Page 286 of Branded
I needed to get a grip, but it was hard as hell when his scent was surrounding me, when I was fascinated by his movements, by what he was going to do next.
A plate on the counter. A cutting board next to it.
The apple was in slices in a few seconds.
Then he was scooping into a jar he’d retrieved from the top shelf, filling a little ramekin that he set on the plate. More searching, reaching for a small container from Matt’s rack of spices.
Before I could figure out what it was, he’d used it and put it back, was picking up the plate and walking over to my stool.
“Eat,” he ordered softly.
My gaze went to the plate, simple slices of apples arranged neatly in a circle, the ramekin filled with peanut butter. I leaned in, sniffed.
He’d topped the apples with cinnamon.
Just a little.
Oh shit.
My heart did that squeezing thing again.
No one—outside of Matt—took care of me. No one. It wasn’t Ethan’s job, and I was going to make damned sure that he never expected it to be. My father had stopped any care the moment he’d found out I was pregnant, and any protection or guidance or love before that had been strictly bare minimum and loaded with resentment.
Don’t die care.
Food in the fridge. A bedroom and clean clothes (that latter at least until I’d turned eight and had started doing my own laundry). Shoes on my feet. Doctors and dentist appointments once a year until I could schedule them myself. Heat in the house. Hot water. A TV that, more often than not, was blaring a sports game.
Blaring a Sierra game.
I shoved that memory down, not willing to go there.
Because if I hadn’t been close with most of the local guys who played hockey, hadn’t worked my ass off in the rink where they’d practiced, renting out skates and serving concessions and generally coordinating chaos, I would have thought all hockey players were assholes.
But they weren’t.
Hell, most of them were nice.
Like Lake Jordan—my only true friend growing up—and the man who’d later been the only reason I’d been able to make a life in Baltimore for me and Ethan in the first place. He’d given me means to make the move, encouraged the distance and fresh start. He’d even helped me find a place to stay until I got on my feet, and had made the connection with Matt, who was the son of a family friend, so I had a way to provide for me and Ethan.
Lake was a good person, a good man who had wanted to do more for me. But…I had too many memories, too much pain linked to him, to the past and present he represented. So, I’d had to let him go, had to pull back and limit our communication.
Plus, his career had been taking off, and he didn’t need me to drag him down and…I couldn’t be tied to a hockey player.
And…now I had found myself mixed up with hockey players all over again.
Smitty and Oliver and Raph and?—
Cas.
Cas who’d sliced apples and sprinkled cinnamon and scooped peanut butter and…
And it was just who I’d picked who’d been an asshole.
The rest of them were good.
Fingers on my wrist, bringing me back into the present, to the big, beautiful man with soft eyes watching me. “Eat,” he ordered again and then he lifted a slice of apple to my lips.
My lungs inflated. “Cas?—”
