His face turned ruddy. “Sorry.”
“No need to apologize.” Angie took his license. “Let me go lock the front door, and then I’ll issue you a physical library card. It’ll only take ten minutes or so.”
Mary angled a sharp look at Angie’s retreating back. Ten minutes? Since Miles’s information was already entered into the library system, all the Battlefield manager had to do was confirm the data using his license. The verification should require thirty seconds, max.
Maybe she didn’t want to leave Mary alone with Miles. Or maybe she wanted to do a little online research about him before departing?
Knowing Angie, probably both. Heck, she was probably in the midst of running a background check on the man already.
No matter. Angie wasn’t Mary’s concern right now. Miles was.
“Back to the tour.” Mary laid a gentle hand on his shoulder and urged him toward the front of the library. “Let’s start with the children’s area and make a loop.”
He strode ahead, his battered sneakers squeaking with each step. “I glanced in there earlier. Didn’t you say something about avoiding the stuffed animals? What was that about?”
They stopped in the doorway to the brightly lit room, and he turned to her with his brows raised in inquiry. Her cheeks heated, and she looked down at the nubby gray carpet beneath their feet. She wanted to answer his question, of course. But how to do so politely?
“A coworker got snowed in here a while ago. She made a bed of the stuffed animals.” Mary cleared her throat. “Which she shared with the man who’s now her husband.”
“Ah.” Miles’s little cough sounded a lot like a chuckle. “I see.”
“Fortunately, no one else did. But we all heard about it, to my sincere regret.” When he didn’t seem shocked, she ventured a bit further. “If you ever visit the Downtown Niceville Library, I’d give you similar advice concerning their stuffed animal collection.”
When she glanced up at him, his brows had risen even higher. “The same person?”
“Nope,” Angie called out cheerfully. “That was totally me. With my boss. During the workday.”
He blinked down at Mary. “Is this some sort of initiation rite for employees?”
“I hope not.” She had to laugh. “Because otherwise, my employment isn’t official, and it never will be. I’m not that kind of librarian. And I’m pretty sure Sarah has never christened a pile of stuffed creatures either.”
Angie emitted an odd sound at the circulation desk, something between a gasp and a screech. Her gaze flicked from the computer monitor to Miles, and then back again.
He shifted uncomfortably. “Is everything okay?”
“Just something in my throat.” Angie grabbed her water bottle from beneath the desk and took a swig. “It’s gone now. Anyway, I’m all done checking your information. Let me give you your license back, as well as your brand-new card.”
When she held them out, he shoved both into his front jeans pocket. “Thanks.”
“I have some work to do in the community room.” She caught Mary’s eye as she flicked off most of the library’s lights. “Just let me know when you’re ready to head out, and I’ll go home then.”
A lie. Mary knew for a fact that Grant was waiting for Angie at their house. But she also knew Angie would never leave one of her employees alone in their dark, closed library with a virtual stranger. Even one Mary herself trusted.
She nodded her thanks. “Okay.”
As she and Miles wandered around the library, he listened intently as she pointed out the public computers, the self-checkout machines, the various book collections, and all the other things that filled her workdays. He lingered a long time at the DVD and Blu-ray section, studying the titles with unusual focus. But the only time he interrupted her was when they passed by the curtained entrance to the Adult Reading Room.
His face split into a tentative smile for the first time, and Mary felt like a hibernating bear stumbling from her cave into a bright spring day: dazzled, disoriented, and bathed in unexpected warmth. Awakened somehow, even though that didn’t make a lick of sense.
Staring is rude, she reminded herself. Pay attention to the conversation.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” he said. “You were about to walk right past this place without saying a word about it, weren’t you?”
Her shoulders rose and fell in a sigh. “I was certainly going to try.”
“Spill it, Ms. Higgs.”
She gazed at the cathedral ceiling of the library, praying for strength. “Angie tends to read a lot of books with explicit content. Explicit in an, um, intimate sense.”
“You mean she reads erotica,” he clarified helpfully.
“Yes. Erotica.” She shifted from foot to foot. “And she made a display in the back of the adult fiction section with those books. At least until she received complaints.”
Some sort of activity appeared to be happening beneath his beard. As far as she could tell, he was doing his best not to laugh. “Complaints about her erotica display. In the public library. Who’d have guessed?”
“Our patrons loved the display, actually. Admin, though…” She winced. “Not so much. Anyway, long story short, Angie eventually agreed not to create any more displays like that. Instead, the library’s assistant director let Angie take a former study room and transform it into a home for Nice County Public Library’s only official erotica collection.”
She waved an arm at the curtained entryway. “And voilà! Our Adult Reading Room was born. Although most people call it ‘Angie’s Smut Room.’”
He bounced on his heels, his eyes lit with anticipation. “This I have to see.”
“Feel free. Take your time.” She waited, but he didn’t move. “I thought you wanted to look inside?”
His smile took on an unexpectedly wicked edge. “I do. With you as my tour guide.”
That grin crackled with charisma and a man’s confidence in his own appeal. And for a fleeting moment, the shell of self-consciousness and discomfort surrounding Miles seemed to crumble into dust. The man he must have been before his injury stood before her. The man he must have been when he was living in California.
For the first time since she’d met Miles in person, Mary wondered what exactly she’d invited into her library and her life. He no longer existed solely as words on a computer screen. He wasn’t simply another patron in need. He was more than just a friend. And he wasn’t, perhaps, the tame creature she’d imagined him to be.
The man standing by her side radiated heat and energy. Visceral appeal.
It made her nervous, but she couldn’t say she didn’t like it.
She opened the curtain and ushered him inside before letting the fabric swing closed behind her. And suddenly they were standing inches apart in a small, dimly lit room, surrounded by books about lovers and pleasure. Some of which she’d read at night, shocked and curious, peeking through her fingers as her legs tangled in the bedcovers.
Miles gazed down at her, his mouth parted. Her own lips felt parched, and without thinking, she licked them. His eyes followed the movement. She could have sworn she saw him shudder, just a little bit.
Time slowed, dripping like honey as she waited to see what would happen.
He reached for her, unhurried and deliberate, and