Page 257 of Branded
And, God, it had been so, so long since a man had touched me.
Had wanted me.
At least of the non-drunk, non-creepy customer who was trying to seduce me into bed variety that usually made a move.
Cas wanted me—and not in a creepy way. He’d asked me out on a date, and it could have been?—
Nothing. Because I was me and he was a playboy hockey player, and I didn’t do men and I didn’t do men who were hockey players especially and?—
All of this was a moot point because Cas was somewhere I couldn’t go.
I worked in a bar. I went to school. I worked my ass off.
I wasn’t easy.
No matter what my dad thought.
And there was that dark again, the slicing pain, the disappointment and hurt and?—
Stop.
I was still standing in front of the man I dreamed about, the man I wanted in my secret fantasies but would never let myself have. I was taking up his time when he’d clearly been trying to leave, and worse, I was staring at him like a dope and not saying anything.
Sigh.
I tugged the pieces of myself together, drew myself up another inch, even though it still didn’t bring me anywhere close to Cas’s height, and then lifted my hand that held the hundred. “You left this,” I said.
His brows drew together and then his big, strong body went still.
So still he was all but playing statue.
Playing a very unhappy statue.
I inhaled slowly, got that spice and orange and maybe a dash of mint from the base of his throat. It made me shiver, but I held his gaze. “Oliver already paid for the tables,” I said. “And tipped generously.”
“Good,” he said, then, incongruously, wrapped his fingers over mine.
I blinked.
And, God, his hand was warm and strong and a little rough.
A fact that made me shiver again, but then he was folding my hand closed. “I know they paid,” he said, ignoring the part of my comment about tipping generously. “That’s still for you.” Fingertips trailing over the back of my hand, making me shiver for a third time.
Then his words processed.
For me?
Um…
“Cas—”
But he was releasing me, and disappointment was a blunt blade shoving home hard and fiercely and fast. Except, he wasn’t backing away like I’d instinctively braced for, wasn’t pushing through the door and leaving me. He was reaching behind him, tugging off his sweatshirt. “You’re cold.”
“I’m—” I caught a glimpse of taut, flat stomach, a hint of a trail of short dark hairs dipping beneath the waistband of the jeans that cupped his lower half, including his ass—and good God his ass was perfect, lush and bitable. An ass I’d found myself tempted, more than once, to get my hands on over the time I’d known him. But that peekaboo of tummy—and God, I sounded like an idiot calling a hockey player’s stomach a tummy, but I was a mom—had my own tummy clenching.
And other things, too.
South of my tummy.
