Southern Charmer (Charleston Heat 1)

Which means I am also terribly, terribly nervous about sending it out into the world.

“You think I brought too many books?” I ask Louise.

She looks up from the cheese plate she’s unwrapping and grins. “I think you brought just enough.”

“Sorry,” I say, smoothing my sweaty palms down the front of my dress. “I’m just worried. What if no one comes?”

Louise tosses the plastic wrap in the trash and gets to work uncorking a bottle of my favorite $4.49 Trader Joe’s Pinot Grigio.

“You’re going to do great.” She yanks the cork free with a grunt. “And I don’t think you need to worry about people coming.”

I resist the urge to grab the bottle from Louise’s hands and take it to the face. I bet I could finish the thing in less than sixty seconds.

I flip through a paperback instead. “But I’m brand new. No one knows who I am.”

“All the right people in this town know who you are,” Louise replies easily. “As I’m sure you’ve discovered, word spreads fast down here. I promise you don’t need to worry about attendance.”

She pours wine into a plastic cup and hands it to me. I notice she’s wearing a small, knowing smile.

“Louise.” I take the wine. “Do you know something I don’t?”

Wagging her eyebrows, she zips her fingers across her lips. “I don’t know a thing. I am merely your assistant tonight.”

My insides do a somersault, all at once. I gulp at my wine.

Because the idea that Elijah might come wasn’t nerve wracking enough. Now lots of people are apparently coming to my humble little signing.

Save my soul.

Speaking of Eli. I almost had a heart attack when I saw him last week in class. He looked good. So, so good. And tired.

I wanted him to invite me somewhere. His bed, preferably. I wanted to climb in his truck and go back to his house and have hard, dirty sex over and over again until we were too spent to keep going. Then we’d lie there and talk. Figure out how we can make a relationship work.

Because I really, really want to be with him. I’ve had a lot of time to think about it. A lot of time to be on my own. And as much as I love my life as it is—and I love it, I do—I’d love it even more if he were in it. I miss the way his mind works. I miss his hands. His food.

His unwavering support of my dreams.

People start to trickle in. One by one. Then in pairs.

Then all of the sudden it’s like the floodgates open, and people pour into the bookstore, crowding it with heat and noise and requests for autographed copies of my book.

I can’t believe how many people come. I sit at my table and sign copy after copy of My Enemy the Earl. I take pictures with readers and chat with a local blogger. It’s not long before my supply of paperbacks starts to run dangerously low.

But then Louise appears with a fresh box of them, which she unpacks on the table.

“From an anonymous fan,” she explains with that knowing smile. “Here, let me get you more wine.”

I sit and I sign, too bewildered—too overwhelmed—to really process what is going on. An anonymous fan? But who? My first thought is my parents. But while they’re coming around, slowly, to the idea of me becoming an author, I know they would never encourage me like this.

Louise then? One of my friends from the writers’ club or the university?

I stop to change Sharpies when my first one dries up. From the corner of my eye, I see someone step up to the table.

“Hi there!” I say, uncapping the Sharpie and grabbing a book. “Who can I make this out to?”

“Elijah Jackson, if y’please,” a man says.

My heart stutters. My stomach dips.

That growly voice. That velvety accent.

That ridiculously perfect name.

I glance up and see Eli looking down at me.

I know I invited him to come. But I’m still so taken off guard by his hugeness and his smile and his searing eyes that I drop the Sharpie, my hands overtaken by a violent tremor. For a second, I worry I’m going to be sick.

He looks delectable. Good enough to fucking eat. He’s trimmed his hair since I saw him last week. It’s still wet, and the ends are boyishly curled in the humidity. (Only in Charleston would it be humid at the end of March.)

I can smell him. I have a full body reaction to that smoky sandalwood smell. My skin lights up and my sex clenches and I’m overwhelmed by a wave of longing so powerful it knocks the wind out of me.

He’s here.

Holy shit, he’s here, and he wants me to sign a copy of the book he helped me to write.