Page 65 of Wait For It

He couldn’t expect me to talk if my mouth was full. With that flawless logic, I lifted the warm dessert to my lips. I’d never had one right out of the oven but decided with the first bite that I’d never be able to eat it any other way.

“How long does it take before the medicine kicks in?”

I swallowed before answering, “Um, it depends. Sometimes, a half-hour, maybe less. I’ve never actually timed it.”

“Do you want to watch TV?”

I shrugged and took another bite, closing my eyes with a small sigh of pleasure. Chocolate was my weakness.

When I reopened them, Killian was watching me through hooded eyes. “Good?” he murmured.

“So good,” I whispered, fighting the urge to moan as the decadent flavors melted on my tongue. “Do you want some?”

“Yeah,” he responded in a gruff tone. Instead of taking the container from my hand, he slid the pad of his thumb along the side of my mouth before popping it into his. “Mmm… you’re right. That’s fucking delicious.”

My eyes went round, and I made a noise that sounded a little like a whimper. The chill I’d felt only moments before heated, sending soft ripples of warmth to my extremities.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he whispered, running his tongue over his bottom lip.

“Why?”

My heart frolicked around my chest as Killian bent his head to mine. “Because I don’t want to rush this.”

His response was simple, but I couldn’t resist looking up at him from under my lashes. The spark burning in his blue eyes left me dazed. Disoriented. Mindless.

For a moment, he just stared at me before cupping my jaw in his right hand and tipping my face up. I wanted to beg him to keep touching me, but I didn’t have the words. His proximity left me excited and achy, but in a way that felt good.

Really good.

Killian’s eyes moved over my face, narrowing slightly when he got to my lips. Just as I became convinced he was going to kiss me, my voice returned. But instead of telling him all the things I wanted him to do, I blurted out the first thing that popped in my head.

“Did you always know you wanted to play baseball?” I asked in a tight voice, overcome by the strongest sense of loss when his hand fell away from my face.

He settled back against the pillows and reached for the remote, flipping aimlessly through the channels as he considered my question. “Yeah…well, I take that back. As a kid, I told anyone who would listen that I was going to be a ballplayer when I grew up. Then, I hit my teens, and those doubts crept in. I just didn’t see it being a lifelong career. What about you?”

“Oh no, I never saw myself playing baseball,” I deadpanned. “I don’t even know the first thing about it.”

Killian playfully pushed my shoulder with a grin. “No, I mean, tell me about yourself. What’s your passion?”

“Music,” I answered easily. “My passion is music.”

His brows pulled together as he scratched his jaw. “Really? Why music?”

“It’s an escape,” I whispered, lifting my eyes to the netting above my bed. I wondered if it was the medicine making my tongue loose, or just a deep-seated need to connect with someone. “I can get lost in the lyrics, and for those three or four minutes, it’s like nothing else exists.”

Killian stayed silent, but I could tell he was thinking. “I feel like that, too,” he finally admitted. “With the game. When I’m out on the field, I can shut the world out until it’s just me and the ball. It’s a powerful feeling.”

I agreed with a nod. It was when the song ended that my power was stripped away from me again.

“So,” he murmured, tilting his head toward me. “Do you play an instrument or sing?”

“I’m a singer/songwriter.”

Killian’s eyebrow raised. “Really? Well, color me impressed. Anything I might have heard?”

He was fishing for information. Given that I knew who he was, it only made sense he’d want the same in return. Still, I needed to tread carefully to avoid giving too much away. The less he knew about the church and my father, the better.

“I don’t know. I doubt it,” I answered quietly. It was an honest answer, as Killian didn’t strike me as the type of person who spent a lot of time listening to Christian radio stations.

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