Page 21 of Unearthed Dreams
She led me to the pink velvet loveseat beneath the front window—my favorite reading spot since high school. The antique coffee table still bore the evidence of my most mortifying moment: a sizeable crack running through the Victorian-era wood, the result of me tripping over my own feet while carrying a stack of Russian novels junior year. The crash had echoed through the store like a gunshot, and I’d offered topay for the damage through tears, but Nancy Edwards had just laughed and said it “added character.”
Nancy had opened the town bookstore long before I was born. When she retired a few years ago, her daughter, Jennifer, had taken over. She was Jasper’s age, so about three years older than me, but she’d always been a little bookish like me. She was one of the few people in Sable Point I felt connected to, other than my family. She’d even helped me clean up the Russian novel disaster, never once making me feel as clumsy and awkward as I was.
Looking at that coffee table now, at the crack I’d put in it, I smiled. This place held so many pieces of me—even my less graceful moments.
As Jennifer settled into the loveseat beside me, she rubbed her swollen belly with a grimace. “Mom’s arthritis is getting worse,” she said, her usual cheerful tone dimming slightly. “She can barely handle the register anymore, let alone shelving books.”
My heart squeezed. Nancy had always been so vibrant, practically dancing between the shelves, always finding the perfect book for every customer. “I’m so sorry, Jen. That must be hard.”
“It is what it is. Between that and the baby coming... I’m not sure how I’m going to manage it all.”
I nodded sympathetically, my mind still half-stuck on Kai’s apartment full of books, wondering if he organized them by genre like Nancy always had, or if?—
“Hey! This is incredibly presumptuous of me to ask, but... do you need a job?”
The question caught me off guard.Me? Work here? At Books and Crannies?
My heart leapt. This was it—my chance to do something that actually meant something to me. Not bagging groceries, not serving drinks, but being surrounded by the things I loved most in the world. A place where being quiet and bookish wasn’t a flaw but an asset.
“I don’t have anything lined up,” I said carefully, trying to contain my excitement. “I’d love to work here, if you really think I could do it.”
“Of course you could do it, Charlie. You’re the smartest person I know.”
Her words wrapped around me like a favorite book’s worn pages. Here, among the shelves and stories, I didn’t feel awkward or insufficient. I didn’t feel too young or too inexperienced. I felt... right.
Maybe that was the difference. With Kai, everything had felt electric but uncertain—like standing on the edge of a cliff. Here, it felt grounded. Safe. Like coming home.
“When can you start training?”
I glanced around the store—at the carefully organized shelves, the cozy reading nooks, the wall of staff recommendations where I’d spent countless hours discovering new worlds. This wasn’t just a job. This was an opportunity to be part of something I truly loved.
“Now?” The eagerness in my voice made Jennifer beam.
As she led me behind the counter to start showing me the ropes, I felt the last vestiges of my encounter with Kai fade away. Or at least, I tried to convince myself they had. But even as she explained the ordering system, I couldn’t quite forget theway his eyes had burned into mine, or how his collection of books rivaled this one.
Focus on what’s real, Charlie. Focus on what’s possible.
This—the bookstore, the familiar smell of paper and ink, the quiet companionship of fellow book lovers—this was real. This was possible.
The rest... well, maybe it was better left between the pages of a romance novel.
Chapter Eight
KAI
It’d beena week since Charlie ran out of my bar—a week of kicking myself for being a goddamn idiot.
What the fuck had I been thinking, almost kissing her?Actuallyputting my mouth on her skin?
Wouldn’t want my first kiss to be with an asshole, anyway.
Her words had played on a loop in my head for the last seven days. She’d never even been kissed. She was far more innocent than I’d first assumed, but fuck if I didn’t want to take all her firsts. Show her what she’d been missing. Let her skip all the awkward, fumbling guys her age and give her exactly what her body craves.
Because shecravesit. I’d felt it in her breath, the way it hitched when I held her. Heard it in that gasp when my lips brushed her skin. I’d bet I could’ve tasted it too—with my face buried between her thighs.
The thought had me gripping my aching cock as I rested my forehead against the shower wall. When was the last time I was this turned on? The last time I gripped my dick thinking aboutburying inside a warm cunt? For the past two years, this kind of release had been few and far between—more a physical necessity than something pleasurable.
But as I stroked my hard length, pleasure coursed through my veins. Pleasure at the thought of kissing Charlie’s soft pink lips—the ones on her face and between her legs. Pleasure at the thought of being the first man to make her come, to make her scream my name as she chased a high only I could give her. I ached to plunge my fingers into her pussy, stretch her wide so she could take every inch of my cock as she rode me hard and fast.
