Page 1 of A Novel Seduction

1

The little bell over the doorway tinkled as Drake Harkins walked into the old bookstore. It’d been years since he’d been in here, even though he passed the storefront regularly, but the same unique scent of ink and paper hit him just the same as it had before.

“Welcome to All Booked Up,” a feminine voice greeted him. He looked to his right to find an older woman with silver hair and large wire-framed glasses standing there with her arms full of books. It appeared that if she moved even slightly, she would drop the whole pile and Drake had to fight the urge to take them all from her to prevent that from happening. “Can I help you find something?”

“I’m looking for a birthday gift for my niece,” he answered.

“Picture book or chapter book?”

“Um, chapter book?”

The older woman laughed lightly at his hesitancy but smiled politely anyway. “Children’s literature is upstairs,” she said, awkwardly motioning toward the stairs behind him with her shoulder. “When you hit the top of the stairs, head straight through romance toward the windows and you’ll find it. And don’t worry, romance and children’s literature are separated by the non-fiction section.”

Drake thanked the woman and turned to head upstairs. The old wood boards squeaked lightly under his feet as he moved, as if announcing to someone that he was coming. Once he hit the second-floor landing, he followed the directions he’d been given and headed toward the windows, where he was greeted by five large bookcases full of books, all labeled “Children’s Literature.”

Oh, great. Where the fuck do I even start?

Stepping up to one of the shelves, he picked up a book and read the back. While the story of the long-lost half-mortal son of Poseidon sounded interesting enough, he wasn’t sure that it was what an eight-year-old girl really wanted. He put it back on the shelf, cursing himself for not asking more questions when his sister told him that Haley had recently gotten “really into books” and that he should get her one for her birthday. What the hell did he know about kid books? Or books in general for that matter? The last time he’d actually sat down to read a book was his senior year in college, and that had only been because of her.

The faint sound of a sweet voice humming broke him away from his memories. Apparently, he wasn’t the only one up here. He looked around him, seeing no one, so he took a couple of steps down the aisle and peered over into an adjacent one. And there she was.

As if thinking about her had pulled her from thin air, Evie Staab stood in the middle of the row, humming to herself, scanning the shelves.

His mind quickly flashed back to their first tutoring session in college. The short, slender English major had been so nervous walking in, he had been worried that she was going to turn and run away. She hadn’t at all been what he’d been expecting. Petite in every way possible, her body had looked more like that of a teenage boy than a twenty-one-year-old woman, and had she worn her strawberry-blonde hair in a pixie cut, she probably could have passed as one. Instead, her hair had been long and always pulled back in a French braid, which emphasized the oversized purple-framed glasses that took up way too much of her face.

Quiet and timid, Evie had been sweet and cute in her own way—a way that Drake had never expected to be attracted to. But as the semester progressed, he found himself more and more attracted to her and even started to look forward to their sessions together, if for no other reason than he got to sit close to her in the library.

He’d never been a big reader, and nothing about the “classics” was remotely exciting. Not to mention, his attention span just didn’t lend itself to sitting there reading. It’s not like he ever remembered what he read anyway. That was when she had decided that he could start reading out loud to her as part of their study sessions. The books were still boring, but at least reading them to Evie made him feel like there was something special about their time together. Like they were sharing secrets. Especially after he’d discovered her little secret.

“Hi there,” he said, trying to gain her attention. She turned and glanced at him, and he couldn’t believe it—it really was her.

She looked much the same—still barely over five feet tall, slim, and without many of the traditional feminine curves. Except now, instead of hiding her body beneath baggy clothes, she wore an outfit that was fitted and complemented her shape. Her small, pert breasts, while not on display, were now visible underneath her fitted tee. Her purple oversized glasses had been replaced with simple black frames that fit her face and perfectly highlighted a pair of sparkling emerald eyes. Fuck me, she got sexy…

“Hi,” she returned, looking at him like he was a complete stranger. Drake could give her that. It’d been five years, and a bookstore was certainly not a place one would have ever thought to find him. He stood there, waiting for her to come to the realization that she knew him—that he’d been the dim-witted baseball player that she’d tutored her junior year.

“Is there something you need?” she asked after a moment.

“Um, yeah. You know about this stuff, right?” he said, waving his hand in the direction of the shelves. “I need a gift for my niece.”

“Okay, how old is she? What is she into?”

“She’ll be eight. And apparently, she’s into books,” he offered.

Evie laughed. “Right, but what kind of books? Adventure? Princesses? Animals? Magic?”

“Sure? Are eight-year-old girls into those things?”

“Depends on the eight-year-old girl.”

“Admittedly, I have no idea. My sister just said she’s into books, so here I am.” He shrugged in a way that he hoped conveyed a message of lost but trying, rather than complete idiot.

Evie laughed again and the sound went straight to Drake’s dick. Where did she learn to giggle like that? He would have remembered if she had made sounds as beautiful and borderline erotic as that when they were in college. Or maybe she had, and just reserved that sound for when she was alone…

“Follow me,” she said, scooting around him and back into the aisle he’d come from.

She slowly wandered, making a small clicking noise with her mouth as she scanned the titles, seemingly on a mission. Drake couldn’t help but stand back and watch her. Seeing her like this, in her element, made him want to push her up against the stacks and have his way with her.

“Here,” she said, turning around quickly, holding three books in her hand. He took them from her, scanning the titles.