Free SEIZED Part 1: New Adult Romantic Suspense (Seize Me Romance Fiction Series) by JC Coulton

here, he’s sitting here. The eye contact hasn’t stopped, and when I see that eyebrow go up with a silent question, my body answers it for me. There’s something so scandalous about the way he stares into me. Something deeply impatient and primal, like a tightly wound animal. Christ, it’s like he wants to pick me up, throw me over his shoulder, and take me home right now. The message is as clear as day, and I can’t think of anything I’d like more. I’d struggle, of course, and make him work for it. But not for long before I let him have his way.
    There’s some history here that needs to be finished off. I instinctively reach up and squeeze at the tension in my shoulders. It’s time I get a massage, and those hands of his look like they could do a fine job. My fingers flutter over the back of my neck, my hairline tingles, and I wish they were his fingers there. I wish we were standing back on that field again, and that ten years ago he had followed through. I wish so many things about life, but I can’t change the past, so I might as well enjoy the present.
    I inhale him, and I can smell that he’s freshly showered, even though the stubble on his jaw speaks of a long shift. God, that stubble. I want to reach out and stroke his face, and I want it on me. His face and his hands, on every part of me. There’s a faint sheen of oil glistening on the skin at his neckline. The shirt is fresh, but the top three buttons are open. He wears no jewelry, and there’s a hint of chest hair peeping up under the last open button. My eyes are drawn to it as I watch his chest move up and down rhythmically with his breath. I find my own breathing starts to deepen, falling into synchronization with his. This is crazy. One of us has to say something soon, but it’s not going to be me.
    This man can’t be serious, but I just keep meeting his eyes, matching the challenge I see there. The moment stretches out and I start to get dizzy with the way he’s looking at me. My eyes flutter and I pull the air right down to my belly trying to calm the fire that’s raging there. I can feel my body react. I can’t help but rearrange myself in the chair, and I see him sit up straighter at the movement.
    Here I am sitting across the table from the guy I used to dream about, and he’s staring at me the way I always wanted him to. This is more real than anything I’ve felt with a man, and we’re not even touching. Just then the air conditioning unit above me splutters into action. We’re suspended for a moment before he flips back into professional mode. Then, in less than twenty seconds, the energy totally changes. It’s so sudden that I shake my head and almost doubt it happened at all.
    I gather the blanket around me and follow him out of the room. The station looks like a different place than it did last night. I feel like I’ve been here for days but it’s been less than five hours since I was under that car, convinced I was going to die. On the way out I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirrored glass of the observation rooms. God, I look like shit. Dried blood is stuck in my hair, my top is ripped and my throat has dark purple welts.
    At least I look thin, or maybe that’s just compared to him. Trailing behind him like a lost child through the station, I see how big he’s become. My shadow would fit twice into his. And after what just went down in the interview room, I can’t help imagining how our bodies would fit together, either.
    We make our way down the ramp toward the parking lot, and I’m brutally shaken back into reality when I see the place outside the gate where I collapsed. This is no time to be fantasizing about a stupid high school crush. What am I thinking? Jesus, Carrie—sort it out .
    The scathing voice in my head drowns out all of the warmth of the blanket. I’m freezing. I have nothing, and April is gone. All of a sudden, I can’t stop the tears from running down my face. I’m silent, at least, so he