Page 87 of Risk

Kaden wraps his fingers around my wrist. His hand makes my wrist look so small, and it’s a welcome feeling because, currently being pregnant, I feel anything but small. Not that feeling small or dainty is something I’ve ever been.

But Kaden makes me feel that way, and I like it a lot.

“Yeah, I’m okay.” I give him a small smile, but it’s genuine.

He lifts my arm to his mouth and presses the softest kiss to my pulse point. I have to hold back a shiver.

Damn this man and his sweetness.

“So, what did you ask me?” I go back to his question to take myself away from the fluttering I feel inside my chest, which is ridiculously close to my heart. “Oh, if I want to be a psychologist because of my dad. Maybe, partly. To help people who suffer with addiction like him, sure. But more so to help kids…”

“Who have parents that suffer with addiction,” he finishes for me.

“Pretty much. Kids who need help.”

“Like you did.”

Damn. Shit. Fucking. Crap.

My eyes are leaking again.

“I’m okay.” I wave my hand around when worry etches his face again. “I swear, it’s just hormones. I’m not crying because you made me sad.”

And it’s not because he made me sad, but it’s not just hormones either. But I don’t want to tell him that because he’ll worry, and it’s not something that can’t be fixed with a little therapy.

“No, just when I put my size fourteens in it and say something related to your childhood.” He cups my face with those strong hands of his and stares into my eyes. His thumbs brush the tears on my cheeks away.

The air thickens between us.

His eyes drop to my lips.

Do I want him to kiss me?

Yes.

One hundred thousand percent yes.

But he doesn’t. His eyes lift back to mine. He gives me a sad, soulful smile and then slips his hands from my face and tucks them between the pillow his head is resting on and his cheek.

The disappointment I feel is immense, and I know that should tell me something.

That I want this man.

“Can I ask you something?” I continue when he doesn’t say anything. “Same as what you said to me before, you don’t have to answer.”

“Hit me with it.”

“If you knew back then—like, if you had a foresight to the future and you knew what would happen with boxing, that you would suffer the injury you did…” I choose not to say the wordsalmost die. Or that he did die. For those brief horrific moments before he was brought back. Because I can’t begin to think of a world without him in it. “Would you still have stepped into the ring?”

“Yes.”

There isn’t even a second of hesitation in his answer.

“Why?” My voice is croaky, and I’m not completely sure why. Maybe it’s the way he’s looking at me so intently, so sure.

His thumb sweeps over my cheekbone. “Because it brought me here. To you. If I’d never stepped in that ring with Zeus, then I would never have met you, and you wouldn’t be carrying my babies right now, so, no, I wouldn’t change a single second of the past because it gave me this present.”

I can’t help it. I kiss him.

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