Page 104 of Lethal in Pink

“Which one?”

“Black’s Law Dictionary. Ninth edition.” She stands, smoothing her skirt over her thighs. “The digital search misses half the cross-references.”

I close my textbook and stand up. “Let me help you find it.”

She pauses, her bag half-zipped. The look she gives me isn’t annoyance. It’s a deliberate, half-second calculation.

“You don’t have to.”

“I know.”

She leads. I follow, close enough to catch the sweet scent of her shampoo cutting right through the stale, paper-heavy air of the stacks. Her heels click softly against the hardwood, a precise rhythm, and I watch the line of her shoulders under her blouse, the bright waves of her hair falling across her back catching the low light.

The bound periodicals section sits at the far end, a long, narrow trench flanked by floor-to-ceiling shelves of untouched legal journals dating back decades. The lighting here is sickly and jaundiced, casting everything in a yellowed haze. Nobody comes here unless they’re hiding.

Amiyah reaches for a thick, maroon-bound volume on the third shelf. Her fingers stretch, brushing the spine, and the movement pulls the fabric tight across her back.

I move into her space deliberately, one hand flat against the wooden shelf beside her head. The grain is cool under my palm. She doesn’t flinch. Her back meets the spines of a row of untouched law reviews, and suddenly there’s nowhere for her to go, and she isn’t trying to go anywhere.

“Black’s Law Dictionary,” I say, reading the spine she’s reaching for. My voice drops lower, the cadence slowing down. “Exciting reading. Very stimulating content.”

She turns her head. Our faces are close enough that I catch the individual lashes framing her bright blue eyes, the tiny freckle just below her left temple.

“Some of us care about precise definitions,” she says, her voice losing its edge.

“Right now, I’m focused on a completely different set of terms,” I reply.

The silence stretches. Five seconds. Ten. Long enough for the pretense of research to collapse entirely, leaving just her breath against my chin and the heavy, electric hum of the empty aisle.

I cup her face. Her skin is hot beneath my palm, and she leans into the touch—a shift so slight I only catch it because I’m looking for it. I kiss her, and she answers instantly, her mouth opening under mine with a sharp, sudden hunger that tightens my chest.

Her hands fist in the front of my shirt, dragging me closer. I feel the heat of her through the thin fabric, her body pressed against mine from chest to thigh, sending a hard, immediate rush of blood south. My hand slides from her jaw, down the curve of her waist, the thin knit of her blouse giving way to the smooth, structured fabric of her skirt. I push the hem up just enough to find bare skin, my palm flat against her ribcage, then higher, cupping the weight of her breast through her bra.

She makes a small, broken sound against my mouth that she would absolutely deny making if I ever brought it up. I register it, filing it away, and my thumb drags over her nipple through the lace, feeling it knot instantly. My cock strains against my jeans.

Her hips press forward, a sharp, involuntary movement that drives her pelvis against mine. I groan into her mouth, my free hand tangling in her hair, holding her exactly where I want her.

The throat-clearing comes from the end of the aisle.

It’s quiet—the polite, understated cough of a student who has seen more than they bargained for and wants zero part of it. But it lands between us like cold water.

I straighten up without a trace of panic. One smooth motion, my hand withdrawing from under her skirt, her blouse settling back into place. I smooth my shirt, pluck Black’s Law Dictionary, Ninth Edition off the shelf right beside her head, and hand it to her with a neutral expression.

Amiyah looks like she is actively reconsidering every life choice that brought her to this aisle. Her cheeks are flushed, her lips swollen, and her expression is a tight, dangerous mix of arousal and mortification.

I gesture toward the stairs with a tilt of my head. “After you,” I say.

She takes the book, turns on her heel, and walks back toward the alcove without a word.

Back at the alcove, I give it exactly three minutes. Not two. Three full minutes of textbook-normal studying behavior while Amiyah pretends the last ten minutes of her life never happened.

She props Black’s Law Dictionary open beside her casebook, her pen moving in tight, controlled annotations along the margin. Her composure is terrifying. If I hadn’t felt the way her body melted against mine moments ago, hadn’t heard that broken hitch in her breath when my thumb found her—I might actually believe she was focused on legal definitions.

I turn a page in my veterinary pharmacology text. The diagram of a canine cardiovascular system stares back at me, utterly meaningless.

My hand finds her knee under the table.

I don’t look at her. My eyes stay on my notes, my pen tapping once against the margin. My palm rests flat against the warm skin above her knee, just inside the hem of her skirt, and I wait.