Page 31 of Sweet Spot

Gage chuckled, and to my dismay, released my neck and moved back around the kitchen to where he’d left his beer, picking it up and bringing it to his lips for a deep draw. “Uh-huh. That’s why I’m here, to help you see reason and to talk you off the ledge whenever you’re close to losing it. It’s why we make such a great team.”

He wasn’t wrong about that. We were a great team. Had been from the moment we became friends. We balanced each other out. With the exception of the whole public kiss and declaration that I was his girl, the man didn’t have an impulsive bone in his body. That was reserved for me. I was known to be a bit wild, to act without much thought if what I wanted to do would be fun. He was the levelheaded one, the one who planned things out. I tended to let my emotions run amok and he’d be there to balance me. It was as if we were two sides of the same coin. One needed the other in order to be complete.

His reassurance alone was enough to quell the panic that had been bubbling inside me all day long, making it damn near impossible to get anything done.

“Okay.” I nodded, all of a sudden feeling an easy calm wash over me. “We’ll figure it out,” I echoed his earlier sentiment, believing it because he’d been so sure of himself when he said it.

“You didn’t flinch.”

My head cocked to the side in confusion at the shift in topic. “Huh?”

“When I touched you just now. You didn’t flinch.” He looked almost proud.

“Oh.” I turned my head away from him as heat flooded my cheeks. He was right. I hadn’t flinched. Mainly because I was silently praying he would kiss me again. To hide the furious burn in my cheeks, I moved to the cabinet and pulled out a wineglass, opening the bottle on the island and pouring myself a healthy amount. “Yeah. I guess I didn’t think about it.”

“That’s good. It means this whole thing will be a lot easier to believe.” I turned around and sucked in a startled gasp when I found him standingrightbehind me. A man his size shouldn’t have been able to move so quietly. I hadn’t heard him come close, but Gage had always been stealthy like a freaking fox. His voice dropped a few octaves when he spoke next, his words taking on that velvet-over-gravel cadence that I loved so damn much. “So if I were to do this, it wouldn’t make you tense up?” He reached up and thumbed a lock of my hair before tucking it behind my ear. Heat prickled my skin where his fingertips softly drifted over my temple and down past my jawline, skating across the delicate skin at the side of my neck.

He worded it like a question, but it felt more like a test. A challenge.

The air left my lungs in a sharp gust as every inch of my body began to prickle with awareness. His palm continued its journey around to the nape of my neck. He applied pressure, giving me no choice but to lean in.

His fingers tangled with my hair as he formed a fist, pulling it just enough to tip my face back. His eyes took on that darkness, his pupils dilating as his gaze traveled down to my mouth and he moved in even closer.

Oh God. He was going to kiss me again. And I couldn’t flippingwait! My nipples hardened into tight peaks. Hot arousal flooded between my thighs like my body was preparing itself.

He was all I could see, all I could focus on. That spice and leather cologne wrapped around me, making the blood course through my veins like whitewater rapids. My heart began to beat wildly, knocking against my sternum so hard I could hear it.

Wait.

The knocking sounded again. I sucked in a gasp as the connection broke, the bubble that had formed around us popping like it had been poked with a stick. It wasn’t my heart. It was the front door.

My head whipped around in that direction at the same time Gage let out a low, scary growl.

“Are you expecting anyone?” I asked, slightly breathless as I turned to look back at him.

“No,” he clipped curtly. His hand slid off my neck and out of my hair, and I instantly missed his touch, silently yearning to have it back, but that damn persistent knock started again. I didn’t have the first clue who was standing on Gage’s front porch, but I hated them. “But whoever it is obviously has a death wish.”

He stormed out of the kitchen, leaving me shaken and needy, my body so primed that a gentle breeze would have been enough to get me off.

I tugged at the collar of my blouse, desperate to cool my overly-heated skin. He’d barely touched me, yet that had to have been one of the hottest encounters I’d had in a really long time. God, how sad was that?

I was in the middle of worrying how I was going to take my libido back to a normal level when I heard voices from Gage’s entryway that worked to snuff that fire in my core out like sand being kicked on a campfire.

“Gage! Oh my God, I can’t believe my baby boy is getting married! Get over here and give your mother a hug.”

ChapterSixteen

GAGE

I stompedto the front door, ready to murder the hell out of whoever had just interrupted the moment Wynn and I were about to have. Annoyance coursed through what little blood wasn’t currently gathered in my dick, making it painfully hard. I reached into my sweats and adjusted my stiff, throbbing dick before reaching for the knob, ready to lay out the asshole.

Only, the moment I yanked the damn thing open, the sight on the other side stopped me short—and my erection deflated like a cartoon blimp.

“Gage!” My mom shoved past my grandma and across the threshold, arms outstretched and wide open. Pure, unadulterated joy lit up her entire face and shot from her pores. “Oh my God, I can’t believe my baby boy is getting married! Get over here and give your mother a hug.”

Before I had a chance to figure out what the hell was happening, I was yanked into a bone-crushing embrace. For a small woman, Marcia Langdon didn’t mess around when it came to her hugs. It didn’t matter who it was—me, my friends, the door-to-door salesman trying to get you to buy solar panels—she was a hugger, and each one bore the brunt of her surprising strength.

I let out anoofas my bones clanked and scraped together when she held on tight and swayed us back and forth until I started to get seasick.

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