Page 12 of The Good Girl Next Door

“Plenty of risqué books in the library. Plenty of controversy in the pages of old books. I’ve read more than my fair share.”

“Yeah?”

Silas’s smile grows as he slowly edges around the cart. He’s so big that he has to slide sideways to fit. I turn to meet him, back against the shelf as the comfortable barrier between us is removed. I hold tightly to the cart with one hand, the other fingering the ledge of the bookshelf as Silas squares himself to me.

All I feel is heat. Inside. Outside. I take a breath and it’s filled with him—body wash mixed with a faint chlorine scent from the pool. His light eyes appear darker in the stacks, but I could be imagining it as the dim overhead light casts shadows across the hard features of his face.

“I know how to read, Pru,” he says with an amused expression. “But there’s one thing I’m having trouble reading.”

He sets his hand on the cart next to mine, fingertips grazing fingertips as my pulse continues to jump. Pressure and tension build deep inside me as I try to focus on his eyes and not the wall of man on the verge of caging me against a shelf.

“What’s that, Silas?”

I might be imagining it, but I swear Silas is breathing a little heavier after speaking his name. He slides one of his fingers on top of my nail, tapping and touching it, brushing a line across my knuckles as his jaw tenses.

“You,” he finally says, pulling the breath I’d been holding onto out of my lungs.

God, his finger. It’s featherlight against me but it’s setting off fireworks inside me.

“I’m trying to understand what makes you tick. Trying to understand if you—”

“Prudence,” Ginny says.

Both of our heads turn as my supervisor calls to me from the other end of the row. She shuffles toward us, Silas’s finger still stroking mine as she says, “Laura’s shift ends in five minutes, and I need you at the circulation desk.”

She glances at Silas and then back to me, lets out ahmph,and then turns around and shuffles back down the row before disappearing around the corner.

“I should go,” I say to Silas.

Neither of us moves as I meet his eyes, silence settling between us as thick as the air. It’s almost suffocating, but I can’t get enough of it. Ofhim.The commanding presence that surrounds me. The gentlest of touches that send my body into overdrive. His voice.

This shouldn’t be happening so fast. I’ve never felt like this about anyone. How in the hell have I fallen so fast and so hard for someone I just met? An inked-up-bad-boy hockey player to boot. Well, that one makes sense.

“Yes,” Silas says, two more fingers joining the first as he lengthens his strokes across my hand. “You should go, Pru. But why aren’t you?”

My tongue slides absently along my lips once as I glance at his, torturing myself with ideas that I know I can’t act on. Dad would kill me—or Silas—if something happened between us, breaking his one and only rule.

“I guess I’m having the same trouble as you, Silas.”

Silas leans forward as he perches his hand on the shelf next to my head, completing the cage around me. “And what trouble is that?”

I don’t even remember what we’re talking about. Silas is less than six inches away from my face, and all I can think about is climbing him like a tree. Wrapping my legs around his waist as I tunnel my fingers through his hair. His lips on my neck. His lipseverywhere.Hands and muscles and tongue all over my body.

“Pru,” Silas rasps, his palm flattening against my hand. “If you’re trying to read what’s on my mind, I’ll let you know. I’ll open that book.”

He erases the small gap between us, his nose grazing my jaw as his breath caresses my neck with warmth. Nuzzling as I try not to whimper at the agony he’s drawing from me—the painful tension that I can’t release.

“It’s you,” Silas moans, exhaling. I feel his breath roll down my neck and beneath my shirt, radiating across my chest. “You’re always on my mind, Pru.”

I gasp as his lips brush the column of my throat until he kisses my collarbone. Licks it, too. I grab onto his forearm instinctually. It’s so firm and warm beneath my palm as he continues to trace the contours of my chest and neck with his lips.

What am I doing?

What arewedoing?

“This isn’t a good idea,” I say, wishing I could take the words back the moment they leave my mouth.

“You’re right,” Silas says, sliding his palm up my arm. “It’s a great idea.”

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