Page 69 of Coerced

I simply didn’t know how to react to this information.

I shook my head sheepishly. “No.”

“I wanted to check on you and give you some peace of mind that you wouldn’t have to walk to your car alone or drive home without anyone looking out for you,” he explained.

There was only one question left for me to ask him. “Why?”

“Why?”

“Yes. Why would you do that for me?”

“Because I like you,” he admitted. “I’ve thought about you a lot since the day Brutus decided to officially welcome you to the neighborhood in his own special way. But then I took you out last weekend, and I went from thinking about you a lot to thinking about you all the time. And ever since I walked you to your door last night, you’re the only thing I’ve thought about.”

Okay, so I hadn’t made up any of the attraction in my head. He hadn’t been able to think about anything besides me. If anyone would have thought it possible to hear that admission and me not react accordingly, they were crazy.

Without even really thinking about it, my eyes followed my hand as it came to rest on his chest. From there, they followed my hand’s movements as it drifted up, over his shoulder, along the side of his neck, and into the clipped hair at the back of his head. Then my eyes were on his, begging him—daring him—to make the next move.

He didn’t react.

Not immediately, anyway.

He held my stare for quite some time before his focus shifted to my lips. I dropped my gaze to his.

And that’s when it happened.

Paxton simultaneously wrapped one arm around my waist to haul me close to his body as the other hand drove into my hair and angled my head to give him the access he wanted to my mouth.

Then his lips were on mine.

They were soft, his kiss sweet and tender. Paxton was kissing me like he had all the time in the world, like there was no reason to rush.

It was exactly how I imagined he’d kiss, but the realityof being able to experience it only made it that much better.

When his tongue touched the seam of my lips, a silent demand for access to my mouth, I parted my lips. Paxton took what he wanted, giving me more than I could have hoped for in the process.

Tingles ran along my spine as a swarm of butterflies took flight in my belly. Despite my best efforts to rein in all that I was feeling, something that should have been easy for me, a moan crawled up my throat.

And it was just after that when Paxton’s grip tightened in my hair, and he separated his mouth from mine.

He rested his forehead against mine, his lips brushing gently along my lips. Then he smiled, and my belly was doing somersaults.

“I’ve been wanting to do that for a long time,” he confessed.

“Mmm. Me, too.”

His grin grew. “How about we get out of here?”

For a brief moment, I forgot where we were. But I gave him a quick nod and agreed, “Yeah, that sounds good.”

How I contained my excitement the entire way home was beyond me. I couldn’t stop replaying my kiss with Paxton in my mind. It was my hope that I wasn’t the only one still reeling from our kiss and that Paxton also felt like he was dreaming.

Once we were home, Paxton didn’t hesitate to get out of his vehicle and make his way over to me. He walked with me to my front door and said, “I really need to do this again.”

Paxton touched his lips to mine, and another slow assault on my senses began. I used to think that forsomething to feel so passionate, we’d need to be clawing at one another and tearing our clothes off. But leave it to Paxton to make such a tender kiss feel like the greatest experience of my entire life.

When he tore his mouth from mine, he asked, “Do you need to work tomorrow?”

With a shake of my head, I answered, “No.”