The SEAL's Rebel Librarian (10 page)

“A little more throttle,” she said to herself. Jack wasn't saying anything at all, just standing beside her, one arm crossed over his chest, the other hand idly scratching the stubble at his throat. “I've got this,” she said a little louder, automatically warding off the criticism she knew was coming.

“You've got this,” Jack repeated, encouraging.

Kill switch on. Turn key. Neutral. Start. Clutch, first, release clutch, and a little more throttle …

The bike shot forward, wrenching the grips out of Erin's hands and dumping her unceremoniously on her back while her brand-new-to-her Ducati skidded fifteen feet down the cracked cement landing strip.

“Fuck,” she said, and flipped her visor up.

“Stay still,” Jack said, going to one knee beside her, one hand on her sternum to keep her down. “You okay?”

She let her head roll back. Awash in humiliation and shock, she rolled to her side, then braced herself on one palm. “Nothing broken, only things bruised are my butt and my pride, because I'm making an absolute fool of myself,” she said, near tears.

He straightened and held out a hand to pull her to her feet. “Think you're just learning to ride a motorcycle,” he said, then thumped her on her helmeted head. “Let's go see what the damage is.”

She righted the bike, kicked down the stand, and stood, hands on hips. Two big scratches marred the paint on the gas tank, another ran the length of the red frame. “Fuck,” she said again, meditatively. “I've owned this bike less than an hour. I'm a fucking cliché. I'm a thirty-four-year-old woman in an early midlife crisis who bought a motorcycle.”

“If you're going to run yourself down, don't forget sleeping with a younger man.”

She looked at him. His face was calm, strong, encouraging.

“Erin. You're just learning to ride a bike. You're gonna lay it down, because it comes with the territory. That's all you did. Laid it down.”

I'm going to get Jason's voice out of my head if it kills me.

It just might,
Jason's voice said nastily.

“Fuck you—not you,” she added hastily, catching Jack's raised eyebrows out of the corner of her eye. “I was just—”

“About to get back on the bike,” he said. “Which, trust me, when you get the hang of this, will absolutely fuck with whoever you're hearing in your head right now.”

She held out her hands, both of them visibly trembling from the shock of hitting the pavement, the embarrassment threatening to choke off the last of her air.

Solemnly, he held out his hand. Also trembling.

She looked in his eyes for a moment and saw nothing but respect, patience, and a little admiration. That got her back on the bike. She blew out her breath, shook out her stinging hands, and grasped the grips again.

Kill switch on. Turn key. Neutral. Start. Clutch, first gear, release clutch, and a little more throttle but a little less than last time …

She was moving. She lifted her feet as the bike rolled forward, kicking a little until she found the pegs, leaning forward as the bike gained speed. The shifting was smoother than on the training bike she'd ridden, the bike responsive like nothing she'd ever driven or ridden before. She whooped as she shifted through second, all the way up before the end of the airstrip came at her. She throttled back, not really using the brakes, and leaned left, pushing the left hand grip slightly away from her to make the turn and roar back down the airstrip toward Jack.

“Go again,” he shouted, wheeling one finger in the air as she slowed. “Again!”

So she did, getting a better feel for the bike's fantastically responsive surges of power, reaching the end of the runway in seconds, making her turn just tightly enough to scare her a little. Back to Jack again, and this time he was on his bike, helmet on, revving up to cruise alongside her. She glanced at him, knowing he couldn't see the expression on her face but willing him to sense it.

As if he had, he gave her a thumbs-up.

They rode up and down the air strip, Erin practicing finding Jack in her mirrors, riding beside another bike, braking and turning, starting from a cold stop. She had a scary moment when the bike's wheel caught a crack in the runway's cement, another when she gave it too much gas to get moving, but by the time Jack gave her a closed fist to signal a halt, she was vibrating with joy.

She pulled off her helmet and shook out her hair. “I am one with my bike,” she proclaimed, then laughed out loud.

“You look good out there,” he said, booted feet braced on either side of his Duc. “Comfortable. Confident.”

“Thanks,” she said, then turned to look over her shoulder at her rear end. “Did I tear your sister's leathers?”

“No,” he said.

“Are you sure?”

“I've been staring at your ass in those pants for the last two hours,” he said. “You didn't tear them. Keep them. Rose isn't riding right now, and you'll need them until you buy a set of your own. Let's get you some city riding experience.”

She slipped her slacks and sensible librarian shoes into her backpack, then followed him from the air strip's entrance to the highway, then into town. People stared from the windows of their cars as they waited at stoplights; another rider on a Suzuki speed bike lifted a hand in greeting. They roared through the college's main gates and down the tree-lined drive to the library parking lot.

Never in her life had she been this cool, or this happy.

“My knees are jelly,” she said when she swung off the bike and pulled off her helmet.

“You'll get used to it,” he said, keeping his bike idling, his helmet on. “You'll get yourself home okay.”

It wasn't a question. “Yes,” she said, self-conscious about the stares coming her way, knowing she couldn't do anything more intimate than say thanks. “I just … I couldn't have gotten over that hurdle without you, and Keenan. Thank you.”

His visor hid his face, but he reached out and patted the Duc's scratched gas tank. “I knew you could do it,” he said. “See you around.”

Fumbling with her helmet, she bounded up the stairs to the library's staff entrance, her legs both wobbly and supercharged. But the thing that stuck in her mind as she keyed into the building was the way Jack's hand didn't shake when he patted the gas tank.

Chapter Six

She was lit up like a city at night, her legs wobbly on the stairs to the library's employee entrance, feeling both inordinately proud of her motorcycle gear, and terrifyingly exposed. The helmet banged against the doorframe on her way in, making everyone seated in the shared office space look up.

So much for avoiding attention.

“What on earth?” Carol said, her eyes widening.

“Hi,” she said with a quick glance at the clock. “I'm not … I'll tell you later, after I get changed.”

She ducked into the bathroom, banging her elbows and knees on the tiny stall as she shimmied out of the tight leathers and into her slacks. Her blouse, fortunately, was a forgiving polyester blend, but the scent of leather and sweat and skin was unmistakable. She scrubbed her fingers against her scalp to give her helmet hair some lift, then peered at herself in the mirror.

She looked like she'd just had sex. Amazing sex. Heart-pounding, multi-orgasmic sex. Same flushed cheeks and throat, same bright eyes, same obvious but inexplicable energy vibrating in her skin.

The bathroom door opened and one of the work-study students walked in, her quick gaze taking in Erin's face and hair, the helmet at her feet, the leathers neatly folded and tucked into her backpack. “Wow. Was that, like, you I saw riding up with what's his name, the SEAL guy who's lurking all mysterious and broody in the psych classes?”

She should have frozen. She should have lied. They were in a relationship, which was expressly forbidden by the school's code of conduct. She should have felt ashamed, threatened, exposed.

“Yes,” she said simply. Chin lifted, gaze direct. It wasn't about truth or lies. It was about claiming who she was becoming. “That was me.”

The student nodded, then slung her backpack down on the floor. “Cool,” she said, and walked into a stall. Erin bolted the second the door closed, shoving her backpack and helmet under her desk, then turned to Carol. “I bought a motorcycle,” she said.

“You did?” Carol said, eyes wide.

“A Ducati Monster 696.”

“Nice bike,” Terry the bearded electronic collections librarian said, peering around from behind his wall of monitors. Erin stared at him, because in the six months he'd been working at the library, he'd said not a single word not related to the job. “New?”

“A couple of years,” she said. “It's in the lot.”

Just like that, everyone who wasn't working with a student crowded back through the door and down the stairs to the parking lot to cluster around Erin's new bike.

“Wow,” Carol said.

“Who put the scratches in it?” Terry said, fingering the gouge in the paint.

“I did, about two hours ago,” Erin admitted.

“Keep the shiny side up,” he said sagely.

“Working on it.”

“I didn't know you knew how to ride a motorcycle,” Carol said.

“I learned,” Erin said. “The state offers beginner rider courses. Some dealerships give you a discount on a bike afterwards, so the course basically pays for itself when you buy a bike.”

“What did Jason think about this?” Carol asked.

“He thought it was a stupid idea to invest in an expensive hobby that would probably get me killed, or worse, permanently disabled.”

“Good thing you divorced him,” Terry said, hands in his pockets, rocking back on his heels. “That's a sweet bike.”

The work-study student opened the door and leaned out. “Uh, I've got a printer issue in here?”

Erin sighed. “I'll take care of it.”

*   *   *

She floated through the first part of her shift. She taught a student to use EBSCO; she fixed seven printer jams and one wireless router problem. She said good-bye to the day-shift librarians, and watched the reading room slowly empty out as students went in search of dinner. Slowly, ever so slowly, the routine dampened the adrenaline rush and her body settled down, her heart rate approaching normal, the color fading from her skin. But she couldn't deny the spring in her step, the new, proud tilt to her head, the smile that broke across her face every time she looked out the tall windows and saw her Duc waiting in the parking lot.

There was a dead period in the library around the time when the dining hall was open, students taking a break before transitioning from the class day to evening study hours. She picked up her phone and sent Jack a text.

Eat dinner or take my bike for a ride?

She could hear the rough amusement in his response.
Tough call. Come down to study room 4W and I'll help you decide.

Guiltily she looked around the room. Carol was taking her shift at the circulation desk. Only one earnest student sat at a table in the main reading room. The library was as empty as it would ever be, and if anyone could keep them hidden, it would be a Navy SEAL.

She snagged her backpack from under her desk, shouldered it, and walked up to Carol. “I'm taking my dinner break now.”

“A student just asked me to text her a copy of the book she needs,” Carol said, idly clicking through
Overheard in the Library
on Tumblr.

“The call information?” Erin said, arrested mid-stride.

“No, the whole book,” Carol said brightly.

“You're all over that, right?” Erin said, and pressed the button for the stacks.

“I'm
so
all over it,” Carol said.

The cement walls and florescent lighting of the stacks felt oppressive after a morning spent in the sunshine, the wind a physical presence against her body. She made a careful round of each floor of the stacks, checking study rooms, the rows and rows of shelves, all the while remembering how riding the bike was like sex with Jack, a push and pull, a way of testing herself against something stronger, more powerful, something that challenged her to go beyond what she was capable of, even beyond her dreams.

But this was getting dangerous, in a way she'd not expected. Relationships with a student were clearly forbidden, but Jack was no ordinary student. He was, she thought as she walked a slow circle of the third-floor stacks, no ordinary man.

4W was in the far corner of the bottom floor of the stacks, a study room largely ignored thanks to its out-of-the-way location and inability to get Wifi or cell service. Only the most desperately introverted undergrads found their way there. She peeked through the rectangular safety glass inset and saw Jack, long legs stretched out in front of him, typing away at a laptop. He looked up and beckoned her in.

“Hi,” she said. “I didn't know you were coming back to the library today.”

“This paper won't write itself,” he said. “How are you doing? Sore?”

She pulled out one of the awful plastic chairs clustered unevenly around the table and sat down, wincing. “I didn't notice how sore I was until I spent an hour in the chair at the circulation desk.”

The lazy smile he gave her didn't quite mitigate the sharp look in his eyes. “C'mere,” he said, holding out his arm.

She winced as his forearm tightened around her hips, just above the tender spot where her butt hit the tarmac, but didn't let that stop her from straddling his lap. “I really, really shouldn't do this,” she murmured against his mouth.

“I shaved hoping to tempt you into doing exactly this,” he replied.

He wasn't kissing her. His hands gently kneaded the tops of her buttocks, then moved lower, finding the deepest aches and pressing into them. An unexpected heat flared low in her sex, kindled by the warm look in his eyes, his clean-shaven jaw, his full lips she'd never seen quite so exposed before.