That decides it.
I move in, take her face in my hands, and kiss her before I can talk myself out of it.
She makes that same soft, surprised sound she made outside the hall, and it wrecks me. Her hands come up to my chest, clutching at my flannel, and I deepen the kiss because I’m onlya man and she tastes like cider and sweetness and the kind of trouble a man spends his whole life hoping for.
She kisses me back with more confidence this time.
Still soft. Still a little shy.
But wanting.
God, she wantsme.
The knowledge hits like a blow.
I drag my mouth from hers, breathing hard, forehead pressed to hers.
“Lexie.”
“Weston.”
My name in her voice is enough to make a man stupid.
I slide one hand down her back, pulling her closer until every curve of her is lined against me. She gasps at the feel of what she does to me, and I nearly lose the last ragged scrap of control I’ve got left.
Her eyes fly to mine.
Heat. Nerves. Wonder.
And something else.
“Tell me if I’m pushing too fast,” I say, voice rougher than I mean it to be. “Tell me if you want me to stop.”
She swallows. “I don’t want you to stop.”
I close my eyes for one second.
Then I kiss her again.
Slower this time. Deeper. Letting myself have the feel of her mouth without rushing it. Letting my hands learn the shape of her. Her waist. The soft rise of her hips. The lush curve of her back. Every inch of her feels made to undo me.
She’s soft in all the ways that matter. Warm and sweet and responsive under my hands, like she’s been waiting for someone to touch her like she’s something precious instead of something to be tolerated.
A dark kind of anger moves through me at the thought of any man making her feel less than adored.
I force it down and kiss the corner of her mouth instead.
She looks up at me with those big blue eyes and kills me dead.
“What?” I ask.
Her cheeks turn pink. “Nothing.”
“Lexie.”
A tiny smile. “You’re very... intense.”
That almost gets a laugh out of me. “You noticing that now?”
