“I’ll get a copy too, then,” he said, pushing a book my way.
“You’ll need to wait your turn, young man.” The woman slapped at Jasper’s hand, but she did so playfully, smirking before looking up at him through her lashes. “Don’t bother with a signed copy. You won’t need it if you’re not already a fan. Just get the trade paperback.”
Bless her. Trade paperbacks were bigger and, therefore, more expensive. I carefully wrapped up the woman’s treasures before putting them in a bag for her.
“Thank you, darling. Now you other old biddies. Grab a copy before the young ones snap them all up. They come flooding in through the door once lunchtime starts and the books’ll all be gone before you know it.”
Her friends quickly stepped to, grabbing their copies before decamping to their favourite circle of chairs. I moved to put the kettle on, setting up cups with tea bags for the women.
“Let me,” Jasper said, appearing at my shoulder, almost looking at me shyly.
“You don’t have to,” I started to say, but I swallowed hard at his proximity now. He didn’t smell the same as Logan, having a more spicy vanilla scent, but I found myself sucking in lungfuls all the same.
“Yes, I do. You’re busy today, yeah? Gonna have a swarm of urban young professionals sweeping in to get their mummy porn?”
“Hey, I make a fine living selling mummy porn,” I said with a fake frown. “And if you haven’t noticed, I’m a mummy.”
“Oh, I have.”
His eyes slid down my body and then up, his lips twisting into a smile before he moved over, turning the kettle off when it whistled and then pouring out the tea. He set out sugar, lemon and milk along with a plate of biscuits on a tray and then turned and carried it over to the ladies. They appeared much more delighted to have a hot young alpha servicing them rather than me, and to be blunt, I was happy for his help too. I had to work fast, setting up a display right near the counter after tagging each book with a barcode. Once Jasper had taken the drinks over, he returned to my side, bringing boxes over and taking over doing the barcodes as I organised the books.
“I like this one,” Mrs Fiddler said, mid-morning, right before she was about to leave. She flicked her eyes at Jasper with exaggerated emphasis. “About time you got some help around here and good looking with it, too.” She turned to Jasper before I could even reply. “Make sure you read that book, young man. It’ll teach you something.”
“Oh, I intend to.”
When had Jasper’s voice turned to roughened silk, his reply little more than a purr? I just blinked up at him, his bloody dimples appearing as he grinned, before I forced myself to focus on the book display. Alphas I could take or leave, but sales of a hot new book, right as it hit the shelves? I had struck up a special relationship with the book sellers, making sure I got the hot releases on the day they came out, ready for people my age who seemed to prefer paperbacks to ebooks. Then as soon as 11:30am hit, in they came.
Some women were furtive, making a show of perusing the non-fiction shelves before hurriedly picking up their copy and bringing it to the counter when no one else was waiting. Others came in great gaggles, each one exclaiming loudly what they hoped to read in the pages. I got a laundry list of their literary kinks before I’d even rung up their books. But Jasper proved to be both a blessing and a curse.
With the bold ones, they slunk up to the counter and pushed the books towards him, resulting in me having to teach him how to make a sale quickly, but the shy ones? They seemed to get flustered, staring up, up at him and then blinking in a way I could too easily understand. He was too big, too muscular, too damn good looking to be real and I could just about guess how disorientating that felt for them.
Because I felt the same sense of unreality as the lunch-time rush went on. Our bodies brushed against each other in the narrow space behind the desk, our hands sometimes forced to reach over the other’s to take a customer’s order. This felt like death by a thousand cuts, but each little slice had me wanting more. Then, when the crowds finally thinned and I looked over to see almost half of the books had sold, he moved in closer.
“I’m getting you lunch.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that,” I said, my hand pressing to my forehead. “I’ll just bung the kettle on and have another coffee, then get something when I go to pick up Ev.”
A hand slid up the back of my neck, big and heavy. He used it to pull me closer, rubbing the skin there slowly, sensually.
“An alpha provides, Lily. I’m getting you lunch and if you don’t tell me what you want, I’ll be forced to buy one of everything each of the cafes on this street sell, just to find something you like.”
“Oh.” I chanced a look up and immediately regretted it, because our proximity felt so insanely intimate right now. Why? I couldn’t work out right now, especially after last night with his brother… “Ah, a salad sandwich and a bottle of water would be amazing. Let me get you some money.”
He pulled away with a snort at that and I found I missed his warm presence as soon as he did.
“Ben can pick up Evie from school,” he said. “Or I could. In theory, Damon could—”
“No, no, that is not OK.” I remembered his insane driving on the way out to the airfield, then what else we got up to in the car. “Evie was asking if Ben could pick her up, so if he is OK with that…”
“I’ll ask him, but I know he’ll say yes.” Jasper paused in the doorway, looking back at me. “I think you’ll find there’s not a lot we’ll say no to if you ask.”
“Because you’re making the best of a situation.” I didn’t like the words, my mouth twisting as I said them, but I forced myself to turn that into a smile.
“Because we want to prove to you that we’re worth the risk. That’s what we are, right?”
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. To open those floodgates… I moved then, tidying up the mess behind the counter, then going to clean up the many coffee cups lying around the shop.
“Hopefully at some point you’ll decide you’re ready to jump,” he said, right before the bell announced he’d left the store.