Page 20 of Eden's Joker

And the answer is yes, I very much do.

He won’t hurt me. I may not know him very well, but I know his soul. And a part of me is overjoyed that he missed me so much today that he’s willing to come over the moment I tell him he can.

I rush to the bookstore, badly fumble unlocking it and have no time left to go upstairs and change into something less summery and girly than the flowing yellow dress I’m wearing, before he’s at the door, the darkness outlining him perfectly and somehow making him stand out instead of hiding him like it does most people.

I open the door and breathe, “Hi.”

Then we just stand there. And I swear, if he wanted to grab me and kiss me right now, I’d let him. He’s an intense guy, I already knew that, but it burns so much brighter in the dark than during the day. His eyes seem to glow like the blue part of the gas flame.

“Come in,” I say and step aside.

His gaze seems to swallow me whole, and makes a pang of scorching need shoot straight through my core. The kind that makes me weak in the knees. The kindI’ve only read about and didn’t for a moment think could be real. Then he shakes his head and looks away, muttering, “Oh, this was so not a good idea.”

I don’t think he’s actually talking to me. It sounds like a thought escaping his mouth. And the scorching heat inside me dissipates. So I know it was him that was causing it. It’s that sunlight glinting off ice in his eyes that did it.

He walks past me into the bookstore, and it takes me a few breaths before I remember to close the door after him.

“Wow, that’s a lot of books,” he says, taking in the floor to ceiling bookshelves which are once again all filled with books.

“Yup, they’re all back,” I tell him. “These shelves looked so sad and lonely when I had to sell off my entire stock after that video went viral.”

He turns to me and grins, kind of sheepishly. “You haven’t made any new ones. I checked.”

“I don’t plan on it,” I say. “Online selling isn’t for me. I prefer to have people come in here and chat about books.”

He smiles wider and sits down in one of the two winged armchairs by the window. “So let’s do that. Tell me about this place. When did you open it? Why? How come you can keep it open and live off just the few customers that wander in to chat?”

I sit in the other armchair, kind of upset that he justwants to talk. That sun’s heat he brought is still coursing through my veins and I want to bask in it some more.

“I always loved reading, so for my sixteenth birthday, my dad bought me this place,” I say. “At first it was just meant as a space for me to keep all my books, since we were running out of it at home, but then it turned into a store.”

“Ah, so a sweet sixteen present from daddy?” he says. “Nice.”

“It was the best gift I’d ever gotten,” I say.

His eyes lose some of the sun. Kind of like night is gathering over that frozen lake in his eyes.

“What about you?” I ask. “What’s the best gift you’ve ever gotten?”

“You mean besides you?” The heat rising in my face has everything to do with the scorching heat that’s back in his eyes.

“You don’t have me yet,” I say and it makes him laugh. As well it should. I have no idea what I’m doing when it comes to flirting. But I think this is heading somewhere good despite that.

“Yet,” he says. “But I plan on changing that very soon.”

I blush even harder and have no idea what to say. It’s as though my brain and my mouth aren’t connected anymore. And even if they were, I have no idea what would come out. Because I can’t make sense of my racing thoughts.

I’m not shocked that he said what he said. All the guys I know always say exactly what they mean… no sugar coating, no being proper. It’s just that none of them has ever said anything even remotely like this to me before. The scorching heat in his eyes has nothing on the blazing one caused by his words.

He clears his throat. “All right, all right. Sorry. I forgot how sweet and innocent you are for a moment. So tell me, what’s your favorite book of all time?”

“Of all time?” I lean back and take a deep breath. I hadn’t even realized I’d been holding my breath until just now. But there’s nothing like talking about books to bring me back to my senses no matter how gone I am.

“Is that too hard a question?” he asks, chuckling and smiling boyishly.

“A little hard, yes. I’ve read so many,” I say and smile back. “I suppose my first love was Alice in Wonderland. My dad used to read it to me at bedtime and I just fell in love with it. I have a whole collection of them. Every time I see one in a shop or a used bookstore, I snatch it up. Look… “

I get up and walk to the bookcase that has a huge Not for Sale sign across the top, painted right over the wood and that holds my entire collection of books I would never be parted with. A lot of them are different editions of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, but there are some others too.

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