The Sexy Librarian's Big Book of Erotica

by Rose Caraway

  “Mal!” Claire snapped. Reluctantly, I returned my attention to the phone conversation. I had the feeling I’d missed quite a bit of whatever she’d been saying.

  “What?”

  “Take a picture?” She sounded wistful, which was silly. Claire was the hit of the party, never lacking for a man on her arm or in her bed, sometimes more than one. Not like me, only a few months out of an abusive, obsessive… I shook those thoughts away. I was free now, and that was all that mattered.

  “Maybe I’ll paint one,” I mused.

  “You know, you should just ask him out,” Claire said. “This is an amazing piece. One of your best. Too bad we had to cut the head off.”

  “Yeah, well,” I said. I eyed the cover art. Typical romance novel wrap, the hero lounged naked against a stone wall, firm chin lifted, abs well-defined, stomach flat, marked with a ropy scar. The ginger-colored cat with wise, knowing eyes, tail wrapped neatly around paws, sat on a tree stump, positioned just right to block the most interesting part of the painting. “He’s not even going to look at someone like me.”

  “You don’t give yourself any credit for being a wonderful human being,” Claire said, firm and no-nonsense. But I knew wonderful human being was polite code for round and dumpy, short and plump. Dishwater-brown hair that never lay flat, not enough curl to be anything other than messy.

  Sparkling personality.

  You have such a pretty face.

  Boring brown eyes, freckled complexion and a complete inability to use makeup.

  I shrugged.

  “I’m not dating any more pretty men,” I said. “They’re too much work.”

  “Your loss. I’d love to take a bite of this guy.”

  “I’ll be sure to introduce you, next time you come to visit,” I said sourly.

  “I’ll get that check overnighted to you. Let me know if you find out what the hell’s been happening to your mail,” Claire said. I had already faded from her attention; someone was yammering at her in the background. The time difference between East and West coasts; she was still working while I was wrapping up for the day.

  “Thanks. Painting this one was fun, but a girl’s gotta eat.” The doorbell rang. “I gotta go.”

  I still had the cover clenched under my arm when I opened the door to look at the subject of my painting. Why, why, why did I never look out the peephole?

  “Hi!” I squeaked. My heart hammered and I fumbled with the book, trying to turn it around, dropping it on the ground at his feet.

  “Hey,” he said. My own full-frontal neighbor, right there on my doorstep. He was even more attractive close-up; his hawk-like nose cut a fine line down sculpted features toward a lush and kissable mouth. He grinned. “I’m Travis Elliot. We’re neighbors.” He offered his hand and I looked down to take it, saw the mostly naked painting just by his feet and dropped to one knee in front of him to fetch it. I snatched up the novel, turned the picture toward my stomach, and glanced up. Well, that had put me right on a level with his groin, no more than kissing distance away. I squeaked again and bounced to my feet.

  “I know,” I said, taking the offered hand. His skin was warm, the fingertips calloused, his grip firm but not crushingly so. “I mean, I’ve seen you.” I blushed furiously at my own words. I was still clinging to his hand, and I dropped it hastily.

  “And you’re Mallory Ellis,” he said. I stared and he offered the other hand, several letters held between two fingers. “I’ve been getting your mail by accident.” I jerked my gaze back to his face; he only had the two fingers on that hand, while the others were nothing more than scarred stumps. A ginger blush spattered across his cheeks. Great, now I was making him feel bad? How did that happen? What the hell was wrong with my life?

  “Thank you,” I said. I held my hands out for the letters and dropped the book again. I swore under my breath and bent to pick it up yet again, and bumped my forehead into his chest as he moved to do the same.

  “Could this get any more awkward?” Travis asked. He picked up the book and turned it over. His breath hitched in.

  “Just did.” The ground wouldn’t swallow me up and end this. I couldn’t possibly be that lucky.

  He stared at the cover and traced one of his battered fingers across the raised title print. He opened the book and scanned down the title page. Cover illustration, Mallory Ellis. “This? This is why you’ve been watching me?”

  Shame flooded me, agonizing. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I knew I shouldn’t. I should have bought some curtains or something, but…you’re right, you’re totally right. I would be furious.”

  He brandished the book at me and I flinched, bringing my hands up to guard my face, mail scattering over the sidewalk.

  “Whoa,” he said. “Whoa, whoa, wait. I…” He touched my arm, brought it down. Those two fingers cupped under my chin, gently tipping my face up. Incredulous, dazed, amazed. “I’m not angry. I’m flattered. You…this is what you see, when you look at me? A romantic hero?”

  “You knew I was watching,” I whispered. Tears leaked down my cheeks, dripped over his fingers. I was helpless to contain them.

  “I spent six years in Iraq and Afghanistan. I always know when someone’s watching me.” Travis gathered up my mail again, groaned and got to his feet slowly. He offered me his hand. I took it, and missing fingers or not, he was strong and lifted me up without the huff of air I was used to getting from David. “Look, can I come in? My leg hurts after I stand up for a while.”

  “Yeah, sure,” I said. I stepped aside to let him pass, not being able to take my eyes off him. My god, was he really in my house? I could almost imagine that I was dreaming, having one of those awful nightmares where I showed up late for class without having studied for a test, or was running frantically from room to room trying to find a place to pee, except I could smell him, lingering coffee, soap, leather and man. My cheek and chin tingled from the warmth of his hand, and I couldn’t figure out what to do with my hands.

  He tossed the letters on the half-circle table and waited for me to lead him to my living room, although we had matching layouts and he probably knew where every room in my house was as well or better than I did. Travis walked slowly with deliberation, not quite a limp, but it probably would be if he was tired. He paused at the top of the stairs, looking out the window where I’d watched him so often.

  “Why?” I twisted my hands together, hearing my knuckles groan and protest.

  “Why what?”

  “You knew I was watching you. Why let me?”

  He eased himself into one of my living room chairs, a battered and comfortable piece I’d picked up at a second-hand shop; the people-eating chair. He stretched one leg with a pained groan.

  “Don’t laugh,” he warned me, still looking down at the cover—god, the cover I’d painted of him.

  “I don’t see how I could possibly,” I admitted. I wasn’t comfortable enough to sit. I paced, trying not to look at him, trying not to look out the window, trying to figure out what the hell to do with my arms; locking them behind my back just made me look fatter, and damn, was I trying to look pretty for this man? Was I?

  “It’s part of my therapy,” he said. “Although I don’t think my therapist meant it so literally.”

  “Your therapist wants you to be an exhibitionist?”

  Despite warning me not to, Travis laughed. “I have PTSD. Posttraumatic stress disorder. I…” He gestured with that crippled hand toward the right side of his body, where the scar was on his back, and the leg he limped on. “I was the only survivor of a street bombing. The other guys in the Jeep with me, they all died. I spent months in the hospital, learning to walk again. Getting weaned off pain meds. Came home. And I didn’t feel safe. I didn’t like people to look at me. I didn’t like to be outside. I couldn’t have the windows open, or the blinds up. I stopped feeling safe if I was undressed. It got really bad. I started wearing layers, as if more clothing would help keep out bullets. It wasn’t logical; it wasn’t sane.
The guys in my unit, we all wore body armor, and look what happened to us. A jacket wasn’t going to keep me safe and whole.”

  “My god,” I said. “How awful.”

  “My wife left me. She took our daughter,” he continued, his fingers absently rubbing the cover of the book. “I have to be in therapy so that I can see her. My ex portrayed me as being a dangerous lunatic. I’m allowed two-hour, supervised visits, twice a month.”

  “So you stand naked in front of the window,” I said, “to prove to yourself that you’re not afraid anymore.”

  “And then came you,” he said. He put the book down. “And I could see you watching me. I didn’t disgust you. You didn’t flinch away. You kept watching. So I kept showing up, and you kept showing up. I can’t tell you how it made me feel.”

  “I don’t see how you could possibly disgust anyone,” I said.

  Wordless, he held up his mauled hand. I moved slowly, I knew something about trauma, and I knew I didn’t always want to be touched, didn’t always like human contact. He never wavered and I took his hand in mine, pressed my lips to each scar. “I think you’re beautiful.”

  There it was, out there. The elephant in the room. Couldn’t be avoided. Admiration and desire from a pudgy, plain woman whose only claim to being interesting was painting pictures for what were commonly considered pulp novels.

  “Mallory,” he said. His hand was shaking. “I shouldn’t even be here. I don’t want you to feel obligated. I have no right to ask you, to want you, to…” How did he sound so vulnerable, so uncertain, when I was the one who’d invaded his privacy, when I was the one who was deeply, deeply in the wrong?

  “And I had no right to watch you,” I said. “I did it anyway. Because I wanted to.” I leaned closer to him, feeling his breath against my cheek. “What do you want?”

  No man had ever bent me over backward to kiss me, nor carried me over a threshold, nor littered my bedroom with hundreds of roses, the sorts of grand, crazy gestures I saw and read about in my daily work. Why would they? Love and lust and desire were for thin girls and pretty girls and girls with money who could make a man feel ten feet tall by batting their over-mascaraed eyelashes at him. No one ever kissed me like his life depended on it, like I was a combination of fine wine in the glass of the snobbiest connoisseur and a drink of water to a man in the desert.

  Until now.

  Travis devoured me, nipped at my lip, teased my tongue out and plundered my mouth when I opened to him. I maintained only enough of my sense and cynicism to engage in mental mockery, to notice where the coffee table was and twist us to one side so that I didn’t break my back when we hit the floor. Damn, I think too much, I thought, while he continued to kiss me until there was nothing left except the body pressing against mine, his hand strong around the small of my back, the graceful arch as he lowered me to the floor.

  My tidy-bun hairstyle disappeared under his hands, fingers tight against my scalp, pulling pins and scattering them everywhere until my hair was in my face, my mouth, in his mouth, between us like a living thing, demanding attention. Travis pulled my cotton T-shirt over my head baring the skin on my back to the soft wool of my new Pakistani carpet. He traced a line down my bare arm, raising gooseflesh. I shivered and he followed that line with the heat of his mouth, branding kisses down my shoulder, my arm, licking at the tender and sensitive nook inside my elbow, all the way down to my fingers. He planted a kiss in the center of my palm and then pressed it to his cheek. I stroked his face, feeling the rasp of stubble under my skin, watching his beautiful mouth turn up in a trembling, shy smile and even though this had to be one of the craziest things I’d ever done, I was going to do it nonetheless.

  Make love to a perfect stranger—emphasis on perfect—right there in my new living room, naked on my new carpet and crazy with desire.

  It was a bit of a fumble getting my bra off. Hell, the damn thing was probably built by a bridge architect and I always had trouble getting it off, even with daily practice and ten working fingers. Nonetheless, he managed it and my breasts sprung free from their satin cage. Ah, sweet freedom. I stretched mightily, feeling the cool air under my boobs. There was nothing quite like it. Travis shifted, resting most of his weight on his left hip, snuggled against my side and just stared at me. Unnerving, motionless. My jaw ached from clenching my teeth, from keeping my mouth shut, because damn it, I wasn’t going to apologize again for how I looked. He knew I was a big girl before my shirt came off and if he had a problem with it, I might actually cry. And kill him. Which was going to get blood on my carpet. Sigh.

  “I can’t get over how radiant you are,” he whispered, leaning close to press a kiss against my cheek, just under my eye. “Exquisite.” He kissed the other cheek. “Lovely.” The tip of my nose. “Amazing.” He licked along my throat. “Ravishing.” His breath was hot and eager in my ear.

  “Horny,” I pointed out, “and you’re still all dressed.”

  “Well, let’s do something about that,” he said. He pushed up on one arm, gesturing to his buttons with his mangled hand. “You might need to assist.”

  “Happy to.” I jerked the buttons out of their holes, brushing against his warm skin as I worked. I pushed the shirt open and bent to taste his flesh, tonguing a circle through the crisp ginger curls around his flat, male nipple. I pushed the fabric off his shoulders and licked at the scar that snaked its way, raw and red, along his chest, savoring the raised mark against my tongue.

  Somewhere, the rest of our clothing disappeared as we explored and experimented. Travis found that ticklish, sensitive area along the back of my knee that sent me into gasping, clenching convulsions of sensation, played it until I was sweaty and out of breath. He had a similar, delightful reaction when I stuck my tongue in his navel. He squirmed so much that I knelt between his legs, pressing my heavy chest against his fully engorged cock, and then tasted the area around his belly button thoroughly, grinning through my ministrations as he bucked and then groaned under me, his dick rubbing hard against my breastbone, my nipples gently abraded by the curls of hair on his thighs.

  “Oh my god,” he gasped, reaching out. He pressed my boobs tight together, sweat on my skin forming a slick passage that he stroked and fucked as I nibbled at his belly and chest. He rocked against me, his breath staccato exclamations of lust and wanting. “That feels so good, so fine. Damn, Mal! My god. Stop, wait.” Travis writhed away from me. “Not yet, and if you keep doing that, I’m gonna go off like a rocket.”

  He turned me gently onto my side, spooning up against my back. The hot length of him pressed into my buttock. He touched me all over, his mouth fastened on my neck, molten and sucking at the tender skin with bruising intensity. He circled my breasts, teasing the round flesh there, not giving my nipples ease until I was whimpering and bucking against him. One hand played with my boobs, first one nipple then the other. He tickled and teased over my ribs and belly, obviously enjoying every inch of my skin. He rubbed firmly against my legs, sliding his cock in between my full thighs. At the same time he pressed me from behind, and his maimed hand found the center of my pussy. There was a decided benefit: his forefinger and thumb pinched, circled, spiraled that tiny bundle of nerves and sensations without other fingers getting in the way, uncomfortable between my legs. I needed my thighs tight together to come, needed to be able to work those muscles in my lower back, my abdomen, to really feel it, and I’d never quite gotten this ease from another lover.

  Travis rubbed his thumb and forefinger together, my clit the money between his gimme gesture. My toes curled up, calves aching as muscles ratcheted up another notch, then another until I was screaming with need, with heat. My scalp tingled and my forehead beaded sweat, dripping down my temples and along my throat. We slid together, lubricated by the heat between us, and just as I thought I couldn’t bear it anymore—I had to come or die, black sparkles in my vision, the pounding of my blood in my temples—his cock slid home into my wet pussy. I felt him inside me, pushing forward, driving
against his working hand, rocking me between his fingers and the strong rhythm of his hips and thighs.

  I screamed his name, fingernails digging into the soft weave of my carpet. I went stiff with unspeakable pleasure, each nerve ending on fire, each cell in my body straining toward that single moment. Like thin ice, I cracked and broke apart. Almost too limp to move, I turned my head to watch him. Over my shoulder, his face framed by my crazy tangle of hair, I watched the play of emotions on his face, the curling of his upper lip, the set of his jaw, his cheeks flushed. He stiffened, breath coming faster, then releasing in a single exhale.

  I let myself collapse on the carpet, overwhelmed. I’d never actually seen a lover orgasm before. All my experience was in the dark, hidden under covers, eyes closed and shame blanketing my perceptions. I shivered, sweat cooling against my skin. Travis shifted slightly, pulling out of my damp thighs. His come leaked down my leg. He pulled his shirt over my shoulder, then snuggled up against my back.

  “I feel like I should say something romantic and wonderful right now,” Travis confessed, “but I admit to being overwhelmed. That was amazing. Incredible. Thank you.”

  I laughed, feeling his body slick against mine. “You could welcome me to the neighborhood.”

  “Won’t you be,” he sang softly, “please won’t you be my neighbor?”

  “Hello, neighbor.”

  The Whole of Me

  Katya Harris

  2058

  “Don’t leave me.” Shaun’s voice hitched, thick with tears. “Please.”

  He had never begged for anything before, not once in his entire life. He begged now, the pain in his heart a vicious ache.

  “Shaun. Don’t.” Clara’s voice was so weak now, Shaun could barely hear it over the soft humming of the machines working so hard to keep her alive.

  A sob of sound escaped him, a watery kind of humor. “I thought we agreed that you couldn’t boss me around anymore. Not when it came to this.”