ALMOST TWO WEEKS LATER, I sat in the Library of Congress cloakroom smelling my hair, looking at a picture of an empty store, listening in to Charlotte and Nicole’s conversation while Adele’s “Hello” played from my phone, and shoving a chocolate éclair into my mouth. The éclair was for research. Also, I needed to remember to put multi-tasking ninja on my resume.

“You could do a crowdfunding campaign,” Nicole said from her seat on the floor next to me. She leaned against the wall of lockers behind us and hugged her knees to her chest with hands that were only marked with two numbers each: eleven and thirty-four. The rest had been scrubbed off, and I still had no idea what any of them meant. “Other start-up businesses have done it, and some have even done it successfully.”

Charlotte sat on a short bench in front of us, one leg sticking straight out. “I just don’t know about asking people for money, though. Doesn’t that seem...weird?”

“Businesses need capital,” I said, handing her back her phone with my non-chocolatey fingers. “Sometimes you have to rally people so they realize that, but for an all-night bookstore, I know a few people who would get behind it. Myself included.”

“This would be the perfect place for it, too.” Charlotte sighed wistfully at the picture on her phone.

Before the company who had owned it upgraded to a bigger facility, it had been a quirky gift shop with such items as a ‘Ask me how I set feminism back fifty years’ pin and socks covered in cats with laser-beam eyes. Nicole had squealed loudly that she owned a pair exactly like them. It was the feminism pin that had really struck a chord with me.

My time was up, according to Rick, but I hadn’t wormed myself into a trip with Sam to see his sister or revealed any more dirt on the Clearys other than Riley’s strange text about an abandoned warehouse meeting. My next set of actions all came down to what I wanted, and depending on my location, that ebbed and flowed. With Sam, things were as easy as his smile. Warm and comfortable, too, mixed with the riotous pleasure that coursed through my body whenever he touched me, looked at me, anything with me. We hadn’t been physical since—how had he put it?—I fell on his dick with my mouth, because it felt like things were building between us. Not a brick wall but a constant connection to each other’s thoughts and moods. Being close to him, whether figuratively or literally, filled me with a warm, happy buzz.

But here at the LOC, my clothes and hair infused with the rich scent of ink written centuries ago on musty paper and then bound in leather, the history, the ornate architecture, made it that much harder to resist my childhood dreams. It was like a drug to book junkies, and I was so addicted to it, I no longer cared that smelling myself may not be socially acceptable. And yet behind all that in the swatch of hair I had curled around my lips was the smell of that morning’s bacon breakfast.

I grinned in spite of myself. At the end of my internship, I would probably need the name of a good cardiologist.

Did I want to make my parents proud even if it meant using the man I could definitely maybe be falling for in order to appease Rick? What if I didn’t get chosen for the library job even if I did Rick’s bidding? What if I chose Sam, but he didn’t want me when he found out the truth that I was trying to dig up dirt on his family? Could someone like him, so young and fiercely sexy, accept that I had a daughter with Rick?

At the literacy center with Keisha, he hadn’t clammed up or adopted a fake kind of enthusiasm. He had been his real self, and like most females, Keisha had fallen in love with him in seconds. He wasn’t Rick, and for whatever reason, I desperately needed to witness that undeniable truth even though I already knew it. Deep down, I knew that not all men were the opposite of what they appeared to be or pigs in disguise. I just needed a little reminder every once in a while.

Still, my trust in the opposite sex had a shaky foundation, but somehow Sam knew that. Or could sense it, anyway, which was why he never asked me about Rick after what happened at the literacy center fundraiser, never forced anything out of me, never shoved past personal. And that made it even harder to ignore him and the way he made me feel.

So maybe he could accept Her. But could I?

Because that was basically what I was doing—or wasn’t doing. Having Her Number and then not calling was like telling her all over again that I didn’t want her. But I didn’t want her to see it that way since it was the furthest thing from the truth. The truth was her mom was a coward. The truth was she was the most important thing—not Sam, not Rick, not whatever piece of information Rose had that Rick needed. Her. And she was missing from my life.

Maybe that was why I’d made Adele’s “Hello” my ringtone and why I couldn’t stop listening to the beautiful, haunting reminder of what I could say to Her. The answers to all my problems seemed like they should be so simple, but my gut rolled with a lifetime of doubts. Her lifetime. She’d turned seven the day before I arrived in D.C.

“I don’t know.” Charlotte leaned her head back, a deep V etched between her eyebrows, while she massaged her right leg. “Maybe I should finally join this decade and look in to the whole crowdfunding thing.”

Nicole, who had her eyes closed on the other side of Charlotte, broke out into the Dr. Who theme song, and I was pretty sure it was against the law somewhere if someone didn’t immediately join in. Good citizen that I was, I did, and loudly. That earned me a fist-bump from Nicole and a quirked lip from Charlotte.

I nudged Charlotte’s good leg with the toe of my sensible flats. “Why don’t you call a doctor?”

“A doctor can’t help me open a bookstore,” she said.

“You’re limping.” Nicole opened one eye long enough to glance at Charlotte. “And barking.”

“I’m sorry, Nic,” Charlotte said and slid the combat boot on her good leg next to Nicole’s black low-heeled pumps. “I’d been trying to get the mold out of that book for days, and then you swept in and took care of it within five minutes. My devil horns sprouted, and I’m sorry, Poison Ivy.”

Nicole lifted her glossy red hair from the back of her neck and grinned. “I prefer mold whisperer. And you can make it up to me tonight with a strawberry daiquiri.”

“Done,” Charlotte said.

“With an umbrella,” she added. “And whatever Paige wants.”

Whatever I wanted. If only I knew.

* * *

“I CAN HEAR THE BACON screaming, you know,” Sam announced from his perch on the kitchen countertop.

As always, it was just the two of us. Max Cleary was expected to make his official bid for presidency any day now, and Riley worked relentlessly to help make that happen. And as always, I didn’t mind his absence one bit.

I snorted on a laugh from my stance in front of the stove. “If you’re hearing bacon screaming, then we need to take a trip to a special place after dinner.”

“Bacon Anonymous or the Bacon Triple X movie theater? Because I’ve been to both.”

I shook my head and fluffed the rice with a fork. “Child.”

“So does that make you my babysitter?” The tip of his tongue poked from the corner of his mouth while he skimmed his bare foot up the back of my thigh.

I gripped the fork harder as sparks of heat melted through my body. His foot rose to just below my ass, and both his touch and the pressure building inside me pushed me against the stove with a gasp.

Something had changed between us these last few weeks. A daring honesty—except about the topics of Rose and Rick—had fused with our suffocating sexual energy. It took a great deal of willpower not to tell him the truth of my consuming need for him. Or to tackle him onto the island where he’d destroyed my panties the first time. Willpower and extreme hunger. I was starving.

“Wherever you plan on taking that foot of yours might result in a trip to the emergency room.” I nodded to the stove. “I have a pot of boiling gravy up here. Just sayin’.”

“You’re a terrifying cook,” he said, but removed his foot and hopped down from the counter to saunter closer and whisper in my ear, “Just sayin’.”

A delightful shiver ran down my neck, and I bit my lip on a sigh. He could likely sense my relaxed state around him and was daring to cross all the lines he hadn’t yet. Lines I wanted him to cross.

“Unfortunately, you’re not that far from the truth,” I said. “It’s more than a little scary when I try to pretend I’m the Iron Chef.”

“I’m going to build my own bunker with a solar-powered refrigerator during the zombie apocalypse.”

A chuckle tripped out of my mouth at the random direction his thought process took. “Okaaaay. What does that have to do with anything?”

He leaned against the counter, watching as I stirred the gravy. “We’re talking about things that scare us, right? I’m scared of running out of bacon.”

“But you could still run out even with a solar-powered refrigerator.”

He shook his head. “Not if I build the bunker next to a pig farm.”

I laughed at the boyish sparkle in his eyes. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

“I’m undead serious,” he said, completely deadpan.

I just about dove headfirst into the pan of gravy with bouts of laughter that left my limbs feeling like jelly. He made it so easy to forget that I hadn’t seduced him to go see Rose and practice my information-finding skills, and I almost didn’t care about the repercussions. Almost.

When I regained my composure, or as much as I could have around Sam, I said, “God, I needed that. Thank you.”

He looked at me for a long moment. “You’re welcome.”

“And thank you for letting me stay here.”

“You’re welcome.” He cleared his throat and crossed his arms over his tight, black T-shirt. “No more thank-yous or I’m going to have to start charging you rent.”

“Fair enough.” The timer chimed, and with an oven mitt, I checked the bacon-wrapped pork chops. “Not quite done. Or at least I don’t think so.”

He moved to my side, his body heat warming my skin. His musky leather scent mixed with the sizzling kitchen smells into some kind of divine sensory overload. I turned to him for his response, but discovered his gaze trained on me.

He thumbed my chin, parting my lips, his eyes shuttered with a worshipful heat when he leaned in. My breath caught. The erratic knocking in my chest tipped me closer to him so our mouths were inches apart. Desire pooled between my thighs, and I reached a hand for his waist to steady myself.

“You’ve been preoccupied,” he said softly, removing his warm hand from my face.

“I’ve been busy,” I corrected, trying, and probably failing to make him believe me. He’d likely not forgotten about our run-in with Rick.

“You can talk to me, you know. Rose—” He swallowed at the first mention of his sister he’d uttered since I’d arrived, and my heart broke for him. “She said I’m a good listener, so...”

I nodded and looked away, not wanting him to read what I already knew. “Do you remember when she begged Riley for days to turn on the sprinkler in the backyard so all of us would play tag with her?”

“Yellow bird tag,” he said with a frown.

“Yeah.” I drifted my hand at his waist up to his chest, flattening my palm against the hard muscle, as if to soak away his pain. “Why did she call it that?”

A muscle in his jaw twitched. “She was always complaining that we would never let her win, that she was always it. So I started wrapping a yellow band aid around her finger. I told her it would give her wings.”

A pressure unfurled inside my chest, both pleasant and painful, lightweight and heavy, and wove the beautiful and complicated sum of all those parts into the center of my heart. I didn’t quite understand the feeling or where it came from, and I found I didn’t really want to. It was enough to just exist, and I would hold it close.

I stared up into those shockingly blue eyes. “You’re a good person, Sam.” My voice came out a whisper through my clamped throat.

He chuckled, bitter and dry. “I let my little sister win at tag. That’s all.”

“You don’t like to talk about—” I started, but an alarm pierced the air in deafening wails. I covered my ears and winced.

“Smoke alarm,” Sam shouted and pushed the off button on the stove. “It’s the bacon grease.”

I elbowed open the kitchen door and waved the smoke outside. Sam found a broom and stabbed the alarm that had every intention of causing permanent hearing damage.

This had to be someone’s idea of a joke, and I had to admit, it was kind of funny. Was it really bacon grease or had we just heated up the kitchen with our combustible attraction? Or had I eaten too many cornballs for breakfast?

Even now, my eardrums shaking, I was still breathless and simmering from Sam’s touch. Watching the muscles in his shoulders and arms flex while he tried to smash the alarm with the broom handle wasn’t helping me calm down any, either. Neither was the focused set of his jaw, his blond hair falling across his forehead, or his angry glare. The man had passion for every single thing he did.

The alarm ended as abruptly as it began, and the silence somehow seemed just as loud. I let the tension from the noise whoosh from my lungs then closed the door behind me.

“You killed it?” I asked, glancing at the alarm.

“I think so,” he said with a sigh.

“And that’s why you don’t put bacon in the oven, huh? Go ahead and say I told you so.” I’d been attempting something crazy by introducing Sam to a different part of a pig, but I supposed the smoke alarm was a warning to rethink that strategy.

He cocked a smile while his gaze drank me in. I shivered despite the summer heat I’d let inside washing across my bare skin and the burning in his eyes.

“Forgive me?” I asked.

“I can probably be persuaded to forgive you, yeah,” he said.

“We might as well eat the food that almost burned down your house.” I stepped toward him to brush my palm across his side on my way toward the stove. “Before the persuading begins.”

“And what kind of persuading will you be doing tonight? Do I need to buy more alcohol?”

I gave a one-shouldered shrug. “That depends.”

“On?” He edged up behind me and settled his hands on my hips.

“On how well you can pretend you like the pig that almost burned down your house.” My senses buzzed with his nearness, even though I didn’t hear a sound, and roared full throttle when he dropped his lips to my neck.

“I can pretend really...” Another kiss, this time below my ear lobe. “Really well.” His breath trailed a path of goose bumps over my skin.

I fisted my hands on the stove at the promise in his voice. But that mouth...and those hands that were now sliding across my belly and pulling my ass against his erection. Every touch unwound my resolve to keep my word to Nicole and Charlotte and go out with them tonight. I could call and feign food poisoning, which might not be too far from the truth after the dinner I’d made. Or I could say that a gorgeous man’s hands were inching down the front of my jeans.

My hips rolled backward into his, drawing a low moan from Sam that rumbled into my shoulders. My arm wound around the back of his head to keep his hungry mouth at my neck. I wanted him, every single inch, to help me explore these feelings toward him, fill my senses, and ease the mounting pressure between my legs.

“Come with me tonight,” I breathed.

“Stay here,” he growled into my hair. His hand crept lower into my jeans and cupped me with a powerful grip.

I grinded against his palm, my breathing at full volume, while small pulses flashed up and down my thighs. Speaking of persuasion.

“Come with me,” I said again, falling back against his chest.

“Break your promise and stay here.”

So, so tempting. “No.”

His sigh rolled goose bumps down the skin on my neck. “What club did you say again?”

“I didn’t. The Underground Hill.”

His playful, mischievous demeanor morphed into a tense column of muscle within seconds. “I’m coming with you.”