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Aleksei “Absinthe” Solokov loved books He loved the sht of them The inforo in them Books had saved his life on inally co the scent and the words And once again, books had led hi so unexpected, so spectacular, he still hadn’t accepted the offering, the gift, not quite believing yet, but he couldn’t walk away

He sat in his favorite place right in front of the tallest stacks The table was s due to the crowded space He didn’t like being disturbed He caet respite frohts and emotions He could command with his voice, and sometimes the temptation to tell everyone to not think or speak for five minutes was brutally hard to resist He needed to feel normal when he wasn’t He wanted to see if he could fit in somewhere, but he knew he couldn’t He needed to stand on his own, but it was impossible

His small table, nearly hidden there beside the taller stacks, not only protected hiave him a direct view to the desk where the librarian checked out books, recommended reads and sometimes—make that often—helped teens with their ho for over a month Six weeks to be exact And he just watched her Like a fucking stalker The librarian She was so dale le He’d made it his business to find out

When he first came to the library, he hadn’t worn his colors It was more to be anonymous than for any other reason—at least he told hi Whenever it happened, he acted on it, and he’d had that feeling—the one that often saved his life—so he’d re a little naked without them

He didn’t want to be noticed, although he was covered in tattoos and scars that couldn’t be seen beneath the tee that stretched tight across his chest Just his sleeves showed, those tattoos thatto him but wouldn’t to anyone else Memorials to his lost fahth

Now, he still didn’t wear his colors for the sah he felt a fraud, because he was Torpedo Ink His club colors were tattooed onto his back, but it was ht into bone He kneith absolute certainty that he couldn’t live without his club, nor would he want to Torpedo Ink was his identity His life His faether irrevocably

They oven together like an old tapestry, and nothing could take the away The members rarely went off alone, certainly not daily for six weeks And they didn’t go six weeks without wearing their colors It wasn’t done He one naked He didn’t knohy he kept this place to himself …

He did though It was the librarian The little redhead She es of a book Onethe hand of a gentlee; the next, adown the busy street in a business suit with her briefcase Or a sexy librarian dressed in a pencil-straight skirt that hugged her curves and gave hi her over that desk of hers when the rest of the world went away

Still, that feeling of staying anony his identity secret, so that no one had a clue what or who he was, persisted while he unraveled the mystery of the woman who ran the library so efficiently

He was back Oh My God The eous man in the entire world and he just walked in off the street like he owned the place Like the library was his hole day He was tall with broad shoulders and a thick chest and arreaton his muscles And all those delicious tattoos Who knew she’d fall for tattoos when she’d never been all that fond of them?

He had thick blond hair, a lot of it, and it spilled across his forehead, ers itch to smooth it back His eyes were very different Blue But not More crystal blue But not Like two really cool crystals She couldn’t decide When she wasn’t perving on hishow to describe his eyes, and she was really good ords as a rule