I swallow thickly, the back of my neck tingling and my body breaking out in a cold sweat when the tips of his fingers trace over the band of my underwear resting on my hips.
“Are you wearing satin?” he asks softly.
“Yes. I have a thing for pretty lingerie even though no one ever sees it but me, and a whopping eighty-four percent of women say they have special sets of sex lingerie, according to a recent survey. They make you feel like vixen, highlight all your best assets, but are totally impractical for everyday wear, but I still wear them every day. In fact, eighty-nine percent of the women surveyed said that these special sets make them more sexually confident, and I need to do whatever I can to feel more sexually confident so I can be a stripper,” I ramble nervously as his fingers continue playing with the edges of my red satin thong, which I had no idea would be seen by anyone, least of all him, when I put it on this morning.
My heart starts thundering in my chest and I’m panting so hard I think I might hyperventilate when his fingertips start sliding from hips to between my thighs. My hands immediately let go of his biceps and I reach between us, grabbing onto his wrists before he goes any further.
“What are you doing?!”
“You asked if I was going to teach you how to be sexy. That involves touching,” Vincent replies easily, his warm palms still resting against my inner thighs. “Also, I like you. I don’t want to just be your stripping teacher. I’m not a fairy tale kind of guy, but I’d like a chance to see where this thing between us can go.”
“I . . . um . . . I just . . . well . . .”
He lets out a soft chuckle, pulling his hands out from under my skirt and taking a step back from me, and slowly my breath returns to normal again.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought. You are not comfortable with me yet, and that’s fine.”
He grabs my hand and pulls me down from the ladder, tugging me across the room and out into the hallway.
“What are you doing? Where are we going?” I ask as he pauses in the living room to grab my purse and hand it to me, waiting for me to slip into a pair of shoes before scooping his keys up from the kitchen counter.
“Somewhere you’ll feel more comfortable,” is all he replies as he leads me out the front door.
Chapter 20: Is This Okay?
“That man sure does have a nice tush.”
“Mrs. Potter!” I whisper, looking at her in shock.
“I’m old, not dead. Just look at the way he fills out those jeans.”
Both of us are leaning on our elbows at the reference desk with our chins resting in our hands, staring at Vincent, who is shelving a cartful of books that were returned today.
“Mr. Potter didn’t have much of a behind, even in his younger days. But it didn’t matter, that man could still light me up like a Christmas tree. How’s the electricity between you two?” she asks, giving me a nudge with her shoulder.
“It’s fine. Very . . . electrifying.”
We both let out a quiet sigh when Vincent bends over to shove a book on the bottom shelf.
When he pulled me out of the house earlier and said he would take me somewhere I felt comfortable, I never expected him to bring me to the library. He’s stayed here with me all day, making me show him what it takes to run a library. I showed him how to catalogue new books on the computer and tried not to laugh when he typed with just his two big pointer fingers, taking three times as long to enter the books into the system than a normal person. When I asked him how in the world he could have been a teacher if he couldn’t type worth a damn, he just shrugged and said he had an assistant for that. He watched me help a few patrons find specific books they were looking for, show someone how to use the old microfiche machine in one of the back rooms to look up some newspaper articles, and he leaned against one of the bookcases in the children’s section, quietly watching me read to a group of kids during story time.
Trying to pretend that having his eyes on me wasn’t distracting through an entire story about a mouse attempting to find a piece of cheese was almost impossible, but I managed to get through it.
Now it’s almost closing time, and I sent him away to shelve some books for a little bit, so I could breathe. Having him here, all day, in my space was overwhelming. I wasn’t used to someone being so interested in what I did here on a daily basis, but he never acted like he was bored or would rather be anywhere else. And his idea worked: I’ve never felt more comfortable with him. He understands me a little bit better now, and I understand that there really is a kindhearted, sweet man underneath that tough exterior.