Page 74 of Cowboy SEAL Homecoming

His mouth firmed and she knew she was going about this all wrong. The problem was she didn’t know how else to go about it. As long as he was so determined he was fine, what could she do?

“Go to bed,” he said, and there was a touch of gentleness to that order that he didn’t usually use. She’d hold on to that.

“I’ll go to bed if you come with.” When his eyebrows winged up, she realized how that sounded. “Oh, that’s not what I meant,” she stuttered, her cheeks flushing pink.

Alex chuckled, but then she kind of thought of it. Of the kiss earlier today, and the kiss in the bar parking lot, and Alex. “But maybe it could be what I meant.”

“No,” he said firmly, though his mouth was curved in that almost-smile she liked so much.

“Don’t jump to an automatic answer. We should consider it. You know, really think about—”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because we haven’t even been on a date yet,” he said, as though people went around not sleeping together because they hadn’t been out on some official date.

“So?”

“So that’s how you do things,” he replied, holding out his hand and ticking off steps. “You go on a date. You go on multiple dates and then you…”

“Then you what?” she asked as innocently as she could manage. “Rescue goats together?”

“Is that what the kids are calling it these days?”

“Oh, stop everything! We need to memorialize this day.”

“What day?”

“The day Alex made an actual joke, and it was even about sex!” She grinned up at him, stepping closer, gathering the courage to touch him. This man so determined to do things the right way, who had this hidden sense of humor that was all the more special because she’d only seen it come out around her.

She slid her palm against his cheek and enjoyed the rough scrape of a day’s worth of whiskers. She pressed her thumb to the corner of his upturned mouth because she wanted to commit to memory that expression. As though he was helpless against her charm. Or goat jokes.

He reached out, but sadly not to touch her. Instead, he pulled up the collar of her coat so it covered her neck better. “It’s cold, Bec.”

“Yes, it is, and you’re not wearing a coat at all.”

“I’m used to that.”

“And I am used to Montana. You should have a coat on. Actually, you should be in bed. Again, I’d like to bring up, my bed is available, with me in it.”

His hand left her coat collar, but instead of going back to his side, he gave her braid a little tug.

“You even wear your hair in a braid to bed?”

“Otherwise Hannibal plays with it.”

He opened his mouth, she was sure to quiz her about Hannibal, but she found she didn’t really want to talk about her cat or her goat or anything else. She wanted to press her mouth to his, so that’s what she did. She kissed him.

When he didn’t resist, when he instead wrapped his hand behind her neck and pulled her closer, she sighed into it and him. Into the feeling of a quiet, lazy exploration that had her insides humming with some mix of nerves and excitement she’d never experienced before.

She moved onto her tiptoes, pressing her body against his, wrapping her arms around his neck to give her better leverage against his much taller frame, and she kissed him with everything she had.

Clumsy or clueless, she didn’t care. Because Alex would never make her feel those things. He would guide her somewhere sweet and perfect.

“What are you wearing underneath this coat?” he murmured into the cold.

“A hoodie.”