Page 23 of Monster Among the Roses (Fairy Tale Quartet 1)

“I’ll figure it out,” I assured her.

Her lips parted and she dragged her gaze away. “Well…we should probably…we should probably figure out some calculations.” Popping out of her chair as if it had bitten her, she began to back away. “I’m going to go find a tape measure.”

As she hurried from the room, I watched her go. What I wouldn’t give to see what was going on in her head. Neither of us had mentioned the notes, or books, or seeds we’d been exchanging on the couch, and yet it seemed natural to pretend they had never happened.

When she returned, I was standing in front of the longest stretch of wall that would hold the most shelves, jotting down notes on a fresh piece of paper. “Looks like this wall can hold maybe seven shelves across and ten up,” I said as she approached. “So that’ll make a total of seventy shelves. And since we already have four across and seven on each bookcase, that would mean there are already…”

“Twenty-eight,” Isobel informed me when it took me too long to calculate in my head.

I pointed my pen at her and winked. “Thank you. Twenty-eight. So we can add…forty-two more shelves for this wall alone. Wow. That’ll give you over twice the space you already have.”

A look of awe entered her expression as she stared at her shelves. In that moment, her thoughts were loud and beautiful. She was already thinking about how she’d rearrange her books with that much more room.

“Did you find a tape measure?” I asked.

She held one up.

“Sweet. Do you think you could measure the distance from here to here for me?” I stepped past her, brushing so close her rose scent clogged my nostrils. My body went into extreme focus, becoming all too aware of how near she lingered as she leaned forward to place the tape measure where I asked.

God, she smelled so good, I couldn’t help myself. I tipped closer and—

No, I shouldn’t be doing that, especially when her father was home and would probably walk in at any moment to assess our progress.

That thought helped kill the reaction I was having. I cleared my throat and wrote width of each shelf on the paper to distract myself. But the moment I glanced up, all I saw was her…from the back, lifting her arms to carefully measure. It brought up the back of her shirt, showing off a small slit of skin between the bottom of her shirt and the top of her pants. Pants which covered the most luscious, tightly rounded, perfectly curved ass ever.

“Thirty-five and three-eighths inches,” she reported, making me jump and dart my attention back to the sheet of paper and clear my throat before writing down the information.

“Great. Thanks. And how thick is the wood?”

Oh, hell. I hadn’t really just asked that, had I? If she asked which wood, I was a dead man. I wouldn’t be able to control myself.

“Looks like five-eighths of an inch,” Isobel said, and I almost lost it.

Five-eighths of an inch? Um, no. It was definitely thicker than that, especially at the moment.

When I didn’t respond soon enough, Isobel turned, blinking at me. “What’s wrong?”

“What?” My eyes flashed open wide. Bookshelves! We were talking about bookshelves, here. Nothing else. Get your damn mind back in the game, Hollander, you fucking fifth-grade pervert.

Isobel tipped her head, studying me. “Are you okay?”

“What?” I asked again. I was acting completely unhinged. “I mean, yes. Yes,” I nearly hollered. “I’m good. Great. How the hell do you stay in such good shape?”

And oh my God, what? Had I really just asked her that? Why, why, why did some things just tumble out of my mouth?

I wanted to smack my hand to my forehead, then sink through the floor and die.

“Excuse me?” she asked, and for once she totally lacked any bitter, insulting, or haughty attitude when I actually deserved it most. She merely sounded utterly confused.

“I just...” My face on fire, I cleared my throat and motioned to her. “Sorry, I just noticed you seem to be really fit, and I wondered…” Damn, I didn’t think I was making anything better. More awkward, but probably not better. “I just wondered what your secret was.”

Because that ass. Holy damn, a guy could bounce a d

ime off that perfect, tight ass.

Not that I’d noticed. Of course not. That would be shameless, unbecoming behavior. And I was a decent guy.

“I run,” she finally said.

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