Logan (Carolina Reapers 4)

“Oh, okay then. I’m just going to tuck these last books into their place.”

“Yeah, of course.” I turned and walked back to where the first two books had landed, then put Unfuck Yourself on the display table, and picked up the two rounds of paper ammunition. “Here you go,” I said as I put one back on her cart.

“Thank you. Did you want to check something out while you’re here?” She turned and reached for the book I still held, and I saw her in the light for the first time.

Speechless. I was...speechless. Her hair wasn’t just dark, it was auburn, with every color in it from mahogany to strands of bright red. Her skin looked incredibly soft and it was speckled with a dusting of freckles across the bridge of her nose.

But it was her eyes that sucker punched me in the gut. They were emerald green—the kind of green that usually took contacts to achieve, but something told me they were her natural color. Bright in the center and rimmed in a darker color, they sliced right through me and robbed me of every word that had been in my head.

Her heart-shaped mouth pursed and her eyebrows—the same shade of auburn—drew together. “Mr….?”

“Logan,” I managed to say. “My name is Logan.”

“Well, Logan, did you want a book?”

A slight tugging registered, but my brain didn’t put the pieces together.

“I don’t think so.” I wasn’t sure, though. I wasn’t sure about anything when she looked at me like...like what? She wasn’t hitting on me, or praising my hockey skills, or asking me for an autograph. She was looking at me like some random guy who’d shown up in her library.

Because that’s all I was to her.

“Well, then do you think you want to give me this one back?” She tugged again lightly.

“Sorry.” I released the book.

“No problem.” She adjusted her glasses and walked down the row of books, then paused and bent over.

I jerked my gaze away before my body could respond like my brain did to the thought of that ass. Were librarians allowed to have asses like that? Outside of porn movies?

“Shut it off. Shut it off.” I muttered to my brain in a plea to stop the fantasy from playing out in my head.

“That’s all done,” she said with a smile. “We have a few minutes before Cannon makes his choice. You sure I can’t recommend something?” She pushed her little book cart right by me and headed for the lit desk.

“I’m not really a big reader,” I admitted, knowing that probably blew any shot I had of...what, dating this woman?

I was the last person who needed to be in a relationship. Blaire and I had only been together for four months, and it had been three months since I’d ended it, but still. I wasn’t in any place to even think about someone else.

“That just means no one’s ever given you the right book,” she said over her shoulder as she parked her cart next to the desk.

“I just never really get into them.” I leaned on the wide expanse of counter on my side of the desk while she typed something on her computer.

“I bet I can get you into one,” she challenged with a slight quirk in her lips.

“Really.” I gave her a more than skeptical look.

“Really,” she answered with a full-blown smile.

Shit. I was in trouble. There was no guile or artifice in that smile. No practiced pose in the way her head tilted. She was simply, naturally, stunningly...beautiful.

“What kind of movies do you like?” she asked, leaning on her section of the counter. Lucky for me, that blouse was buttoned up to her neck, so I couldn’t make an even bigger idiot of myself.

“I don’t have a lot of time for movies, honestly. But I guess I like psychological ones, and maybe a little sci-fi? I like the ones that make me figure things out.”

“Ahh, you don’t like the easy ones,” she noted with a narrow-eyed scan of my face. “Hmm. I think I might have something for you. Wait right here.”

She walked out of the circular desk, but her small heels didn’t make a sound on the carpet. How ironic that I sought out noise to keep my brain busy, and this woman was surrounded by silence by choice.

Her hips swayed as she walked down the long corridor, and I looked away. Fine, I was attracted to her. It’d be impossible not to be when she looked like that, and sounded like that, and smiled like that, and had a brain like...Ugh. Inconvenient—that’s what this was.

Cannon walked back with Delaney, and I found myself leaning toward them to hear what they were saying, but I couldn’t.

Once they came closer, their conversation caught me by surprise.

“Did you like that twist?” she asked, straining to look up at him.