Page 87 of Married in Michigan

My hands splay over his chest and rake down over his diaphragm, tracing and dancing over his abs— however he captures my wrists before I can grasp his erection.

“First things first,” he says. “I need you naked. I need to see the rest of you.”

I shift up to sit on my knees, unbutton my jeans and shimmy them down, flip to my butt on the mattress and yank them off, turning them inside out in the process, and then I’m clad in nothing but a pair of gray cotton hipster underwear. I begin tugging them down, but Paxton stops me.

“Please,” he says, his tone formal. “Allow me.”

I lie back, lift my butt off the bed, and he slowly drags the last of my clothing down, peeling the underwear off me inch by inch. When they’re clear of my toes, he drops off the edge of the bed and turns to me, eyes slowly and deliberately taking me in, head to toes and again and again, pausing here and there. Breasts, hips, core.

He licks his lips, sidles over to me, eyes sparking in a blaze of arousal. “We’ve been dancing around this attraction for a long time, Makayla,” he says, taking my calf in his hands and teasing his fingertips up to my thigh, spreading my thighs apart in the process. “I’m not sure I’m capable of holding back any longer.”

“Don’t,” I murmur.

“No?” He bends over my legs, touching his lips to the quads of my left thigh. “You don’t want to take it slow?”

I shake my head, swallowing hard as he dances kisses over my thigh, then to the other leg, then across again, inching upward with each kiss. “Slow…bad,” I breathe.

He grins. “Sounds like you’re getting a little bothered, Makayla.”

I gather his hair in my hands and guide him where I want him—he resists my efforts to hurry him closer to my core, instead taking his time getting there kiss by kiss. I growl as he laughs, and his eyes twinkle, sparkle, and snap. Finally, his kisses land on my hipbones, one and then the other, and I’m barely breathing, fingers knotted in his hair, hips lifting—my core is questing, seeking his lips.

“Not shy about what you want, are you?” he says.

I shake my head. “Nope. Now that I’ve given up trying to resist you, I fucking want you, Paxton. So bad. Worse than I’ve ever wanted a man in my life.”

“Is that so?” He says this with a smirk, kneeling between my outspread thighs, hands cradling my hips. “You want me?”

My eyes blaze, meeting his. “Don’t play, Pax. You know I do. You’ve always known I do.”

A shrug, an arched eyebrow. “I don’t know, Makayla. You do play a pretty good game of hard to read.” He pauses to kiss me just below my navel, then lower. And lower. I gasp, arch my hips, straining upward. “Sometimes I wondered if you even liked me as a person, much less felt attraction for me.”

I play with his hair, both hands buried in it, tangling, knotting, smoothing. “That was a tactic. Trying to make myself believe I wasn’t crazy about you. If I acted like I couldn’t stand you as a person, it was easier to pretend I wasn’t wildly attracted to you, physically.”

“Did it work?”

I shrug. “For a while. Then, no. The more I got to know you, especially seeing you work at the meetings and dinners and cocktail mixers, the more I saw that there’s a lot more to you than I was giving you credit for.”

“And now?”

“Now?” I bite my lip, eyes on his. “Now, I just want this. I want us. I want…” I pause to fight for breath, for words. “More than I thought I wanted.”

Paxton’s mouth hovers over my core, his eyes on mine—golden brown, heated, aroused, hungry. “I feel like I could lose myself in you, and never come back.”

“Is that good or bad?” I ask.

He huffs a laugh. “I don’t even know. It’s scary.”

I brush a thumb over his lips. “Can we talk about this after?”

He grins. “I love the way you think.”

I watch him as he lowers his mouth—but he misses my center. Instead, his lips nuzzle the tender, silk-soft, sensitive flesh just between inner thigh and the delicacy of my sex. A tongue flick, a nibbling kiss. Then the other side. I breathe rapidly, quake all over, expecting his tongue and the heat of his mouth on my sex any moment, needing it more than I’ve ever needed anything. I could forgo breathing to get his mouth on me. I gasp, whimper, watching him continue to tease me, lips dancing over my thighs and navel and pubis, everywhere except where I want it.

“Paxton!” I cry out. “Please.”

He laughs. “God, you’re sexy when you beg.”

I snarl. “Quit messing around, Paxton.”