Ensnare: The Librarian's Lover Box Set

  Contents

  Title Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Smashwords Books

  Ensnare: The Librarian's Lover Box Set (c) 2014 Mac Flynn

  Genre: Contemporary Romance / Paranormal Romance / Fantasy Romance

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  Chapter 1

  I never knew passion, or even love, until I fell in love with that book. I guess it was fated to be. For as long as I could remember I'd loved books, so much that when I went to college I took a job at the campus library as a night worker. That was when I learned about passion, and a whole lot about lust. Maybe it was fated to be. With a name like Leslie Faulkner, what else could I be interested in other than books? Before the lesson in passion, though, I learned about heartache.

  Heartache is when you don't have what you desperately want. What I desperately wanted were luxurious breasts, long, flowing hair, and a skin complexion that didn't show my love for the indoors. Oh, and Tyler Williams. He was the best college football player on the team, and the hottest. I never saw him without a girl under one arm, and sometimes both arms. He'd flash his smiles at the lucky few, and always beautiful, girls who swooned at the sight of his chiseled abs beneath his tight shirts and his wavy hair that glistened in the sun. It made me hot just thinking about his strong arms wrapping around me as he embraced me in a delicious, sensual kiss.

  But he never flashed those smiles at me. I wasn't one of the pretty girls. To tell you the truth I was a mousy little thing with plain brown hair, plain brown eyes, and plain white skin from my hours working at the library. Even though he didn't admire me I admired him from afar. That's what I was doing that fateful late afternoon when Tyler strolled into the library with his arm wrapped around Ashley Alston's waist. She was the head cheerleader for the college squad. After all, who else was good enough for him to go out with?

  But I'm jumping ahead in my story. Let me introduce myself. My name is Leslie Faulkner, wallflower extraordinaire. I was a college student at a four-year state university when my adventures began. Apprenticed to the college library to help pay the bills, I was the loner nobody ever paid attention to, even the professors. I could lie dead in the middle of campus and nobody would have noticed me until the stench became overpowering.

  Stench was the definition of my life. Everything about it stank. I had my routine: get up, go to school, work at the library, go back to my room. Simple, boring routine. I wanted adventure, excitement, a boyfriend. I waited for them patiently like a child waits for Christmas, but my presents never came. That is, not until that fateful afternoon.

  Tyler and Ashley walked arm-in-arm, the perfect picture of perfection. Locked together, the pair went up to the second floor study area of our large library. It was an impressive building, five stories tall with three of the upper floors open to the foyer. The top floor was completely closed off and accessed through a locked door with the key handled only by the full-time librarians. The other floors were filled to the brim with shelves three columns deep that stretched out from one wall to the other, or from one wall to the balcony overlooking the foyer. In a few of the corners were study tables and chairs, and even a couch here and there. There was also a creepy basement where the spare shelves and computers were stored. Most of the shelves were those moved when the college decided to put computers on half the ground floor five years before.

  But as I was saying, on the second floor Tyler and Ashley passed by me like I was one of those bookshelves. An invisible person with a cart full of books. They slipped into one of the corners that had a couch, and like their shadows I followed them back there. I told myself I needed to go in that direction to shelve the books on my cart, but none of them went in that part of the library. My real desire was to watch them from the bookshelves and yearn for what they had: love, affection, and lust. I quietly pushed my cart along the balcony walk, mindful of the bumpy spots on the faded gray carpet. The hour was about five o'clock on a Monday afternoon, so the library was deserted expect for these two scholars intent on learning more about human anatomy.

  I left my cart beside the bookshelf closest to the railing around the drop to the foyer and slunk into the stacks of books. My prey were found on one of the couches close together with sweet, tender smiles on their faces. "So are you going to give me the notes from class?" he cooed.

  Ashley giggled, a sound as empty as her head. I suspected he wanted something from her, but it wasn't her notes. "Maybe, but what do I get out of it?"

  Tyler smirked and leaned in to capture her lips in a breathtaking kiss. His hands slipped up beneath her shirt and massaged her perfect body. She groaned and leaned her head back to allow him to leave a blazing trail of kisses down to the tops of her perfect breasts that peeked out from the top of her small shirt. My hands clung to the nearest shelf and I bit my lip to keep back a moan of delight and disappointment. I wanted to be the one on the couch, the one to feel his hot lips against my heated skin.

  Ashley was a little worried worried about the location. "Are you sure we're alone?" she breathlessly asked him.

  "You really want me to stop?" he mumbled from between her luscious breasts.

  "No, but still-"

  Tyler pulled his head back and grinned at her. "It's all right. Nobody's around here," he comforted her. He was right. I was a nobody. "Now let me really reward you for those notes." He flung off his sports jacket and set it behind Ashley as a pillow. He lay her down atop it and pulled her shirt over her head to reveal her white bra and flawless skin. Her breasts heaved and her eyes were half-lidded as she gave into her ecstasy. His lips pressed down against her breasts as his hands slid up her short skirt. She gasped when he found her sweet spot.

  I stood in the wings with all the frustration of a jilted lover. My needs were simple, but unfulfilled. My body ached to replace her, to be on that couch beneath him as he made love to my breasts. To have his fingers dance across my quivering flesh as my moans filled the air. He would undo my pants and thrust into me with the fury of a lustful lover. I would cling to him and scream his name to the heavens as I achieved an orgasm no woman had ever reached.

  Okay, so maybe my needs weren't that simple, but all I was getting at that moment was a soft beep from the outdated pager clipped to my waist. Phones in the hands of library patrons were discouraged. Phones in the hands of employees were outright banned, hence the beeping. I scurried away before the lovers could overhear my calling and raced back to my cart. The non-stop beeping told me who summoned me to-

  -a lot of trouble in the form of the resident bullies. You wouldn't think bullies would hang around a library on an afternoon that offered boos and excitement, which was most any afternoon, but the library had plenty of tasty nerd targets for them. There were two bullies that afternoon, a short one and an even shorter one. The short one was Justin, a leftover from the age of the Neanderthal era who had crooked teeth, a fat gut, and beady eyes beneath his overgrown hair. His partner in crime, and who I considered the mastermind between their combined intelligence of negative fifty, was Austin. He was a little below five-five with blond hair and dark, cruel eyes.

  They were high school students from the local community who pestered and threatened the nobodies on campus, which unfortunately included me. A few gi
rls complained about them, but the pair were smart enough not to leave evidence of their harassment behind or in clear view of the cameras on campus. That was why they were able to come back to the library. It was open to the public, and they couldn't be banned until someone had proof of their harassment.

  The pair spotted me before I spotted them. Justin stepped out from behind a bookshelf in front of me and grabbed the front of my cart. I glared at him and tried to back up, but ran into Austin behind me. Trapped like a rat by two rats. "You guys mind? I'm trying to do my job," I told them.

  Justin grinned. "Maybe we do mind," he argued.

  "Then I'll have to introduce you to disappointment and tell you I need to go," I replied. I tried to push the cart through him, but he was both too strong and too wide. Austin bumped up against me and I felt more than the bulge of his jeans against my butt. I tried not to show fear. Primitive animals could smell fear. "It's been nice seeing you boys again, but I really have to go."

  Austin roughly grabbed my arm and I felt his stinking breath on my throat. "Maybe you want to take the rest of the day off and spend it with us?" he offered.

  I inwardly cringed, gagged, and puked. Jumping off the fourth floor balcony was more preferable than that. "I'd rather just keep working. Got to work my way through college and all that."

  "People don't need no college degree," Justin argued in his special double-negative way of talking.

  "Good news, then. I'm not a people, I'm a person, and I need to get back to work," I insisted. I tried to free my arm, but Austin held firm. It looked ugly for me, and not just because of their mugs. That is, until my beeper went off again. The tiny noise was heard by all three of us. I looked to the two stooges and raised an eyebrow. "You guys going to keep her waiting? She'll come looking for me if I don't get to her really soon."

  The boys glanced at each other and sneered. Austin passed me and looked me over with a glimmer of lust in his eyes. Just my luck the only boy in the world who wanted me was an asshole. Now the asshole and his dick friend were out of my way, and I scuttled back to the first floor and the safety of the front desk using the elevator to get my cart down.

  The front desk was a long counter that ran along the wall near the front doors. Behind the counter were carts of books old and new, and there was a partition wall filled with posters encouraging people to read with cringe-worthy slogans like "Don't Be A Dunce, Be A Dude and Read!" In the cluttered partition wall were doorways that led into the maze-like back room filled with a dozen halls and small rooms were used for storage and the drop box. A side door just off the partition wall led to the basement, and down the hall and to the right was another door that led into the main librarian's office.

  I'm sure you're wondering who was beeping me. That was my boss, Miss Edna Hamish. She'd been the head librarian for the entire school library system for longer than I'd been alive, and she was a strict, if kind, taskmaster. That meant she wasn't too happy with me when I reached the front desk. She had her arms crossed and a frown on her wrinkled face. Her old eyes glared at me from beneath her permed white hair. "Where have you been? I thought you'd been crushed beneath a pile of books," she scolded.

  I sheepishly smiled and shrugged. "Guess I just got distracted," I told her. Willingly and unwillingly.

  Miss Hamish tapped her fingers across her crossed arm. "What have I told you about being distracted?"

  "Um, don't be?" I guessed.

  "Precisely, now don't let me catch you doing it again. Understood?" I hung my head and glumly nodded. Hamish sighed and set a hand on my shoulder. I looked up and saw the look in her eyes had softened. "You're a good librarian, Leslie, but lately I get the feeling your heart's not set on being that for the rest of your life."

  I shrugged. "Guess I'm just having one of those identify-crisis nights," I replied.

  She smiled. "Well, while you're trying to figure out who you are and what you want to become, how about taking charge of the front desk for a few minutes? I need to make a call to another library about a missing book."

  "Sure thing," I agreed. I left my unfinished cart with the other ones in the rear and sat on the stool at the Help part of the counter. There were computers along most of the counter where people could self-checkout their books just by scanning the bar codes on the back cover. Easy, efficient, and slightly dehumanizing to the librarians. We were only there to fix printers, Word documents, scanners, and peeling bar codes.

  Oh, and watch my crush walk down the stairs with another girl in his arm. Tyler and Ashley were all innocent smiles as they passed by, but I noticed one slight mistake. "Your shirt is crooked," I told Ashley. They didn't hear me, but blithely passed by with eyes only for each other.

  I sighed and slumped down over the counter. Welcome to my place of work and all the troubles that came with it. I thought my life would never have more adventure than a lost book or having a battle of wits with bullies who were unarmed.

  Chapter 2

  Miss Hamish found me in that position a few minutes later. "Leslie, what am I going to do with you?" she mused.

  I yelped and sat up straight. "I-I'm really sorry. I was just-um, just cleaning the dirt molecules off the counter."

  My boss came up beside me and smiled. "You're a smart girl, Leslie, but so absentminded." She slid onto a nearby stool and shook her head. "Sometimes I think you're in your own little world and nobody else is invited inside."

  I shrugged and picked at some of those invisible dirt molecules on the counter. "I guess I'm just wishing for something to happen."

  "Then you'll have to be the person things happen to," she replied. She noticed my frown. "Things happen to people who are looking for them, not to those who sit on a stool picking at dirt molecules."

  I leaned back and sighed. "I guess you're right."

  A mischievous glint slipped into her eyes. "Of course I'm right. I'm your boss. And speaking of being your boss, I have an assignment for you. Could you take care of the recent stack of books that just got dropped off? We had a doozy of a pile come in about an hour ago that still needs someone's attention before they take over the back hall."

  "No problem." I slid off my stool and stepped toward the partition wall, but Hamish wasn't quite done with me.

  "And Leslie?" I glanced over my shoulder at her smiling face. "Try not to bury yourself in one of the returned books again," she teased.

  I smiled. "I won't make any promises."

  I went into the rear maze that constituted the working space given to us librarians. The hallways were narrow and on either side of the entrance to the back room were three storage rooms with hallways between them. Directly to my right and set into the wall was the basement door. I walked forward and took the second left, then kept going until I hit the second right. That led to the employee entrance and beside that was the drop box area. There was a slot for books with a soft cushion on the floor to catch the returned items. Like I said, that place was a maze.

  I sighed when I noticed the stack of books was almost as tall as the slot that stood three feet off the floor. An empty cart stood at the ready for the poor soul who was assigned the duty of hauling them to the front area to be sorted. I sighed, knelt down, and plucked a few of the books out of the pile. That's when it slid out from the center of the mess. It was a book eight inches tall, six inches wide, and a few inches thick. The cover was as black as coal with rough ridges all across it. There was no title on the front or even along the spine, and when I flipped it over I was surprised to not find a bar code on the back. All the books for the library except the rare ones had bar codes glued on the back.

  I opened the cover to find a title engraved in gold letters on the front page. "Darkness Residing In the Heart of Man," I whispered. I wrinkled my nose and browsed through the other pages. They were all blank, and I snickered when a thought came to her. "I guess darkness must be ignorance because this book isn't telling me anything."

  "What book isn't telling you anything?" a voice spoke up behind me.<
br />
  I yelped, jumped up and spun around to find Miss Hamish behind me. "Don't do that!" I scolded her.

  Hamish smiled. "I didn't realize you were so deep into reading, which was something I told you not to do," she scolded. She looked past me at the thing in my hands, and nodded at the book. "But what do you have there that's so interesting?"

  "It's just a book I found in the drop box." I handed it over, and Miss Hamish glanced at the cover.

  "Very interesting. This cover is made out of some sort of animal skin," Miss Hamish told me. I gagged and hurriedly wiped my hands on my clothes. "Did you find any note to go with this book?"

  I shook my head, but gestured to the pile of returned books on the floor. "No, but I'm not done with today's mess. For all I know there could be an elephant hiding in there."

  Miss Hamish opened the cover and frowned. "Are all the pages empty?" she asked me.

  "No, the first one has the title."

  "Really? In fine print?" Miss Hamish wondered.

  I frowned and stepped up beside my boss to view the first page. It was as smooth and blank as the others. I couldn't understand it. "I'm sure something was there. It said something about darkness in people's hearts."

  "Well, if it's still there then the author used invisible ink to hide it, so we'll just have to assume this is someone's idea of a joke," Miss Hamish replied. She closed the book and flipped it over. "Though I have to admit the skin looks pretty old, and it's wrapped nicely around some yellowed paper." She scrutinized the book a moment longer, sighed and shrugged. "Well, if you find a note tell me. Otherwise just put the book in the Lost and Found. Someone might have accidentally dropped it in," Miss Hamish instructed as she held out the book to me. I hesitated to take the dead animal skin, and Miss Hamish smiled. "The book doesn't bite."

  "I don't know, we don't know what animal that came from," I pointed out. "Besides, shouldn't we be handling that thing with gloves?" I asked her.

  Hamish shook her head. "I'm sure it's just an old book that somebody didn't want anymore. If it hasn't been picked up by someone in a few weeks we can add it to the college's Forbidden Collection." The Forbidden Collection contained all the old, valuable and eccentric books owned by the library. They were stored on the top floor of the library and couldn't leave the building. This empty book with an animal-skin cover certainly qualified as eccentric.