Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 120631 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 603(@200wpm)___ 483(@250wpm)___ 402(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 120631 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 603(@200wpm)___ 483(@250wpm)___ 402(@300wpm)
“Atta girl. Smut keeps us young.” Jocelyn rapped her knuckles on the desk and pointed at Ellen. “The release isn’t until the thirteenth. You don’t have to wait that long, but try to hold out another week to build some anticipation.”
“I think you secretly enjoy tormenting others.”
“It’s not a secret. But it is for their own good. If slow burns didn’t work, I wouldn’t write them. People love a good buildup.”
“Fine, but I’m starting my copy tonight. That’s the payoff for giving you prime shelf real estate.”
“You’re doing the Lord’s work, Ellen.”
“I’m not all that interested in heaven if the smut’s stocked in hell.”
Jocelyn laughed. “That’s because you prefer the company of sinners.”
“Which reminds me,” she said as she stamped the books into inventory. “Your late fees are at fourteen dollars.”
“And they shall remain there as a monument to my rebellion against institutional overreach.”
The librarian tsked. “Why take so many books out at once if you don’t have time to read them?”
“I am reading them. I like variety. Committing to just one story at a time gives me anxiety. I’ll bring them back when they’re all done. That way, the family sticks together.”
“They’re books, Jocelyn, not children.”
“Thank Odin for that. My fiction babies are all I can handle.”
“Sounds like commitment issues if you ask me.”
It was too early to get psychoanalyzed, especially after last night, so she simply smiled and hooked her tote back over her shoulder. The canvas bag was much lighter now. “Have a beautiful day, Ellen.”
“You stay out of trouble, now, Miss Collins.”
“Never.” Jocelyn smiled and left the library.
Maybe she did have commitment issues. Or maybe she preferred her freedom. She liked her bookshelves full and her options open.
Besides, why should she want to be contractually obligated to change her name and spend her life relying on someone else when she’d proven she was perfectly capable of supporting herself? She might be Hideaway Bay’s longest-standing bachelorette, but she was far from the most desirable one. Staying unattached meant not having to reshape her life or personality to fit someone else’s expectations. Her single lifestyle was by design, not consequence. And she preferred to keep it that way.
Just like she preferred to keep her borrowed books as long as it took her to finish them at her own pace.
Other people always wanted to change her or tell her how to live her life better. She was just fine living her life exactly as she damn well pleased. And being single certainly didn’t mean she was celibate—especially not lately.
Even now, her body held the ache of Soren’s presence from last night. She bet he did that on purpose, fucked her so hard the sensation lingered for days. She wished she could say it was awful, but the truth was, he was the best she’d ever had.
Damn him.
Refusing to spend one more second thinking about the one man who drove her insane for over two decades, she concentrated on her list. She had a lot to do in preparation for her best friend’s upcoming baby shower, and Main Street was her preferred place to shop.
Hideaway Bay was the quintessential small town, with plenty of small businesses to support and enough charm to even put the legendary Stars Hollow to shame. And living in such a small town provided all the found-family vibes a single gal could need.
Jocelyn loved her home, every predictable, gossipy, salt-corroded inch of it. It had everything she needed—friends, bookstores, libraries, bars, even a place to buy her vibrators. As a single gal, that last one was important.
Survival of the fittest, she thought with a giggle.
She had a roster of maintenance men she called whenever she needed a…fixin’. But she hadn’t called any of those men since her whole situation-ship started with the one who shall remain unnamed.
Damnit, she was thinking of him again. Go away! She pictured a broom and tried to mentally sweep Soren out of her head.
Just the thought of him made her shut her eyes in... Shame? Who knew what she was feeling when it came to Soren Hawthorne? Their relationship bounced between childhood nemeses and phenomenal fuck-friends, far too complex to take apart in one sitting, therefore permanently deemed a topic for another time, never to be examined too closely.
She simply didn’t have the strength to psychoanalyze why she would sleep with the one man who drove her more insane than any other penis-toting moron in Hideaway Bay, yet here she was—a year and a half after the fact—still letting him through her front door. Still letting him into her body.
“Fuck,” she muttered under her breath, disappointed in herself at the mere thought. Every time she looked at their situation dead-on, she became more aware that such an arrangement could only end in disaster.
Jocelyn was never going to change, and neither was he. Soren would always be the bossy, tight-assed control freak he’d always been.