Protector(56)

All right, this was getting out of hand. Her friends were still being held against their will by Matías and his gang, wherever they might be hiding, and right now she was watching some extra on The Walking Dead get his entrails ripped out of his stomach in a spectacular spray of Karo-syrup blood, and the only thing she could think about was kissing Alex’s neck?

All she could do was pray he hadn’t noticed her tension, hadn’t seen the way her gaze kept wandering from the television set. He’d seated himself a respectable distance from her, at least a foot, and yet she fancied she could feel the warmth radiating out from his body even so. She knew she was acutely aware of every time he shifted, every creak of the couch and every movement of the sturdy biceps under the polo shirt he wore.

To distract herself, she bent forward and picked up her own glass of water, then planted her feet firmly on the rug-covered floor while she took a few swallows. There, that was a little better. If she drank enough, maybe she’d dilute some of the sangria currently swirling around in her stomach. To be fair, it really hadn’t been that strong…just strong enough to have messed with some of her extremely hard-won composure.

“More?” Alex asked, and she started.

He grabbed the remote and paused the DVR. “Do you want more water?”

“Um…sure.”

Setting the remote aside, he got up from the couch and moved from the family room to the kitchen, giving her a great opportunity to watch how his faded jeans clung to his ass and thighs. He was built just the way she liked — muscular but not muscle-bound, tall and broad-shouldered. After she’d hit her current five foot eight, she’d realized there were a lot of guys she wouldn’t consider dating, just because they were too short. Call her shallow, but she wanted someone she could look up to.

Alex came back with her freshened-up glass of water in his hand, then gave it to her. She noticed he was careful not to let his fingers brush against hers, and felt a stab of disappointment. Well, what had she expected? She’d been acting like an idiot today, blowing hot and cold, being completely inconsistent in the way she was treating him. He’d probably decided it was much safer to keep his distance. And if she could just get her head screwed on straight, she’d put all these unwanted feelings and thoughts aside, and would regain some kind of focus. Maybe then the visions would return. For all she knew, she’d been unsuccessful so far because she was expending way too much mental energy on Alex Trujillo and not enough on letting her powers work through her.

“Better?” he asked, dropping down onto the couch next to her.

“Sure…thanks.” She swallowed some water, and then some more. Whether it would be enough to clear her head, she had no idea.

He must have noticed something was wrong, because instead of picking up the remote and unpausing the DVR, he shifted so he was more or less facing her. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.”

His eyebrows quirked slightly, but he didn’t say anything, only sat there, watching her. And that was the absolute worst, because not even a foot separated them now. No matter what she did, she couldn’t seem to drag her eyes away from his, from their warm brown depths.

“It doesn’t look like nothing to me,” he said.

What was she supposed to say? An easy lie, one about being worried about Roslyn and Danica? It wouldn’t even be a lie, not really — of course she was worried. But their predicament wasn’t what occupied her thoughts right now, and Alex seemed to sense that.

“It’s just — you’re distracting,” she finally blurted out, then wished she had rammed her fist into her mouth to shut herself up before she could say something so baldly honest.

Those eyebrows lifted even further. “Distracting? I think I kind of like the sound of that.”

Oh, hell. She set down her glass of water, mainly because doing so gave her an excuse to break eye contact in a way that appeared more or less natural. When she straightened up, however, he was still watching her, didn’t appear to have moved. “It’s just that I feel like I should be focusing on Roslyn and Danica, and I’m trying, but every time I look up, you’re there, and it’s like you’ve managed to get in my head or something, and I don’t know — ”

She’d meant to say, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do about it, but she didn’t get that far, because Alex had reached out to her, had laced his fingers through hers and then pulled her toward him, his lips pressing against hers before she had a chance to even process what was happening. And, oh, Goddess, his mouth felt so good, strong and full, and he tasted even better. She opened her own mouth to him, let him deepen the kiss, found herself pressing against him, her breasts crushed against the strong muscles of his chest.