Page 51 of The Bookbinder's Guide to Love

She shook her head, giving him a slight smile. “Not sure which. This is the day my parents died. January 29. Everything changed in my life on this day.”

He put down the signatures he’d been binding, walking over to her. “I’m sorry.”

“I know. Everyone is. And I know I sound like a little bitch when I say that. But some years...heck, every year...I can’t help thinking about them. I’m just shit to be around when I get like this.”

He was shit to be around at times too. “Take the afternoon off. I got this and I can handle the customers.”

“I’m a small-business owner. I can’t just take the day off,” she said.

“You know I run a successful business. I can do this for you. Just sit in the back if you don’t feel safe leaving. Read a book, drink your Earl Grey tea and think of new spells to cast on me.”

She stopped pretending to work and turned to fully face him. Her hair was a halo around her head, making her features seem more delicate and her mouth look more fully sensual than usual. Or maybe it was just him recalling how her lips felt against his.

“I haven’t cast spells on you. But...are you sure you wouldn’t mind?” she asked.

He went over to her and hugged her close. She was so used to being alone that a lot of the time she just retreated into herself when she was faced with a tough situation. But this time he was here.

“I think I established the day we met that I say what’s on my mind,” he pointed out.

“Yeah, you did. Well, okay then. I’ll be in the back if you need me,” she said. Then went up on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek. “Thanks. When you’re finished with the journals, there are D&D books for creating characters over in the games and role-playing section.”

“I totally thought role-playing was something else,” he said.

“Sexual?”

He nodded.

“I’ve got a few of those too,” she said with a wink. “Maybe we can check those out together sometime, if you want.”

He got hard thinking about role-playing with her. Working with her was doing more to lower his barriers than anything else. Just seeing her every day. Watching her react and interact gave him new insight into the man he wanted to be.

There were things about her he wanted to emulate and make part of who he was. But it was difficult. Change was something he’d always fought, and this was no different.

“Maybe I will,” he said.

She left a few minutes later and he kept working; the scent of lavender surrounded him. He was starting to associate that smell with a feeling he’d never really allowed himself to acknowledge before. Contentment. Almost like he was tucked away from the real world in her shop.

Surrounded by the lavender and her quick smiles, fast wit and curly hair. She also wasn’t shy and cupped his butt when she walked by or kissed the back of his neck. She said she hadn’t cast a spell on him, but he was enthralled.

And she reinforced the enchantment with each of those brushing moments in the shop. She had him in a state of constant arousal. She challenged everything he’d always believed about himself when it came to relationships.

He wasn’t sure he liked it, but he couldn’t resist.

“Where is Sera?” Liberty asked. She wore her red hair straight down her back and had on a pair of wide-leg trousers and a gauzy blouse with stars and moons all over it. She was shuffling a deck of tarot cards.

“In the back,” he said.

“Did you do something to upset her?” Liberty asked.

Wes shook his head. He couldn’t be angry about the question. Liberty was the mother hen of their threesome and was always ready to defend Sera and Poppy. “It’s the anniversary of her parents’ death. She just needed some time and wouldn’t go home. I suggested she go read.”

She looked down her nose at him, then shuffled the cards again. “Want me to read your cards?”

“What does that mean?”

“You seem...Confusedisn’t the right word, but at a crossroads. And I want to be sure Sera isn’t going to get hurt,” Liberty said.

He wasn’t sure he wanted Liberty to know that much about him or that even he himself wanted to know it.

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