The bookstore was called The Last Chapter, a three-story shop in the West Village with rolling ladders, rare editions, and a cat that slept on the poetry shelf. I’d been coming for years — book club picks, birthday gifts, the occasional lonely afternoon — and tonight I’d stayed after closing because Sloane had said “the first edition you wanted just came in. Let me show you where I shelved it.”
Sloane was the owner. Thirty-two. She wore black turtlenecks and jeans and had a habit of looking at me over her reading glasses like she knew exactly which chapter I was stuck on. She’d helped me find books before. She’d never locked the door behind us.
Tonight, she had.
“My husband is waiting in the car,” I whispered, standing on the rolling ladder in the rare editions section. I was reaching for a first edition of The Great Gatsby — my anniversary gift for Richard, who collected modern firsts. My cream sweater was riding up. My plaid skirt was hitched high from climbing. Sloane was on the step below me, her hand on my waist, her face inches from my thigh. “The store closed at eight. The register is counted. The lights are dimmed. And your hand is on my waist, not the ladder rail. You’re supposed to be steadying me. Not sliding your palm over my hip. Not pressing your thumb into my ribcage. Not—”
Sloane didn’t speak. She just leaned in, her cheek brushing my knee, her hand sliding from my waist to my stomach, then under the hem of my skirt, finding me bare and ready and completely off-balance.
“If you let go, I fall,” I breathed, my voice trembling as the ladder wobbled slightly on its wheels. “If you don’t, you’ll keep touching me. And if your assistant walks in from the back — Tom, the college kid who works nights — he’ll see the owner with her hands under the customer’s skirt on the rare editions ladder. He’ll see your mouth on my knee and my book forgotten and the amber light showing everything and he’ll know that this isn’t customer service. This isn’t literary expertise. This is—”
She turned my face down toward her with a hand on my jaw. Her mouth found mine. A kiss that tasted like old paper and first editions and the exact moment when a bookmark becomes something that can’t be removed without damaging the spine. Her tongue slid against mine, her hand sliding deeper inside my skirt, her thumb finding my clit with a precision that was completely devastating.
The back door opened.
“Hey Sloane, I’m locking up!” Tom’s voice. Young. Oblivious. “You still back there?”
Sloane didn’t pull away. She just pressed her other hand against the ladder — holding it steady, holding me up, her fingers still moving inside me.
“Just helping a customer with a rare find, Tom!” Sloane called out, her voice perfectly steady, completely at odds with the fingers that were currently curling inside me. “Give us five minutes!”
“Sure! I’ll wait outside!”
Sloane looked at me. The ladder was still wobbling. The book was still on the shelf. And I was still on the edge — literally and completely.
“This is the only first edition I want,” she whispered against my mouth, her thumb circling my clit, her fingers pressing deeper, finding a rhythm that matched my heartbeat. “And I’m not letting you leave the shelf. Not until you come. Not until you’re completely checked out. Not until you forget every other story you’ve ever read.”
She made me come on the rolling ladder. Her fingers inside me, her mouth on my breast, the ladder wheels creaking, the rare editions watching like silent witnesses. I came with her hand over my mouth, my cry swallowed by the books, my body shaking so hard the ladder rolled six inches across the floor.
After, she handed me the Gatsby. First edition. Perfect condition.
“Happy anniversary,” she said, her voice casual, completely bookseller-calm.
I nodded. I couldn’t speak.
I still go to The Last Chapter. Richard still collects first editions. And every time I need a rare book, Sloane locks the door and meets me at the ladder. She says my taste has improved. She says I only want the rarest editions now.
She’s right. I do. And the only thing rarer than the books she finds is the way she makes me feel when I’m six feet off the ground with her hands inside my skirt.
