Welcome to Nevermore Bookshop

by Steffanie Holmes

  I groaned. Of course, Morrie would choose some expensive cheese for a bloody mousetrap. I’m surprised he hadn’t set down tiny glasses of wine and crackers for the mouse.

  “Relax,” Quoth wrangled his jaw back into place. He grinned at me, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Grimalkin and I will see to it that it doesn’t go anywhere near this room. Now, how about giving me a hand with this bookcase?”

  Chapter Three

  “Good morning, sleepy.” I slid onto Morrie’s bed and placed a steaming cup of coffee on his bed stand.

  A pillow crease ran along Morrie’s cheekbone, accentuating his aquiline features. He opened one eye, and an ice-blue orb swiveled toward me with a hunger that had nothing to do with the anticipation of caffeine. “Mmmm, it is now.”

  Morrie wrapped his arm around me and pulled me against him, throwing the duvet over us and enveloping me in his warmth. His naked chest fitted around me, and his hardness pressed against my thigh.

  “I have to be at work in fifteen minutes,” I warned him, sinking into his body.

  “I know the boss,” Morrie murmured, kissing a trail of fire down my neck. “I bet he’ll understand.”

  “I know the boss too, and I bet you he won’t.”

  “Then we’d better be quick.” Morrie rolled me underneath him, grabbing a condom from off his nightstand. His other hand cupped my cheek, tracing the line of my jaw as his lips devoured mine.

  Morrie’s kisses swept me away – any thoughts or worries or fears I had disappeared the moment his full lips met mine. That was why I hadn’t managed to ask him about his criminal dealings to assuage my moral misgivings.

  And it wasn’t going to happen this morning, either. Not with his fingers dancing over my stomach, reaching down, down… I let my legs fall open, and Morrie rolled the condom on and slid inside me.

  I gasped as he filled me, every inch of him touching long-sleeping parts of me, awakening my whole body and bringing me to life. I clung to his sinewy frame, moving with him, settling into his rhythm, trying not to race ahead, to show him how much I wanted him to lose control, because that made him tighten up and grasp his control even tighter.

  Even though we were on the clock, Morrie kept up his languid, steady pace. Everything about him was a battle between his two natures – the cool, calculating mathematician who desired total control, and the criminal who embraced chaos at every turn.

  My body betrayed me, writhing beneath him, pressing back against him, begging him to go faster, harder. Morrie kept his relaxed pace, as if he were in no hurry at all, as if he were exactly where he wanted to be. I ground my hips against him, driving him deeper.

  “Now, now, gorgeous, there’s no fire.”

  There was a fire – in my veins, in my heart, in all the hidden parts of me he’d stoked to life.

  Morrie knitted his fingers in mine, pressing my hand into the pillow above my head. The gesture was both intimate and controlling. My eyes flicked to the hook on Morrie’s ceiling, and I imagined his cheeky smirk as he locked me into it, and what he might do to me if I dared relinquish all my control…

  An orgasm hit me, shocking in its suddenness. I leaned into the pillows as I clenched around Morrie, allowing the waves of pleasure to roll over me. His own body stiffened, and with a final shudder, he came as well, tightening around me, his jaw clenching and twisting.

  I loved that twist in his jaw – the slightest imperfection hinting at a loss of control, only for a fraction of a second. Then my Morrie was back, grinning wickedly at me like the cat that got the cream.

  Morrie rolled off me, his fingers trailing over my skin. He reached across me and turned his phone screen toward him. “Look at the time, you still have three minutes.”

  “There’s a hook on your ceiling,” I murmured.

  “I don’t know what that doctor of yours is on about – your eyes work perfectly fine.”

  “Why do you have a hook on your ceiling?”

  Morrie’s eyes bore into mine, the corner of his mouth flicking up into that infuriating smirk of his. “Do you want to find out?”

  My stomach plunged to my knees. My eyes trailed to the leather and steel apparatuses hanging beside his bed. I didn’t live under a rock. Ashley and I had giggled our way through the 50 Shades of Grey movie. I knew Morrie was pansexual and had some kinky proclivities. Did I want to be part of that? Was I that kind of girl? Most importantly, did I trust James Moriarty to truss me up on his ceiling?

  His fingers brushed over my clit and my body answered for me. Yes, yes, yes.

  “Yes,” I whispered.

  “Couldn’t quite hear you, love.” Morrie dragged his teeth across my earlobe.

  Fuck, I have to… There was something that had to happen first. I needed control of my body back. My brain had some questions that needed answering first.

  I forced myself to shuffle away from Morrie’s touch, rolling over to face him. “What are we?”

  “Homo sapiens,” he replied without missing a beat, his hands roaming down my shirt. By Astarte. Be strong, Mina.

  “No,” I slapped his hand away. “I mean, you and me… what is this thing we’re doing?”

  “Right now I’m trying to make you come with one-and-a-half minutes on the clock.” Morrie’s hand burrowed between my legs again.

  “Morrie,” I warned.

  He didn’t stop stroking me. “Mina, I’m not going to be your boyfriend.”

  “Oh.” Disappointment surged through me. Why not? Why don’t you want me? I thought we had something more than sex going on here, but maybe I read it wrong? By Aphrodite, I’m hopeless.

  Morrie laughed. “If you could see your face, you look like I just told you the Sex Pistols broke up.”

  “They did break up.” I slapped his hand away again, but he was relentless, and his finger… oh, oh…

  “I mean to say, I’m not going to be your boyfriend because that’s not what you want.”

  “You don’t know what I want.”

  “I know that you flirt with Quoth. I know that you make those big doe eyes at Heathcliff whenever his back is turned. I can read you like a book.” Morrie kissed a trail along my neck. “A good book, with lots of naughty parts.”

  “I’m not sleeping with either of them.”

  “Why not?”

  He plunged a finger inside me. I moaned, gritting my teeth. Focus. “Because I’m not a slut.”

  “Slut is such a loaded word, Mina. Aren’t all those punk rock songs you love about sex and rebellion?”

  “Yeah, but…” Morrie’s finger drummed against my clit. My body exploded with a second orgasm. I arched my back against the pillow, letting the pleasure wash over me. Morrie withdrew his hand and cupped my cheek, his icy gaze arresting me.

  “Exactly.” Morrie’s wicked smile lit up his entire face. “You don’t have to compromise by choosing one of us. I never did. Honestly, Quoth could do with having a woman to share his deep and meaningful feelings with, because neither Heathcliff nor I care. And maybe you could fuck some happiness into surly McGrumpyface.”

  “I don’t…”

  “Sorry love, I’ve decided these are my terms,” Morrie grinned. “I’m not going to commit until you at least know what you’re missing. Sample the wares. Be like the customers who read all the juicy bits before they decide which book to buy.”

  “I don’t understand. You want me to…”

  “I want you to fuck Heathcliff and Quoth. In fact, I insist upon it. Now…” he thrust his hand back under the sheets. “I’ve only got thirty-five seconds left, but I think I can work a miracle.”

  “That’s fine.” I slid out of bed, diving for my clothes. My cheeks burned. I dressed facing the wall, unable to look Morrie in the eye. He chuckled behind me, and the back of my neck flared with heat.

  I can’t believe him. Who asks the girl they’re sleeping with to shag their two best friends?

  James Moriarty, apparently.

  And who am I that I’m even still
here? Why do I want to do it so bad?

  Great. Just great. I’d tried to get some clarity, and now I was more confused than ever.

  Chapter Four

  “You reprehensible cur! You mewling quim! I’ll smash you open like a rotten hazelnut.”

  I raced downstairs in time to see Heathcliff yank the monitor off his desk and hoist it over his shoulder, as though he intended to dash its brains out on the ground. “No!” I leapt across the room and flung myself in front of him, catching the corner of the monitor. Heathcliff stumbled back in surprise. I grabbed the monitor from his hands before he could protest and set it back on the desk.

  “What did you do now?” I plugged the screen back in and rescued the computer mouse from under the armadillo’s tail.

  “I did nothing!”

  “Then why were you about to smash the computer on the floor?”

  “The-Store-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named informed me that our customer rating has been downgraded from good to poor,” Heathcliff yelled. “All because some roving cumberworld complained that the six-hundred-year-old bible he purchased was written in bloody Latin. In addition to being nice to customers, I’ve now got to hold their hands and wipe their snotty noses and burp them, too?”

  “Yes, yes, The-Store-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named is evil, and customers are dumb. I get it. Can’t you wait for me before you throw expensive equipment across the room?”

  “I hate computers! The world was better when we didn’t have computers and apps.” Heathcliff said that last part like it was a curse word.

  “No, it wasn’t. The world sucked back then, too – it just sucked without Uber Eats.” I switched the monitor back on. Our online book catalog flashed in front of the screen, and the message from The-Store-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named flickered across the top. Scanning the text, I found that all we needed to do to get the rating back up was obtain two more positive reviews, which would happen naturally as we sent out our next batch of online orders. Heathcliff always saw the negative side. “Besides, if we didn’t have apps, I might never have seen your job ad. Think of how dull your life would be without me.”

  “Your shirt is on inside out,” he muttered without looking up from his book.

  “Shite!” I darted into the World History room, tore off my shirt, and put it back on the right way around. Heathcliff glanced up when I walked back in. His eyes met mine and my breath hitched. I remembered the fierce kiss we shared the day he found me inside the occult room, the way he’d grabbed me as though he couldn’t control himself. The way he devoured me with all the fierce passion that had fueled the torrid romance of Wuthering Heights and made him such a beloved antihero.

  My heart pattered faster. Morrie’s insane challenge played over in my mind. One way or the other, I had to get this Heathcliff thing out of my system. I need to find out if what I’m feeling is for this Heathcliff, here and now, or if I’m lusting after the character I fell in love with as a teenager.

  I squared my shoulders and sucked in a breath. Here goes nothing.

  “Heathcliff, um…”

  “What?” His head snapped up again, his black eyes staring straight into my soul.

  “Can we… can I… take you out for dinner on Friday night?”

  “Why?”

  Why? What kind of answer is why? “Because… you never leave the shop. I’m worried you don’t have enough fun. Or enough nutrients.”

  “I have fun.” Heathcliff thumped the stack of books on his desk. “I’m pricing stock, aren’t I?”

  “That’s not exactly what I had in mind. I was thinking more the kind of fun where you hang out with a person you like and get to know them a bit better. It wouldn’t even have to be crazy. I’m not talking about going skydiving or getting matching tattoos. Just dinner. Maybe a drink. Do you want to go or not?”

  Heathcliff’s black eyes studied me. After a long time, he said. “As long as I don’t have to wear anything fancy.”

  I glanced down at his wrinkled white shirt, waistcoat, and old-fashioned trousers. With his heavy boots and long, messy hair, he already looked like he was the lead singer of the world’s hottest rock band. “I think you’re good.”

  I was just about to say something else, but the bell tinkled. I poked my head into the hall. “Welcome to Nevermore Books—”

  My words were lost in screams of delight. The front door banged open and a deluge of screaming, laughing, childish voices poured into the shop. I glanced up just in time to see a wave of young faces run in all directions and disappear into the shelves. Their delighted squeals bounced off the high ceilings and echoed around the darkened corners.

  “What the fuck?” Heathcliff growled. “It’s like the Mongols are invading.”

  “Careful, children, behave yourselves,” a matronly voice called after them. Being children, they completely ignored it.

  I whipped my head back just as two boys crashed past me, arms swinging as they kicked a soccer ball between them. Heathcliff stood up, scooping books into his arms. “You deal with this mess. I’m going upstairs to get some peace.”

  “But—”

  “The whole reason I hired an assistant was so I don’t have to deal with customers. Especially not the ones with snotty noses and jammy hands.” Heathcliff picked up his book and ducked into the storeroom behind the desk. “Have fun.”

  “Wait—”

  He slammed the door behind him. I heard a bolt slide into the lock.

  “You bastard,” I hissed at the door, then turned around just in time to see a young girl scrambling onto the table to grab the stuffed armadillo.

  “Don’t climb on that!” I yelled, rushing over and scooping the child off the table before she fell and cracked her head open.

  “But I wanna!”

  “Come on, Trudy,” An older girl, about fourteen, rushed in and grabbed the child’s hand. “Let’s look in the children’s section. I bet we’ll be able to find some lovely illustrated biblical stories for you.”

  They raced off, brushing past a round woman who stood in the doorway. She ducked as a paper plane flew over her head. Her face crumpled apologetically and her rosy cheeks reddened as she held out her hand to me. “Hello, my dear. I’m so sorry for all the noise. The children are very excited to visit a bookshop. Many of them don’t have books in their homes, you know. I believe reading is just so important, so I thought I’d bring them over.”

  “It’s fine,” I said, straightening the armadillo and taking her hand. “If you could just remind them it’s a bookshop and not a jungle gym, everything will be fine.”

  “I’ll do my best, although I’m afraid sometimes they get the better of me.” She patted her thigh. “These old bones aren’t as fast as they used to be. They’re a rambunctious bunch, but they’re good souls. It’s nice to see them learning and experiencing something new. If I can turn just one of them into a reader, well, I’ll have made a difference.”

  “I was a reader growing up,” I smiled at her. “I’ve never forgotten the feeling of diving into a book and escaping to another world. Is this a school group?” The kids were a range of different ages, and there were far too many to be her children.

  “Oh, heavens no. These are my youth group. I’m Brenda Winstone, and I run the youth group activities at the Argleton Presbyterian Church,” the woman frowned. Her rosy face instantly aged, and a look of sadness came over her kind green eyes. “I haven’t any children of my own, you see. My husband is Harold Winstone – you might know him, he’s a very famous historian. He travels all over the world writing books about interesting buildings and their history. Right now, he’s writing a history of the old Argleton hospital, the one they’re tearing down? A lovely man is my Harold, but he dedicated his life to his research and didn’t want children distracting him. So I donate my time to young ones in need.”

  “It’s lovely to meet you, Brenda. Mrs. Scarlett mentioned you the other day. You’re in the Banned Book Club.”

  Mrs. Winstone’s eyes bugged out. “Please, do
n’t say that so loud.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize it was a secret.”

  Mrs. Winstone opened her mouth to say more, but the older girl poked her head in the room and said that a boy named Thomas had thrown up on a George Eliot. Mrs. Winstone dashed off to deal with that particular disaster while I rescued a terrified Grimalkin from where the boys had her cornered on top of a bookshelf.

  As Grimalkin’s claws dug into my shoulder, I watched Mrs. Winstone scurry around after the children, who ran circles around her. What an odd woman.

  Half an hour, a broken chair, one slammed door, and three squashed fingers later, Brenda Winstone paid for a huge stack of children’s books and bustled the youth group next door to terrorize Greta at the bakery. I went across the hall to straighten the Fiction room and discovered the teenagers had moved every one of our copies of Darwin’s On The Origin of Species into the General Fiction section.

  Who says religious people don’t have a sense of humor?

  I’d nearly finished re-ordering the books when Heathcliff emerged from hiding. “So what did they break?”

  “Nothing.”

  “And?”

  “There may be a tiny scratch on a chair in the Children’s room.”

  “And?”

  I sighed. “The chair’s broken. One boy slammed his friend’s fingers in the door, but I think they’re just bruised.”

  “Just you wait, I’ll have an HSE officer and the parents’ lawyer in here by the end of the day.” Heathcliff noticed the stack of Darwin books by my feet. “Church group, were they? Stick all the Darwin in the fiction shelves, did they? If any one of the little bastards sat in my chair, I’ll be breaking fingers for real.”

  I threw a Darwin book at him. He ducked and slipped away, humming under his breath.

  He’s in a remarkably good mood, considering a horde of marauding children just destroyed his shop and we’re hosting a book club tomorrow. It’s not… it’s not the prospect of our date that’s making him almost cheery, is it?