as important, the promise to live her life as fully as she could, throttle open all the way, engine screaming at the redline, the wind pushing her back as the machine bore her forward.

  She would do this, everything her body asked of her, and she’d let him go. She’d keep both promises, and damn the cost. It was easy enough to tell herself that. The only thing left on her list was skydiving, and Jack had already booked them flight time to make the jump.

  He was still looking up at her, eyes expectant, hands a warm weight against her bottom. In response she hitched herself forward just a little, wrapped her right arm around his neck, slid the fingers of her left hand into his hair, and kissed him. “I want this,” she breathed between kisses. She was slick and hot and quivering with eagerness, and all she could think about was how good it would feel when he stretched her open and slid inside. “I want this,” she said again.

  “Me, too,” he murmured.

  He hoisted her to her feet and backed her into the wall beside the door, then swung one of the chairs around and wedged the back under the handle so the door wouldn’t open.

  “Wait,” she said, and wriggled free to yank the stretchy key ring from her arm. She opened the door, locked it from the outside, then let it close again.

  “Did you just lock us in?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “That’s my girl.”

  She reached over and flicked off the light switch, plunging the room into near darkness. The fluorescents from the stacks lit up a rectangle on the table, but otherwise, the room was in shadows. He backed her into the wall again, and claimed her mouth; she let out a strangled yelp when her bottom hit the cement. The noise quickly became a shuddering moan when his strong arm wrapped around her waist, pulling her into his body and away from the wall.

  It was a smearing, intense kiss, too much pressure and slick, hot tongue, and yet not enough, not nearly enough. She arched into his body and wound her leg around his calf, desperate to get him against her, inside her. One day on a bike and she was an adrenaline junkie, sliding down that slippery slope to wrack and ruin.

  Yes. Oh God, yes.

  Jack braced one arm against the wall and used his hips to shove her back, grinding against her. She gasped again and reached for his belt, tugging his shirt up, running greedy hands over his ridged abdomen, gripping his waistband and pulling him closer.

  “Fuck, yes,” he growled when her fingers brushed his straining shaft. “Get … come on…”

  She went to work on his belt and zipper while he flicked open the hook-and-eye closure of her trousers. The weight of her belt and the lining sent her trousers to the floor. She hooked her thumbs in her panties and dropped them, then stepped out of one leg opening, listening for any sounds other than Jack’s deep breaths and the tear and slick sound of a condom rolling down.

  “Gonna have to be quiet,” he said, and unceremoniously wrapped his arm around her waist again and hoisted her.

  “Okay, yes, hurry,” she said, ready to promise whatever with his hard cock nudging into her folds.

  A tentative thrust, then he adjusted, and slid in. She made a shocked, disbelieving sound when he breached her, and with a stifled curse he tipped her head into his shoulder. “Shh,” he said, predatory and soothing all at once.

  Her legs, already overtaxed from riding the bike, were quivering. “Hold on,” he said.

  She wrapped her arms tightly around his neck. He adjusted his hold on her, bringing both hands forward to grip the sorest part of her bottom. She gasped, writhed, then gasped again when her squirming set off signal fires flaring from her sex to her nipples. In the back of her mind, she was shocked she wasn’t glowing.

  “Okay?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she breathed. The pain was there, steady, manageable, and making her crazy hot. “Oh, yes.”

  He leaned forward, using his shoulders to brace her back against the wall. With each thrust she trusted more of her weight to his strong arms and hips, tightening her crossed legs above his loosened jeans, sinking into it. There was no kissing, no touching other than his hands on her aching bottom and his shoulders pinning her to the wall, his plush mouth hot and open against her ear. Each thrust was slow, measured, devastating, until all she could hear was her heart pounding in her ears, his staggered breathing, and the dirty, slick sounds of his body taking hers.

  She came with her face buried in his shoulder, choking on the sounds trying to tear free from her throat. With one final deep thrust he pinned her to the wall, shudders ripping through his body
. They rode out the aftershocks together, tension slowly seeping from their bodies until she could relax her legs. He disengaged their bodies, stepping into the darkness at the back of the study room. With trembling hands she patted at her hair, her blouse, then bent to untangle her trousers and panties from her ankle. Faint sounds reached her ears, the rustle of a plastic bag, cotton against skin, a zipper.

  “Can you bring me my backpack?” she whispered, giving up on working out the knot of clothes and kicking off shoes, pants, panties.

  He set the bag down in front of her. She dug through the front pocket for tissues and cleaned herself up as best she could. When she looked up, he was holding out a paper with the remains of his fast food dinner and a tied-off condom. She added her tissues, and dressed while he folded the top of the bag over, hiding the evidence. “Food is not permitted in the study rooms,” she said in her primmest voice.

  “You gonna turn me in?” he asked, one corner of his mouth lifted in amusement.

  “I’ll let it slide this once,” she said, the sound of her zipper belying her prim tone. “Do I smell like sex?”

  “The whole room smells like sex,” he said, but leaned in and sniffed her. “You actually smell like leather and sweat.”

  “Great,” she said, relieved.

  “It’s pretty hot,” he murmured, his lips brushing her skin sending a shiver along her nerves. “Really sexy, actually.”

  She turned to kiss him, his tongue a velvety flicker of heat teasing without pressing for entrance. “I’ve got to get back to work.”

  “Okay,” he said, but his hand slid into her hair, holding her close.

  “I really … really have to … stop that,” she said, smiling and holding him at bay. “I have to get back to work.”

  He stepped back, hands raised in a feigned innocence she found laughable, and very amusing. She unlocked the door. “Wait here,” he said, and walked out, his booted feet echoing off the stacks as he checked first one hallway, then the next. “You’re clear.”