Page 5

Chapter Five

Ruby

At a pretty pivotal point in my life, I’d learned a few lessons that would take years to undo. The first being that any sort of unknown could be made less scary with copious amounts of research. My browser history was probably in some sort of FBI database, for all I knew, especially the last couple months.

There was nothing to be done about that, though. Hiring and vetting an escort required a few private browsers, and no one had shown up to arrest me yet, so I was assuming that I was still safe from legal prosecution.

When I got to work the next day, there was an email waiting for me from the escort agency. If I wanted, I could reschedule a meeting with Jimmy (now that I knew his name, I’d decided there was no worry of sexual attraction to someone named Jimmy with thin lips and a baby face). But even though he would be the monumentally safer choice than trying to wade into the dating pool—shudder—I couldn’t bring myself to do it just yet.

The day was still young.

If I didn’t reschedule, Jimmy’s brief visit would go down as a very expensive mistake that I had no intention of making again.

“How was the meeting with the hooker yesterday?”

There was no need to glance up from my computer screen, because Lauren was the only person in the world who’d ask me that. “He’s not a hooker, Lo, he’s an escort.”

“An escort who also gets paid to have sex at his fancy brothel in Vegas, yeah?”

With a sigh, I closed out the browser. My search history had my cheeks going warm, and I prayed Lauren didn’t notice. “Whether he does or doesn’t is not my problem. I didn’t hire him for sex, I hired him for ...”

“Nonsexual sexual training?” she supplied helpfully.

I gave her a dry look. “Yes.”

“God, when I was in high school, we learned everything from Cosmo .” She plopped down in the chair opposite my desk. “They had the best articles. The day I learned about Reverse Cowgirl was the day my life changed.”

Lauren wasn’t that much older, but on days like this, it felt like she had decades more experience. She also had no filter, a healthy sex drive, and the determination to do her very best to bring me into the same hormonal space she occupied happily. “I don’t think a magazine can fix me, Lo.”

I smiled, but it was tight at the edges. In fact, I’d felt tight and edgy ever since walking away from that bench, leaving Griffin King sprawled on it like it was a freaking throne.

Because I had a healthy sense of vanity, I had managed not to look back until I’d cleared the library doors, finally allowing myself a peek around the corner to see what he’d do.

For a few minutes, he sat there, staring at the creek, that big, muscled arm still stretched along the back of the bench. Then he stood, unfolding his body with the kind of unhurried grace that you couldn’t fake. That was a man who was comfortable in his skin, and I watched him walk away with a pinprick of foreboding digging into the back of my mind.

The research started immediately.

For as much as I’d watched those boys when I was younger, I had never really thought about looking them up. Why would I?

But the moment my search engine caught wind of their names, I sat at that computer with my jaw hanging open. Apparently this was the stuff I missed when I delegated the periodicals section to Kenny.

The King brothers weren’t just talented, and they weren’t just successful—they were famous. Article after article had my eyes widening.

Griffin King: The Next Defensive MVP? Behind His Quest to Break the Offensive Streak

Barrett King Retires at 28: The Hidden Dark Side of the League’s Head-Injury Problem

The Brain vs. the Brawn: The Biggest Showdown in Football Happens This Weekend. Which King Brother Will Come Out on Top?

Marital woes overshadow Barrett King’s triumphant second year of coaching. Is his playboy brother part of the problem? Our body language expert dissects their tense on-field exchange.

Sexiest player in the league? Griffin King breaks down why he’s not sure marriage is in the cards.

That last article came with a few photographs—practically indecent photographs that answered at least one of my questions.

Griffin—as one might imagine, if they wanted to imagine such a thing—looked incredible naked. The first photo, bigger than the other two, featured him standing in a dimly lit locker room, holding a football over his groin. The rest was skin. Skin and honed muscles and a dangerously attractive facial expression that had me pressing my thighs together.

Honestly, his body should’ve been in a museum somewhere.

The bend of muscles under flawless golden skin, curves over his shoulders, stacked squares on his stomach and the mouthwatering cut of the V-shaped muscles below his abs, the impossibly rounded biceps and the veins roping along his forearm where his big hand held the ball—it was all just a bit much, if you asked me.

Probably why I stared at it a little too long, but that was completely irrelevant.

“Whatcha staring at?” Lo asked, leaning closer to my desk.

I snapped the laptop shut. “Nothing. Just doing some research.”

She arched an eyebrow. “So ... the hooker.”

“Could you say that just a little louder?” I hissed, looking frantically past the door of my office. It was, quite blessedly, empty. “The escort is probably back at his hotel. It didn’t ... the meeting didn’t happen. Someone I knew from when I was younger showed up, and I got all ...” I waved my hands next to my head.

Lo smiled. “I hate when that happens.”

“It threw me off,” I admitted. “Then I really started thinking about how it looked that I was hiring someone to help me build my confidence around men. Who needs that?”

“You don’t,” she said easily. “Many people live very happily without romantic companionship. It’s only a problem if it bothers you.”

Did it?

There was no one presuming on my time. If I wanted to lie in bed and watch Jane Austen movies all weekend? No one could stop me. If I wanted to read for days or go out to eat with friends and live on cereal for a week straight or ... or ...

The thoughts fizzled there.

Yes. It bothered me.

When I lay alone in my bed, nothing but the sound of my own heart to distract me from my thoughts, I wanted to know how it felt. All of it. The sweet parts and the simple parts and the dirty parts too.

I didn’t need it all the time, mind you. The thought of man sounds and smells and ... everything in my house made my nose wrinkle. He could stay in his own place, thank you very much. It was about possessing the knowledge. A reference point for comparison.

No, I couldn’t hold it in my grasp forever; I couldn’t lock it in a box for safekeeping. But it would still be mine. Those experiences and memories couldn’t be taken away by anyone, no matter what.

If I closed my eyes and thought about what knowledge looked like, it was a tidy stack of shiny gold coins that locked together. Like building blocks. The more of those coins in your possession, the more valuable they became. It was a cumulative thing, each one building upon the one before. In my head, I wanted those coins to build something big and grand and beautiful that I could study and admire.

Right now, there was nothing but a flimsy deck of cards instead—at least when it came to this particular subject of study. A gentle breeze would knock it right over, and there was nothing I could do about that.

Slumping at my desk, I covered my face with my hands. “I’m not cut out for this. For any of it. I’m just going to die alone in my little house. I’ll probably get some cats and learn how to knit and bake myself cupcakes because there’s no one around me to eat them.”

She clucked her tongue. “Well, aren’t we one giant cliché, huh? First, Bruiser would be terrified of those cats, and you don’t like them anyway.”

“I don’t. They freak me out.”

Bruiser lifted his head from where he lay at my feet, letting out a commiserating groan as he flopped onto his side to get comfortable. Lauren smiled.

“You tried knitting once, and you got very angry.”

I sighed. “I did. Making all those little loops made me want to stab someone.” I gave her a meaningful look. “But I couldn’t because I live alone.”

Lauren rounded my desk, giving me a consoling pat on the back. “You’ll get it figured out, shorty.”

At the nickname, I leveled a glare in her direction. All it managed to do was make her laugh, which said more about my glare than it did Lauren.

Before she left my office, she snapped her fingers. “Oh, I got a call from the city offices while you were doing story hour earlier.”

Immediately, I sat up in my chair. “And?”

Her face bent in a grimace. “Not good news. The property will start taking offers in the next couple weeks. Sheila told me there are two real estate developers interested.”

“Damn it,” I whispered, disappointment anchoring somewhere deep in my belly. On the far wall of my office were all the renders I’d had drawn up to present to the board of directors. They loved them. But, as always, it wasn’t a matter of them liking my ideas; it was a matter of money.

For years, I’d been planning what we could do to the land surrounding the library once it went up for sale. The old man who’d owned it had passed away a few months earlier, and it took a while for his kids to decide what they wanted to do. I’d reached out more than once, telling them about the nature path, the butterfly garden, how we could highlight Colorado artists with small sculptures and interactive features for kids and families.

Make it something memorable and wonderful. A legacy that would outlive me, that was for sure.

It was the kind of thing that kids remembered as they got older, that they wanted to bring their kids back to. I thought of the two little boys with their buckets, searching for minnows in the creek, and it took everything in me to swallow my disappointment.

Lauren gave me a tiny wink. “Not over yet. We’ll raise a lot of money from the fair next week.”

“I know we will.” I conjured a smile, but based on the slight arch to Lo’s eyebrow, it wasn’t a very believable one.

Kenny—one of our college-age employees—popped his head into my office. “Ruby? There’s someone out here asking for you.”

There was a feverish look in his eyes that had me narrowing mine. “Who?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” he said gravely.

Lauren brushed past him and looked out into the main area of the library, her mouth falling open. “Is that ... Griffin King?” she whispered. “Do you know Griffin King?”

Son of a biscuit. My eyes pinched shut, and I took a deep breath. I should’ve known he wouldn’t just go away.

Still seated at my desk, I couldn’t see out into the library, so I stood and glanced through the windows lining the side of my office. When I caught sight of him, a nervous swirling kicked off in my stomach, seeping out through all four limbs, making my fingertips tingle.

It wasn’t even fair.

People shouldn’t look like him and be able to just ... walk around for anyone to see. This was a library, for crying out loud.

Today, he was wearing a sinfully tight white T-shirt and a black hat turned backward on his head. His long, thick legs were covered in dark joggers that hugged his tree-trunk thighs.

“Sort of,” I hedged. “When I was younger, he and his family lived in the house behind mine.”

Lauren clutched my arm. “Is that ... is that the Griffin from when you were younger?”

“Yes.”

Her eyes widened. “And you didn’t know he was Griffin King?”

I held my hands up helplessly. “I don’t watch TV. I hate social media.”

My explanations must not have impressed her, because she continued to stare at me like I’d personally injured her. “ That’s who you saw before the hooker showed up?”

Kenny’s eyes widened. “The what?”

I pinched Lauren’s side, and she winced. “There were no hookers,” I said firmly. “Ignore her, please.”

Based on the look on Kenny’s face, he was fairly unconvinced he could manage that. “Eh, what do you want me to tell him?”

I ran a hand through my hair, sighing heavily. “I’ll handle him.”

“Oh, please do,” Lauren breathed. “I’d handle him so hard if he were here for me.”

Crossing my arms, I turned and pinned her with a thoroughly unamused look. “Don’t you have something to do, Lo?”

“Not that’s more important than this.”

“Go. Shoo,” I told her, pushing her down the hallway. “There’s a cart of books that need to be shelved.”

As she walked away, she muttered underneath her breath about how I was the worst boss in the world. Pinching the bridge of my nose, I took a moment to try to steady my breathing.

Impossible, but worth a try at least.

My pulse was racing, and I wondered if it would echo through the quiet space when I joined him. Griffin had his hands tucked into his pockets, studying one of the displays in the middle of the room. I’d worked on it a few days earlier, highlighting some spicy summer reads.

And now he was standing in front of them, reaching to pick up the one on the top of a pile. His lips hooked up in a smirk as he read the back cover. That book was about a priest and his very forbidden love affair with a young woman, and I had to tear my eyes away before I lost the nerve to walk up to him.

From everything I’d found, Griffin was an actual, legitimate celebrity. Famous for his feud with his brother, for his talent on the field, and even more than that, for his string of casual relationships off the field.

He’d dated models and actresses, a couple of singers. All stunningly beautiful, none of them around for very long.

With a tight jaw, I looked down at the blouse that buttoned up to the bottom of my throat, with a lace collar that I’d always liked. The pencil skirt was probably half a size too big, but that never really bothered me too much.

I wasn’t curvy, and I wasn’t beautiful. I was just me. And even if I was okay with that, it was still hard to wrap my mind around someone like him showing up for someone like me. Maybe I was on the small side of a B cup and I didn’t have the kind of curves that men tripped over, but I was smart and kind and friendly.

Sort of. Once you got to know me.

It felt insane to have any type of interaction with him—didn’t matter if it was casual or friendly. There was a hierarchy of people in the world, whether we wanted to admit it or not. Like Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, except that three-sided figure represented the mental structure of how each person viewed the world.

That ranking system looked different to every person. Some placed tech giants and billionaires at the top; others, esteemed politicians or activists. Some worshipped people like Griffin—uniquely talented in something physical, a sport that gathered millions around a field or a television every week to cheer for something larger than themselves.

My own pyramid was a little different. I revered the thinkers and the doers, the people who made a direct impact on their world, even if it was done quietly, with a spine of steel. But no matter whose hierarchy we were looking at, my own place likely came well beneath his, and we both knew it.

My hand toyed with the button under the lace, and I felt myself tug all that heavy armor into place. When I was a teenager, my dad always used to say I was like a feral cat, swiping at anyone who tried to help but melting when the right person came along.

There’d be no melting for Griffin, so I blew out a harsh breath, notched my chin up, and marched toward him.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

He took his sweet-ass time setting the book down, and when he did, there was a teasing glint in his eye that made me instantly wary.

“Good morning, Ruby.” His gaze tracked down the front of my body and settled back on my face a moment later. “You look lovely in that color.”

This wasn’t fair. A simple compliment, and the skin on my upper body was now registering a thousand degrees.

And he did it with a twinkle in his eyes and a grin hovering on the edges of his perfect mouth.

Ass.

“You have to leave.”

The words came out with only the slightest tinge of panic, because something about Griffin made me feel very, very panicky, indeed. Like if I stayed around him too long, all the edges of my carefully constructed world would start peeling away.

And I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to see what was underneath.

With unhurried strides, he walked around the table, picking up a fantasy novel I hadn’t had a chance to read yet. “Now, that is not the friendliest greeting, is it? I’ve been up since dawn waiting for the library to open.”

I plucked the book from his hand. “You have not.”

Griffin ignored me, selecting a cowboy romance with a gorgeous red cover. He flipped through some of the pages, eyebrows popping high at whatever he saw. His eyes flicked to mine. “You read all these books, birdy?”

My cheeks felt hot, but I held his gaze. “Not all of them, but some. It’s part of the job to know what people are looking for, and right now, they want spicy romance.”

“I think I might check this one out,” he said, holding the book up. “Not much of a reader, but I could make an exception.”

Holding his gaze, I pointed at the cover. “You want to read that book?”

“Oh yeah,” he answered in a rumbling voice that I felt down to my toes. “Imagine all the things I could learn.”

With a tiny wink, he tucked the book under his arm and ambled off toward the stacks in the back of the library, whistling low and quiet. Mouth agape, I watched him go. Lauren waved her arms frantically, and when I cut her a look, she mouthed, What are you doing, go!

Narrowing my eyes in a fierce glare did nothing to my friend, because she simply jabbed her finger in the air in Griffin’s general direction.

The man in question paused and glanced over his shoulder. “You need to come with me, otherwise I’ll be wandering aimlessly for hours. Unless you’d like to see my face around every corner. For your entire day.”

When I leveled my glare in his direction, his smile simply grew, a deep, enticing dimple appearing in the dark stubble on his knife-sharp jaw.

What an ass.

“No.” I crossed my arms. “You are perfectly capable of finding books on your own.”

Behind me, Lauren hissed my name, but I ignored her.

I mean ... fine, I was being a little snippy, but I couldn’t help it.

This was exactly the way he was as a kid too. Nosy and pushy and always teasing me.

He glanced around the building, eyes narrowed in thought. “You got any picture books on how to get better at football? I bet my new coach would be happy if I started reading one of those.”

The way my brow furrowed, I just knew I was popping some new wrinkles, courtesy of this freaking man. “You have a new coach?”

He hummed. “Just transferred to Denver. Signing the contract any day now. That’s why I couldn’t come visit until today, because my agent and I had to hammer out a few last details. Did I not mention that?”

Tha-thunk.

That was the sound of my heart dropping into the pit of my stomach.

“You did not,” I said faintly. Oh God, he’d practically be local.

Okay, fine. Not local. But within driving distance.

Freaking great.

“Five minutes,” I told him. “You have me for five minutes, and then I need to get back to work.”

“No, she doesn’t. Her schedule’s wide open,” Lauren called out. Kenny’s eyes widened. Someone from the other side of the library shushed her.

“See, now that’s helpful,” Griffin pointed out. “Thank you ...”

“Lauren,” she supplied graciously.

I rolled my eyes at the simpering smile on her face. Kenny looked like he was gonna pass out.

Griffin smiled oh so charmingly. “Lauren. You are a gem.” Then he locked his gaze on mine and spread his arm out. “After you. I am your humble student, Miss Tate.”

I was definitely going to punch him before this was over.