Page 39 of Crushes to WHAT

Emerson chuckles as I scurry away, and I feel him follow after me on deceptively light feet. “They just unveiled it last week. I got an email about it.”

My feet don’t stutter, but my brain does. “You get a newsletter from a bookstore an hour away from October? Do you come here a lot?”

“I’ve never been here,” he answers. “But I stalk your social media accounts enough to know that you come here every year on your birthday, so I signed up for their newsletter. I have to come to the city for supplies sometimes, and if my trip coincides with a sale, I drive past and think about buying you something. Your Goodreads is remarkably informative. I think I probably could’ve picked out something good on my own, but I don’t know what you already own.” He sighs, forlorn. “I thought maybe I’d get a look since being at your house, but you must have your library tucked away somewhere.”

These revelations, offered so openly, do stutter my steps. I come to a halt beside the fic-lit section, turn, and gape up at my date.

His eyes crinkle, and he taps my chin with a rough fingertip. “You look cute like this.”

I snap my mouth shut. “You’re telling me that you stalk my Instagram, stalk my Goodreads, stalk my favorite bookstore, and have been stalking through my house attempting to snoop.”

“Yep, yep, and yep,” he replies. “Is the library on the second floor?”

I can’t reply. A mortified blush takes over my skin, from my toes to the top of my head, warming my scalp. If he’s looked at my Goodreads, then he’s sure to have seen the veritable swaths of stalker romances on my digital shelves. He knows I find this behavior hot.

“They added to their paranormal romance section, too. The next book in that series with the otter shifters is out, and they have signed copies.”

I whimper. “Do you know everything?”

He grins, and it’s so attractively evil, I take a step back, lest I jump him. “I don’t know where your library is.”

“It’s upstairs,” I confirm. “I had a boyfriend once who complained about some of the books being ‘out in the open where anyone could see them,’ so I made him build me an in-home library—shelves, comfy furniture, good lighting. A whole thing. Then, after he was done setting it up, I dumped him, because I don’t want to be with anyone who’s embarrassed of me, and at that point I’d already-” I cut myself off with an undignified squeak.

At that point, I’d already caught sight of Emerson working a job. He’d been hauling demolition remains to a giant dumpster outside the house he was working on with Warren, his business partner. A girl had been passing by on the sidewalk, riding her bike way ahead of her heavily pregnant mother. She’d hit a crack in the pavement and gone flying, little limbs windmilling as she launched over her handlebars.

I’ve never seen such a big man move so quickly. One second, he was tossing carpet into a dumpster, and the next he was pulling the girl out of the air before she could hit the ground.

Emerson held the scared, crying girl until her mom caught up, then he produced a sucker from one of his many cargo pockets, told them a joke I couldn’t hear, and dusted off the bike before helping the girl back on it. When they left, he stood on the sidewalk watching them until they rounded a corner and he couldn’t see them anymore. Then, he’d twisted his head to look right at me, and I’d jolted out of my mesmerization into sheer embarrassment. I dove into a bush to escape his line of sight.

That was not the last time I dove into a bush to escape Emerson’s line of sight, and the more it happened, the more I realized that I wouldn’t be crushing on some man, no matter how amazing that man may be, if I were truly invested in the relationship I was in. The book fiasco was the thing that finally tipped me over the edge, but it had been a long time coming. He was clearly a massive jerk, and I was clearly not into that. There’s a huge difference between dark-romance-male-lead hotness and just straight up being a sucky person, and he never could quite find the line.

“The library was expensive?” Emerson asks, a shadow flickering in his normally warm eyes.

My blush turns scarlet, and I clear my throat. “Yes.”

His eyelids lower. “Good.”

I whimper. “Stop being hot,” I beg. “Please. I can’t handle it.”

He takes pity on me. Sort of. His whole face softens, melting into an affectionate happiness, and he tugs at a lock of my hair. He’s still mad hot, but he’s pulled it back to his usual dosage of give-Almond-heart-palpitations attractive.

I thank him.

He leans way close and kisses my forehead before pressing his nose into my hair as he murmurs, “I could never deny you anything when you plead so prettily.” He snorts softly. “Or any other time, really, because your eyes are pretty much always doing that thing where they sear into me, past the surface and straight to my heart—my soul. Then you do something unimaginable to it. You hold it in your palms, and you handle it reverently, like it means something to anyone, and you make me feel like it means a whole lot of something to you. You look at me, and you press gently against the core of my being, and I am putty to your desires.”

My lungs burn.

“Of course it means something,” I whisper. “It means everything. Your heart and your soul are precious, Emerson. They deserve the type of care you give to everyone else, and I’m starting to worry that they don’t often get it.”

He shrugs, big shoulders shifting up before they fall. “When you’re a large, strong man, there are expectations, and not all of them are nice ones.” His hand comes up to cradle my face, and he tips my jaw up as he drops his head to rub his nose against mine. “I can’t say I’m upset that you take a different approach to me.”

I frown. “Everyone should take a different approach. Just because you’re big doesn’t mean you’re not a person, with person feelings and person experiences like everyone else. You’re just a little bit giant while you have the feelings and experiences. Plus, you only use your size for good. People should see that and respond accordingly.”

He hums, teasingly. “By jumping into bushes to hide every time they see me?”

I squeak, indignantly. “Sometimes I dove behind buildings!”

He throws his head back with laughter and pulls me to his chest for a hug. The vibrations of his mirth buzz against my ear while I pout.