heading into our slow time of year.”
She sets the coffee in front of me. “Did you try over at Seagull Inn? They sometimes start looking for holiday hires right about now.”
“I’ll look into it,” I reply evasively. As if I’ll ever set foot in the inn or restaurant again. “I’m Eve, by the way. Just moved here about ten days ago.”
“Welcome to Castille, Eve.” She extends her hand for a shake. “I’m Carol. What prompted your move?”
“I inherited my uncle’s house over on Sparrow Lane,” I explain. “So does the job market pick up around here over the holidays?”
She shrugs. “Depends. We used to get more people in town for winter, but tourism has dropped off a lot lately. What kind of job are you looking for?”
“Anything I can get,” I admit.
“There’s usually jobs over at the Hillman ski resort,” Alex calls from the cash register area. “When winter sports pick up, at least. Snowmobiling, ice fishing, snow-shoeing.”
Given that I know nothing about winter sports, except that they’re cold and involve things like blades and poles, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be at the top of a hire list. Then again, beggars can’t be choosers.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I say. “Thanks for the tip. And the coffee.”
I pick up my books, slide off the stool, and head toward the door. Buttoning my coat, I push it open. Just as I step outside, my body comes up against something rock-solid and strong.
I stumble backward, my heel tilting off-balance. My bag of books falls to the sidewalk. Two large hands close around my arms, steadying me. Though the touch is one of mere polite assistance, my reaction is totally disproportionate as my heart crashes against my ribs and shock floods my veins.
“Easy.” His voice is deep and all-encompassing, like the roots of an oak tree spreading beneath the earth.
Easy? The word sounds odd, incongruous to my life. Nothing has been easy of late.
I struggle to regain my composure and pull away from his grip. Aside from a few brief handshakes, I haven’t touched, or been touched, by a man in close to a year. I’ve smothered all my desire and physical urges, blaming them for instigating my downfall. If I hadn’t been attracted to David, if I hadn’t let him do what he did, none of it would have happened.
Now I don’t know what to make of my reaction to a stranger. Even with a foot of space between us, my pulse is racing and my skin is hot.
Trembling, I reach for the books I’ve dropped. He bends at the same time and picks them up before I do. He straightens and hands them to me. Our fingers brush, sending a shiver clear up my arm.
“Are you all right?” he asks.
I nod. He’s big, well over six feet tall, his presence blocking the street, his shoulders broad and his chest wide beneath a charcoal button-down shirt. I force my gaze from his shirt front up to his face.
A hot sensation breaks open inside me, melting the ice lodged inside my chest. Gray eyes, the color of a granite wall, regard me from beneath thick black eyebrows. His features are strong and bold, the angles of his cheekbones sloping down to a square jaw dusted with stubble and a well-shaped mouth. His dark hair, long enough to brush the back of his collar, is messy in an unintentional way, as if he’s been dragging his hand through it.
The rest of the world fades into black and white, all color distilling into the gray of his eyes.
A sense of unreality washes over me, as if I’ve seen him before, but through a dream blistered with eroticism, the kind I used to wake from hot and aching.
He steps away, then stops. His gaze arrows in on my face with a perception that is shockingly intimate, as if he can penetrate right down to my core. That look arcs into me like a shooting star, exploding heat through my blood.
What the…?
I can’t move, can’t break my gaze from his. Sudden tension laces through his body, tightening his shoulders.
““I…I need to go,” I stammer.
“Wait.” He moves forward, closing his hand around my wrist.
I should be alarmed, but his grip is warm and tight, his fingers resting against the pulse beating wildly under my skin. Rather than controlling, his hold is steadying, the way an anchor keeps a boat from drifting. I catch his scent—all things I like. Salt and citrus, autumn leaves, the faintly bitter smell of ink.
“What’s your name?” Urgency threads his voice, like he not only wants to know my name, he has to know. Is compelled to know.
“Eve.” Why am I telling him?
“Eve.” He says my name as if he’s tasting it, rolling the letters across his tongue, over the surface of his teeth, before swallowing them whole.
I have the sudden sense he can do the same to me, like Red Riding Hood and the wolf.
I drag in a breath and twist my arm from his grip. The loss of contact, the sudden cold, reminds me who I am and why I’m here.
“I have to go,” I repeat.
He backs away, one hand up as if he doesn’t want to scare me. Not that he could. I’m afraid of men who wear tailored suits, of lawyers, consultants, administrators, board members. He doesn’t seem like any of those things. With his dark, messy hair and whiskered face, his storm-gray eyes, he’s like a force of nature, untamed and unkempt.
Move, Eve. Walk back to the car. But moving would require breaking eye contact, dissolving the hot sensation melting inside me, letting the cold back in.
My god. I’ve forgotten what it feels like to feel.
I tighten my grip on the books. “Who are you?”
His mouth compresses, a shutter coming down over his gray eyes. “No one you want to know.”
Stepping back, he breaks the spell holding us together. He walks away, his long stride taking him to the end of the block in seconds. He turns a corner and is gone.
I pull in a breath. A surreal feeling washes over me, as if I’d imagined that whole encounter. Dreamed it up from some deep part of me that still longs to be touched.
I look back at the corner. The air shimmers, almost as if his absence has left a hole in the atmosphere. My skin still tingles from his tight grip.
Oh, don’t, Eve. That path led you to destruction.
I’ve changed, grown up, faced the punishment of my mistakes. I can’t get all wistful about a random encounter with a stranger, no matter how captivating he is and how unreal the sense that I’ve seen him before.
Not to mention, he all but warned me away.
In stories, nothing good ever comes from failing to heed an overt warning, no matter how great the temptation.
Don’t go into the woods. Don’t unlock the door. Stay away from the castle. Don’t open the box.
Above all, don’t even look at the beautiful, tantalizing apple.
Spoiler: Eve can’t resist the apple.
Where will temptation lead her?
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About the Author
New York Times & USA Today bestselling author Nina Lane writes hot, sexy romances about professors, bad boys, candy makers, and protective alpha males who find themselves consumed with love for one woman alone. Originally from California, Nina holds a PhD in Art History and an MA in Library and Information Studies, which means she loves both research and organization. She also enjoys traveling and thinks St. Petersburg, Russia is a city everyone should visit at least once. Although Nina would go back to college for another degree because she's that much of a bookworm and a perpetual student, she now lives the happy life of a full-time writer.
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