Page 59 of Driven Daddy

“Bar?”

“No. That’s how you meet your hookups.”

“So, you knew it was a hookup?”

“No!” I buried my face in my hands. “Never mind. I need to get back in there. I don’t have time to explain it all.” I opened the door and crossed the storage room.

When I stood in front of the nicked door with the last of the books stacked, a flash of sinking into her all too perfect body sideswiped me. I stuffed my hand into my pocket and found the scrap of cotton and lace.

I curled my fingers around it, conscious of how damp they still were even hours later. Damp from her.

My mouth watered at the memory of her taste on my tongue. That sweet, wide mouth of hers and the richer flavor of her under the dark dress. That gossamer soft skin split with enough heat to make me wish for more time with her.

I’d willingly be her supplicant.

For days.

The image of Moksha doing the same made my brain hum as much as the rest of me. Just who would my character bow down to? Who would bring him to his knees in every way? I pushed it out of my head, hoping the idea would come back later.

I hefted the case of books, stopped at the breakroom for chocolate chip cookies and water, then went back out into the dwindling crowd. I set the cookies and water at Rita’s elbow, then the case of books beside her table. I had to lift the tablecloth to shove it under and found Rita shoeless under the table.

Her toes were polished the same dark raisin color of her nails. The stilts were kicked away as if they annoyed her. She scrunched her toes up, as if she knew I was looking.

Annoyed that I noticed, I flipped the cloth down without a word and met her gaze. She frowned at me, though the little wrinkle between her brows made me want to smooth it away.

Since I was the one who’d put it there, that wouldn’t be happening anytime soon.

She lifted her chin and looked down that cute slash of nose at me. “Thanks.”

“Welcome.” I gave her a quick grin before I took off to my own table.

We managed to move along the rest of the fans within two hours, but the sun was setting by the time Colette closed the doors.

She slumped back against them with a brilliant smile. “You guys rocked. My cash register is so damn happy I can’t stop smiling though my face hurts.”

A woman came out from the registers. She had cherry-Koolaid-colored hair and tattoos peeking from the neckline and sleeves of her unicorn farting a rainbow T-shirt. “We ran out of Every Line bags before the halfway mark. I had to start using plain brown bags from storage.”

“Whatever works. Thanks so much for helping out, AJ.”

“I don’t think I could have gotten through it without Larsen.” She gave my best friend a shy smile. “He kept the line moving and people happy.”

Larsen snagged his suit jacket from behind the counter. “Pleasure.” He gave her a charming grin. “I’m going to figure out your name, Autumn Jasper.”

She laughed. “Nope. That’s not it.”

“Dammit. I’m going to get it.” He passed her, stroking the skin of her arm where a colorful tattoo climbed along the underside of her forearm. “Thanks for a fun afternoon.”

She gave him a shy smile with a nod.

Larsen crossed to me and started stacking what was left of my graphic novels. We only had a handful of some of the older ones. All the new ones were long gone. It had gotten so bad that we allowed people to have me sign the editions they already owned for a donation to Saving Hearts—a local autism charity.

“How’d we do?” Larsen asked as he gathered silver Sharpies.

“Making friends?”

Larsen glanced over to AJ, who was busy with Colette. “She’s charming. Reminds me of an actress I can’t put my finger on.”

“Anna Kendrick,” Ryan said genially.

---