Bettie Page Presents: The Librarian (16 page)

“You say that like it's a bad thing,” she said.

“It's not that it's bad, it's just not what I want.”

She felt a sinking in her stomach. “What do you want?”

“Honestly? Just the sex part. Just . . . uncomplicated sex.”

She nodded slowly, trying not to lose her calm. “That's not going to work for me,” she said.

He pulled her into his arms, and this tenderness made it impossible for her to hold back her emotions. She cried, and he held her tighter.

“Let me stay with you tonight,” he said after a while.

She nodded against his shoulder, his shirt soggy with her tears.

CHAPTER 29

As she did every morning, Regina awoke to the buzz of her alarm at seven thirty.

But this morning, she found a sleeping Sebastian Barnes next to her.

She lay still, the conversation from the night rushing back to her.

They never left her room. Emotionally drained, she eventually changed into a tank top and underwear and crawled under her covers. Sebastian undressed, hanging his clothes carefully in her cramped closet. And wearing only his boxer shorts, he climbed into bed next to her. She took her usual position, facing the wall, and he curled up behind her. Even as his hand slipped under her tank top, resting on her cool skin, she knew that, for the first time, their contact would not turn sexual.

She knew she could lie in bed all morning, parsing the conversation, looking for some clue or sign about what she should do. But she would not find one.

Reluctantly, she slowly eased her body over his, moving carefully until one foot hit the floor, then the other.

He reached out and touched her arm, startling her.

“I'm sorry I woke you,” she whispered.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“Work.”

“Don't go,” he said.

“I have to go,” she said. “Some of us have jobs, you know.”

“I have a job today,” he mumbled, turning over. He had faint stubble along his jaw, and she had the urge to brush her lips against it.

“You do?”

“Yeah. I'm shooting something for
W
. Wish I weren't.”

She felt a surge of jealousy, imagining a parade of models before his camera, his eyes devouring them, his mind focused solely on how to turn their beauty into art.
But no,
she thought.
He said when he looks at them, he thinks of her
. But that didn't matter, she reminded herself. They wanted different things. He would never give her what she needed. This relationship would only hurt her in the end. So why not just end it now?

“I'm sure you'll rally,” she said, grabbing her towel off the hook on her closet door. “I'm going to take a shower,” she said. “I don't want you to be here when I get out.” She handed him her iPhone, threw the towel over her shoulder, and walked out.

•

“I've missed you, Finch. It's not the same at the old Delivery Desk without the presence of your technology-challenged self,” Alex said.

“Thanks . . . I think,” said Regina.

They stood assembled in the entrance foyer, where the entire staff had been summoned for a run-through of the Young Lions Fiction Award. Margaret was the only one missing. She had already told Regina she had no intention of attending the gala. “I don't stay out past seven thirty in the evening,” she'd said. “And the gala has lost its verve since we lost Mrs. Astor.”

“And right here, in between these balustrades, we'll have the table for soliciting new members,” said Sloan. She wore a navy-blue linen dress, cinched at the waist, and ropes of pearls. Her hair was loose around her shoulders, and framed against the backdrop of the grand foyer, she had never looked more imposing and beautiful. Regina imagined her naked and shackled, Sebastian's hand smacking her bare ass. . . .

“Regina, am I boring you?” Sloan asked, hands on her hips. Regina realized everyone was looking at her.

“What? Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't hear that last part.”

“I said you and Alex will man the new-members table. Now I know how picky you get about your assignments, Regina, but let me remind you—and everyone else, actually—that attracting new members is a vital goal of this event. Money, money, money! People, love of books alone will not get us through this fiscal crisis.”

As if you know anything about loving books,
Regina thought.

And then she spotted her, the tattooed messenger woman, walking through the central doors.

Oh no,
Regina thought. She turned away, hoping she wouldn't see her. Maybe the messenger would leave today's delivery on the Returns Desk. Maybe one of the interns there would sign for it.

She covered her face with her hand, but felt Alex tapping her on her shoulder.

“I think you have a visitor,” he said.

“Shhh,” she said. But he snapped his fingers and waved the messenger over.

“What are you doing?” Sloan asked, stopping midsentence to glare at them.

“Oh, hey—there you are. Makes it easy for me today,” said the young woman, walking up to Regina.

Regina felt all twenty employees assembled—plus the handful of board members—turn to look at her as the messenger handed her an envelope.

Appalled, Regina could barely hold the pen to sign her name on the clipboard sheet.

“Nothin' for me to take back today, eh?” the messenger commented.

Regina shook her head, wishing that Sloan would continue talking instead of staring at her and turning this into a spectacle.

“All right then. Take it easy.” Regina couldn't be sure, but she thought the young woman gave a flirtatious look in Alex's direction. She wondered if, at some point, Alex had gotten up the nerve to talk to her after all.

Regina tucked the envelope under her arm. She was afraid Sloan would make her open it, like a stern schoolteacher making an example of someone for disrupting the class. Mercifully, all she got from Sloan was a withering look of annoyance.

“Never a dull moment with you, Finch,” said Alex.

•

Regina closed the bathroom stall and leaned against the door. Before she could open the envelope, she heard someone else walk into the room. She flushed the toilet to mask the sound of her ripping open the paper.

Please meet me in the Barnes Room at six. I assume you still remember where it is?

—S.

Regina ripped the note into small pieces, and flushed it down the toilet.

Damn it.

She had seven hours to try to forget about the note. By six o'clock, she told herself, I will not even be tempted to meet him.
I will walk out of the library alone.

CHAPTER 30

The entire fourth floor was silent.

She stood outside of the dark bronze doors of Room 402, collecting herself. After hours of agonizing back and forth and back and forth about what to do, she knew she couldn't leave the library knowing he was there waiting for her. Maybe she was a sucker. Or maybe she was just curious what he would do.

Or maybe she loved him.

She had never known what those words meant:
in love
. Now she knew they were code for “I have an excuse to use really bad judgment.”

She remembered the last time she'd walked into that room, only to find a naked woman bent over in ecstasy, Sebastian behind her, his hands on her hips, his mouth slightly open, his eyes blazing right at Regina. She barely recognized the person she had been that day. And she didn't want to go back to that.

Regina turned the handle slowly.

The air was musty. She hadn't noticed it the last time, but there was a stuffy and not altogether pleasant odor to the room. But it looked as charming as she remembered from her brief glimpse that one time, the English classical decor, the floor-to-ceiling books, and, of course, the heavy wood table.

Sebastian was sitting this time, and fully dressed.

“Close the door,” he said.

She turned back and eased the door closed. Stalling, she kept her palm on the doorknob, telling herself to stick to her resolve. She would tell him she just came by to say that she was done—no more gifts, no more texts, no more messengers.

No more sex.

He stood up from the table and walked to her. When his footsteps stopped, she turned around.

She kept her eyes on his chest, afraid that if she looked at his face, she would lose all willpower.

“Do you remember the last time you were in this room?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said, still not looking up. Even though there was an arm's-length distance between them, she could smell his particular scent, and it made her just want to press her face into him, to kiss the hollow where his neck met his collarbone.

“What did you see?” he asked.

“Um, I . . . saw you having sex with someone.”

“I was fucking a woman,” he said. “And you know what happened after you left?”

“No,” she breathed.

“I continued fucking her. But I imagined she was you.”

Regina almost swooned. He braced her with a hand on each of her arms.

“Look at me,” he said. She did, accepting that she was lost. He was so beautiful. His eyes were focused on her, locking onto hers, giving her everything and demanding the same in return.

“I imagined
you
were the one naked in front of me, my cock buried deep inside of
you,
and
your
lips forming the moans that begged me for more. And then I came.”

Regina pulled away from him, walking into the room, her breath coming in short bursts. She leaned on the beautiful table and felt him move behind her.

“Ever since that day, I've wanted to bend you over that bench—to have the real thing.”

She felt his fingers working on the small buttons running down the back of her dress, and her hands gripped the table edge. She knew that she should tell him to stop, that each second she stood there undermined everything she said last night and this morning. But she told herself she would give in just one more time. Just one last time.

Her dress fell to the floor.

“Take off your underwear and go to that marble bench over there so you're facing the door.”

Hands trembling, she unhooked her bra and pulled down her panties, leaving both in a small pile at her feet. And then she walked slowly and self-consciously to the marble bench adjacent to the table. She imagined someone walking in at that moment, the way she had walked in on Sebastian her first week in the library, and she thought, Well, that would be full circle. That would be her sign from the universe that this should end.

She wanted to tell him to lock the door, but something kept her from speaking. And she knew that there was no one to interrupt them. There would be no sign, no signal, no person or thing to tell her to stop. She had only herself.

“Bend over,” he said. “Like she was. Her ass was practically in my face. I know you remember, Regina.”

Oh, it was true. She did remember—she remembered the woman's long hair brushing the floor, the urgent thrusts of Sebastian's body. . . .

She placed her arms on the bench to support her upper body, and bent down. She felt the blood rush to her head. Sebastian undressed, his belt falling noisily to the ground. And then his hands were on her hips.

“Are you wet yet, Regina? I'm going to fuck you now. This is exactly what I did to her. No touching, no foreplay. I just shoved my cock into her, and she took it. Can you do that for me, Regina?”

She said nothing, but the truth was, his words were making her wet. And then she felt the broad tip of him parting her lips. There was some resistance, but he pushed slowly into her, filling her until she thought that maybe she wasn't ready—that she couldn't take it anymore. But just as she thought that, he pulled out, and she ached to have him back inside of her. And then he plunged back in, hard, and she gasped.

He withdrew almost completely, then eased back in, settling into a rhythm that strummed her toward pleasure. Her body rocked with his, and though she felt slightly light-headed and her arms were feeling the strain of the position, she knew she had to ride the wave to her orgasm.

Sebastian's thrusting grew harder and faster, and she remembered the way it had looked when she walked in on him that time—that there seemed to be a fine line between giving pleasure and inflicting pain. And in that moment she knew that was true of their entire relationship. It was a fine line, and she had to learn to walk it, not run away from it.

“Oh my God,” she moaned, feeling vibrations in her pussy that traveled through her body, until her mouth seemed to hum from it. And she knew then that the vibrations were coming from him, and the next time she shouted out he did, too, at the same time, their bodies locked in a vortex of pleasure that was greater than the two of them combined.

He watched her get dressed while sitting on the bench. He made no move to put on his own clothes, and his naked body distracted her. Poised on the edge of the marble bench, with his chiseled arms and chest, his aristocratic face focused on her, she could barely focus at the task at hand. She kept glancing over at him, thinking that he looked like a work of art. He should be the one photographed, not the one behind the camera.

She reached behind her back to button her dress. He walked over and stood behind her, taking over.

“Thanks,” she said.

“Wait, I'm not done yet.”

He retrieved the dark jeans that he'd left flung over a chair, and fished something out of the front pocket.

“Turn back around,” he said, standing behind her. And then she felt him fasten something cool and weighty around her neck. “Much better,” he said. She knew even before feeling it with her hand that the padlock was once again in place.

And she also knew that it belonged there.

CHAPTER 31

Margaret appeared at the Returns Desk first thing in the morning.

Regina had barely seen her since the Sloan revelation during lunch two days earlier.

“How are you doing?” Margaret asked.

“Not bad,” Regina smiled. “Lunch today?”

“I'm not eating today,” Margaret said. And then Regina remembered her proclamation about having lunch only a few times a week. “But I did want to speak with you for a minute.”

“Um, okay.” Regina had no idea what this could be about. She glanced around.

“I saw you coming out of the Barnes Room last night,” Margaret said quietly. Regina froze. “With Sebastian.”

Regina cringed, trying to imagine what they had looked like. Had they been touching? Had she been adjusting her clothes, signaling to anyone who might be looking that they had recently been removed?

“He's the man you're seeing,” said Margaret.

Regina nodded.

“You're in love,” Margaret said.

Leave it to Margaret to hone right in on the heart of the matter. Maybe it was her older perspective on life that enabled her to understand that sex was the least of it.

“Oh, Margaret,” Regina said, putting her head in her hands.

“Is it as bad as all that?”

Regina nodded, not looking up.

“I knew his mother,” Margaret said.

“You did?”

“Yes. Lillian was a major benefactor. But she didn't just donate money, though there was plenty of that. She was very involved. An interesting, lovely woman. I miss her.”

“Sebastian told me she died when he was in college.”

“She adored him. He was the center of her universe. It was quite a tragedy. Quite a shock.”

“A tragedy?” Regina felt a pull in her gut, a sense of foreboding, as if a storm was rolling in that she was not prepared for.

“Yes. Didn't he tell you? She killed herself.”

Regina felt a catch in the throat. No, he had somehow failed to mention that.

“What happened?”

Margaret shook her head wistfully. “She was never the same after her husband left her. He took up with a very young model after meeting her at the Met costume gala one year. It was quite the scandal. At any rate, I'm telling you this not because I like to gossip, but because I've known Sebastian Barnes since he was a small child. He was extremely close to Lillian, and I can tell you that from what I've seen and heard, he's never recovered from losing her, and he's probably not the best young man to have a relationship with.”

Regina nodded, hurting for Sebastian, and hurt that he hadn't confided in her. The night of her birthday, he had appeared to be sharing something real with her, but he actually left out the most important part. The painful part. Just like he somehow failed to mention that he had had a relationship with her boss.

“Is this supposed to be a warning?” she asked.

“That might be overstating it,” Margaret said. “But I would like to see you make informed decisions.”

“I don't know if there's a decision to make.”

“I think there will be,” Margaret said. “As I've said, I've known Sebastian for all of his adult life. I think he's a decent person—and an interesting young man. But I've seen him at all the benefits; I've read about him in the magazines—seeing this woman, dating that woman. He's one of New York's most eligible bachelors. They never last long. Frankly, his mother would have been horrified. But I'm sure most of them are happy just for the press, the good time, and the cachet of having dated Sebastian Barnes. I don't, however, think you are one of those girls. So you will have to decide if you are getting what you want out of the relationship. If not, be prepared to leave—or to be left. ”

Regina had a familiar sinking feeling in her stomach. This was not what she wanted to hear.

“I tried to end it the other night, but I couldn't stick with it,” she admitted. “I just couldn't do it.”

“Don't be too hard on yourself,” Margaret said. “It might not have been the right time. I have a philosophy—if you don't know what to do, then don't do anything.”

“Okay,” Regina said, feeling relieved, like Margaret had let her off the hook.

“But,”
Margaret said, holding up a finger, “one day you
will
know. You'll know it in your gut. And then you'll have to act on it.”

•

Regina woke on Saturday morning to find she already had a text message from him.

I'll be there at noon.

The sun was streaming into her small room, peeking around her flimsy curtains. Her bedside fan was doing little to combat the heat, but she didn't like sleeping with the air conditioner on because it always got too cold.

Regina looked at the clock. It was eleven.
Don't call him,
she told herself.

She kicked off her sheets and dialed his number.

Sebastian picked up on the first ring. “Don't tell me you just woke up,” he said.

“Well . . . yeah,” she said, smiling. She loved the sound of his voice, even when he was implying that she was lazy.

“Not very enterprising of you.”

“It's
Saturday
.”

“Exactly. Get dressed. We're going shopping.”

“For what?”

“You need clothes for tonight.”

“Since when do you include me in wardrobe decisions?” she asked.

“Since I realized that you don't understand how much I want you to be happy, Regina,” he said.

She was silent.

“Can you give this another shot?” he asked.

“I don't even know what that means,” she said.

“Give me today—and tonight. Can you agree to that much?”

“Okay,” she said, thinking of Margaret's words,
One day you
will
know. You'll know it in your gut.
“We can agree on today.”