Ex Libris: Confessions Of A Common Reader Novels & Stories

I had four days left before the poison consumed my organs entirely. All I wanted was to spend whatever time I had left with the woman I loved, but I could not reach her. The next day, I learned that Enzo Marchetti, the first love she had never forgotten, had returned from overseas. "Let's get divorced. The love of my life is back." I clutched my chest as a searing pain tore through it. "I'm at the family hospital. I've been poisoned. The doctors won't let me leave.” Her voice turned sharp and cruel. "I don't care if you're poisoned or dying. Even if you drop dead the next second, you need to come back and sign the papers." The last trace of warmth inside me went cold. I answered calmly,

“Every night I touch myself thinking about you pinning me down. About you telling me to be quiet while you— A soft creak made me freeze. Footsteps. Someone was coming down the aisle. Heart hammering, I quickly folded the letter and shoved it between the pages of my notebook. My fingers were still trembling when I looked up. It was just Mrs. Willow, the librarian, pushing a cart of books. She gave me a small smile and kept moving. I let out a shaky breath and pressed my thighs together under the desk. God, what was wrong with me? Conrad didn’t even know I existed. He was the golden boy—star quarterback, confident, untouchable. And here I was, writing the kind of things that would ruin me if a

*** I woke up from my long nap and turned to wake Dan but he was fast asleep, he told me Gabriel had cancelled coming and I have never felt that much relief. I walked to the bar downstairs with just my red net see-through bra and panties, I always love to look sexy and sex appealing. I just got to the bar and poured a cognac for myself still shivering at the thoughts of my early morning adventure. “ You really like that bar.” A voice called from the side “ What the heck! Who is that?” I blurted out, eyes scanning the room. “You look so damn sexy on this set too,” Gabriel said walking into the light his eyes fixed on my tits

“Please, I need to cum.” “Not yet.” His eyes are dark, predatory, nothing like the gentle priest I’ve watched at mass. “You wanted to confess, little lamb. So confess. Tell me everything you’ve done while thinking about me.” “I touched myself.” I’m squirming in his lap, desperate for friction he won’t give me. “Every night after mass.” “How?” His fingers move just slightly inside me, a tease. “Show me what you did.” “I have things. In my bedroom.” My face heats even as my body throbs. “Things I used while thinking about you.”

Tina arrived at the library earlier than usual the next day. She carried her heavy bag full of books. Her heart beat faster than normal. She kept thinking about Vicky. His smile. His touch on her back. She chose the same table in the back corner. The quiet spot felt different now. It held a secret promise. She opened her research project and tried to read. The words on the page blurred. She looked at the library door every few minutes. Would he come back? Part of her hoped he would. Another part felt nervous. Boys like Vicky did not stay interested in girls like her for long.

A smile crept onto my face as I adjusted my grip on the novel, its cover barely hiding the kind of story that made my heart race. A dark, depraved mafia romance. It had a male lead who didn’t ask permission so much as demand surrender. A man who played with consent the way a composer toyed with notes—artfully, deliberately, with the kind of confidence that made my skin prickle and my thighs press together. One that was over too soon. The kind of book I devoured in a fever and now I was in need of another. Most folks wouldn’t think of the local library as a treasure trove of scandalous reads, but I knew better. The librarians were in on the secret, intentionally filling the shelves with books

Then she carried the book to the nearest reading table and sat down and opened it without ceremony, because if fate had written her a contract, the least she could do was read the terms. The book assumed considerable prior knowledge, in the way of very old scholarship that considered background context a reader's own problem. But Lena had been reading texts with gaps since she was twelve, filling in what was missing from context and inference, and she worked through the opening chapters with patient, accumulating attention. She arrived at the third chapter — The Convergent Case: When the Soul Holds More Than One Mark — and her reading slowed and became something considerably more personal. S

It was because he wasn’t. Elias just shrugged. “The library’s a place I’ve found many interesting things to focus my attention on in the past. So, I understand.” I wasn’t sure what surprised me more, his forthrightness or the fact that it didn’t come with an ounce of judgment. The utter excess of information. I shuddered, suddenly picturing the four of them fucking on the library floor. I was getting way more than I bargained for from this conversation. I tilted my head to the ring. “Talk or bleed?”

She smiled, placing her hands on her waist. "Really? there's a library? Yes!" I clenched my right fist frantically in the air, excitement written all over me. Back at home, A Library was an abomination. I guess I forgot to mention there was a rule about books also? Well, here it goes. Eric had concluded that books lie. He had this ludicrous theory that books trap people. He said it's similar to a disease, a terrible sickness that has no cure. Makes humans rapted in an imaginary world, completely forgetting what reality brings.

She glanced up at me over her half-moon spectacles as I placed the stack of books down with a heavy thud. She ran her gnarled fingers over the worn covers, muttering to herself as she examined each book. She then glared at me with amused curiosity and warily from behind her spectacles as I approached the front desk, "Do you have plans of reading all the books in here, Ms. Fridays?" she asked, a hint of suspicion in her tone. Her question hung in the air as I considered my answer carefully. The truth was far more complex than the simple joy of reading. These books held secrets, knowledge that others wished to keep hidden. And I sought to uncover those mysteries, even if it meant arousing the