Page 84 of Coerced

Something warm and sweet stole over her expression, and she gave me a nod. Then she turned her attention to her breakfast and ate up. And before I took her to work, we indulged in one another just one more time.

TWENTY-THREE

Aria

“It’s official. I’m never leaving.”

At my declaration, Paxton’s hand squeezed mine, and he looked curiously at me. “Never leaving? As in, never leaving here?”

Without him specifying his definition ofhere,I couldn’t say for sure.

It was Thursday, just shy of two weeks since Paxton and I had shared our first kiss and ultimately made things official between us. It was also the first day since then that I was completely off from both jobs.

While I hadn’t been working all day, every day since Paxton and I took this step in our relationship, I had worked at least at the deli or at the pub each day. There were a couple of those days when I worked double shifts, going from one job to the next, but those were spaced out and had given me a bit of a reprieve.

Once Paxton learned that I had the entire day offtoday, he decided to take a day off from work as well, so we could spend it together. I wasn’t exactly surprised by that, either. Because Paxton had been doing things to show me how much he cared right from the very start before things changed from friendly to romantic between us. Now that we were romantically involved, I was seeing more highlights of the trait Paxton had already possessed.

And just because he’d taken time off from work to spend the day with me today didn’t mean that we hadn’t spent time with each other over the last two weeks.

We had.

In fact, we’d spent a significant amount of time together, especially on the days when I didn’t have to work at the pub.

Those were the best days, because I was typically home from the deli before Paxton returned from Harper Security Ops. I’d find a way to be outside when he got home—either grabbing the mail, working on something outside the house, or sitting out with a drink in my hand.

On those days, Paxton would always walk over to me, kiss me, and discuss a plan for spending the evening together. We often had dinner together, and we didn’t separate afterward. I’d spent a handful of nights at Paxton’s place with Sasha in tow—fortunately, the meet and greet between the pets had gone well—and Paxton had spent another night at my place.

The last two weeks had been nothing short of magical, and today was no exception. That was precisely the reason I’d made the statement I had about never leaving here.

Wanting to clarify what I meant, I said, “Well, I guess if you’re talking about this specific place, I can’t say it’s abad idea. I don’t think I’ve ever had this much fun at a fall festival ever.”

“I had a feeling you were going to enjoy yourself,” he returned proudly, puffing up his chest with pride. He was the one who’d suggested we spend the day at the Steel Ridge Fall Festival today, and it was safe to say he’d made a great choice.

Grinning from ear to ear as we stood together holding hands, I leaned my body into his side. “There’s been so much good stuff to see and do and eat here, and I don’t think we’ve covered it all yet. But now that we’ve seen this, I wouldn’t be upset if we didn’t see another thing.”

“This is easily my favorite part of the festival.”

“Why don’t you bring your dogs and do it with them?”

Paxton shot me a look of disbelief. “You’re joking, right? Brutus could never handle this. He’d be wild. Patty would want to become friends with everyone here, and Tiny would find a way to coax people into sharing their food with him.”

“Aw, I think it would be fun,” I said.

Throughout our day at the festival, there had been plenty for Paxton and me to enjoy together. We’d had more food than was reasonable, did a corn maze, went on a hayride, done some pumpkin picking, and had played a few games that had been set up.

But there was nothing better than watching what we were watching now—the pet costume parade. Though there were a few other types of animals—the occasional goat, pig, or pony—the dogs made up the majority. And it was the best thing I’d ever seen. It was the season for dressing up in costumes, and at the Steel Ridge festival, that meant dressing up your pets. Of course, despite themany adorable or funny costumes I’d seen, I thought Brutus, Patty, and Tiny would have stolen the show if they’d been here.

Paxton shrugged. “Maybe, if you promise to come with me next year, we can dress them up and try to tackle this together.”

My heart raced, and my belly flipped. It was statements like that which made it possible for me to make my original declaration that had nothing to do with this particular festival. Paxton didn’t seem the least bit concerned about planning to attend this with me next year, like he believed we’d still be together then.

God, I hoped he was right, because there was nothing I wanted more. After everything I’d experienced, largely thanks to him, since moving to Steel Ridge, I couldn’t imagine anything better than to still have Paxton in my life a year from now, the way I had him now.

That’s what would make it all worth it.

After all I’d been through, after all I’d been forced to give up, I’d go through it again just to have him.

Smiling at him, tipping my chin down slightly, I said, “I’d love to be here with you next year.”