Page 49 of The Alpha and the Baker
It wasn’t a long drive to my bakery, give or take twenty minutes depending on traffic, but in that time, I found myself gravitating more and more toward the kind, handsome man. I’d been attracted to him from the moment I’d met him, but now it was more intense than ever. It was like I was being pulled physically toward him, an irresistible force that I didn’t even want to try to struggle against.
Maybe I was completely delusional, but it felt like the feeling was entirely mutual. The way he looked at me contained somuchthat couldn’t be chalked up to simple attraction. Nothing could convince me otherwise, not even that pessimistic voice in the back of my head that insisted it was just my ego talking.
“Here we are,” Cas said as he pulled in behind my van.
“Here we are,” I repeated, but I didn’t budge. I definitely didn’t want to.
This was where Cas’s gentlemanly nature was a minus, because once again, he got out of the car to open my door. I couldn’t fault him for having good etiquette, so I took his hand when he offered it and let him walk me to my door.
But I was a little over good etiquette. When I opened my door, I didn’t let go of his hand. Instead, I squeezed lightly and met his eyes.
“Felicia?” he murmured, his voice such a low rumble it almost wasn’t discernible.
I hadn’t gotten to where I was in life by being meek, so I gave him a cheeky little grin. “Would you like to come in?”
Time stopped, full-on stopped, and yet somehow my heart continued to thunder in my chest with no accounting for how the rest of the world had frozen around us. I watched every micro-expression, every tiny little minutia of data that passed across Cas’s face in that impossibly long second.
But then he grinned at me, his expression almost wolfish, and time resumed. “I’d love to.”
Fuck yes!
Inviting a guy in after one date wasn’t really my thing, but then again, dating in general wasn’t my thing, so I was already in unfamiliar territory. Yet, I knew what I wanted, and that was Cas and only Cas. If we both felt the same, why should we deny ourselves?
At least that was what I told myself as I led him through the bakery and up the stairs to my apartment. We didn’t run, we didn’t giggle. There was a comfortable assuredness to our march that I hadn’t expected. Despite my brave face, I’d been prepared to be quite nervous. I hadn’t been intimate with another person in a long while, and I had been entertaining the possibility that the McCallisters weren’t even human.
But that didn’t matter. What mattered was how he pulled me to him once we were in my two-bedroom apartment, and then leaned in to kiss me.
However, he stopped just before those appealing lips of his could touch mine. I froze, worried he’d changed his mind, but then I belatedly realized he was speaking.
“Are you sure?” he asked, one of his arms sliding around the small of my back.
I was reminded of how he caught me during my flour delivery. And then of how we’d danced together as the sun set, and the stars slowly sparkled into sight against the backdrop of the inky night sky.
“I’m sure,” I said, closing the distance between us.
Our lips pressed together, and it was everything I wanted and more. He pressed his arm harder against me, and it made me feel so intensely wanted. His cologne, so masculine, so heady, overwhelmed my senses.
My thoughts went a little sideways, but I didn’t mind. His lips moved against mine, demanding entrance. It lit a fire in my belly. I was clinging to him, my arms wrapped around his shoulders, needing him to be closer.
The heat between us was so palpable that I was surprised there weren’t physical sparks between us. Desire, thick and ardent, bubbled up in me in a way I wasn’t used to.
In a way I really didn’t want to resist.
So I didn’t.
No thinking, no doubt, just the natural attraction we felt for each other. I let myself fall into it, unhindered by so many of the worries and responsibilities that weighed down my day-to-day. In Cas’s arms, there was none of that.
There was onlyus.
After a few minutes, he broke the kiss and straightened even as my lips chased his. I made a slight sound of protest, but his responding chuckle soothed me.
“Trust me, I’m not done kissing you.” The rough timbre of his voice made my knees weak. “I wanted to check in on just how far we were taking this.”
I swallowed hardand tried to get my brain online enough to answer him. “I suppose as far as we want it to,” I said with all the lucidity I could muster. I didn’t think I’d ever been so affected by a kiss, but then again, it had been one hell of a kiss. “Neither of us have to do anything we don’t want to.”
But I really, really wanted to doeverything. My panties were wet, and so were my palms. While one of those was much more preferable than the other, it was a sure sign that my body was absolutely into what was going on.
I knew that if that changed, or if I wavered in any way, Cas would stop as soon as I asked it. No ifs, ands, or buts. That couldn’t be said for all men, but I knew right to my bones that Cas would never,evergo further than his partner wanted.
