Page 92 of Wood You Rather?

“I don’t get it,” Paz said, his frustration mounting, “how is a drug dealer with a fancy motorcycle and a fucking face tattoo gallivanting around town, and no one has noticed?”

“He must be better at this than we give him credit for.”

“Or maybe he’s well protected.” He balled his fists and hauled himself up. Muscles taut with tension, he paced across the room and stopped at the fireplace. “What if he had something to do with my dad’s accident?” he asked, his back to me. “I feel it, Parker. It’s all connected.”

I stood and put my laptop aside. “I’ll find out,” I said, shuffling over to him. “Maybe Mrs. Revelle has seen him and can give us more info. I’ll bring him down. I promise. And Mitch Hebert too. That fucker’s laundering money through a bogus dog walking business and buying flashy gifts for the local drug dealer. You can bet your muscular lumberjack ass that he’ll pay for it.”

Paz turned to face me. For one moment, we were frozen, staring at one another, sharing the weight of this discovery.

But then we were kissing. Maybe I kissed him first, or maybe he took the lead. I didn’t know. All I knew was that once we started, my body took over, launching itself at him and pressing even closer.

I was desperate for an outlet. A way to expend some of the pent-up feelings raging inside me. I was desperate for him. The feel of his warm, rough hands on my skin, the taste of his lips.

He was gentle, even a bit tentative. Exploring in the most unhurried way. I had always assumed Paz would be a master at efficiency, but this kiss was a journey, not the destination.

The pressure increased as his hands found my hair, one stroking the back of my neck. My hands were on his chest, gripping his shirt and soaking in the heat emanating from the thick wall of muscle beneath it. Unable to control myself anymore, I gasped before diving in deeper, pulling him close, and making it clear just how much I wanted this.

But a moment later, he pulled away. “I’m sorry.” With one long step back, he took all his warmth with him.

My lips tingled and my chest heaved as my brain tried to catch up and form words. I still didn’t know who’d initiated the collision. Because that’s what it was. Our bodies colliding in a rush of heat and passion. I had been just as willing as he was. We both knew it was a bad idea, but I was having trouble remembering why.

“Actually,” he said, “I’m not sorry. I’ve been wanting to do that for a while. Fuck. I respect you, Parker. And I respect the boundaries you drew after the snowstorm. But it’s killing me to stick to them.”

I nodded, touching my swollen lips. Why had I established those boundaries in the first place? Because this felt incredible. How could I delude myself into thinking it was even possible to stay away from this man?

He wrung his hands and searched my face. His shoulders were slumped, and his expression was more open and vulnerable than I’d ever seen it. I wanted nothing more than to jump into his arms and kiss all that self-doubt away.

“I spend every single minute of my day thinking about you. How gorgeous you are. How smart and fearless. How badly I want you. Your body and your mind.”

His words hit me like an arrow to the heart. He was so sincere, so impassioned. I stood, blinking at him while my brain processed this new information.

“You don’t have to say anything,” he said, taking a step back. “I’ve never met a woman I felt was made for me. Someone who could push my buttons and go ten rounds with me intellectually, then wake up ready to do it all again the next day. You see through my bullshit and all my masks. And I hate it. But fuck if it doesn’t make me respect you that much more. You’re fucking spectacular.”

Without my permission, my body moved toward him. I was desperate to feel his skin beneath my fingers, the weight of his body against mine. It was wrong, to let myself fall back into bed with him, but I couldn’t stop the feeling that this was a foregone conclusion.

I gripped his shirt with both hands. “You want me?” I asked, biting my lip hard to keep from throwing myself at him.

He didn’t kiss me. He didn’t throw me over his shoulder. He didn’t even touch me.

“I don’t want to fuck you, Parker,” he said, tipping my chin up with his finger so I was forced to meet his dark glare. “I want to possess you. I want to own you.”

I gasped. What the hell was he talking about? We were flirting. Hopefully headed toward some fun naked time. Weren’t we? But his tone and face were dead serious.

“You challenge me. And you fascinate me. And it’s not superficial. You have dug so deep into my brain that you make me want things I’ve never allowed myself to want before.”

I dropped my chin and focused on his shirt, needing a break from the intensity of his gaze. But all I saw was the way his chest heaved. Like he couldn’t slow his breath. Like his heart was racing as quickly as mine was.

Trying to lighten the mood, I took a step back. “Stop.” I swatted at his chest. Because damn if I wasn’t feeling uneasy right then. It was one thing to acknowledge the mutual attraction between us, or even act on it—with clear boundaries in place.

But what he was saying? This wasn’t my “let’s bang to get it out of our systems” philosophy. This was so much deeper. And I was way too chickenshit to let this unnerving conversation go any further.

“We can’t do this,” I whispered.

He grabbed my shoulders, startling me. “Why not? Tell me you’re not attracted to me. Tell me you don’t feel the connection between us. Tell me that we don’t fit together perfectly. That we don’t smooth out each other’s sharp edges.”

My rebuttal died on my lips. The words vanished from my vocabulary. He was asking for so much more than I could give. And he’d bared himself. Those words, speaking them like that, had to have been one of the most frightening things he’d ever done. He’d opened himself up to me completely. And in that moment, I believed him.

So, for once, I stopped. “Kiss me.”

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