out with the books.
But, for some reason, she didn’t want Ronan to know all that. Because “all that” could lead to other things she didn’t want to talk about.
“What’s the weirdest thing someone has come in for?” There was a mischievous sparkle to his blue eyes, and her heart thumped insistently in her chest. The man could melt a grown woman with those eyes.
“Uh…” She forced her brain to shift gears. “We had this guy once who was in town for the weekend. He wanted a tarot reading done, but with his own cards, and they were kind of…graphic.”
Ronan raised a brow.
She cringed at the memory. “Tarot has four suits, right. Swords, wands, pentacles, and cups. These cards had…uh, phallic images for some of the suits. I’ll leave it to you to guess what they used for swords.”
Ronan laughed, and the sound was rough and raspy and delightfully at odds with his smooth voice. It sent a shiver down Audrey’s spine. “What did you do?”
“I wasn’t giving the reading, thankfully. We have a woman who comes in every weekend to take clients, so she ended up with him. He took the whole thing very seriously, and our poor tarot lady had to do the whole thing with a lot of very large, veiny penises staring up at her.”
Ronan shook his head, still chuckling. “Veiny?”
“Uh, yeah.” Audrey wrinkled her nose. “It was gross.”
“I’ll bet.”
“It’s funny. These days, we think of tarot as very hocus-pocus. But tarot originated as a card game back in the fifteenth century and wasn’t widely used for divination until the late eighteenth century.”
“I stand by my earlier assessment. If there’s ever trivia in Kissing Creek, I want you on my team.”
Her brain circled on “I want you” over and over, creating a sexy echo in her head. Yeah, right; a man like Ronan would never, ever want a woman like her. White trash, former trailer-park girl skirting the poverty line. A woman with nothing to offer. Did she seriously think a professor would be interested in a barista with a fountain of useless general knowledge?
“So, uh, the bookstore is down here.” She pointed down Rose Street, which looked more like a glorified driveway than a road. “Take a left at the end.”
He paused, eyes searching her face. The sun was high, and it was so warm Audrey felt like she was burning up under her cardigan. She only wore the damn thing to ward against the air-conditioning her aunt blasted to combat her hot flashes. But outside, under the intense contact of Ronan’s delicious blue gaze, Audrey was seriously concerned that she might not-so-spontaneously combust.
“Would you like to accompany me?”
Damn. He spoke like a freaking Jane Austen hero, and that only served to ratchet her desire up a few more notches. The men she knew spoke in a series of grunts, and they most certainly didn’t use words like “accompany.”
“Sure.” She was powerless to do anything but agree. “I love books.”
You love books? Really? That’s the best you could do?
Audrey had her nerd label all but stamped to her forehead. She devoured books like her life depended on it. Second Chance often had sales to clear out old stock where the books were a quarter each. She’d come home with a big stack every time, and there was something about the cracked spines and coffee stains and notes in the margin that she adored.
“I love books, too.” Ronan grinned, and Audrey’s heart thumped.
She would need to be on her best behavior today, because it was fine for Ronan to channel some Colin Firth–level sexiness, but she needed to keep her head on straight. Scratching an itch was fine, but not with her professor.
…
Ronan watched as Audrey slipped her cardigan off and slung it over one arm. The thin straps of her dress exposed rounded shoulders dusted with freckles and the sweet slope of her neck. He cleared his throat and forced his eyes ahead of him as they walked down the narrow street. It was almost an alley, with the backs of houses facing them rather than the front. One yard had a large lemon tree hanging slightly over the fence, bright yellow fruit dotting its full branches.
“What do you read?” he asked. Books seemed like a safe topic—something he could talk about for hours that would hopefully stop his mind from veering into any inappropriate thoughts about Audrey.
Your student, Audrey.
Yeah, he needed the reminder…which was highly unusual. In over a decade of some form of teaching,