Page 53 of His to Protect

Her breathing faltered before she took a sip of water. “I know…some things are hard to forget.”

She licked her lips and looked away, ashamed.

I suppressed the growl rising in my throat. “Tell me about Kentucky,” I said instead, changing the subject. Based on the way her shoulders dropped, relaxing, it had the desired effect.

She looked directly into my eyes. Light brown mixed with flecks of a darker color around her irises. I almost forgot to breathe when she tilted her head to the right. So innocent. Pure. Damaged, but fighting. “Like what?”

“Anything you want. Weather, what you did, what you liked.” I gave her time to think and picked up another slice of pie and dove in, chewing while she appeared to run through her memories until she found the best one.

A strange burning sensation lit in my chest.

I didn’t realize that I had needed that. I didn’t realize that the entire time I was with Mara, I didn’t have that…someone who cared enough to take the time to give me the best parts of herself. I saw it in Trina’s eyes as she worked her way through her memories.

When she finally grinned and set down her pizza, that burning in my chest grew deeper, more fierce.

Because I knew I was looking at a woman who would give me her best, every day of her life, as long as I deserved it.

I’d never wanted to fight for anything more.

As she spoke about high school, telling me about being a cheerleader and homecoming queen, shopping trips to the malls with her friends and visits to amusement parks, I soaked up every word, my thoughts never straying. I never lost interest, and hung on every word. While doing so, I picked up little nuances, storing them in my memory bank.

Like the way her grin went a little lopsided when she was truly excited. The way she ran her left index finger against the corner of her lips when she thought. How her hands became more animated—long, thin fingers and small palms waving in the air like twinkling stars—the more into a story she was.

She was uninhibited in her freedom.

She was absolutely stunning.

She was perfection in the most beautiful package. Attraction, beyond just the physical, shouldn’t occur so quickly, yet I couldn’t resist the pull she had on me.

“Let’s go,” I said when we’d finished our pie and she’d just finished a story about fishing in the pond on her grandpa’s farm. The fact that this girl could fish, bait her own hook and everything, made her more attractive. She didn’t mind getting dirty, and I couldn’t help but think of what other ways she wouldn’t mind getting a bit messy. “There’s more of the city I want to show you before we go.”

“Do we have time?” She nervously glanced around for a clock.

“Plenty. Downtown will take us closer to the station anyway.”

With that decided, I paid the bill while she used the restroom, and then we walked the two blocks to the closest train station.

“Kentucky is cleaner,” she mused, looking out the window of the train as we watched the city zip by. “Hotter and more humid, but I miss the fresh, crisp scent in the air. I don’t feel that here.”

Her hand was on my thigh, my palm pressing against the back of her hand, and while she spoke, I trailed a fingertip across her hand, tracing her handprint. She shivered from the slight touch.

“What else do you miss?”

“Nothing.” She turned to me and flashed me one of her lopsided smiles. And those damn eyes, so full of vitality despite what she’d gone through. “Absolutely nothing.”

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