Page 120 of Meant for Mayhem

He slid the plate toward me, waiting while I took a slice. At this point, we’d shared over a dozen pizzas, and I was sure he was sick of it. But the moment I bit into the cheesy, garlicky slice, my eyes closed.

“This is so fucking good,” I moaned.

When I opened my eyes, Mikko was watching me, that smile faded into something far more dangerous. Heat flooded my body as the weight of that look settled between us, thick and electric. I should have looked away. Should have made a joke, shoved the pizza back at him, rebuilt the careful distance I’d spent weeks maintaining. Instead, I held his gaze, pulse hammering in my throat, the taste of the pizza still on my tongue while every rational thought scattered.

He didn’t move closer.

He didn’t have to.

The quiet intensity in his eyes said everything I was desperately trying not to hear: that this wasn’t just dinner, and the way he remembered every small piece of me wasn’t an accident. The walls I’d built brick by careful brick crumbled under the force of his gaze. I felt them give—first a hairline crack, then a full collapse—and the terrifying part was how little I wanted to stop it.

I set the slice down with fingers that weren’t quite steady. “You’re staring.”

“You’re impossible not to stare at,” he said, voice low enough that it felt like a touch. “Especially when you sound like that.”

I wanted to lean in.

Wanted to close the last few inches and find out what that dangerous look would taste like.

Wanted it so badly my hands curled into fists in my lap to keep from reaching for him.

Every part of me screamed. I was spectacularly and completely failing at ignoring whatever had been brewing between us since the day we met. But for the first time, the failure didn’t feel like defeat.

It felt like surrender.

24

Before I pulled open the restaurant door, I eased out of my suit jacket and settled it over Shannon’s shoulders. She slipped her arms into the sleeves, disappearing beneath fabric far too big for her. When I reached for her hand, her fingers curled into mine like they’d been waiting for the invitation all night. The same low current that had crackled between us over dinner still ran under my skin, lighting me on fire every time her thumb brushed mine.

Westward Books was down the street from the restaurant, so we stepped outside and headed toward the old brick building that looked as if it had stood there for a century. Warm light spilled through the tall windows, revealing towering shelves beyond the glass. Books climbed from floor to ceiling, broken only by rolling wooden ladders and worn leather chairs.

Shannon slowed beside me, her gaze climbing past the first floor, to the second, then the third. I’d never seen anyone look at a bookstore the way hockey players looked at the Stanley Cup. There was wonder in it. Reverence, even. Like this was the happiest moment of her entire life. I wanted to keep putting that expression on her face forever.

I pulled open the heavy wooden door, the scent of old paper, fresh coffee, and polished wood drifting onto the sidewalk before we even stepped inside. Shelves stretched toward the ceiling in every direction, disappearing onto balconies overhead before climbing another flight of stairs. Every table held impossible stacks of hardcovers, handwritten recommendation cards tucked beneath worn paperbacks, reading chairs nestled into corners beneath brass lamps.

Shannon turned in a slow circle. “This place is…”

She never finished the sentence, but she didn’t need to. Her face—wide-eyed, soft, almost disbelieving—said everything. “Where is everyone?”

“They’re closed.”

Confusion flickered across her face. “Then why are we here?”

I shrugged, more nervous than I’d felt all night. “Because I asked if they’d stay open.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “For us?”

“For you.” I rubbed the back of my neck, feeling the weight of the gesture more than I expected. “You said the bookstore in New York was crowded. This way you don’t have to worry about anyone else while you’re here.”

Her lips parted. Those pretty grey eyes blinked up at me in surprise, and for a second the air between us felt thinner than it should have.

“Take as long as you want,” I said, voice lower than I meant it to be. “Anything you pick is yours.”

For the first ten minutes, she drifted through the shelves with the excitement of a kid on Christmas morning. But it didn’t take long for me to notice a pattern. She’d pull a book free, read the back, then carefully slide it back into place. Again and again. By the sixth book, something deep inside me clicked open, sharp and protective.

This wasn’t pickiness.

Shannon was so used to shoving her own wants aside that they barely existed anymore. She could look at something she clearly wanted and still deny herself without hesitation.