Chapter 1: The Library's Secret
The library was always cold. It didn’t matter how high the fire was stoked in the marble hearth; a damp chill clung to the air, seeping from the leather-bound books and the dark oak panels. Evelyn pulled her shawl tighter, the soft wool doing little to warm her. She was pretending to read, her eyes tracing the same sentence over and over without comprehension. Outside, the late autumn rain streaked the windows, blurring the world into a watercolor of gray and brown.
The only sound was the ticking of the grandfather clock and the occasional hiss of a dying ember.Then, the soft click of the door.
She didn’t look up, assuming it was a maid.The footsteps were too heavy, though. A familiar scent followed—fresh earth, dried leaves, and hard soap.Her breath hitched. She kept her eyes fixed on the page, the words now a blur.Dean moved quietly for a big man. She listened to the soft rasp of his cloth against the shelves, the gentle thud as he slid a book out and back in.He was working his way around the room. Her skin prickled with awareness.She could feel the space between them shrinking, an invisible thread pulling taut.
He was behind her chair.She held herself perfectly still.The dusting stopped. She could hear his breathing, slow and even. Then, the warmth of his hand, the shocking, rough texture of his work-calloused fingers, brushed the bare skin of her shoulder, just above the neckline of her dress.
She gasped. The book tumbled from her lap, landing on the Persian rug with a muffled thud.
“Sorry, ma’am,” his voice was low, graveled from disuse.He didn’t sound sorry.
Evelyn turned her head, finally looking up at him.He was already kneeling beside her chair, his face level with hers. Sun-bronzed, with fine lines at the corners of his eyes from squinting in the light. His gaze wasn’t servile.It was hungry, direct, seeing straight through the careful facade of Mrs. Jacob Laughton to the starving woman underneath.“You startled me,” she whispered, her voice thin.
“I know.” His eyes didn’t leave hers. One hand came to rest on the arm of the chair, caging her in.The other hovered near her skirts. “You’ve been sitting there for an hour.Haven’t turned a page.”
Her face flushed with heat. He’d been watching her.
Before she could form a word of protest, his hand slid from the chair to her calf, his touch firm through the thin silk of her dress. A shockwave went through her.No one touched her.Not like this. Jacob’s hands were businesslike, impatient.“Dean…” It was meant to be a command.It came out a plea.
“Shhh.” His palm smoothed up her calf, over her knee, to her thigh. His rough skin caught on the silk, hiking the material upward. The cool library air touched her stockinged skin, followed by the scorching heat of his hand. He held her gaze, a challenge and a promise, as his fingers pushed insistently at the inside of her thighs. “Part them.”
A shudder wracked her body.She was trembling, every nerve ending screaming.This was madness. She should scream, push him away. But the loneliness of the last two years was a heavier weight than any sin.With a soft, broken sound, she let her knees fall apart.
The damp, cool air of the room hit the heated core of her, and she flinched. Dean’s eyes darkened, his pupils swallowing the blue. He didn’t look away from her face as he bent his head.The first touch of his mouth through her underthings was a lightning strike. She cried out, her head falling back against the leather. He nuzzled her, a slow, filthy drag of his stubbled chin against her tender flesh, his hot breath seeping through the damp linen. Then his hands, those beautiful rough hands, hooked his fingers in the waist of her drawers and pulled them down, just enough.He didn’t tease. He licked a slow, wet stripe up the entire length of her, from her opening to the aching bud above. It was obscenely direct. Evelyn’s hands flew to his hair, not to push him away, but to clutch the dark strands.He groaned against her, the vibration making her hips jerk.
“Fuck,” he muttered, his voice muffled against her skin. “You’re dripping.”
He settled in then, like a man at a feast after a long famine. He ate her with single-minded intensity, his tongue fucking into her with shallow, relentless thrusts before circling that tight, desperate peak. His nose pressed against her, his stubble a delicious abrasion on her soft thighs. One of his arms hooked under her leg, hauling her closer, opening her wider to him.
Evelyn was unraveling. Sounds she didn’t recognize poured from her mouth—high, whimpering moans, ragged curses.Pleasure, raw and shocking, coiled tighter and tighter in her belly. She’d had sex with her husband.This was something else.This was being devoured.
“Dean… I can’t… I’m going to…”
He responded by sucking her clit into his mouth, his tongue flicking rapidly.It was too much.The coil snapped. Her back arched off the chair as a silent scream tore through her, wave after wave of violent pleasure shattering her into a thousand bright pieces. He drank from her, riding out her convulsions until she was a trembling, gasping wreck, slumped in the chair.
He pulled back, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.His lips were slick, his jaw glistening. He looked up at her, his breath coming hard.He was still fully clothed, still kneeling at her feet. She was exposed, used, gloriously ruined.He stood up in one fluid motion. He didn’t help her fix her skirts. He just looked down at her, his own need evident in the tight strain of his trousers. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a cigarette, and lit it with a match scraped against the sole of his boot. He took a long drag, his eyes never leaving her flushed, disheveled form.“Tomorrow,” he said, his voice thick. “The old greenhouse.Two o’clock.”
He didn’t wait for an answer. He turned and walked out, the door clicking shut softly behind him, leaving her alone with the smell of smoke, sex, and ashes.