Going Down (Quickies #1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

closest to me, and ran my fingers along the spines. These were American classics, alphabetized by author. A few shelves down, English literature. All leather-bound, well-loved.  
    When I turned, Carter was a few paces behind me, closer than I expected, but somehow still too far away. I had expected a garage full of expensive, flashy cars or state-of-the-art technology, and maybe he had those things somewhere. But he chose to show me this, this room that made me want to close my eyes, breathe deep, and get lost in someone else’s world.  
    Maybe, just maybe, there was more to him than I’d thought.  
    “Have you read all these?” I asked.  
    “Not yet,” he replied, stepping closer. “But I will.”  
    He surprised me, again. I knew he was intelligent, but I had this idea of him out partying and doing billionaire things, not inside this library, reading more books than I could ever imagine owning.  
    “What?” he asked.  
    I shrugged. “I’m just surprised by you.”  
    “Why?” He reached out, placed his hand right next to mine on the shelf.
    “I thought you’d have cars, yachts. Expensive toys, not a roomful of books. Not that you can’t have all of those things, but I just didn’t think you’d show me something like this to try to impress me.”  
    He let out a short laugh, a sad kind of smile on his lips. “I’m not trying to impress you, Chloe. This? It’s me. Cars are useless to me here in the city, and what would I do with a yacht? I like the smell of paper and glue, and old books and history. I like to think about the stories of the people who have read and loved these books,” he said, closing the gap between us. He rested his hand on mine, slowly twisting our fingers together, and my breath just caught right in my throat. “Do you know how many people fell asleep turning these pages? How many hands held these covers after a hard day’s work? The book contains a story, but the book is a story, too. I like stories. I want to read as many of them as I can.”  
    The look in his eyes was too intense, too full of meaning for someone I’d just met, so I turned, trying to get some distance between us. But Carter followed me, catching my waist with his arm, pulling me against his body so that my back melded against his chest. And god help me, it felt right .  
    I slid my hand across his strong forearm and the fingertips of his other hand ghosted along the straps of my dress as he leaned in, the stubble on his chin tickling my shoulder.  
    “Tell me, Chloe,” he whispered, his hands drifting down my ribs, along the curve of my hips. “If I opened you up, what kinds of stories would I find?”  
    I turned in his arms, fisted his shirt between my fingers, and pulled his lips to mine.  

CHAPTER FIVE

    It was a frantic kiss, the kind that made my toes curl, made me wrap my arms around this man to cling to him, to get as close to him as I possibly could. I just wanted him, wanted his five o’clock shadow scratching against my skin, wanted his fingers twisting in my hair, wanted his tongue brushing against mine. And it was so easy to get lost in him, to lose myself in the feeling of his calloused hands sliding across my thighs, the feel of his muscled chest against mine.  
    Before I knew it, Carter pressed me up against a pillar, using it for leverage to lift me up, his mouth everywhere. I wrapped my legs around his waist, feeling his erection against my thigh, and I ground against him, drawing the most amazing sound from his throat: half sigh, half moan. I fumbled with the buttons on the collar of his shirt, desperate to put my mouth on him, wanting to start with the warm column of his neck.  
    “Fuck,” he said as I licked and nipped at his skin there, laving my tongue across his Adam’s apple. “I’ve been imagining this ever since you walked into my office.”  
    There was something about that sentence that made the hormone-induced fog in my brain clear long enough for me to