Page 256 of Branded
I should go. Let her get out of here. Let her get home to her bed and her son.
Smothering a sigh, I soaked up one more look of her as she cashed out her final table and headed for the hall.
I’d get my ass on the treadmill, would run off this frustration.
Hands on the metal bar that would open the door that led out to the rear parking lot, I started to push through.
“Cas!”
Four
Jules
The hundred-dollar bill was crisp in my hand as I hurried down the hall.
“Cas!”
He stilled, hands on the door, and as I got close, I realized that he was big. Okay, I’d known that. He was a hockey player, and though not universally giant-sized, every single one of them was taller than my own five-three.
Usually, by more than a foot.
But the height differential was more than that when it came to Cas.
Hell, my nose barely reached his throat.
And suddenly, I had the insane urge to lean close, to press said nose to said throat, and to inhale deeply. Spice, I knew. He’d smell of spice and man and sometimes orange. I sometimes got a hint of the scent when it came off his beard, off his skin.
Would an inhalation at such close proximity bring out a deeper variety of scent for me to roll around in? Maybe a hint of sandalwood, perhaps a dash of something fresh and astringent, like mint?
Which was another of those things I thought about in the middle of the night.
What would it be like to have his scent in my nose, filling my senses?
What would it be like to be surrounded by the heat and strength of him?
What—
“Did you need something, gorgeous?” he asked softly.
I blinked, gaze jerking away from his throat, darting up to meet his eyes, mine no doubt wide as the rough endearment slid over my skin. “I…” God, he was the one who was gorgeous. And he smelled good, and it was late already, the hour firmly in that soft cushion of night between evening and sunrise. There was something about the utter navy of the sky, the darkness only interspersed by streetlights or stars or the faint glow of the TV I fell asleep to every night.
Moonlight on snow.
The whisper of the wind through pine needles.
All of that being torn away?—
I had a better life here, I told myself. Better for me and Ethan. But even as I held tight to those thoughts, I clenched my jaw, attempting to control the pounding of my heart, the painful pulse of those old memories.
I was in the light now.
I wouldn’t let myself go back there.
Fingers on my cheek startled me, made me realize I’d drifted off again. He’d called me gorgeous and I’d?—
Right.
A breath as I tried to ignore the fact that there was something familiar about his touch—and tried to ignore just as completely that it was probably because I’d dreamed about it every night since I’d first seen him.
