Page 42 of The Sinner's Bargain

The chair across from me squeaked and I glanced up at the woman trying not to shift. I’d thought she would get up and move, but she remained in her place, quiet and watchful.

“You don’t have to stay there, love,” I told her.

“What would you like me to do?”

I set my pen down. “What would you like to do?”

Eyes that had become an obsession of mine lifted with a curtain of uncertainty and I truly wondered about her. It made me all the more ravenous to find the person who made her this way.

Who hurt her.

“Do you like books?”

The apprehension dulled around the edges. It still held the outline of suspicion, but less.

“I love books,” she murmured.

I scratched the five o’clock shadow darkening my cheek just over one of the thicker scars. The faint rustling sound filled the room.

“You’re welcome to read anything you like in here.”

She tried. I would give her that much. She did her best to conceal the thousand watts burst of light that seemed to radiate from her eyes. From the lip she caught brutally between her teeth to stop curving.

“Really?”

Goddamn it.

Fuck me.

What was I doing?

“Yeah,” I heard my idiot mouth say.

As if I wasn’t already in hell, she beamed with all her teeth. And royally fucked didn’t even come close to what I was.

Without a word, she rose and padded with the steps of someone accustomed to being invisible. The tiptoe of a dancer or a thief. She walked with such silence that even her clothes made no sound. Not a rustle.

I pulled in a deep breath and watched her for several moments while she lost herself in the spines of thousands of volumes collected over decades. Most of them, I was certain, weren’t even in print anymore and probably worth more than a small country. But she ran a slender finger over ancient covers. Dirty feet arched as she reached for higher shelves. The hem of my top...

I bit my lip as it rode dangerously high up the curve of a perfect fucking ass. How easy it would have been to step up behind her, take her hips and fuck her right there against the books.

She reached higher, one small hand pulling down the back of the sweater as it threatened to expose her. It didn’t do much good, but she tried. I smothered my grin behind two fingers as I watched her struggle.

No. I didn’t feel bad at all about not telling her there was a stool four feet from where she stood.

She took her findings to the sofa and perched in the corner. I hadn’t expected her to stay in the office, but I didn’t stop her. I let her fall into her book while I finished my work.

At lunch, I texted Cooke to bring her lunch. It was the only time her head came up, her expression adorably confused, like she’d forgotten where she was. Her gaze landed on the plate of soup and salad, and a glass of iced tea set in the glass and iron coffee table in front of her.

She thanked Cooke but didn’t touch the offerings for a long moment. I watched her study the assortment with a deep expression of contemplation. Then, to my surprise, she gingerly cradled the soup bowl and the spoon between her palms and rose.

Both were placed on my desk.

“Don’t like soup?” I asked, leaning back. My ass cheeks sore from sitting for hours.

“You haven’t eaten,” she said, a sweet, pink flush in her cheeks. “He didn’t bring you anything.”

He hadn’t because I didn’t normally eat lunch. Cooke knew that.

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