Page 43 of His to Protect

I didn’t know if I should push this or not, but I did. I didn’t think it was embarrassing at all that not only did she need me last night, but that she’d had the guts to ask. She might have been half-asleep and not fully aware of what she was doing, which might be a blow to my ego if I believed it.

Luckily, I have a large ego—among other things.

“Why should that embarrass me?” she asked, her voice slightly scratchy. The pink was back in full bloom on her cheeks and my hand, which had been resting behind her ear, moved until I brushed her cheekbone with my thumb.

“It shouldn’t,” I told her. “And if you’re embarrassed, or upset that you woke up alone, it’s only because you felt so good in my arms and next to me that I had to leave before I did something we might regret.”

“You…” Another garbled sound escaped her throat before she looked up. “What did you say?”

I chuckled softly, just once, and slid my hand down to cup the side of her throat. My fingertips pressed gently into the skin at the back of her neck, holding her firmly.

“I’m attracted to you, Trina, and I like you. I also know you had a lot of emotional stuff to deal with last night, and you have to deal with your husband, too. I’m not pushing anything”—I paused and grinned—“yet. But I want you to know that I want to explore something with you, and lying next to you all night, your warm, tight body against mine, not pushing you into something you might not want, or might not be ready for, had my self-control at its limit.”

She blinked several times and her lips parted.

She looked so damn cute, so utterly confused. I had the urge to kiss her. Here. Now.

But I didn’t.

I took a step back and then another before I turned and reached for my coffee. When I looked back at her, she was finally snapping her mouth closed.

I shrugged and took a sip of coffee. “Just think about it. Let me know what you decide. No pressure.”

A bit of gentle nudging in the right direction—my direction—might occur, though.

After several beats of silence, she muttered, “I need to shower.”

She walked away and I couldn’t help chuckling while she did.

“Woof!”

I looked down at Boomer sitting at my heels. His tail flopped against a wooden chair leg and his big dopey eyes were fixed on mine. He almost looked like he was smiling.

“Yeah, I know, boy. I think she likes me, too.”

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