Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 120165 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 120165 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
Lina
Uncle Radimir, could you please get me the next book in the series?
Already?!
You read that book in five days?!
No, in two days. YOU HAVE NO IDEA! She didn’t know the king was in love with her but she just found out ARGH please please!
I felt a rare bloom of warmth, deep within my chest. The innocence of childhood, when just a book can make you happy. It should probably have made me nostalgic for when I was like that. But my childhood was nothing like Lina’s.
I could still make her happy, though.
Yes, Linyushka, I will get it for you.
Thank you, thank you!
I felt a trace of a smile touch my lips. I’d pick the book up that afternoon—
At the bookstore. Something unfamiliar unfolded in my chest, expanding to fill me. I’ll see her again!
I froze, glaring at a spot on the floor, careful to keep my face a mask. I stamped on the rogue feeling hard. Then I carefully analyzed it, like a scientist putting a new and possibly dangerous insect under a microscope. I hadn’t felt it in so long, it took me a moment to identify it. Excitement.
“Bullshit,” I said aloud. My family all turned to look at me. But I was their Pakhan, their boss. I didn’t owe them an explanation. And I certainly wasn’t getting giddy over seeing some woman. I wanted to fuck her, that’s all it was. I wanted to plunge my tongue between those soft, pink pussy lips, feel those milky thighs clamp hard against my ears as she came.
That’s all it is.
Later that day, Valentin parked the car opposite All You Need Is Books. It wasn’t snowing today but it was still bitingly cold. “I’ll be two minutes,” I muttered as I climbed out.
“Don’t wait in line, this time,” Valentin told me helpfully.
I ignored him and stalked across the street, the wind making my overcoat billow out behind me like a cape. She might not even be there, I told myself, mentally shrugging. Or she might be so busy with customers that we’ll barely speak. It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter at all. I was relaxed. Casual. So why had my chest gone tight?
I pushed open the door, repeating nonchalantly in my mind: she might not even be here, she might not even be here…
I froze in the doorway. A woman with ash-blonde hair was behind the counter. She’s not here?! I’d been repeating it, I hadn’t thought it would actually happen!
The tension in my chest shifted to raw panic. Where is she? Does she work a different day? A different shift? And then a horrible possibility hit me. What if she doesn’t work here anymore? What if she never worked here, what if she was just filling in for one shift on that day I came in and now I’ll NEVER FIND HER AGAIN?!
My woman stood up from where she’d been ducked down behind the counter. She was holding a silver-and-black hardback. “I saw you pull up. I’m guessing she wants the next book?”
I stared at her. I was panting like I’d just run three blocks; my eyes were wide and... had I just thought of her as my woman? I took a deep breath and walked slowly forward. “Miss Hanford.”
She pursed her lips and looked up at me through her lashes. “Mr. Aristov.” She was scared of me. But there was just a hint of humor, too, gently making fun of me for being so formal, and that daring teasing made my cock instantly swell in my pants. I wanted to seize her by the waist, lift her over the counter and mash my lips down on hers.
I took another deep breath. My heart was still pounding from that moment of fear when I thought I’d lost her. What the fuck is happening to me? “Yes, please, the next book.” I swallowed, trying to make my voice coldly impassive. “My cousin’s daughter said how much she liked the first one.”
She grinned, innocent and happy, and it made her whole face light up. Suddenly, nothing else existed but those sparkling, forest-green eyes. She almost reminded me of a librarian: smart and sexy and good, shut away here in her snug little world of books. “Would you like me to gift-wrap it, this time?” she asked.
I knew something was wrong. I wasn’t acting like myself. But my brain wasn’t interested in investigating, right now. All that mattered was that gift wrapping meant more time with her. “Please.”
“It’s three dollars extra,” she said apologetically.
“Fine.” Three hundred would have been fine.
She gave me another one of those grins and I felt my chest...lift. I fought to focus, to try to be analytical. She cared about every sale, every extra, far more than if she just worked here.
“This is your store,” I realized.
She nodded, entirely focused on smoothing the creases on the gift wrap. She was using expensive, delicately stenciled paper and scarlet ribbons: she couldn’t make much money, even at three dollars per book. She was doing it right, not ruthlessly cutting corners for profit. A good woman running an honest business. The polar opposite of me.