Leather Bound Read online

  Leather Bound

  Shanna Germain

  ‘Keyholes are the occasions of more sin and wickedness, than all other holes in this world put together.’

  Laurence Sterne

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Epigraph

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Epilogue

  More from Mischief

  About Mischief

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  CHAPTER 1

  Gorgeous green eyes. Blond curls. A perfectly trimmed golden goatee that highlighted a square jaw and delicious cheekbones. Thick, full lips just right for kissing.

  It was the kind of face a girl could fall in love with.

  Every girl but me, that is.

  Oh, don’t get me wrong. I had the lust part down. Kyle’s face was so perfectly made, so sexy, that even when he was asleep, eyes closed tight to the world, just looking at him sent little flutters of want through me. And that was with most of his long, lean body hidden away beneath the covers. Sometimes I wanted Kyle with a fierceness that made me ache, even when he wasn’t in the room.

  Lust? Yes. But love? No.

  We’d been having sex for about six months and our relationship was fun, hot and absolutely casual. Just like we wanted it. Which is why I found it weird that he was now asleep in my bed, conked out with my arm trapped beneath his head. In six months’ worth of delicious sex, this was the first time we’d actually slept together.

  While it was weird, I wasn’t sure I minded all that much. We’d had a nice night –dinner on the back porch followed by giggling, groping, delicious sex on the living-room floor – despite the fact that Kyle had seemed preoccupied by something. He wasn’t the kind of guy to keep things in, but he also wasn’t the kind of guy to stay over. I wasn’t sure what it all meant, but I figured he’d tell me when he was ready.

  In the meantime, I needed a shower, something functional to wear to work and at least two cups of coffee. I’d let him find his way out of the apartment whenever he woke. He worked as a tat artist, which meant a lot of late nights inking customers. Something told me that mornings weren’t his speciality.

  I tugged my arm quietly out from under Kyle’s head, trying not to wake him. He shifted, but didn’t open his eyes.

  Showering as quick as my own sleep-slowed body would let me, I padded back to the bedroom in my bare feet and opened drawers in the half-dark, trying to be as quiet as I could. Unfortunately, I’m a klutz in general and even more so before I’ve had my coffee. When I slid the closet open, it bumped against something with a bang. Kyle made a cute dreaming noise, and I stopped to look down at him half-buried under the covers. All I could see were strands of his dark-blond hair and one hand thrown over his face. He stirred, opening one green eye blearily. Even half-asleep and in the dim light of the bedroom, he was so very fuckable. It nearly made my mouth water.

  ‘Mmm, you left me,’ he said.

  ‘I have to go to work,’ I said. Unable to resist, I reached out to touch the soft curls that fell across his cheek.

  ‘Not yet,’ he said. ‘Come back. We have warmth. And cock.’

  ‘Cock, huh?’ I was tempted. I was always tempted around him.

  The bedside clock told me I wasn’t late for work. Yet. I needed to open the bookstore, but since we showed up early to prep things, a few minutes wouldn’t make too much of a difference.

  ‘How much can you do in fifteen minutes?’ I asked.

  ‘I only need eleven to really blow your mind.’ He was all grin and dancing eyes from his cocoon beneath the covers.

  ‘Really? Eleven?’ I said. ‘I think I’m disappointed.’

  ‘Get in here,’ Kyle said, clearly more awake now, lifting the blankets to beckon me in.

  I slid in beside him, scooting myself beneath the covers. He really was warm, his lean frame radiating heat. He ran a couple of times a week and his long muscles flexed beneath his skin as I settled against him. Running my hands over his body was a visceral pleasure. It was easy to get lost in the feel of him.

  He touched his mouth to mine, sleep-soft lips parting with a quiet laugh. His morning stubble scratched my cheeks. He smelled like sweet chai, cloves and cinnamon, and I inhaled him deeply, lost for a moment in the sensations of touch and scent.

  ‘I brought you a gift,’ he said, whispering against my mouth, his hips moving forward to grind slowly against me. His bare cock nudged my thighs.

  ‘Mmm … what is it?’ I couldn’t help but giggle. He was always saying dorky but adorable things in bed.

  ‘You’ll have to see,’ he said.

  ‘A gift, huh,’ I teased. ‘Did you wrap it?’

  ‘Not yet. It’s like a reverse gift. First you get it, then you wrap it.’

  ‘Funny man,’ I said as I reached between us to stroke him. ‘Oh, you did sleep well. That’s some lovely morning wood.’

  I loved the way he curved upward slightly when he was fully hard, how he pulsed lightly against my palm. He had a beautiful cock, a smooth length that bowed into an impossibly soft head.

  ‘Maybe I should stay over more often,’ he said.

  I only hesitated a second before he gave a teasing nip at my ear. ‘Maybe you should,’ I said. ‘Especially if it means I get to do this before coffee…’

  I was still speaking when he slipped a hand between my legs, parting them with the spread of his fingers. With a firming touch, he stroked me, wrapping his fingers lightly to tug at my dark curls. I felt myself open under his touch, already growing wet. It never took much around Kyle.

  Kyle leaned in to kiss my neck, letting his mouth linger in the hollows, his tongue moving in time to his fingers. I couldn’t help but buck my hips up toward his fingers. His touch was too soft. I wanted, needed more.

  ‘It’s almost like you want me or something,’ he said, teasing with his tone as much as with his fingers.

  ‘Kyle…’

  Still he teased with soft strokes, refusing to give in to my low whimpers of want.

  ‘Cruel,’ I said. My voice stuttered with the sweet pleasures of his touch. ‘So cruel.’

  His grin was sharply wicked. His touch even more so, as he brought his hand back and then thrust forward, two fingers sliding deep inside me. I brought my hips up into the movement, letting my body welcome him. He curled his fingers against my g-spot, tugging forward until I felt small bursts of pleasure coil up through me.

  So close. I loved that sweet moment when you can feel orgasm just over the horizon, can see it from the corner of your eye but can’t quite reach it.

  ‘More?’ he asked.

  ‘More, please,’ I said.

  He pulled away again, a gesture that left me emptied of pleasure and breath. With another thrust, he entered me again, more fingers, stretching me wider. I bucked against him, taking the lead to angle myself where his touch gave me the most pleasure.

  His mouth found my nipple, tongue looping it lightly before he closed his lips to tug against the sensitive skin. I loved having my nipples sucked – sometimes I thought I could get off on that alone – and I arched into the pull of his mouth. He took more of me in, the pressure and release matching the movement of his fingers inside me. I groaned softly, unable to resist making the noises my body wanted me to make.

  Kyle pulled away to look at me.

  ‘How much time?’ he asked.

&nbs
p; ‘Five minutes,’ I breathed.

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Internal clock?’

  ‘I think you’re full of it…’

  ‘Listen,’ I said, panting. ‘I can use my mouth to argue about it or I can use my mouth to kiss you while you fuck me.’

  He snapped his fingers in the air as if signalling someone. ‘I need this gift-wrapped.’

  Laughing, I reached out and grabbed a condom from the dresser. In the dark, I couldn’t tell which side of the condom was up. Of course, I got it wrong the first time, trying to roll it down the wrong way over his head. I flipped it, got it wrong again, and then flipped it one last time. This time it worked perfectly.

  ‘They should paint glow-in-the-dark arrows on these things,’ I groused, even as I slid the rubber down over his erection. Condoms were a necessary evil, but there was something I liked about rolling them down, stroking the length of him in the process. There was something he liked about it too; I could tell by the way he arched his hips, pressing his cock upward against my touch.

  ‘It’s like a USB plug,’ I said, when I had it on.

  ‘What?’ He put his hand over mine, urging me to stroke him.

  ‘Um. Hot man with beautiful cock, about to fuck me,’ I said. ‘Will explain technology later.’

  ‘Geek,’ he said.

  ‘A geek you’d like to fuck,’ I said.

  ‘Isn’t that a song?’ he said.

  ‘Don’t know, don’t care. Why are we talking about this when I could be riding you?’

  I rose over him, letting my legs rest on either side of his hips. I loved being on top, loved that moment when I first started to lower myself down over his cock, that moment of connection, when I knew what was to come. He sighed beneath me, eyes meeting mine, his hands settling on my hips. He didn’t pull me towards him, just let me ride myself slowly down on his cock, feeling it fill me, displacing the emptiness inside me with the lovely fullness of pleasure.

  For all our playful banter beforehand, our actual sex was quiet. The only sounds we made were a lot of signs and groans, underwritten by the soft slap of our bodies coming together.

  I leaned down and pressed my mouth to his, our hips rising and falling in unison, the strokes between us starting slow, a grind that left both of us groaning each time we came apart.

  From this position, I could feel the way his cock curved against the hollows of me. Every time I rose off him, his head slid against that sensitive bulb of my g-spot, making me gasp.

  His fingers curved tighter around my hips, lifting me higher with each stroke, setting me down harder on him with each return.

  ‘Touch yourself,’ he said. ‘Please. I want to watch.’

  ‘I’ll fall.’

  ‘I’ve got you,’ he said. He shifted his hands slightly, moving them down to cup my curves more fully, holding me up.

  Leaning back slightly, I pressed two fingers to the sensitive tip of my clit. He watched me as I touched myself, green eyes lidded with desire. He lifted me in time to the circles of my fingers, matching stroke to stroke.

  ‘You’re so beautiful,’ he said. ‘I love watching you.’

  His fingers tightened, nails digging into my skin, his breath as fast and ragged as mine. I couldn’t stop looking at him looking at me. Getting myself off was hot. Getting myself off while getting fucked and watched by a beautiful man was so far off the scale of hot I had no words for it.

  I tried to wait, to keep breathing through the pleasure that rose up through me, to stretch out that delightful moment before I came, but at the sound of Kyle’s broken groan of my name, I couldn’t hold off any more. He arched up under me, nails biting my skin, eyes closing. The pulse and clench of him brought my own orgasm, a quiet rippling sweetness that spread outward on threads of pleasure, until I could feel them all the way to the tips of my fingers.

  We stayed like that for a moment, me still on top of him, our breaths catching and releasing, kissing softly. He felt different after sex, his lips softer and fuller, his touch gentler, and I relished the changes in him for a moment, knowing they’d been brought about by a pleasure similar to my own.

  ‘You’re awesome,’ he said with a sigh.

  ‘You’re awesome too,’ I said. ‘But I have to run. Have a bookstore to run and all that.’

  ‘We can’t do this again? I’ll be quick.’

  ‘I wish,’ I said, with a true sense of wistfulness. Maybe it was the fact that I was quickly approaching thirty or maybe it was just that my life had slowed down to a steady routine lately so I had more time to think about sex, but it seemed like my lust clock was always in overtime these days. My uterus didn’t want kids, but my clit wanted sex. Pretty much all the time. Even with Kyle around a couple of times of week, I’d made pretty good friends with a whole community of vibrators in the last year. Turning down sex these days was akin to turning down coffee – something I only did with a great deal of reluctance.

  I kissed Kyle’s nose, with a sigh of regret.

  ‘Sadly, if I stay I really will be late, which Lily will certainly hold over my head all day long if she can. Maybe longer.’

  ‘You’re afraid of Lily? Just threaten to mess up her hair.’

  That made me laugh, as Kyle often did. My best friend did have perfectly coiffed hair. The kind that’s so perfect you have to hate her, just a little, for having it.

  ‘No go,’ I said, as I pulled myself from the bed.

  Getting dressed was me rushing and tumbling while Kyle watched me from his sprawl under the covers. Too late to do more than pull on whatever was closest, I grabbed a simple black dress from the closet and threw my dark hair into a messy ponytail. My store key on its red ribbon around my neck for pseudo-jewellery, my little librarian glasses, and I was calling it good.

  When I sat on the bed to pull on a pair of knee-high boots, I caught Kyle’s glance. He looked oddly serious for post-sex reverie, his usual grin replaced with something far more contemplative.

  ‘Are you OK?’ I asked.

  He reached out and touched my arm. ‘I just got fucked by a beautiful woman. How can I not be good?’

  ‘Good.’ I grinned at him before I kissed him, letting my lips linger against his for a long moment. ‘You know how to get out, right?’

  He nodded, reaching out to run his hand along my arm as I turned away.

  I was at the bedroom door, mind already turning to work and the bookstore, before he spoke again.

  From the depths of my bed, he said in that sexy, post-orgasm voice that never failed to turn me on, ‘Janine. Marry me.’

  The heel of my boot caught on the area rug, sending me sprawling against the doorjamb.

  ‘Funny man.’ Laughing, I turned to shake my head at him, at his impossible joke.

  And in that moment, standing there in the doorway, I saw that he was serious. That he was, really and truly, asking me to marry him.

  Shit.

  * * *

  Shit. Shit. Shit.

  That was my refrain the entire fifteen-minute walk from my house to Leather Bound. What the hell was Kyle talking about, marry him? We had a perfect, lovely, sexy thing. Get together a couple of times a week, have dinner, get hot and heavy. Good fun sex on the kitchen floor. Or the couch. Or behind the couch. Then he went home and I curled up with a cup of coffee and a couple of books.

  Lust. Not love.

  Marriage. Was that why he’d been so quiet all night? Who the hell asked a girl to marry him from bed anyway? From her bed, no less. And, more importantly, why?

  I was still turning a million questions over in my brain when I reached the bookstore. The door was locked – we didn’t open for fifteen minutes or so – but the back lights were on, letting me know that Lily was already inside. Webster, the store cat, was snoozing in the big front window display, his grey striped tail tick-tocking, probably in time to some mouse-hunting dream.

  I fished my skeleton key from where it hung on the long ribbon around my neck. Lily and I’d ha
d them custom made when we opened the store, and I loved the heft of mine, the curled metal J of the bow.

  Even when I was in a rush, even on a morning where I felt my world had just been turned upside down and carelessly shaken, unlocking the front door to Leather Bound felt like entering a far-away universe. Or someone else’s story, right at that point where it all comes together and you know the ending is going to be fine. Everything dropped away in the seconds it took to slip the long metal key into the ancient lock and turn it.

  As I stepped inside and shut the door behind me, I closed my eyes, inhaling the scent of paper and leather with a pleasure that I reserved just for this place. Yes, the bookstore was work, and sometimes it was hard and thankless work at that, but it was also a sanctuary. A little corner of bookworm heaven, made just for me.

  ‘You, Miss Janine, are late,’ Lily said.

  I opened my eyes. From where I stood, Lily had her back to me so I couldn’t see her customary smirk, but I could see the back of her legs, the black tattoo of the word read curled up the back of one calf, the red curlicues of the word lips scrawled up the other. She had lots of tattoos – most of them words – but I bet none of them got as many questions as that missing my. I’d seen it, of course. Kyle had done it for her. But I’d promised never to tell anyone just where that particular piece of lettering was situated.

  ‘I’m sorry, Lil,’ I said. I meant it. My co-owner worked her ass off at Leather Bound, maybe even more than I did, and we were supposed to share everything half and half.

  Lil stretched to tuck a book into the upper shelf, tsking her tongue teasingly. As her black pumps lifted off the ladder, I caught a glimpse of one tan sole covered with hand-written book titles. Being book geeks was one of the few things Lily and I had in common, but it was a big enough thing that it had kept our friendship thriving for nearly ten years. Not to mention convince us to go into business together. It was a decision I’d never regretted.

  While she finished shelving the books in her hand, I tugged at my buttons with cold fingers. My coat and scarf were collaborating to kill me, getting caught in my hair and glasses while I tried to get them off. ‘I got stuck –’ I started.