Page 32 of To the Chase

The door clicked shut behind us, and he leaned against it, watching me. We’d spent the evening pressed side by side—in the booth, the car, on the rock—this was the first time we’d been truly face to face.

I blushed.

All he’d done was look at me head-on, and my cheeks were aflame.

Who was I?

“Can I kiss you?” he asked.

I nodded. “That would be ideal.”

He pushed off the door and closed the distance in three steps. One hand cradling the back of my head, he drew me in, humming as our bodies gently collided. He was taller, but with my heels on, he barely had to bend to reach my mouth.

His lips brushed mine. Soft.Sosoft. Like warm feathers gliding across my skin.

His hand drifting to my nape, the other clutching my waist, he inhaled against my lips, taking my scent and breath, then exhaled as he pressed into me, fitting my bottom lip between his, sucking oh-so-carefully.

It was slow and methodical. Singularly Tore. Each swipe of his tongue along the seam of my lips weakened my knees and had me leaning into him more. He held me tighter, wrapping his arm around my waist with such strength, I didn’t doubt he could hold my entire weight without breaking a sweat.

I slid my hands up his chest, around his neck, threading them into his thick, silky hair. When I parted my lips, he met me with his tongue, tilting his head to deepen the kiss.

Then he whimpered.

Gritty and desperate, I nearly shattered in his arms from how beautiful the sound was.

“Bea,” he uttered brokenly into my mouth. “Oh god.”

“I know, baby. I know.” I kissed him again, grazing his lip with my teeth, lapping at the little pained sounds rising in his throat. I wanted more of him, to know what his skin felt like against mine. Reaching for the hem of his shirt, I yanked it out of his pants.

His crackled moan, a magic medicine that cured all my ails, shot directly into my veins, and I wasn’t sure there had ever been a more perfect man.

Then he went and ruined it all.

Gripping my shoulders, he took a step away, and my hands slipped from beneath his shirt. “Let’s slow down.”

My eyes fluttered open. “We don’t have to.”

Pain flickered across his expression, gone in an instant. “I need to. I know I asked you back to my room, and I was the one to start this, but I don’t want to rush. I—”

Embarrassed, like I was some harlot trying to mount him, I turned my head. “No, I understand. You don’t have to explain.”

“Bea.” He touched my chin, coaxing me to look at him. “It would be so easy to get lost in you.”

I let him turn my face, unsure what to say. I’d already lost myself, and he had restraint to spare.

He cupped my nape and dropped his forehead to mine. “For me, this isn’t going to be one night. I don’t want to rushusbecause I want to make sure we get this right.”

I closed my eyes, letting his words settle over me. He wanted more, and I…well, I did too. How that would work with him living states away, I didn’t know, but I couldn’t see myself letting him go easily.

“There’s no set order of how things have to go.”

“No, there isn’t.” At his frustrated tone, I opened my eyes. He was frowning.

“Does that upset you?”

“I’m not upset.” The hand on my lower back flexed. “I might be a little old-fashioned for you, Bea. It’s my father’s fault. He thinks he’s a character from a black-and-white movie, and he raised me to act like a gentleman, always.”

“That’s cute, but I don’t see the problem.”