Page 18 of Embraced in Ink

“Let’s shake on it.”

He looked at her hand and snorted.

“You pretty much just asked me to marry you for the sake of my mother, and because we made a promise when we were twenty. And now you want toshakeon it?”

“Well, why not?”

“This is why not.” And then he took another step forward, and his mouth was on hers.

He had kissed her before, of course—quick pecks, busses on the cheek and the top of her head.Nothinglike this.

She shivered, not knowing what these feelings were bubbling inside her, and sank into him, his tongue brushing along hers once, twice. And then he backed away again, both of them panting, the bare touch of lips not enough.

“Now,nowit makes a little more sense.”

“Sealed with a kiss and all that?”

He shook his head, laughing. “We’re probably making a really fucking huge mistake. But you know what, Bristol? Why the fuck not?”

And then he kissed her on the top of the head and left her standing in her kitchen, an engaged woman, and really fucking lost.

Chapter 4

Throwing himself mind, body, and soul into work had to help. At least, that’s what Marcus told himself. After all, if he buried himself in his job, such as this massive project that he was a little anxious about, then he wouldn’t have to think about the fact that he was engaged.

That, somehow, he was going to start a new life with the one person who already knew his soul better than even he did most days.

Maybe this would work itself out and would make sense in the end. Perhaps this wasn’t a mistake.

“Why do you look like you’re going to be sick?” Ronin—his friend and coworker—asked, as he walked into Marcus’s small office, a stack of papers and a leather-bound book tucked safely under one arm. “Because if you’re going to be sick, don’t do it over the books. We always protect the books. You know the first rule of being a librarian.”

Marcus rolled his eyes. “I thought the first rule of being a librarian was to read.”

“No, that’s what people think it is. It’s always to protect the books. And then to protect yourself. While reading. You have to do it all at once.”

“You’re weird.”

“You’reweird. That’s why we’re friends.”

“Perhaps. Or maybe it’s because we’ve been working here the longest, and I’m all you have.”

And odd look passed over Ronin’s face, but then he smiled as if nothing had happened. Marcus didn’t know a lot about his friend, mostly because Ronin was good at keeping secrets. And that was fine with him. Ronin deserved to have his privacy. And Marcus was good at keeping secrets, too.

Like the fact that his feelings toward Bristol for the past few weeks…months…years…might have been burbling in a new direction when he hadn’t been looking. Not that he would allow himself to actually say those words aloud. Or maybe it was a good time to do so. After all, she was his fiancée.

Dear God.

“See? You’re looking sick again. What’s wrong?”

Marcus shook himself out of his reverie. This wasn’t the time to focus on his future—whatever it may be—with Bristol. No, he needed to work. “Nothing. Seriously. Just one of those days.”

His family and her family knew that he and Bristol were engaged, but no one else knew outside of those people. Not that that wasn’t a lot of people already for an engagement that wasn’t fake butwas sort of arranged in a weird way where he wasn’t quite sure how it had happened. He wasn’t ready for it to be too real yet. And that meant not telling the world until he was ready.

Only he wasn’t sure that hewasn’tready.

That inner thought made him cringe, but there was no going back now.

Hell, Bristol was going to be his wife. If they actually went through with this, he didn’t know if they were actually going to, but if they did, they were gettingmarried. As in telling each other what they were feeling and declaring vows to one another.