Page 61 of Branded
Gentle in her eyes, in her expression. “I’m a lot, Conner. You need to know that.” Her nails lightly ran along my jaw. “With you, it’s easy,” she said. “I don’t understand completely why, but I’m going to take the gift the universe has given me.”
The gift?
My heart squeezed. Hard.
“You’re the gift,” she said lightly. “In case you didn’t get my not-so-subtle compliment.”
“I’m not—” A shake of my head, not wanting to argue about that, not right then. “How are you a lot?” I asked.
“Besides the panic attacks?”
I nodded.
“I’m literally a ball of anxiety most of the time. I worry and rehash every single thing I say. I get nervous in social situations, and I can’t form words—literally it’s so fucking hard for me to say even one fucking word.” A sigh. “I’m not good at sports. Hell, tonight was the first hockey game I’d watched, and Oliver spent the entire time explaining how the rules with that box thing worked?—”
Rules?
I bit back a smile.
Her describing penalties as broken rules was adorable.
“I’m not competitive, so the whole plant competition is a fucking nightmare. And I push myself to interact with people, with others in the organization because they all seem really cool, but I mostly just avoid the invitations and escape to my place so I can read dirty books for masturbation material and take baths and?—”
“Watch Great British Bake-Off?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Smitty,” she warned.
My fists had relaxed, and I took a turn at cupping her cheeks. “What else?”
A frown. “Besides the anxiety that makes me mute and how I avoid situations when I should be forcing myself to be part of them because if I don’t, I won’t ever get better and how I don’t know hockey and you’re a hockey player—one who apparently had a fabulous game tonight that I couldn’t even deduce because while I work for a professional team, I don’t know a thing about hockey?” She tossed her hands up. “And the hyper analyzing of the things I do manage to say and the fact that my safe places are my bathtub and my computer?”
“Yeah, little bird,” I murmured. “What else?”
“Did I mention the video games?”
Amusement flickered through me. “Yeah, honey, you did.”
“And the baths and reading?”
A nod. “For the record, those are both pluses, especially when they send you flying like they did tonight or on the phone the other evening.” I nipped the tip of her nose. “Bring on the dirty books and the woman who makes the sexiest sounds I’ve ever heard when she comes apart.”
“And the hockey?”
“I don’t give a fuck that you don’t know hockey, little bird. It’s been my life for as long as I can remember. I’ve lived and breathed and existed for the sport.” I pushed back a strand of her hair, tucked it behind her ear. “I’m ready for something different.”
I was, I realized.
I hadn’t thought about it that way until the words slid off my tongue and hit the air.
But I was so fucking ready for Kailey.
“I’ve waited for you,” I whispered. “For my whole life, I’ve waited for a woman like you.”
Wide eyes, pink cheeks, parted lips. “I…” A breath, tears glistening in those wide eyes. “That is the most beautiful thing anyone has ever said to me,” she whispered.
And I had to kiss her.
Had to taste the wonder on her face, the tears in her voice.
