Love in the Stacks: A Spicy Christmas Novella

By Delilah Peters

Hold on to your cardigan! This small-town Christmas is about to get steamy…

The most recent addition to New Bedford’s crack team of small-town librarians is Ben, a mysterious, tight-lipped recluse who prefers cataloging in the basement to interacting with his eccentric coworkers.

Poppy, the intrepid circulation clerk, is content to let him brood alone…at first.

As Christmas Eve approaches, Poppy braves Ben’s prickly demeanor—and the spooky basement stairs—with offerings of hot chocolate and friendship. What she discovers at Ben’s dimly lit desk is an endearing, complicated man who always expresses exactly what he wants.

Or would, if not for the constant interruptions that keep him from touching her.

When an unexpected snowstorm traps the potential lovebirds in the library overnight, Poppy and Ben finally have a chance to explore the energy that crackles between them.

Is it just epic sex? Or is it love in the stacks?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Carina Press
• Release date: Oct 28, 2019
• ISBN: 9781488057021

Book preview

Part One

Carrie blocked the stairway to the basement stacks. Poppy, you can’t go down there.

I laughed and muscled my way around her, careful not to spill the steaming mug of hot chocolate in my left hand. Stop, you’re being totally ridiculous.

He’s a troll.

My smile fell, and I adjusted my grip on the mug, leveling it just before the swirl of canned whipped cream on the top slipped off. A drop of frothy goodness escaped anyway and landed on the tile floor with a plop.

That’s really mean, Car, I answered.

Pink flooded her cheeks, and for a moment, she almost looked like she’d regretted the words. But then she rallied, squaring her shoulders. It’s true. He doesn’t talk to anyone, and he spends all his time hiding out down there.

Ben did indeed spend most of his time in the stacks. However, Carrie’s indignation regarding Ben’s habits was at least partially attributable to the fact that he didn’t talk to her.

It’s his job to hide out down there, and honestly, I wouldn’t talk to any of us either after The Margie Incident. I glanced over my shoulder at the circulation desk, where Adele was straightening Margie’s reindeer headband. Librarians are hands-down the funniest, quirkiest, smartest humans on Earth. That said, our particular brand of humor can be a little jarring for people who aren’t used to it. I couldn’t, in good conscience, bring myself to repeat to anyone exactly what Margie had said to Benjamin the Basement Troll the day he’d first arrived at the library. Even though she hadn’t intended to be suggestive, her comment came out one thousand percent innuendo, and I’d laughed until I cried in the privacy of the break room twenty minutes after she’d said it. Besides, it’s almost Christmas.

Carrie relented and took a step back. Be careful. If you’re not back in twenty minutes, I’m coming down after you.

It was, in fact, almost Christmas. But I’d have been lying if I didn’t admit that at least half of my curiosity about New Bedford’s newest—and only—archivist had to do with the fact that he was the only employee in our entire county-wide system—not just our library—who was both under sixty and male. Plus, on day one, he’d walked through the doors in a gold and maroon striped scarf, which anyone with a passing familiarity of pop culture knew were the house colors for a certain boy wizard. And was Benjamin cute? Why, yes. Yes, he was. See the column of boxes beside my wish list for a semi-perfect man? See at least half of them checked.

The stairway to the basement stacks was poorly lit and probably had been since the library’s construction in the eighteen hundreds when the building functioned as the county courthouse. Back then, the basement had been divided into prison cells, and more than one poor soul had languished and expired there in the winter months.

I’d be lying—again—if I said everything below the first floor didn’t give me a solid case of the willies. Even the air down there seemed pregnant with the potential for specters.

A soft clacking came from the open door at one end of the basement hall, a pale blue glow escaping it as well. My heels made gentle taps against the polished tiles, and the sound of typing paused, as if someone were listening, and then started again.

Benjamin? I called as I stepped through the doorway. The typing ceased once more.

Tall metal shelves packed with books crowded the room, and a row of outdated card catalogs lined the wall to my right, along with an extensive collection of old newspapers and boxes of historical artifacts the library had collected over the years. Piece by piece, Ben would organize and catalog them.

A soft, ominous creak came from deep in the stacks—an old hinge opening. My imagination kicked into overdrive, and I absolutely expected the free-form, floating apparition from the original Ghostbusters to present herself at any moment.

Benjamin? I whispered and rounded the end of a shelf near the back of the room.

The archivist’s desk sat empty. The light from his monitor shone on his vacant chair, and neat stacks of papers and books occupied the library cart against the wall. His space was devoid of the usual workspace knickknacks—no pictures or bobblehead Battlestar Galactica figurines.

What do you want? A deep voice came from behind me, and I shrieked, of course, slinging hot chocolate all over the floor and myself.

I turned to find a vexed Benjamin scowling at the chocolatey mess on my chest, his gaze locked on the once-white, now-chocolatey, Christmas-light-bedecked abominable snowman on my sweater.

In his hands, he held an old, hinge-top box. Mystery creak solved.

Your shirt is... His lips flattened into a straight line. Nice?

I blinked. "It’s not, but thank you.