“Your ass and these thighs were straining against the fabric of your skirt.” He pushed her skirt the rest of the way until it stopped just short of her pelvis. “You had no idea what you were doing, but my God, you were turning me on.”

“I’ve never had to shelve books before.”

“That much was evident,” he said with a chuckle. He ran the back of his fingers along the inside of one of her thighs, leaving goosebumps in his wake. She shivered at the sensation that ran up her body and to the back of her head. She let her heavy eyelids close momentarily as she soaked in the pleasurable caress of his hands. “But I’m not interested in your ability to shelve books.”

“Of course not.”

He kissed the inside of one thigh. “How did you feel while we were so close to one another? Me, right behind you, watching you?”

With her eyes still closed, she recounted the shudder she’d felt when he handed her a book. His hand wrapped around her waist to place FDR in his appropriate spot. She stood there, wrapped in the warmth emanating from his body. She was intoxicated by the same woodsy cologne that night, feeling the walls close around her. She wanted to succumb to his quiet lure. “I wanted you,” she replied.

“Do you want me now, Victoria?”

She opened her eyes and gazed upon the man who kneeled between her thighs. The look in his startling green eyes probed her to her very soul. They seemed to ask permission for the next step. She gave him a tremulous smile. “Yes.”

John gently kissed her thigh, tonguing the soft flesh as he went. She watched in fascination as he closed his eyes and breathed deeply, moving higher and higher. His tongue made whorls around her skin, etching his mark on her, making her knees shake. He reached his fingers under her skirt and grasped the edges of her panties. He gave her one last look of confirmation before he tugged them downward, down her knees and past her ankles. He took the lacy black undergarments and stuffed them in the back pocket of his trousers and continued with his mission. “Shall I part my hair behind?” he said, softly reciting Eliot, his hot breath brushing her most intimate parts. Another kiss, much further along her thigh. “Do I dare to eat a peach, Victoria?”