Page 348 of Branded
His fingers flexed. “And are you panicking because I love you or because of what I told Ethan?”
“Neither,” I whispered. “I’m not panicking. I’m falling.”
His brows drew together.
“No,” I corrected. “I’ve fallen.”
That didn’t have his brows relaxing. If anything, he went even more still.
“I’ve fallen for you and the way you look at me. I’ve fallen for the care you take with Ethan. I’ve fallen for the man you are and the way you smile and how it feels when you hold me.” He inhaled sharply, but I kept going. “I was scared, so scared to let go, to let myself have you—to let us—have you. Because I knew—knew—you would hurt me—hurt us—eventually, and I had to protect him. But you won’t, will you?” He took another breath, but I was on a roll and kept going, kept giving. Because it was my turn to give. Because he’d spent the last weeks and months giving. “I know you won’t hurt us because I know you now.” A beat. “And…I love you.”
My entire body was trembling.
This was about as far out of my comfort zone as I’d ever stepped.
But it was the truth—one that had been circling around my mind for a while now and I’d been avoiding it, even as Cas kept winding himself tighter and tighter around my heart. Welding himself to it. Tattooing himself on it.
It was time to stop denying that.
And it was time to stop playing Chicken Little, bracing for when the bad might come.
Because it might come. I couldn’t prevent that, and neither could Cas.
But I could trust that he was going to continue to treat me with care, treat Ethan with care, and trust in myself and my spine and the strength I’d gathered over the years to know that I would accept nothing less.
Ethan was blooming.
Part of that was because of Cas.
Part of that was because of how Cas was with me.
Because I was more awake, more alive now than I’d been in years. Not since I’d first felt Ethan move, not since I’d first held him as a newborn in my arms, covered in blood and goo and screaming his head off—the only people in the hospital room with me the nurses who’d held my hand and my legs and the doctor who’d played catcher—had I felt this much love, this alive.
And it was Cas who’d woken my shit up.
Cas who’d showed me what potential looked like.
Not me scrabbling to hold on to the tiniest bit of good, dropping to my knees and scrounging for the crumbs tossed there.
Cas hadn’t given me crumbs.
He’d given me everything.
And he wasn’t going to stop.
So…I was going to do the same.
“Jules?” he whispered.
“Yeah?” I whispered back.
“Did you just tell me that you love me?”
The surprise in his tone was beyond cute. I’d befuddled my big, sexy, gorgeous hockey player. “Yup.” And I popped the p.
“I—”
His eyes went damp, and I froze.
