Alison's Wonderland Read Online Free Page B

Couldn’t.
    “Name,” he said softly, flicking his thumbnail along the hardened point of me until my breath caught in my throat.
    “M-master,” I called out, my rasped voice rising in the air between us.
    He grinned that dangerous grin of his, making me want to take it back, but it was too late. He was tightening his thumb back to my skin, cocking his fingers inside, his tonguecurling over and over my skin until I was sure I was melting beneath the soft spin of his touch, turning liquid, turning gold.

The Three Billys
Sommer Marsden

 
    “Philomena Fitzpatrick Troll,” she said. She said it louder than necessary because they stood there with their buckets, tarps and ladders looking like a ragtag bunch if there ever was one. And they had dirt on their boots. Dirt that crumbled into little brown piles on her perfect black-and-white tiles. What had Harry been thinking? They were a wreck. All three of them. And what kind of name was Three Billys Building anyway?
    “Nice to meet you, but we just need to get access to the second floor and—”
    “I understand,” Philomena interrupted. Rude but necessary. The big one did the talking. He had the beginnings of a goatee, which almost made her laugh because she was thinking of the fairy tale. Instead, she smoothed her brown dress and squared her shoulders. “In the future, please use the service entrance so as not to…” She let the sentence trail off as she raked a disapproving gaze over her now-marred floor.
    “Sorry about that. First day and all. We weren’t sure, Philomena.”
    “Ms. Troll.”
    “How unfortunate,” he thrust.
    “How clever,” she parried.
    He grinned. This big Billy. Philomena felt a blush start at her cheekbones and burn a blazing trail well south of her cheeks. “This way,” she said. She took off at a smart pace before he could see her face coloring and her breath quicken. The big one was going to be a problem. Staggeringly tall and broad with nearly black hair, and eyes that flashed an emerald-green. Philomena had noticed those eyes right off the bat. A bad sign for her.
    Usually, she could focus at work. It took an act of God to pull her from her head librarian duties. More than a few men had come along thinking she would be some fantasy, like in the music videos and movies. They flirted and waited for her to come undone for them and turn into a bookish wet dream. But Philomena kept her focus. When she was at work, she was all about work. And these days, work rated number one with a bullet in her life. Because she didn’t have much more.
    Now he pinned her with those haunting green eyes and she had to put more swagger in her walk than she felt. They clomped behind her. Oafish and messy. Oh, she could just picture the debris sifting from their boots and that horrible paint-splattered ladder leaving gouges in her impeccable walls. It did not occur to her until halfway up the staircase that three pairs of male eyes were now pinned to her swaying bottom. The thought almost felled her, nearly brought her down like a dry tree in a February ice storm. She stilled and someone chuckled, a small knowing laugh. Had she been a betting woman, Philomena would have laid easy money on the big Billy. She closed her eyes, wrangled a deep breath and forced her sensible square-toed work heels to continue.
    At the second floor, she surveyed the water damage. The rugs had already been torn up by maintenance. A pipe had ruptured in the ceiling, the water raining down from over-head, not from the sprinklers, but from the water pipes that ran under the third floor. She tried to remind herself (yet again) that the situation could have been worse. There could have been damage to the third floor—the archival floor. She blew out a sigh and indicated the mess. “Here we are, gentlemen.”
    “The man who hired us,” said the middle one, “where’s he?”
    “Harry is off today. He’ll be here tomorrow. As, I trust, will you.” Philomena had nightmares about