Page 26 of Branded
Hands tightening, just slightly, around mine.
And then he leaned forward—just forward and not up because he was so much bigger than me, so that when I was sitting and he was kneeling, our faces were aligned.
Our mouths were aligned.
Hot breath on my lips.
His nose brushing mine.
Closer.
Then his head tilted, his mouth hit my cheek.
“Thank you, sweetheart.”
Nine
Smitty
A sharp breath in, her lips parted and tempting, even more so when her tongue darted out, moistened the bottom one.
Progress.
Words that were rattling around my head, about me, about her.
Clarity.
And…yeah progress.
It wasn’t that she didn’t like me, or at least, I didn’t think so, considering I was kneeling in front of her, holding her hands, and she wasn’t running for the hills.
But…she’d just given me something big.
And as much as I wanted to kiss her, I couldn’t.
Not right then.
I sucked in a breath, released her hands, and slowly moved back into my chair.
Kailey blinked, those green eyes shuttering for a moment, and I held my breath, wondering if she would backtrack.
But then her chin came up, just slightly, and she nodded at my laptop. “So, do you want help?”
“There,” she said, clicking the final selection. “All done.” Surprisingly—or maybe not considering her specialty—Kailey was a control freak when it came to the tech…and the trackpad.
I hadn’t needed her to click the responses I’d selected, but her doing that had required me to lean close to see the screen when she’d insisted on being the one to do the clicking.
Which had led to my leaning in.
Which had then been followed by her not leaning away.
More progress.
Especially because I wouldn’t have expected her to demand anything from me, and the fact that she had…yeah, I was definitely feeling that progress.
And surprisingly, I hadn’t minded when she’d begun skimming ahead and reading to me—which outside of an audiobook, was something I’d hated growing up. I already felt stupid a good sixty percent of the time, so having someone emphasize that by blazing by me in reading speed and then having the audacity to just do it so easily always stung.
But there was no condescension in her voice.
