Leather Bound. Shanna Germain

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СКАЧАТЬ never wanted to get married. I could easily give my entire life to a bookstore that was barely making ends meet, but couldn’t seem to handle a relationship that required anything more than delicious sex and maybe dinner a couple of times a week.

      I used to think I just hadn’t met the right person, but now I wondered if something was wrong with me. Maybe I should think about getting married. Everything in my life was good, even if it was sometimes a little staid. Leather Bound was almost making enough money to keep us afloat. Lily and I worked well together. Kyle’s work as a tattoo artist was getting recognition. Our sex was great.

      ‘Actually,’ Lily said quietly after a moment. ‘Maybe that wouldn’t be so bad.’

      For a second I thought I’d been speaking out loud. My hands shook as they slipped the bills into their proper places in the register.

      ‘OK, stop talking,’ I said. ‘Or I’ll have to start the count over again.’

      It wasn’t entirely true, but I needed her to be quiet because my heart was thumping too hard in the hollow of my chest and, every time Lily said one more thing, I wanted to cry. Uncertainty and confusion do that to me sometimes. It’s the little things that get me. When things are big and bad, I’m all strong and stoic on the outside. But when they’re small and confusing and complicated, well, just bring on the tears.

      When our friend Conrad died a couple months back, I didn’t cry when he announced that he was sick, I didn’t cry at his hospice bed and I didn’t cry at the funeral. But when he shipped us a box of all the books he’d bought from Leather Bound over the years with a note thanking us for all the beautiful stories we’d given him, I fell down on my knees and wept until I’d ruined the letter with my tears.

      Unwilling to think about that, I decided I’d tell Lily about my morning. Maybe she’d have more insight into the situation than I did.

      ‘Hey, Lil,’ I started. ‘Kyle asked me to –’

      At just that moment, the front door opened, and Lily and I both looked up in surprise.

      My first thought was a very articulate ‘I thought I locked that.’

      My second thought was simply, ‘Yum.’

      * * *

      Despite the fact that Leather Bound is a brick-and-mortar store, we don’t get a lot of early-morning walk-ins. Probably because we only stock rare and old books. Obscure first editions and things signed by dead people are our speciality. So, things that people don’t typically browse for. They call ahead, see if we have what they want and, if we do, they come by and pick it up. If we don’t have what they want, I do my best to get it for them. It’s something I’m known for, finding the obscure.

      When we do get walk-ins, they’re one of two kinds. The first is older men – book dealers, collectors, professors, the generation that still likes to fondle the books and eschew all technology, including the phone if they can. Lily calls them our Grounders, because she’s afraid to get up on a ladder in her short skirts, in case she gives one of them a heart attack.

      The other kind are the Velvets. Also Lily’s name. They come in, usually looking either all sheepish or all professorial, and then they make their way, casual-like, towards the back of the store, like they’re invisible lions sneaking up on prey.

      We’ve got velvet curtains hung floor to ceiling back there. And behind them? A little room, not much bigger than a closet, the shelves stuffed full of delicious naughtiness. Not new stuff, though. Old stuff. Ancient versions of the Kama Sutra and Victorian-era sketchbooks and Sappho and Anon. You’d be surprised how much less repressed they were in years gone by.

      So, Grounders and Velvets. Those are the kinds of walk-ins we get, on the rare occasions when we do get walk-ins.

      What we most certainly never get are walk-ins who show up before we’re open, sporting chocolate-caramel eyes and a lazy, dimpled smile that gave me a nearly irresistible urge to lick the corners of his mouth.

      The guy in our doorway was beautiful, in that rugged, strong-jawed, day-old-stubble kind of way. Dark shiny hair that looked like it would tousle into perfect waves with a pair of hands in it. White T-shirt and grey button-down that brought out hints of gold flecks in his light-brown eyes.

      I took hold of the counter while the air did that thing it does where it gets all thin and makes you dizzy for no reason at all.

      Apparently Lily wasn’t immune either. Which was odd, considering I’d never seen her go gaga over a male before. Except maybe a male puppy. And even then she was hard-pressed to admit it.

      Not to mention, this was the longest I’d heard her be silent in about a year. She was still standing in front of the door, pretty much blocking his entrance.

      ‘Lily,’ I hissed. ‘Let the man in.’

      ‘But we’re not open yet.’ Her mock whisper was all mock and no whisper.

      ‘It’s OK,’ I said. ‘Close enough.’ Plus, hello, who cared? A man like that walked in your door, and I was pretty sure you opened for him … opened the door for him … any time of day.

      I swallowed and tried to right myself so that I could put my professional face on. Thankfully Lily beat me to it. Sort of. Her social skills, as a general rule, far exceeded mine, a fact that I was ever grateful for.

      ‘If you’re looking for the sex shop,’ she said, ‘it’s two blocks over and down on Mississippi. I can take you there.’

      I tried not to gape at her. So much for that socially skilled thing. Why was she talking about the sex toy store?

      She looked back at me for help and if I hadn’t completely understood her distress, I would have burst out laughing. Even back here, I was having a hard time thinking. I couldn’t imagine what it was like being so close to him. I wasn’t sure if I was grateful to Lily for being on the front line or jealous that she was in touching distance.

      The man’s mouth was hanging open slightly, just like mine probably was. Somehow the expression didn’t make him less sexy. I had no idea how that was possible, but it was. It sent me off in a small daydream, thinking about all the things that mouth could do. Beautiful white teeth that probably nipped at the edges of things just right. Thick, full lips with just a hint of sheen, as though he’d already been thinking about you and it had made him lick his lips in anticipation.

      ‘The sex shop,’ he said. Somehow he made it not so much a question as a flavour. As though he was literally tasting the idea.

      ‘I’m sorry,’ Lily said. ‘I just thought you might be looking for Lashes & Lace.’

      ‘I know the place,’ he said. His mouth had closed slightly, and now wore just a hint of a smile. Something hidden and teased in the half-curve.

      ‘Well, people get us confused all the time,’ Lily said. She was trying to recover, I could tell. But she was failing. Any time she absently fingered the yellow rose tattooed along the curve of her ear, she was either deep in thought or thoroughly embarrassed. Right now, she was scrubbing at it so hard it was like she was trying to wash it off.

      ‘They do?’ he was asking her. ‘People come here accidentally to buy sex toys at …’ He looked at his watch. It was a beautiful leather and chrome piece, with what looked СКАЧАТЬ