#bookshelf

[almostfoxglove]

this fic somehow gave me both feelings simultaneously and I am absolutely living for it. this was fucking beautiful. gorgeous writing, delicious yearning, aslsdfkjdslk smut *phew* - I fucking loved it. GO READ THIS RN AND THANK ME LATER <3 (thank you, lo, for sharing this with us!!)

solstice

ao3 ⋆ main masterlist

pairing: Joel Miller x f!reader  rating: Explicit (18+ only!)  warnings: smut (PiV), competency kink, grumpy/sunshine, he falls first, yearning, angst, almost enemies to lovers, Tommy being a little shit, no use of y/n, Jackson!Joel word count: 4k  summary: Three little words. Joel heard those same three words damn near every day for the last seven months. Most days, they were the only words you said to him. Sometimes, if he was lucky, you'd say them more than once. Other days, you didn't say anything to him at all. He liked those days least of all.

A/N: happy holidays @trulybetty! thank you for being so lovely about this being a little late. I was only going to go for one or two of your prompts for the @pedrostories secret santa, but then my brain went why not all of them, and now here we are. 

divider by @saradika-graphics

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Three little words.

"I got it."

Joel heard those same three words damn near every day for the last seven months. Most days, they were the only words you said to him. Sometimes, if he was lucky, you'd say them more than once. Other days, you didn't say anything to him at all. He liked those days the least.

You said other things too, of course. He heard you speak to other people. Not always nicely, but he heard you. You said more to him on occasion too. Out my way or put it down were some particular favorites, but none said more so than those three, tiny, little words.

I got it.

Because you did. He had never met a woman who had got it more than you. Strong, capable, and everything he ever tried to be. He watched every day how you'd got it. Climbing up ladders with tiles stacked on your shoulder, hauling wheelbarrows full of gravel, chopping wood in bitter wind and cold. You had it, and he watched, wanting it too.

The only problem was, he wasn't too sure what it was.

To begin with, it was the respect you commanded that he yearned for. He had that, once. Not here. Fuck, never here. The people here would barely look at him for the first few weeks. But you? They listened to you. If you said move they listened, even if it was with a roll of their eyes. If you told someone to fuck off to medical, they went without a grumble. They trusted you. Even if you weren't particularly generous with your smiles.

You were the exact opposite of what Joel was finding he had to be.

In Boston, people feared him, and that kept him, and Tess, safe. It was for the best. The people here feared him too, at first. Maybe even still now, if he was to be honest with himself, but he'd worked hard to change that. He met the mumbled good mornings with as much of a smile as he could muster. He went for drinks with his brother, made small talk with the locals even when he didn't want to. He tried to get into Maria's good graces, but never quite succeeded.

And he worked. With you mostly. Jackson didn't have much use for hired muscle or someone who could smuggle shit discreetly - not outside of the daily patrol shifts they wouldn't let him on yet, anyway - but they did have use for contractors. Plumbers, electricians, carpenters, anyone who was good at doing shit with their hands. Those were things that had value behind these walls and, luckily for him, that meant he had value too. For the first time in a long time, he meant something to people.

Just not to you.

As much as he smiled, and made small talk, and helped out fixing shit in this place that was now his home, he could never get through to you. He'd try to help you out, only to be knocked aside - sometimes literally. You barely looked at him. Spoke only when necessary. Once, you'd even told him to fuck off.

He did.

At first he took it all personally. He moped, and kept his sour mood hidden from his brother and Ellie. Then, he saw how you were with, well, just about everyone else, and that lessened the sting.

But, as time wore on, Joel saw other things too. Where at first you'd seemed rude and abrasive, he now saw the kindness and compassion you treated everyone with. If you told someone to go the fuck home, it wasn't because you wanted them gone it was because you wanted them rested. If you let people struggle, strike their thumbs with a badly aimed hit of a hammer, it was to help them learn. You never did let anyone make the same mistake twice. And, because of you, no one did.

It was with the waning of spring that his desire to be you changed into something different and entirely more confusing.

As the gardens and trees exploded in the frenzy of summer, you shed your layers. Literally, not figuratively. You still stayed firmly closed up as your jacket disappeared and made way for a shirt hung loosely about your shoulders. Then, even that found its way around your waist and Joel had to come face to face with the bare, strong expanse of your back while you worked in nothing but a tank top, the patch of sweat at the small of your back blooming while he watched.

It was for the best that he didn't think about what you looked like walking towards him during those relentlessly hot months, with nothing but a thin tank top pulled across your chest. It wasn't something he should think about in public, anyway. It was something he kept for late at night, when those three little words echoed around his head and you showed him just how much you really, truly got it.

By October, Tommy had caught on. Your jacket was fastened back around you, and you were as hostile as ever. You breezed past him one morning, hooking a ladder over one shoulder, toolbag gripped in your other hand.

"I got it."

By now, Joel knew you did.

By now, he wanted to come with you anyway.

So he did, grabbing his own set of salvaged tools and heading up to the latest reno with you, only to have you square up to him the second you saw him.

"I said, I got it."

Five words. It was a good day.

So good, that he couldn't keep his eyes off you in the Tipsy Bison that night. You weren't in here often - from what he could tell, you didn't do much outside of work - but the people who shared your company seemed to enjoy it. You sat soft and quiet in the corner, listening in to their conversation more often than you contributed. But, when you did, they laughed, and Joel caught himself smiling, and Tommy caught him too.

"Never thought you'd be more of a ray of fuckin' sunshine than anyone else, but there's a first for everythin', I guess," he'd said, tilting his glass to the table in the corner where you sat. 

Joel took a swig of the last fresh cider of the season and shrugged.

"You got an eye for her."  

He sputtered, choking on the tart, sweet liquid. "No I ain't."

"Well you got somethin'," said Tommy, clinking his glass against Joel's own. "If it ain't an eye it's your-" 

A harsh kick, and a grunt loud enough to turn every head in the bar later, and Tommy dropped it entirely.

For about a week.

Tommy ribbed him at dinner, drinks, lunch and just about every time in between. Called Joel 'Sunshine' even as he scowled. Asked about his girl as if you were anything other than a person who hated him. Slung his arm around Joel's shoulder and told him all about the birds and the bees, as if he'd ever forgotten.

He couldn't forget. Not with you running around barking at him and keeping him in a seemingly permanent state of arousal. If it wasn't your voice and that angry way you talked at him, it was just about anything else. He couldn't escape it.

It was how you did everything he could do, and more. What he had in strength, you had in technique. Your hands - fuck, did he watch your hands - were rarely unblemished with dirt or scrapes, but they were adept at everything you put them to. He couldn't look away, even if he knew each minute he looked was a minute quicker he'd be when he touched himself to the thought of you later that night.

The taunts stopped with the first snowfall.

"If you're really that interested, should talk to her," Tommy said instead. "Bark's worse than her bite."

"You're still sayin' she bites, though."

"Sure she would if you asked nice enough, brother."

Joel didn't ask.

He didn't ask the morning he woke up early to see the town blanketed in thick snow either. He simply went out, picked up a snow shovel and began working until the sun came up. He didn't expect to find you at his door that evening, or for you to grab him and throw him outside, pushing him up against the side of his own house.

"What do you think you're playing at, Miller?" you growled up at him, pushing him firmly against the siding.

Joel stared, dumb-founded, your hands curled in the front of his shirt - touching him - and blinked down at you.

"I don't give a shit who you are or what you've done out there. I am not scared of you and I am not having you take my job."

You ignored him more after that. Days went by with barely a word to him - not even a scowl thrown his way if he made too much noise or offered to help someone out on a job.

As for him, he couldn't stop thinking about it. Every day for weeks that night played through his head, memory of the feel of your hands on his chest and your face so close he could feel your breath, until Christmas was on the horizon and a pit of fear began stirring in his stomach. You were a balm to it, somehow. Something to focus on when the fear got too much and kept him inside, away from the crowds of happy people.

Every single I got it was more of a comfort than the last. It could have been the familiarity of it, or the way those words came softer and softer as the season wore on. Sometimes he'd head by the workshop to ask if you needed a hand, just to hear that soft rejection one more time.

Until late one cold afternoon, it didn't come. You were alone, blowing warm air onto gloved hands, and when he asked you simply nodded, and he followed.

You worked together in silence until the sun set, when you turned to him as you parted ways.

"S'hard this time of year, but joy and grief can exist at the same time, y'know."

He didn't go to the Bison that night. Or the next. He let the grief crack open his chest instead, and let it pour out over his bedroom floor for two whole days.

On the third, he let the joy back in. Ellie reeled off new jokes from a book she found in the Jackson library. He held his nephew and rocked the teething babe to sleep. He went back to the Bison - you weren't there - and celebrated the impending holiday.

Seven months, three days, and about as many hourssince he stepped foot back in Jackson. Damn near every day he's heard those three little words, and he'll be damned if he goes another without them.

With the day as short as it could ever be, the sun tracking low in the sky, he finds you.

"I got it," you say softly, when he asks you that very same question he always does.

"I know."

He doesn't know how your lips end up on his - because it is you who kisses him. He doesn't know how his fingers find themselves under your shirt either, the coldness of them making you gasp into his mouth until you're pulling apart, both wide eyed.

He does know you taste like fruit, even in the dead of winter. He always suspected it - knew your sweet tooth by the berries you couldn't resist and the sweet treats gifted to you. He knows your fingers are as cold as his when you hand him a shovel.

He does know, even though you got it, you let him help anyway.

You clear streets and roofs of snow together until the sun goes down. He follows at your heel in the dark, cold biting through your layers as you both stomp the snow off your boots, shovels thrown down, workshop locked up. You barely even look at each other until you're staring through the fog of your own heavy breaths on Joel's front porch. He doesn't know how to welcome you in - he never was too good with words - so he simply unlocks the door and pushes it open.

You step inside.

Layers are shed before the door even closes. Heavy coats dumped on the couch, boots toed off and left this way and that. The hat on your head stuffed in a pocket - he can't remember which.

You move upstairs - worked on this house, you say - and pull him into his own bedroom before his lips even touch yours again. But when they do, they do. Joel's frantic with it, feeling the softness of you so close to the hardness of him. His hands hold your waist, rooting you to him, but then you're moving them up and under your shirt to the flair of your ribcage. The curve of your breasts fit perfectly against the cradle of his thumb and forefinger, and he thinks of everything his hands have done, this is what they were made for.

It must be. When you whine at the feel of this thumb stroking across your pebbled nipple, he thinks for the first time in a long time that maybe his hands aren't so monstrous if they can pull such pretty noises from you.

In fact, the things they've done don't seem to matter at all when he gets to touch you, to pull sounds from you so sweet he'll be tasting you on his tongue all over again just from the memory of them. For all the harm these hands have done, they could never hurt you. You would never let them. You'd tear him apart first.

And he'd let you.

You swallow his groan when you palm his length over his jeans. He stiffens beneath your touch, warm and firm, and grinds into your hand. It's been so long since he's felt the touch of anyone other than himself. He could come just grinding himself against the firm press of your hand against him, if he thought about it too hard.

So he doesn't. He focuses instead on the soft plink plink plink as you run a nail up his ice cold zipper, the way you bite his lip, tangle your fingers in his hair.

He tries to take off his own belt, cold fingers fumbling against even colder metal, but you mumble I got it into his mouth, and his knees quiver.

You do. You always do.

His belt is pulled off and you're tugging him by the loops of his pants and pushing him against his own bed, the sheets still rumpled from the morning. You slip off your own and toss it to the side too, tangling it with his on his bedroom floor. Then, you're so very close to him again, his thigh between your legs as you nip and suckle on his bottom lip. He holds you close - one hand finding its way under your shirt again, cupping your breast fully this time, and the other pulling you firmly against his strong thigh.

You warm his thigh with the burning heat between your legs, grinding yourself against him, the seam of your jeans pulling tight against you. Moans you were pulling from him a moment ago are silenced by your own, your nails digging crescents into his arm as you burrow your face into his neck in an attempt to stifle them.

You're better than he ever dreamed. Softer. Warmer. Stronger. The sounds you make so much prettier than he ever thought. Those three little words so much sweeter within these walls than any other.

Even when you strip off layer after layer, it's better than he dreamed. Summer was barely a taste of you, he realises, when your shirt, your tank, your soft bra, all tumble to the floor and you climb onto the bed behind him.

You kick your jeans off, and he pulls his down too. He can't get his shirt off quick enough, the scars on his body forgotten as he strips bare for you as you watch, lust barely turning to curiousity as you take in the sight of his body.

"Come here," you tell him, and he obeys. You're softer with him when he lies beside you then. Grasping hands turn to gentle strokes, his own hands on your bare flesh mimicking your gentle movements across his skin.

When your hand trails down to his cock, squeezing once again when you feel him throb in your palm, he has to pinch his eyes closed and pretend he's anywhere but here.

"Been a long time," he says through gritted teeth. "Long, long time."

Me too, he thinks he hears you whisper before your lips latch to his again and his soft, worn boxers are slipped down his legs, kicked to the side, forgotten.

You don't look at him, and for that he's grateful. He's less grateful when you start to play with your own nipples and toy with the edge of your panties. He presses a kiss to your shoulder instead, hiding his face against you and breathing you in.

When he opens his eyes again, your panties are off, thighs spread, one hooked lazily over his own, the other stretched out on his sheets.

"Don't have to," you mumble, when he looks down at you, stunned look obvious on his face.

"I want to."

He touches you and you let him. His hands run all over your body, rough, calloused palms dragging across your soft belly, your hips, your thighs. He's dreamed of this, and still it's better than his wildest fantasies.

When your hand wraps around his bare cock, pumping his length once, twice, he thinks that's better than any fantasy too. You practically drag him by the cock, tugging gently to pull him towards you until he's kneeling between your thighs. You lazily stroke him, swiping precum across his tip and making him jerk in your grip. His own hands play with your thighs, massaging and squeezing them, drawing his fingers closer and closer to your apex.

Seven months, three days, and twenty-something hours since he stepped back into Jackson, he slips into you for the first time.

And, fuck, is it divine.

You're slick, and wet, his cock gliding across your skin before he pushes into you, and you both gasp.

He's slow. He trembles. His fingers make dents in your thighs as he grips them. You shuffle your hips, make yourself comfortable, and he holds steady while you adjust to the intrusion. Then, you pull him in, grabbing him by the neck to steal a kiss while he makes space for himself deep inside you, rocking each tentative inch into you until he's rooted inside.

You adjust - let the tenseness in your core release - and he barely holds on. And, just when he thinks he's got a hold of himself and begins fucking you in slow, languid movements, your hand moves and you say those three little words.

"I got it."

For the first ever time, he stops you. His hand pins yours to your hip, his movements stilling as you frown up at him, a threat on the tip of your tongue. So, he begs.

"Let me. Please."

And you do. He slowly swipes a spit slicked thumb against your clit, and watches as you melt into his sheets. By the look of you, the pure relief on your face, he thinks this could be the first time you've ever truly let go, and his ego soars.

It soars again when your legs tremble, rocking his thick cock in you as his thumb works slowly over your clit. You moan his name, and he groans too. He can't keep it back. It's the first time he's ever heard you say it, and he doesn't think it could sound better. Your eyes find his when you say his name again, testing him, only to pull another groan deep from his chest.

A small nod is all you give him as a sign you want more. His thumb moves quicker, popped into his mouth to taste you just for a moment before it swipes around your cunt where you grip him, and back up to your clit.

You come on him, face turned into his sheets, brow furrowed, mouth open as you moan and shake, trembling and pulsating on his cock as you come.

For you, he keeps going. Let's you ride out the waves, fluttering against him, as he barely holds back from the brink himself.

If this is all he gets - if you push him off and walk away now - it would be a good day, he thinks. But you don't. He doesn't even get chance to ask if you want him gone when you're pulling him down, kissing him, rocking your hips against him and murmuring against his throat for him to fuck you.

So, he does.

It feels sloppy, and awkward, his hips not quite knowing how to move any more as he snaps them against yours.

"Don't stop," you whisper to him with a scrape of your teeth against his shoulder. "Don't stop."

He's never been able to disobey you, he realizes. He's never had reason let alone want to. Even now, he does as he's told, keeps fucking forward into you, mattress squeaking and bed rocking as he finally, finally, finds his rhythm.

It's easy then. You spur him on, grip him tight, wrap your legs around his waist. He grunts, growls, can barely stop himself from panting, looking down at you and how you stare back at him and he thinks fuck, this is what it's like to be trusted by you.

With a sudden gasp, he pulls out, slipping from your wet heat to rut against your sopping cunt until he's spurting ropes of come against your mound and belly.

He apologizes, tries to admonish himself for being so quick. You tell him to shut up, hitting his shoulder. He does.

You both sigh in the afterglow. Even in the before, he never had times like this, he doesn't think. It was always frantic, too quick, too drunk, too fumbling. In the after, he could never quite relax enough to enjoy it fully. In the now, it's just about the best he's ever had.

You're still covered in him. Your fingers play idly in it on your belly, and he glows. He'd trace patterns with it over your skin, if only you'd let him. But then, you're up and gone, and he fears you're gone for good until you waltz back in and throw yourself next to him, mess cleaned from your skin as you stretch and yawn beside him.

"I aint tryin' to take your job, y'know," Joel tells you some time later, when the afterglow wanes and sleep pulls at him.

"Right."

He looks to you, the roll of your eyes and tug of a disbelieving smile on your lips visible in the glow of the bedside lamp.

"I promise. I'm just tryin' to... be some place."

You're still. And silent. He thinks he's fucked up for all of one second, until you're smiling sadly up at the ceiling.

"I get that," you say softly. "This is a nice place to be, all things considered."

And, though he thinks he knows what you mean, Yes, he thinks, this is a nice place to be.

This is a good day.

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[mindforbooks]

Finished my book last night and now I have to try and decide what to read next. Shelves full and nothing to read! 😂

[havetsavain]

Knock knock!

Who’s there?

Writer’s block.

Writer’s block who?

Umm…

[livybensreadsbooks]

if these kinds of books are your vibe- let’s be friends!!!!

[uhhlizabethreads]

A few photos of my book collection 🥰

[autumnallunaphotos]

Happy birthday Edgar Allan Poe 🖤🐦‍⬛🕯️🖋️💀

[bookstackxyz]

Check out books by order

2023 in books, minus e-books, audiobooks, and borrowed and lent ones. a crisper list of favourites is on the rabbit hole

[catbrarian]

cats and libraries ۫ ꣑ৎ

[natreads]

That desk + classics shelf + first snow combo

[kathren1sky-blog]

Because I love the story!!!!

Imagine Nation (Part Two)

Fandom: The Avengers/MCU

Relationship: Loki/Reader

Words: 1.6k

Summary: Loki returns demanding a new book series, and it leads to a heart to heart.

~*~*~*~*~

Loki was many things. He was a trickster. He was a god. He was a one-time villain. He lived a long life, and he took on many mantles.

But he never thought he was a coward.

When Loki told you he would see you tomorrow, he truly meant to follow through. He planned it out. He would stroll into your store in his true form, you would fall onto your knees and make good on your promise.

Then his more rational side kicked in.

His true form would not fit through the door of your bookstore. So he would have to walk in as his normal self. Then what? He would just make awkward eye contact with you as he transformed? Also, he hadn't been entirely truthful with you about who he was and what he was. What if you were scared of him when you found out? What if you were one of those people who hated him after that whole Chiturian army incident?

By the great roots of Yggdrasil, what if you had been joking?

What if you had been joking about being attracted to the grotesque monsters in that silly novel you had gotten him addicted to? Sure you weren't serious. You were having a go at him. Why else would you have randomly asked him about his opinions on the sex scenes? Surely to tease him and have a laugh.

So no, he would not be returning to your store in his full blue-skinned glory. Not tomorrow and not ever.

And with a sigh, he sat down to crack open the blasted thirteenth book in this awful, atrocious series.

~*~*~*~*~

If it had been anyone else, you would have called the cops.

But when you walked up to your store the next morning and saw Loki patiently waiting there for you, you couldn't say you were surprised. What surprised you was that he was holding up the last book he purchased just yesterday. He didn't normally bring them back.

"Bek?" Loki asked with a huff. "Are you telling me that even that low-life scoundrel gets a mate? After what he did?"

You chuckled as you reached for your keys. "I know, I thought the same thing when I first read it." You fiddled with the key the precise amount your aging lock required before hip-checking the door into opening. "But I promise it's worth it."

"No," Loki said, shaking his head and following you inside as you opened the shop. He even helped you turn on light switches. "I will not stand for it. I refuse to read of that monster getting a happily ever after. This is where I leave the series."

Once you rounded the counter and started to count the register, he stood across from you. He dropped the book down on the counter with a decisive thud.

You looked down at the book, then back up at him. Then you pointed to the sign behind you that said "We don't give refunds because of moral objections".

"Of course, I'm not looking for a refund," Loki said before crossing his arms. "It was for dramatic effect."

You rolled your eyes as you went back to counting the ones in the cash register. "I also needed to take a break when I caught to that part, but I came back just as you will."

"I will not!" Loki insisted, disgusted by the very idea.

You just gave him an unimpressed look. "Until then, how about I show you another series?"

Loki let out a sigh, his shoulders instantly relaxing. "Alright, fine," he grumbled. As much as he tried to deny it, he was shaping up to be an even bigger romance junkie than you. "What do you have in mind?"

You thought about it for a few moments, considering your options. You considered introducing him to another genre. You could picture him getting equally obsessed with a good cozy mystery. But then you got a more devilish idea.

"I think I know just the series," you said before heading down one of the aisles.

You didn't check to see if Loki was following you. You knew he was. He always did. You let your finger brush the spines of the books until you found the one you wanted. The cover was designed to look like the old oil painting covers on the romance novels you stole from your mother's hidden stash.

"The Dragon's Bride," you said as you handed the book to him. "This one has more of a fantasy vibe obviously, and I love the author. And I promise this series is much shorter. Only five so far, and the sixth one is supposed to come out soon."

Loki rolled his eyes as he observed the cover. "I see, so she's the damsel in distress and some valiant knight will save her from the beast chaining her up?"

You snorted. "Not at all, my good friend." You pointed to the green draconic figure he called a beast. "That's the love interest, he basically saves her from an abusive marriage."

"….He…he literally has her in shackles."

"And she's into it!"

Loki was silent for a few moments, simply taking in the cover art and your determined expression. "What is wrong with you?" he simply asked.

"What's wrong with me?" you repeated, putting your hands on your hips. "This is the published stuff I read. Compared to the stuff I read on Paetron, this is downright tame-"

Loki interrupted you, partially because he did not want to hear the end of that sentence, and partially because he was fed up with this whole game of yours. "What about this nonsense could appeal to you?"

You glanced down at the book in his hand. "Hot, rich, dragon-king who gives her a library and he has two dicks. What's not to love?"

"Two-? No." Loki shook his head, refusing to let himself be distracted. He took a deep breath and tried to get his thoughts in order. "This stuff is obviously written as a joke. No one is daydreaming about being abducted by a dragon man."

"You and I clearly run in different circles-"

"Enough!" Loki barked, raising his voice for the first time since you've known him.

It surprised you and made you shut your mouth.

"There is nothing attractive about monsters. They are awful and despicable creatures that should be at best pitied, and at worst eliminated." His chest heaved with emotion as he finished his outburst.

Your expression softened as you realized there was something deeper to this, something more than some lighthearted teasing. This was bothering him.

"Doesn't it make sense though? To want to love and be loved regardless of appearances?"

Loki scoffed. "There are limits."

You shrugged, undeterred. "Sure their features are odd, but so are mine. That dragon man isn't going to care that I have stretch marks or body hair. Not in the way another human might. That's the ultimate fantasy."

Loki studied you closely, looking for any hint of deception or mockery. He found none. You were speaking from your own experience. In your short mortal life, you had been made to feel so…he didn't have the right word for it as he had not lived your life. But he could see a glimmer of past insecurities. It reminded him a little too much of what he saw when he looked at himself in the mirror.

"I can't speak for everyone who likes these books," you continued speaking. "But yeah. Why wouldn't monsters appeal to those who feel a little monstrous?"

Loki cleared his throat before replying. "You are not monstrous. Far from it, in fact."

"Neither are you," you said before taking his free hand and gently squeezing it.

Loki let his gaze fall to your joined hands. "There is something have to tell you. About me, I-"

"I know."

"You know?"

"Loki isn't a very common name these days," you said with a playful smile. "And to be using a credit card with Tony Stark's name on it? Yeah, I know."

"Oh."

And suddenly all his fears felt foolish. You knew, and you had known since practically the beginning. Yet you still welcomed him into your store and into your life. How could you believe yourself to be monstrous when you were so angelic in his eyes?

Loki swallowed hard as he fought against the sudden flood of emotion that made his chest feel tight. "Alright, I'll buy the damn book."

You grinned and led him back to the front of the store, not letting go of his hand. "I can't wait to hear your thoughts."

Loki chuckled as he followed you to the main counter. You released his hand to start ringing up the book, and he reached for his wallet. "I'll be sure to share them the next time I come in."

"Or, we could talk about it over dinner," you suggested, not looking up from the cash register. "At my place?"

His throat suddenly felt dry as he held out his credit card for you to take. "Sounds perfect."

"Great, I'll text you," you giggled and quickly put the book into a bag and handed it to him.

He took the bag and waved to you before heading towards the door.

"Oh, Loki?"

He turned in the doorway and looked at you. "Yes?"

"Try to actually pay attention to the sex scenes this time. This book is a particular favorite of mine."

You had the audacity to wink at him. For a bookworm, your boldness never ceased to surprise him. Loki was beginning to wonder if he was in over his head.

"Duly noted," he said with a grin of his own before turning to leave.

Even if he was in over his head, Loki was a quick study.

~*~*~*~*~

[learnelle]

Bookish places in France 🇫🇷

[witchyautumns]

Marigona Suli

[soft-lovely]

a hidden bookshelf door would heal me

[sheepgirl3]

About to rearrange and sort my bookshelves! What are your favorite ways to sort your bookshelves?

[squeeze-the-lemon]

This is very important research so I can figure out how to arrange my books