My Anonymous Lover Was My Worst Enemy

"I don't want you to guess, Miles," I said, my voice steady in the dark sorting room. "I want you to listen before you cross the line."

"I am listening."

"Then hear this."

I closed that final inch. I pressed my mouth to his.

He froze for a fraction of a second. Then his jaw unclenched. He kept his left hand anchored flat against the metal shelf above my head, maintaining the cage he built around me. His right hand hovered over the curve of my hip, radiating heat through my damp blouse, refusing to make contact.

He was waiting. He was making me dictate the terms.

"Say it," he murmured against my lips, his breath hot on my skin.

"Touch me, Miles."

"Where?" he challenged, his voice a low rasp.

"Everywhere."

His fingers gripped my waist. The kiss shifted from a question to an answer. I opened my mouth, letting him taste the frustration and the want I had buried for seven weeks. His tongue swept along my lower lip, demanding entrance, and I gave it to him.

The fluorescent tubes overhead flickered and buzzed to life. The backup generator cut out. Down the hall, the automated conveyor belt roared into motion, a loud mechanical grind shattering the silence.

We broke apart, blinking against the harsh white light.

"The book," I said, spinning toward the sorting bin.

We rushed to the plastic tub. The rollers spat The Hours We Hide over the edge. I grabbed it, shoving the battered hardcover into my leather tote bag.

Miles looked up at the ceiling corner. A small red light blinked on the black dome of the security camera.

"The system rebooted the feeds," he said, adjusting his suit jacket. "If we stay in this room, tomorrow's board meeting will be about a completely different scandal."

"A scandal you would have to explain," I pointed out.

"A scandal they would use to fire you," he countered. "We need to leave."

We stepped out the back exit into a torrential downpour. Water sheeted across the staff parking lot, turning the asphalt into a fast-moving river. The wind whipped my hair across my face.

"The main roads are flooded," Miles yelled over the crack of thunder. "My house is two blocks south on Elm. You can wait out the storm there."

I wiped rain from my eyes, staring at him through the deluge. "Are you inviting me as the board president, or as the man with the blue pen?"

"I am inviting Iris," he said sharply. "You can call a cab when it clears. Or use the guest room. The choice is entirely yours."

I climbed into the passenger seat. He got in behind the wheel, water dripping from his dark hair onto the leather headrest. The interior of the car smelled like expensive cologne and damp wool.

"I will go," I said, staring straight ahead at the rhythmic sweep of the windshield wipers. "But the anonymous game ends right now."

Miles put the car in drive. "Meaning?"

"Meaning we do not use fictional characters to speak for us anymore," I demanded. "And you do not use library policy to pretend you are doing things for my own good. If you want something, you ask me directly. If you are hiding something, you tell me. No more bullshit."

He gripped the steering wheel, his knuckles turning white. "Understood."

"And the grant money?" I pressed. "The donor who hates my reading group?"

"We deal with the donor tomorrow," Miles said, keeping his eyes on the flooded street. "Tonight, I am not the board president."

His living room smelled like dust, old paper, and lemon polish. The silence of the house felt heavy, thick with untouched memories.

On the mantle sat a silver-framed photograph. A blonde woman smiling on a sailboat, the sun catching her bright eyes.

Miles walked up behind me. He didn't turn the frame face-down. He didn't offer a polite excuse.

"Six years," he said quietly, staring at the picture. "I haven't brought anyone through that front door since she passed. I haven't wanted to."

I looked over my shoulder, searching his face for a trap. My ex-husband would have used a dead wife to win an argument. Grant would have weaponized the grief to make me feel small, to force me into a corner of sympathy.

Miles just looked tired. His shoulders slumped, stripping away the armor he wore at the library.

"Why me?" I asked.

"Because of your plum-colored ink." He took off his wet jacket, tossing it over a leather armchair. "I ignored every patron's margin notes for a decade. I ran the budget. I kept the doors open. I felt nothing. Then you crossed out a paragraph on page forty and wrote, What is the difference between restraint and apathy?"

"You wrote back that restraint is a choice," I recited, remembering the exact slant of his handwriting.

"And apathy is a surrender," he finished. "I had to answer you, Iris. You woke me up. You argued with me. You didn't treat me like a widower or a boss. You treated me like a woman who could handle my mind."

He wasn't trying to conquer me. He wasn't playing a boardroom game to win a negotiation. He was just as exposed, just as desperate for a real conversation, as I was.

I turned away from the photograph. The bed was perfectly made, sterile and safe. A place to hide.

I stopped in front of the master bedroom.

Miles followed, stopping exactly two feet away. He shoved his hands into his pockets. "What do you want, Iris?"

"I do not need forever," I told him, holding his gaze. "I need tonight. No shame. No guessing. No one making decisions for me."

"Are you sure?"

"I am sure."

I stepped into his bedroom. I unbuttoned my ruined trench coat and let it drop to the floor. Underneath, my silk slip clung to my damp skin, the thin fabric turning translucent against my breasts and stomach.

I reached out, grabbed his wrist, and placed his large palm squarely on my hip.

"Tell me to stop, and I stop," Miles said, his voice dropping an octave, his thumb pressing into my hipbone. "Change your fucking mind, and I back off."

"I am not changing my mind. I want you to fuck me, Miles."

The heavy duvet swallowed my weight.

Miles loomed over me, his knees bracketing my thighs, trapping me exactly the way I liked. "I'm going to strip this wet silk off you," he said, his eyes darkening as he stared at my chest. "I'm going to put my mouth exactly where you wrote about in that book. I want to taste you, Iris."

I grabbed the collar of his dress shirt, pulling him down until our noses brushed.

"Page 287," I whispered, my pulse hammering against my ribs. "The last line. The one I crossed out."

Miles's hand slid upward, tracing the bare skin of my thigh, slipping under the hem of my silk slip exactly where I wanted him.

"Now make me feel every word."