Leather Bound

The desk’s wide surface had nothing on it except my laptop and a pile of books I’d been using for another client’s research. Normally, I was a clutter bug, but I’d spent a whole month sanding down and then re-varnishing my baby, and there was no way I wasn’t going to look at it (OK, and run my hands over it, if I was going to be honest with myself) every chance I got.

I beckoned to the chair across from the desk, a double theatre seat that I’d scavenged from a dilapidated cinema a couple of years ago. Davian glanced at it before he settled himself into the folding seats. He could have taken up both, but he didn’t. Instead, he sat on one, crossing his long legs to the outside as though someone was already sitting in the seat next to him. His jeans were dark, with just a hint of wear at the creases of his pockets. His grey shirt showed off his shoulders and the width of his chest.

While the seat next to him was tempting – oh, God, was it tempting – I knew myself better than that. There was no way I’d be able to sit that close to him and not touch him, accidentally or otherwise. Instead, I lowered myself to sit on a corner of the desk. I had a notebook in one of the drawers here somewhere, but I couldn’t be bothered to look away from him long enough to get it right now. I’d just have to wing it.

‘How did you hear about us?’ I asked, mostly just to hear his voice. ‘If you don’t mind. Most people don’t just walk in our doors looking for invisible books.’

‘It’s not invisible,’ he said in all seriousness. ‘It’s non-existent.’

He opened his briefcase, the two copper toggles slipping with ease through the rich, dark leather. As he scanned the contents, I found myself scanning him, my gaze travelling the length of him, from the single dark curl that fell across his forehead to the open neck of his button-up shirt, to his broad shoulders and slim hips. I wanted permission to reach across the room and slip that very top button through its hole, just one, to find out what lay hidden underneath.

I liked the way he took up a space. The fold of his body had a presence that felt solid and real, without needing to make more of itself. Even his fingers, shifting the papers as he looked through them, contained a quiet strength that I found appealing.

Davian pulled out a small rectangle of vanilla-hued paper and held it out between two fingers. Even before I took it, I knew what it was.

What I didn’t know was how he had got hold of it.

I turned it over, face-up, and stared down at it.

Leather Bound, handwritten in dark red with Lily’s calligraphic swirl. Another brilliant idea of mine that had turned out to be not so brilliant after all. Before we opened, I decided we were going to hand-ink all of our business cards, to give them a personal feel. I made one, realised my handwriting sucked, and then handed the project over to Lily, who’d studied art in college. She’d gotten through about twenty of them before we both decided it was my worst idea ever. Lily hadn’t even offered her usual ‘I told you so’s. She just went out and had some real ones made by an actual printer.

We’d never given these handwritten cards out to customers and definitely not to strangers. Only to a few close friends and supporters, the people who’d helped get Leather Bound off the ground, financially or legally or emotionally.

I’m a bad liar and even worse at keeping my mouth shut. So I couldn’t not ask the thing that was in my brain.

‘Where did you get this?’ I asked. ‘We’ve never met.’

I’m decent with faces, but I’m not as good as Lily. I’m better with voices. I can hear one note from a singer and tell you who it is and how recent it is. But a face like Davian’s? I would have remembered him. Without a doubt.

‘No,’ he said quietly. ‘We’ve never met.’

‘Then where did you get this?’ It was an invasive question, but I asked it quietly, and he didn’t seem put off by it.

‘A … friend,’ he said. With a just-long-enough pause that I could almost read what he wasn’t saying. Perhaps a former lover. Or someone he desired. Clearly someone he didn’t want to talk about.

Despite my curiosity, I let it go. For now. I was good at digging. It’s what I did. But privacy is privacy. Unless it became important in finding his book, I wouldn’t pry any deeper than I had to.

‘Well, tell your friend I said thank you for recommending us,’ I said.

Something played across his features then, an odd darkness that pulled his caramel eyes slightly closed. His lips tightened a little, making his mouth seem drawn and concerned.

I waited to see if there was more, but he didn’t say anything. I wondered if that meant I was right about it being a former lover. A former love. Probably very recently former, from the look on his face.

Time to change the subject. As much as I wanted to know all I could about this man – including how he liked to be touched and what he tasted like and, oh, dear God, what he might look like beneath those perfectly fitted jeans – he was, first and foremost, a potential client. I didn’t want him to feel uncomfortable. Or sad, which was what seemed to be slipping into his eyes the longer we sat there in silence.

‘Why don’t you start at the beginning, Mister Cavanaugh, and tell me everything you can about the book you’re looking for.’

* * *

‘Only if you call me Davian,’ he said. ‘I still like to pretend I’m too young and wild to be a Mister.’

Which, of course, made me wonder how old he was. He looked my age but since nearing thirty I thought everyone either looked really young, really old or exactly my age. Which could not have been true.

‘I’m afraid to say you don’t look particularly wild, Davian,’ I said. I liked the way his name felt on my tongue. Devilish and yet comfortable, as if I was reading a new story in a very old book.

He didn’t say anything to that. His smile, however, was a little wild. I caught a glimpse of the devil in that grin and I’m not afraid to admit that it ratcheted my heart more than a little. Smart bad boys wrapped in well-tailored shirts are on my fetish list. Along with leather, voyeurism, great nipples, pretty cocks and, well, any number of things that I wasn’t supposed to be thinking about while talking to a potential client.

Resisting the urge to say his name again just for the fun of it, I said, ‘Tell me about your book.’

He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. The dark edges around his irises made his caramel eyes even more like chocolate. It’s weird to admit that I kept wanting to lick his eyeballs, but they just looked so much like a decadent dessert.

‘What would you like to know?’ he asked.

What I wanted to say was: I’d like to know why every time I look up at you, my whole body goes a little trembly. I’d like to know what your mouth tastes like. I’d like to know how your face looks when I very lightly touch the underside of your cock. Whether you’re the kind of man who will hold my wrists down on this very desk while you fuck me.

What I actually said was: ‘How about a title, an author and a publisher, for a start.’

‘Well, that’s the trouble,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t have any of those. Thus the non-existent part.’

I nodded as if I understood what he was saying, but a bad feeling was forming in the pit of my stomach. We occasionally got crazies at Leather Bound, people who were obsessed with finding something that only existed in their own minds. I hadn’t pegged Davian for that, but you never knew.

‘Well, tell me what you do know,’ I said.

From my semi-precarious position on the desktop, I grabbed my laptop and popped it open, then started taking notes.

‘It’s the only copy, because it’s handwritten, and it’s old,’ he said.

After a hesitant pause, he added, ‘Also, it’s the manifesto of a secret sex club.’

It was only by the grace of some deity that I didn’t fall off the desk. Or laugh out loud. My internal ‘is this man crazy?’ quiz-taker checked off another box towards a ‘yes’ answer. That made me sad.

‘A secret sex club,’ I said.

He had the decency to look slightly chagrined. ‘I know how it sounds,’ he said. ‘And it’s going to sound even worse when I tell you it’s for a friend.’

He was flipping the copper closures on his briefcase, staring at me intently. It wasn’t a fidgety gesture but one of intense concentration, as though he was trying to figure out something that was swirling around in his brain. I did that kind of thing sometimes when I was thinking, usually playing with an earring and a pen until Lily had to swat it out of my hand. Something told me it was way more irritating when I did it than when he did; on him, it reminded me of a lion studying prey, deciding on weaknesses before gearing up to pounce.

‘It’s called The Keyhole Club,’ he said.

‘The book or the club?’

‘Both.’

While trying to type THE KEYHOLE CLUB, my fingers kept going to the s and x keys. I got SEXHOLE the first two times, but I finally nailed it. My ninth-grade typing teacher would have been so embarrassed.

‘And it’s a manifesto on sex,’ I said.

He nodded. This time, my fingers still managed to find the wrong keys. KEY, I wrote. I backspaced three times and then wrote SEX.

‘Anything else? Sex is pretty broad.’

He shook his head.

‘Davian, if you’re uncomfortable talking about sex…’

‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m not uncomfortable talking about sex. I’m not uncomfortable with sex at all.’

He shifted forward in the chair, his hands resting on his knees. Only half a foot closer to me, and the hair on the back of my neck lifted at his very presence. Despite how strongly he was falling into the crazy category, that honeyed gaze kept threatening to do me in.

I shifted back slightly and looked over his head at a blank piece of wall. Nothing to see here. Move along, libido.

He let me shift back, but didn’t move away himself. I knew it was impossible to feel his breath from where he sat, or to feel the heat from his skin, and most of all it was impossible to feel that he was somehow hitching my lust up with every exhalation, and yet there it was.

‘In fact,’ he continued, although I was kind of hoping he wouldn’t, ‘I’m very comfortable with sex. I just –’ and at that he did sit back, and my lust took a little tiny tumble down the stairs, my body sighing in both relief and disappointment at being released. ‘– haven’t ever seen the book myself, so I don’t actually know very much about it.’

You could just tell he was the kind of man who was used to knowing things. Being in a position where he had to admit his lack of knowledge seemed to put him on edge.

‘So you’re looking for a non-existent sex book for a super-secret sex club that a friend of yours, what, lost?’

Despite the lust that kept blooming in my body at every turn, I was definitely starting to think I was getting taken for a ride. Either that, or this guy had lost his marbles.

The potentially crazy guy nodded.

‘That’s really not much to go on,’ I said.

He caught me with that gaze again, a tormented heat. I felt the weight of his want as solidly as if he’d pressed himself against me.

Why do I always have a thing for guys with complicated eyes? Never do I fall for a clear gaze, a simple, single colour. I’m a sucker for a little sadness behind the eyes, a fierce spark of defiance.

Kyle had that. Davian too. Probably, if I were to look back at every man I’d fallen in lust with, it was true of them all. There was some kind of warning sign in that, if I was smart enough to pay attention.

But Davian’s gaze was on me, and I couldn’t think beyond the needy lust that licked at my thighs.

‘You know,’ he said quietly, ‘I walked in the door with this urgent need to find this book for my friend, but, since I got here, all I can think about is you.’

His voice carried both surprise and a sense of wonder. I had no idea what to do with either the shift in tone or the complexity his words carried. It was like Davian’s sole purpose was to accidentally keep unbalancing me. It was certainly working.

‘By which I mean,’ he added, ‘all I can think about is kissing you.’

More unbalance. Teeter-totter all the way down.

At that, my cheeks flushed hot and fast, damn them. In the process of bringing my hand up to my face to cover the red, I knocked an entire pile of books off my desk. He didn’t bend to pick them up nor offer to help. Instead his gaze stayed solidly on mine, almost as if daring me to reach down and get them.

I left them where they’d fallen, waving my errant hand at them as if to say, ‘No worries, they do that all the time. On their own. For no reason.’

‘I don’t … I, uh …’ Get it together, Janine. Least professional bookstore owner ever. Least professional professional ever.

Professional. That’s what I kept thinking. Be professional. I needed cheerleaders in front of me, doing that thing they do. Rallying me. Gimme a B. Gimme an E. Be professional. B. E. Professional.

Of course, it wasn’t working. Davian had this presence about him, something dark and fierce, that made it hard to think. Maybe it was his contrast with Kyle’s sweetness. Maybe it was because I was freaked out about the marriage proposal. Or maybe it was just my hormones, my pheromones, my lust clock, wreaking havoc with my usual held-together self. For whatever reason, my libido had become a tangible entity in the room, winding its way around my brain with its ridiculous and incessant needs.

I closed my eyes for a moment, forcing myself to stay in my seat. Or on my desk, rather. It was a skill I’d learned a long time ago, at my first job. Before I learned that I was a much better boss than employee. Sit still, breathe, don’t speak until you already know what’s going to come out of your mouth.

‘I keep thinking about kissing you too,’ I said.

Well, that didn’t work.

* * *

‘Well,’ he said. ‘Now that that’s out of the way.’

‘Gah,’ I said. My usual articulate self. ‘I’m so sorry. This is why I usually let Lily do all the talking.’

‘I’m glad she’s not talking now,’ he said. His gaze just kept melting the edges of me. Like licking a lollipop, until bit by bit you got to the sweet, juicy centre. I flexed my thighs together, tight, willing the pressure to quell the beating pulse between them.

‘I kind of wish she was,’ I said, even though that wasn’t true.

Somehow we’d gotten closer together, although we hadn’t moved. Or rather I was pretty sure I hadn’t moved. And yet I was sitting on the very edge of my desk, as though every cell in my body was working hard to bring me closer to Davian.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I don’t mean to be vague, and I certainly don’t want to hinder your work. I just –’

‘Have trouble trusting people?’

It came out more biting than I meant it to, and I clamped my teeth on my tongue, hoping it would keep me from talking for a while. If I wasn’t trying to fuck the customer, I was trying to poke him with the sharp stick of too much honesty. Nicely done.

‘I won’t deny that,’ he said. Thankfully, he laughed a little as he spoke, easing some of my embarrassment.

‘Look,’ he said. ‘Can we take this slow? To be honest, I’m not entirely sure what I’m doing here, and I don’t want to screw it up.’

That sounded more like the beginning of a relationship than a business proposition. Still, I understood where he was coming from. I’m the kind of girl who jumps too quickly into business relationships and painfully slowly into anything that so much as smacks of love. Maybe he was just the opposite.

‘Slow is fine,’ I said, not at all unaware of the odd role reversal that was happening. ‘But I still need to know as much as you can tell me so that I don’t walk into this blind.’

Sighing, he nodded. ‘Fair enough.’

He settled back into the chair and crossed his legs.

‘My friend wrote me a letter, asking me to find a very important book that he, to use his words, “accidentally misplaced,”’ he said. ‘Which is very unlike him, but I wasn’t able to ask too many questions.’

After a pause, he added, ‘And that’s pretty much the whole story.’

I didn’t think that was true. There was more going on there, behind those complicated eyes. But he’d asked to take it slow, and I’d said yes.

‘This is a very unusual job,’ I said. ‘In truth, I’ve never had anyone ask for something like this. My rates for this kind of thing would be ridiculously high.’

‘I know,’ he said. ‘Money’s not a problem.’

‘You do know that you sound more than a little crazy? That this whole thing sounds suspicious.’

He smiled, sending my heart into another pitter-patter of yum.

‘I know,’ he said. ‘And trust me, if it wasn’t this particular friend asking, there’s no way I’d even be here.’

I had a moment to wonder if this mysterious friend was really Davian. Had he misplaced his own book during some moment of stupidity, too embarrassed to admit it, but wanting it back? He didn’t really seem like that kind of person. And the darkness had come back into his eyes as he spoke, a sadness that I couldn’t place. There was more here than he was letting on, but I didn’t think he was lying about his friend. Or about the book.

‘I’d like a list of his potential friends, then,’ I said. ‘People I can talk to. And all of the information you have about the sex club.’

I impressed myself with my own straight face at that.

‘Here’s the thing.’ He leaned forward, so that we were the kind of close you see in movies, the kind of close that’s reserved for your best friends and the people you really, really wanted to kiss. And lick. And fuck.

I tried to focus on his eyes, but their caramelly heat was making things worse, so I lowered my gaze to his neck, watching the place where his pulse thrummed beneath the skin. Nope, that was no better.

‘I can’t talk about the sex club,’ he said. ‘I’ve already said more than I should have.’

I sighed, and the breath leaving me was almost painful. There was no way I could take this job. Not that the idea of playing super sleuth didn’t appeal to me, but the holes were starting to show in his story. Big, big holes. He clearly thought he was part of a Fight Club-esque novel or something.

The crazy thing was that, even with all of that, I almost believed him. I certainly wanted to believe him. Hot sexy well-read guy with just a little crazy to offset the good stuff? That wasn’t too far on the wild side, was it?

Yes, sadly it was.

We sat in silence. My office got smaller and smaller with every breath, until I swore I could feel the heat shimmering off his skin, until I felt like all I had to do was reach out my hand and it would brush along his thigh.

I knew I couldn’t take this job. No matter how much I wanted to. No matter how hot he was. It was a wild-goose chase. A blind alley that led to a dead end filled with nothing but lust and failure.

Slipping down from the desk, I smoothed one hand down the front of my dress and prepared my professional voice, which was pretty much my bitch voice wrapped in some sweet coating.

‘I’m sorry, Mister Cavanaugh,’ I said. ‘I don’t think I’m the right person for this job. But I really appreciate you coming to see us. I wish you the best of luck with finding someone who can help you.’

Even as I stood up, he hadn’t moved back. I was closer to him than I had been before. So close I could feel his body heat, and catch the slightest hint of pine on his skin. It made me feel a little dizzy.

He took my hand. It was a gesture that seemed as natural to him as breathing, and yet he looked utterly surprised that he’d done it.

‘Please reconsider,’ he said. There was so much sincerity, so much yearning, in his voice that for a moment I wondered if I was making a mistake.

Then I thought about the conversation that had just happened. There was no way I was going to find this book, even if it did exist, and I wasn’t about to take on a client who was this sexy and this close to being clearly crazy. As much as I wanted a diversion from my current life, there was no way that saying yes to him was not the worst idea ever.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said again. ‘I just can’t. I can, however, recommend some other places to try.’

I meant to say something then, or ask something, but he stood, moving closer to me in the process, never letting go of my hand. He reached into his pocket with his free hand and dropped a simple cream-coloured card on my desk.

‘I don’t want someone else,’ he said. ‘Please call me if you change your mind.’

He picked up the Leather Bound card. ‘And I’d like to keep this,’ he said. ‘In case I need to find you.’

For some reason I was loath to give the card up again. As if I’d hoped to use it to find some clue about who’d given it to him, how he was connected to my life or to Leather Bound.

I wanted to make some crack about how he knew exactly where to find me. Here, mostly, with my nose tucked into books.

But of course I merely nodded and watched as he slipped the card into his jeans pocket. It would have been unprofessional to do anything else. And I was trying damn hard to stay professional.

Despite the fact that he still holding my hand and that his eyes were a creamy caramel that seemed swirled full of dark thoughts and even darker desires. Despite the fact that my life was falling apart around me and that I had an impossible question I couldn’t answer and a non-existent book I couldn’t find.

CHAPTER 3

After Davian left, walking out of the office while I stood there and refused, refused, refused to look at his beautiful ass in those dark jeans, I dropped my head into my hands. It felt like time for either hysterical laughter or panicked tears, but my body just couldn’t seem to move past the arousal state into something new.

It didn’t take long for Lily to poke her head in, her already arched eyebrows raised another notch.

‘Oh. My. God,’ she breathed. ‘I thought you were going to fuck him right here in your office for the whole world to watch.’

Lil dropped herself into the chair Davian had vacated. Her stockinged legs were just long enough that she could rest her feet on the corner of the desk. ‘And by the whole world I mean me, of course.’

Fuck. Yes, that was just what I’d wanted to do to him. Or rather, have him do to me. His presence had dredged up desires I hadn’t had in a long time. Since long before Kyle, who had made it clear early on that kink wasn’t really his thing. I’d agreed, thinking it wasn’t that important. Our sex was vanilla, maybe, but it was good vanilla.

Now I couldn’t get images of leather and submission out of my mind. I kept thinking about how Davian’s hands would feel capturing my wrists, holding me down. About him fastening a collar of leather about my neck and holding it while I sucked him.

‘No,’ I said, unsure what I was even saying no to.

‘No, what? Janine, you were practically puddling into an ooey gooey mess of melting chocolate in here.’

I gave her the look. She was used to that look. It was a look that said please stop talking before I come over there and sit on you.

It was a threat that clearly didn’t hold as much weight as it used to, because she just kept going.

‘OK, fine,’ she said. ‘But at least tell me the rest. Is he looking for some ancient Egyptian script? Some musty old academic bible? Or something juicier? Please say juicier.’ Her tongue flickered out, playing around with her ball piercing.

‘No,’ I said. ‘It’s not juicy. In fact, I turned him down.’

She quit playing with her piercing and her mouth dropped open just a little. ‘What? Why? Huh?’ She was pushing her point to the max, playing up the confusion to show me that I’d made a mistake. ‘He’s hot as hell. He wants a book that doesn’t exist. It’s absolutely perfect for your little sleuthing brain.’

I started to say something, but she wasn’t finished. ‘If you’re going to set up a no-client-fucking policy, this is the wrong time,’ she said. ‘Fuck him and take the job. You can totally do both.’